The Problem of Evil and how it provides evidence for the existence of God.

a reply to: ksiezyc

Yea that makes sense

a reply to: Noinden

Wrong, and this clearly illustrates more logical holes in your thinking. Athiests get their morals from the constant development of culture, and through the idea of humanism. In that a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition.

Precisely they emphasize the value and agency of human beings but they do not have a reason for believing that humans have moral worth. Its illusory on atheism.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: TerryDon79

Morals are determined by the mass, but there are also personal morals which are determined by the individual. Morals also change over time. Therefore, morals are subjective.

Your societies influence may have something to do with moral epistemology but it has nothing to do with moral ontology....your confusing two different topics...

Yiu still fail to understand that there are morals dictated by the mass and personal morals. If there are personal morals it disproves your "theory".

Says the person who NEEDS them to be objective to prove a point.

No says the person that clearly perceives moral values and duties...even if I didn't believe in God I would still believe in objective moral values I just wouldn't have a way to ground that belief.

No such thing as "objective morals". All morals are subjective.

Meat eaters and non meat eaters both believe they're morally right. If your argument about morals being objective is true, then one must be wrong. If my argument, that morals are subjective, is true, they can both be right or wrong depending on the individual.

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw by Michael Murray takes a look at animal suffering. According to the neurological studies he references in his book there a three levels of pain awareness experienced in nature. Humans and the great apes are the only ones capable of experiencing level three pain. Namely Humans and the great apes are aware that they are in pain. The rest of the animal kingdom with maybe some new exceptions I am not aware of on the basis of new evidence are do not experience pain the same way as us. Animals like a dog experience mental states of pain but they are not aware they are in pain. And lower level things like earth worms simply respond to noxious stimuli. If your intent is to kill and eat an animal for survival its not immoral. If your intent is to kill an animal for sport then I would say it is immoral.

The only relevant bit is the part I bolded. You just expressed your personal, subjective morals.

a reply to: Noinden

You can not use 2 + 2 = whatever as an illustrative incidence of morals, as it is pure mathmatics. Morals are based on, time, culture, and religion in the very least. As I said, the death penalty, slavery, and I will add, the rights of women, are moral issues that have changed over time.

That wasn't illustrative of morals it was illustrative of something objective. Morals do not change. If the whole world suddenly believed torturing things for fun was good that wouldn't make it so. My claim is not that what is moral is always clearly known but rather that there is such a thing as Good and Evil and they aren't just preferences.

a reply to: Astyanax

The third person to confuse moral epistemology with moral ontology.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: Noinden

You can not use 2 + 2 = whatever as an illustrative incidence of morals, as it is pure mathmatics. Morals are based on, time, culture, and religion in the very least. As I said, the death penalty, slavery, and I will add, the rights of women, are moral issues that have changed over time.

That wasn't illustrative of morals it was illustrative of something objective. Morals do not change.

Wrong,again. Morals do change. Slavery used to be morally right. Vegetarians changed their moral stance on killing animals. Execution used to be morally accepted. Therefore, morals change.

You lost your argument on page 1. Give it a rest already.

a reply to: mOjOm

Evil can exist just fine since Evil is a subjective concept that is defined by each of us. It needs no God. Atheists and their morals are just as valid as anyone's morals are valid to them. Subjective Morality is obvious and is evident to everyone and always has been. Some just choose to deny it.

Except the vast majority of philosophers who actually write published works....You continue to claim morals are subjective but your giving me no reason to doubt that which I clearly perceive . I cannot argue with insanity. If I hold a tv remote and you tell me its a pineapple I cannot do anything else other than show you the tv remote again to try and get you to see that its not a pineapple. In the same way I cannot show you that objective morals exists other than showings you examples of things that are objectively wrong.

If you believe I am the delusional one I need some reason to doubt that which I clearly perceive.

A question that I'm not getting in your argument is that you say for #7 "If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists." But you also say "God Exists". But if God Exists according to #7 then Evil Can't Exist" but then say "Evil Exists" but if "Evil Exists" then God Can't Exist because he'd stop it. But your premise is that Evil and God have to both exist. But doesn't #7 stop that from being true???

Maybe read a bit more carefully next time. The argument with 3 premises is the moral argument and is arguing for the existence of God. The one with 8 premises is the logical problem of evil and attempts to show that God and evil cannot exists because it would break the law of noncontradiction.

a reply to: Elcabong

It appears that you are referencing the popular apologist line that goes something like this, "...oh slavery in the bible was this benign happy little thing, nothing like those old meanies in the US. After all, they didn't have WELFARE or FOODSTAMPS back then, so what else were they to do? And the "slaves" were all like family members and just happy as can be." Alrighty then, let's just have a look boys and girls and see what the bible has to say about this happy affair. After all, you wouldn't try to dispute the bible, would you?

I didn't say it was some happy go lucky thing but it wasn't the slavery like what occurred in Africa and the Americas. Those that were bought from foreign lands could buy there freedom and were given rights in a way they would't have had from foreign rulers. God set rules on slavery because it was a part of society. He never condones it.

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property." Exodus 21:20-21 NAB

Thanks for illustrating my point. In such a haste to show me that slavery was cool your produced a verse in which God condemns the beating of slaves. You see because you don't care to research the language or the time you make so many mistakes when it comes to understanding what the Bible actually says. This verse describes the punishments for beating a slave. Read any respected Hebrew Scholar. Here is Michael Heiser's position on this verse as well as a couple other commentaries.

20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged.” – i.e.,, the slave is to be avenged – the man who deliberately killed him is subject to the death penalty.

21 “But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money.”
The supposition is that the *lethal* harm was *accidental here* – and so the man/owner isn’t put to death. The owner’s stupidity is his own punishment (he loses his property).

Some commentators, so you know this isn’t idiosyncratic with me: 20.

He shall be punished. The great advance on ancient thinking is that a slave is considered here as a person. His master has no right to beat him to death deliberately, even though the slave may be his ‘property’. But, if the slave lingers a while before dying, the supposition is that his master intended only to correct him, not to kill him. This is ‘accidental homicide’, and the financial loss incurred by his master in the death of the slave is considered punishment and lesson enough. Source: R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 176.


This law—the protection of slaves from maltreatment by their masters—is found nowhere else in the entire existing corpus of ancient Near Eastern legislation. It represents a qualitative transformation in social and human values and expresses itself once again in the provisions of verses 26–27. The underlying issue, as before, is the determination of intent on the part of the assailant at the time the act was committed. Source: Nahum M. Sarna, Exodus (The JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 124.

The understanding of that passage is that beating him to death was an accident. If they beat them to badly they had to let them god that is mentioned in a verse shortly after the one you quoted. And the punishment for that was losing your property but not the death penalty. The verse doesn't condone beating a slave it punishes it....

"Deu 20:10 "When you go to attack a city, first give its people a chance to surrender. Deu 20:11 If they open the gates and surrender, they are all to become your slaves and do forced labor for you.

Way to pull that from a passage on warfare. Warfare is obviously different. But lets put this to bed the arguments I've given stand alone from Christianity.

a reply to: TerryDon79

Wrong,again. Morals do change. Slavery used to be morally right. Vegetarians changed their moral stance on killing animals. Execution used to be morally accepted. Therefore, morals change. You lost your argument on page 1. Give it a rest already.

Just because humans thought certain things where moral doesn't make it so....Do you think in order for morals to be objective everyone must agree on what is moral? If so you need to do some personal research....

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: TerryDon79

Wrong,again. Morals do change. Slavery used to be morally right. Vegetarians changed their moral stance on killing animals. Execution used to be morally accepted. Therefore, morals change. You lost your argument on page 1. Give it a rest already.

Just because humans thought certain things where moral doesn't make it so....Do you think in order for morals to be objective everyone must agree on what is moral? If so you need to do some personal research....

Right. Thank you for proving that morals are subjective.

a reply to: TerryDon79

Yiu still fail to understand that there are morals dictated by the mass and personal morals. If there are personal morals it disproves your "theory".

You still fail to realize that the masses and personal opinions have no bearing on what is true. That would be an argument from the majority. If 6 billion people thought raping babies was a good thing , that wouldn't making raping babies a good thing. If you think raping babies can possibly be good you are a broken and sad individual.

No such thing as "objective morals". All morals are subjective.

The ontology of values seems to elude you. Maybe I should ask for you to define your terms. I would much rather this be a conversation than a debate.

a reply to: TerryDon79

I mean are you here to have a conversation? Can you answer my question?

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Seriously?! Raping babies is now your argument?

Morals aren't about "truth". Morals are what people think is right or wrong. That's it. Purely SUBJECTIVE.

You've been shown this over and over again, yet you still go on about how they're objective. Me thinks you've got a touch of confirmation bias.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

The third person to confuse moral epistemology with moral ontology.

Fiddlesticks.

All your big words mean is that you think God cannot be judged by the same standards he applies to judge us. Since you’re a big philosopher, I give you two famous words: ‘slave’ and ‘morality’. I’m sure you know where they come from. They describe precisely what you’re promoting here.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

What makes something objectively wrong?? Any example you give will always just be your subjective opinion and even if I agree with that opinion or a million people agree with it as well, it still doesn't mean it's absolutely true. All opinions are all subjective and even if they are all in agreement still doesn't mean it's correct as an objective moral truth. That is why we continue to refine them to this day because they change or need some tweaking here and there on occasion as we test them out and debate them.

I'm not insane either FYI. If you show me a remote control or a Pineapple I will know the difference. But you see, that's because you can show me those things. Show me an Objective Moral Truth and you might have something.

Objective is defined as: "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." So what are you basing your morality from if not your personal feelings or opinions???

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I'd like to point out that on an atheistic framework their can be no such thing as moral values and duties. So your world view doesn't even have the necessary grounding for moral values.

Secular humanism and enlightened self-interest provide excellent bases for an ethics or moral code. However, the root of morality is not philosophical (that is, intellectual) but evolutionary (that is, physical). Our moralities are derived from our social and parental instincts.

God is in no sense a ‘necessary’ being.

If God does not exists, then Evil does not exists.

God is not the opposite of evil. The opposite of evil is good.

Defining God as wholly good does not make God the whole of good. It is not necessary for God to exist for evil to exist.

Kindly don’t waste your time. God cannot be both good and omnipotent. The desiderata are mutually incompatible. If you wish to console yourself against the sorrows of life and the inevitability of death by believing in made-up stories, indulge yourself by all means; but do not try to reinforce your failing belief by trying to persuade those who are not afraid of reality. You will always fail.

a reply to: TerryDon79

Can you please define moral value, subjective and objective?)

a reply to: Astyanax

Those words have nothing to do with that. But im glad to see you read up on the difference maybe you an keep them separate now

a reply to: mOjOm

I'm not insane either FYI. If you show me a remote control or a Pineapple I will know the difference. But you see, that's because you can show me those things. Show me an Objective Moral Truth and you might have something. Objective is defined as: "not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." So what are you basing your morality from if not your personal feelings or opinions???

I'll ask you the same as I asked another you've define objective can you define subjective and moral value please?

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: TerryDon79

Can you please define moral value, subjective and objective?)

No, because all morals are subjective. How can I define an objective moral, if it doesn't exist?