Wednesday, April 22 2009: TAG
Nate recommended I look into the Transcendental Argument for the existence of god. It is his opinion that it is the strongest argument for the existence of god. So, I'm reading the wikipedia article, and, of course, must excrete my thoughts on the matter here.
Interestingly, these points are quite similar to statements Nate has made:
"One aspect of the TAG regards moral absolutes. The argument asserts that an omnibenevolent God provides the basis for attributing right and wrong to any thought or action. In creation God equips humanity to act as moral beings, and in self-revelation God demonstrates how people should act, and commands them to do so. People then have an absolute standard of morality by which to condemn evil thoughts and actions (or to commend good ones).
The argument furthers states that moral relativists, by contrast, cannot condemn theft, rape or genocide (nor commend generosity, marriage, or the preservation of life) without relying on the assumption of absolute morality. No moral assertions, it is argued, can be explained by the relativist's own worldview; they are instead derived from unconsciously "borrowed capital" from Christianity, proving the truth of the Christian worldview."
and they are patently absurd.
God is the basis for attributing right and wrong: Christians who take god himself to be the standard of what is good have no way a priori to know what is good (or evil) and therefore commend (or condemn) such acts. They can only know after the fact what was good, and then only if it was recorded as being an act of god in the Bible. The rebuttals I offered to Nate were Abraham and Isaac, the "Conquest" of the Promised Land, and the suffering of Job. These stories from the Bible teach us quite clearly that there are contexts wherein it is good and right to murder one's child (or at least attempt to murder), to commit genocide, and to disregard (or even aid in the exacerbation of) human suffering. If the voice in his head says its god and tells the Christian to drown his children in the bathtub, the Christian has no yard stick by which to judge this command if god himself is the standard of what is good. He must have faith, obey, and find out after the fact if the voice was really god or not.
Borrowed capital: The puddle also marvels at how perfectly it fits into its depression. There is no surprise that generic human morality (which shares remarkable similarities to the morality of other social animals) should be consonant with the less despicable aspects of Christianity. It is Christianity that is borrowing from general human nature - I assert. For the sake of argument, it is equally plausible that Christianity is borrowing from some general inborn moral sense that evolved from our primate ancestors as it is that moral relativism is borrowing from Christianity.
Interestingly, these points are quite similar to statements Nate has made:
"One aspect of the TAG regards moral absolutes. The argument asserts that an omnibenevolent God provides the basis for attributing right and wrong to any thought or action. In creation God equips humanity to act as moral beings, and in self-revelation God demonstrates how people should act, and commands them to do so. People then have an absolute standard of morality by which to condemn evil thoughts and actions (or to commend good ones).
The argument furthers states that moral relativists, by contrast, cannot condemn theft, rape or genocide (nor commend generosity, marriage, or the preservation of life) without relying on the assumption of absolute morality. No moral assertions, it is argued, can be explained by the relativist's own worldview; they are instead derived from unconsciously "borrowed capital" from Christianity, proving the truth of the Christian worldview."
and they are patently absurd.
God is the basis for attributing right and wrong: Christians who take god himself to be the standard of what is good have no way a priori to know what is good (or evil) and therefore commend (or condemn) such acts. They can only know after the fact what was good, and then only if it was recorded as being an act of god in the Bible. The rebuttals I offered to Nate were Abraham and Isaac, the "Conquest" of the Promised Land, and the suffering of Job. These stories from the Bible teach us quite clearly that there are contexts wherein it is good and right to murder one's child (or at least attempt to murder), to commit genocide, and to disregard (or even aid in the exacerbation of) human suffering. If the voice in his head says its god and tells the Christian to drown his children in the bathtub, the Christian has no yard stick by which to judge this command if god himself is the standard of what is good. He must have faith, obey, and find out after the fact if the voice was really god or not.
Borrowed capital: The puddle also marvels at how perfectly it fits into its depression. There is no surprise that generic human morality (which shares remarkable similarities to the morality of other social animals) should be consonant with the less despicable aspects of Christianity. It is Christianity that is borrowing from general human nature - I assert. For the sake of argument, it is equally plausible that Christianity is borrowing from some general inborn moral sense that evolved from our primate ancestors as it is that moral relativism is borrowing from Christianity.
Bob SAGET. wrote:
also, this whole God thing may be true... but even if, it being the Christian version is quite absurd. Jesus' birth, life, and death are quite lifted pieces of folklore.