Moral Test.

“To disobey an unjust command is a difficult and morally courageous act. To obey an unjust order is cowardly.” I see what you’re saying, but no one is ordered or commanded to accept the sacrifice of Christ are they? Isn’t that down to free will? It’s an offer, not a command. To turn down this generous offer would not be courageous would it? To accept it could perhaps be cowardly.

And, are you suggesting that accepting Christ’s sacrifice is a moral test? We are asked to accept that Christ died for our sins. That seems to be a test of faith, not morals. Is the analogy fair?

“no one is ordered or commanded to accept the sacrifice of Christ are they? Isn’t that down to free will? It’s an offer, not a command.” The point I’m making ramps up. Both possibilities are included, and considered. The man in the story says: It’s immoral to accept it if it’s offered. It’s immoral to accept it if it’s commanded.

So, Jon the insurance salesman says, “I’ll give you 20% discount on your car insurance if you put a sticker in your car window saying Jon is the best salesman in the world”. Assume that the discount affects his commission, so it is a personal sacrifice. Is it courageous to pay 20% more because you don’t believe he’s the best salesman? Is it cowardly to accept the offer?

I think you could argue that, in the above scenario, that it would be morally questionable to accept the offer if you don’t believe he’s the best. I don’t think it would be cowardly to accept, or courageous to refuse.

Are you saying that it is morally wrong to pretend to accept the sacrifice of Christ in exchange for the reward offered? If that is the case, then I agree with you. What’s more I would ask how the hell I am supposed to accept/believe this thing happened when it’s not really down to making a concious choice. I can’t really ‘chose to believe’ can I?

The judge is fair and just? Then it must be OK to accept his offers and follow his orders.

oh, brilliant entry! I have never liked nor accepted the idea of “accept Christ’s sacrifice and you’ll be saved.” I’ve never thought of it this way!

“…no one is ordered or commanded to accept the sacrifice of Christ are they? Isn’t that down to free will?” So, god gives us free will then punishes us for using it the wrong way? How is that not an order? Your god is a monster, Goblin.

Nice one, Spider.

Spider – my thoughts exactly. 🙂

He’s not my God Spider Boy. I’m a hard core atheist! And yes, I agree the Christian God is a monster. But I stand by what I said, no one is ordered to believe or accept, they have a choice don’t they?

Fair enough. Please accept my apologies. You are right, that no one is coerced into belief, but the threat is still ther.e

…Man, I hope I get that judge if I ever get in trouble.

ryn; Nope, why would I say if you studied hard enough you’d come to the same conclusion? It’s not a conclusion I share with priests. All I’m saying is that OD atheists in general underestimate the intelligence of Christians in general. Your note is hardly the exception to the rule. If I cared about claims of virgin birth one way or the other, I guess my objective opinion would be to get a DNA

test. A virgin born child should be a genetic clone of the mother. Dismissing it out of hand is, to me, as narrow as accepting it out of hand. Think about all the stuff that was “impossible” a hundred years ago. Had it been accepted, as you’ve accepted the impossibility of virgin birth without a test, we’d be living in a different world. Someone tested the impossible instead of accepting it.

ryn re response. thank you for letting me know. I’m not just being pissy by asking for warning ahead of time, I am likely to miss these things if just left to my own wanderings around OD.

oh, sorry, one more thing. You say I imply that if you studied the relevent verses hard enough … unlike yourself and say priests I haven’t a clue what verses are supposed to be relevent or not, if you were anti-post modern impressionist arguing with a doctorate in art history I couldn’t tell you tell you which paintings were relevent either, but I’d have a hard time with your implication …

that the art historian PhD was an idiot for his beliefs, that he somehow hadn’t considered the implications of his position with at least as educated as position as yourself.

“Dismissing it out of hand is, to me, as narrow as accepting it out of hand.”- haredawg My main point is that Christians, themselves, state the level of evidence that they, themselves, would require for a virgin birth claim. AND they admit that Jesus’ virgin birth claim falls far short of evidence that they would require of anyone else’s virgin birth claim.

I think it’s rude to just ryn so I went ahead and read this entry. It’s pretty dang convoluted. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how and why a judge would do any of that, especially without a solid statement of offense but a solid admission of guilt. Even as a theoretical construct the contrivance is still too much. Tell you what, I’ll try harder.

Yeah. No. I guess I just don’t think of courage and cowardness as moral issues. Being too afraid to stop a rape in progress, for instance, isn’t morally reprehensible, the guy still thinks rape is wrong, and courageously interceding, well, the guy still thinks rape is wrong. The concept of rape being morally reprehensible isn’t compromised in either instance, the coward is just afraid for his

own well being, he isn’t advocating rape.

Should the coward be punished for not interceding? maybe, if the victim were a loved one of mine I’d be pissed off that the coward didn’t do anything, but cowardice in and of itself isn’t a moral issue, more a measure of personal character, maybe even, at a stretch, an ethical issue, but it doesn’t make him amoral.

I couldn’t tell you whether the man passed a moral test or not, but I think he’d do poorly on an IQ test. If you’ve got someone insisting you accept a gift horse take it. If you’re ashamed of your own actions make some act of contrition, expecting someone else to do it for you is downright cowardly.

Sorry, I missed your response, was busy typing. Yes, I understood your point. Mine is that there aren’t any theoretical christians involved in our argument here, just you and me, and between the two of us you’re the one making a definitive statement about virgin birth without having explored an objective and empirical test. I’m not willing to accept or refute virgin birth without more to go on.

It is contrary to human sexually as I understand for there to be a virgin birth, though not contrary to biology in general. Prior to neanderthal standing erect was a contrary human trait. Not knowing the full range of mutation but having a rudimentary knowledge of the range of reproductive possibilities I’m loathe to rule out virgin birth. Is it proof of divinity? I don’t know. Is it improbable?

I’m thinking yeah, it’s real improbable. Impossible? I don’t know that I can say that it is in good conscious. I think it’d be a hell of coincidence that someone was born of a virgin AND became really famous, but hell, evejntually getting haredawg from a few billion year old primordial soup seems like a hell of a coincidence too. Not impossible, just a hell of a coincidence.

“between the two of us you’re the one making a definitive statement about virgin birth without having explored an objective and empirical test.” – haredawg I’m actually making claims about whether belief in Jesus’ virgin birth is justified — I’m not talking about whether the event occurred or whether it is impossible. Is it possible that there are differences between races? Yes. Ifa person is a racist, they hold unjustified beliefs though — and I’ll criticize racists loudly. I’m curious if you would come to my hypothetical racist-criticizing entries and say the same kind of things you’re saying about whether it’s all right to criticize unjustified beliefs. Would you say something like, “Well, is it impossible that one race is better than another? Dismissing racism out of hand is, to me, as narrow as accepting racism out of hand.”? I doubt it. But this leads me to question why you’d shield only 1 of the 2 following unjustified beliefs from my criticism: 1. “Race X is better than Race Y.” 2. “Jesus was born of a virgin.”

Wow. Are you asking me something in all that? Is all that because I suggested discriminating against creed is like discriminating against race? I didn’t say Jesus was born of a virgin or that one race is better than another, I just said that there’s a way the virgin belief could be justified and that you haven’t explored it anymore or less than anyone else. Yet, you make claims against the creed

of those that do believe it. It’s not something I just made up for arguments sake, it’s part of US civil rights law, protection of employment and housing rights regardless of Race, Creed or Color. If you want I’ll stipulate you’re not a racist based solely on your word, but you continue to defend your right to judge people based on creed. I’m just saying racism and creedism are the same side of

the same coin.

haredawg, let me ask you a specific question then. I say that people who the following claims are believing unjustified things. 1. “Race X is better than Race Y.” 2. “Jesus was born of a virgin.” You have challenged me in the past for challenging this type of unjustified religious claim. Would you challenge me in the future for challenging these types of unjustifiedracist claims?

Do you or do you not believe your creed is superior to that of, say, a christian?

I can’t think of a single instance where Race X is better than Race Y would make any sense to me, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I might challenge you if you were to say pygmies are better hockey players than canadians, but if you were to set up a game I’d keep an open mind. Now, again, do you think your creed is superior to a christians? Or if you’d rather ATB X has a better creed than

christian Y? It’s not a theoretical, rhetorical or hypothetical question. Pretty much a yes or no sort of thing. Because I gotta tell you, you come across as someone who thinks themselves superior to any creed involving a diety. I can’t think of any other way you could possibly justify what you write other than a smug, arrogant sense of superiority. Religious persecution is as old as the racial

sort. I’m a racial jew. We’ve been persecuted for 4000 years, both as a race and as a religion. The whip doesn’t sting any less when the smug superior feeling bastard weilding it says “It’s not a racial thing”.

^^^ not satisfied with the note limits. I re-edited the entry this is all in response to with a specific answer to your question and a general answer to why I get into it with you at all. it’s not very flattering to either one of us.

“That’s the long answer to yes, I suppose I will challenge your challenges, not for what you say but for who you present yourself to be, a playah hatah, a faith buster, a monkey wrench in the works without regard to how the machine operates.” – from haredawg’s entry response. All right, haredawg. I’ll call your bluff. You should look forward to an upcoming entry from me talking about how the racist beliefs of Neo-Nazis are unjustified. I will look forward to your responding entry condemning my challenges to the Neo-Nazis.

ryn; Defender of the homosexuals now are ya? You get pretty dang civil liberty self righteous when it suits you. Yes, there are christian right movements blocking gay marriage legislation, not completely suceeding, but trying. There are also christian churchs wholly bank rolling aids clinics spcifically for disenfranschised homosexuals and drug addicts. There are also homosexual christians.

The question is, then, I reckon, are there atheist homophobes? Atheist who vote against gay marriage? Ahteist sponsered aids clinics? Atheist christians? Gay atheists? If so is it in direct proportion by population to christians? If you don’t know I’d say you have a pretty strong bias, come across as a head hunter not as a fair and impartial witness.

ryn; “If there isn’t a God or any other deity, then what are you arguing against?” I’m arguing against Christians! That’s in the title of my entry! [A Thinking BUM] That’s insisting you’re arguing against members of a religion, not the religion itself or even the ideology. I’m not going to go through your whole diary anymore than you’re going to go through mine.

I skimmed back three entries to find that gem. My not having a problem arguing against religions is more along the lines of The Catholic is the oldest and most stalwart propogater of anti-semitism. Not, as you would have it, catholics are mistaken for believing jesus’ mom didn’t get none. The political ideology of Catholicism has wrought all sorts of evil,

the beliefs of it’s adherents in a virgin birth hasn’t. I think holding one culpable for their thoughts smacks of fascism, but even so, I think jesus’ mom was a virgin is a far cry from I want to kick someones ass. I don’t see why anyone has to justify their thoughts or beliefs to you or me.

sorry, that one note should read The Catholic CHURCH is the oldest and most stalwart propogater of anti-semitism.Typo.

“That’s insisting you’re arguing against members of a religion, not the religion itself or even the ideology.” – haredawg Your grand quote of me “personally attacking individuals” is my claim to be arguing with Christians? If I said, “I’m arguing against Republicans!” am I now attacking individuals? Seriously, you’ve dedicated a number of entries against my challenging unjustified beliefs — repeatedly and falsely claiming that I’m attacking individuals and NOT beliefs. Maybe I have singled out a person individually… I can’t think offhand when I have. But if you want to paint the picture that the entire purpose of my diary is to personally attack individuals and NOT the unjustified beliefs that they hold; it is a rather fair of me to request you to come up with at least one decent quote of me doing so. If it’s a hell of a chore for you to find such an example, I’d accept an apology entry — I don’t hold grudges.

Yes, it is a chore to dig through your diary. Tell you what, you keep assuming I am some sort major party line liberal. Why don’t you dig through mine and find what party I do belong too. It’s only a few thousand entries. The thing is you’re not even sure about your own actions, I am not going to do your searching fearless moral inventory for you. You really don’t see the difference between

the ideology of an institution and the belief of adherents? If you really have to use nazi’s and republicans (and what next, Dallas cowboys assuming I don’t like the team?) I still say attack the ideology, Bush bad, Hitler Bad, Bush/Hitler not representative, know their public persona. Bush is not The republican party anymore than the Pope is Christianity or Bush is America. Though what do you car

You don’t mention politics unless you think you have a foil into religion, and you’re take on religion is that individuals believes things you feel are unsupported and so you tell them all about themselves for it. You’ve even brought up homosexuals twice, oh brave defender of the downtrodden. I really have things to do today, if I have to dig through your diary to win, congratulations.

Ok, I do have a for more minutes, the qoute has to be decent by your standards huh? Tell you what, take this entry and make it a decent entry (e.g. if it’s going to be about morals, use morals, cowardice and courage are character traits not morals) because in my estimation this is not a decent entry. What other tasks should you feel obliged to do? What’s that you say? I don’t get to decide

on whom lies the burden of proof? The hell you say. Sure I do. Just ask me.

Ok, answered your note in an entry, latest one, says atb in the title somewhere.

“You really don’t see the difference between the ideology of an institution and the belief of adherents?” – haredawg. Maybe you can help me out. Please state how I should criticize the unjustified belief that homosexuality is sin… Me saying, “The belief that homosexuality is a sin is unjustified,” is apparently too damaging to say because INDIVIDUALS believe that homosexuality is a sin… “The ideology of the Christian churches that claim that homosexuality is a sin is unjustified.” Is all right because it’s the INSTITUTIONAL IDEOLOGY that I’ve criticized? If I’m still wrong, how could I possibly word criticism of the unjustified belief: “homosexuality is a sin”?

Y’all are f*’in nuts – can’t we all just get along??

“Y’all are f*’in nuts – can’t we all just get along??” But it’s such good practice…

responded by editing entry. btw love anon notes, mine usually swear outright, usually att me

ryn; you’re forgiven.

“In fact, as a judge in this court, I am ordering you to accept this arrangement.” if this relates to God than your argument fell flat because salvation is a gift.