| EGreg |
| Posted 06/29/11 at 10:26 PM | Reply with quote #1 |
|
| I find myself thinking that a lot of these questions and debates may be based on false dichotomies or simplistic concepts that become incoherent when subjected to critical inquiry.
For example, the contention that in Harris' view, there is no "free will" or that there is nothing "valuable" about human beings or that "good" doesn't really have a "grounding".
How would Christians define the following terms:
good absolute good objective good evil absolute evil objective evil sin (how do we know what is and isn't sin?) free will morality values valuable (to whom?)
obligations
Let me just define one of them to show where my difference may lie with many Christians. I would say that an "obligation" is defined by a ternary relation:
X should Y if they want Z
now, what this means is not that Z will happen if X does Y, but that if X doesn't do Y, X has no right to complain that Z didn't happen. But if X did Y, and Z didn't happen, then X fulfilled their obligation, and it's not X's fault that Z didn't happen. So I am using "obligation" in a relative sense, but I believe that this particular sense is of practical use, and indeed is practically used in the world. Whereas "absolute" obligation I am not sure is even a practical concept. When a volcano is erupting, should you save a small child and risk dying or should you save your own life? Should spiderman save Mary Jane or a bus full of kids? Relative obligations allow us to make decisions among different obligations, but absolute obligations seem to require additional, ad hoc statements which may simply be religious opinions (which are, once again, relative to the person believing them). |
| Loading... | |
| EGreg |
| Posted 06/29/11 at 10:35 PM | Reply with quote #2 |
|
| I want to make one more point. A lot of the issues which are raised against atheists are actually found on both sides. Let me take one more example of the terms above and talk about it. Free will. One of the charges Dr. Craig leveled against Sam Harris is the question of how can humans be responsible for something if their actions are all predetermined by causality and therefore they have no "free will"? How can there be morality at all if everything is deterministic?
Well, the same problem occurs in religion, but it is pushed back into the realm of the unknowable. One can ask why Adam was responsible for sinning if God knew he was going to sin when He created him. One can ask about God's motives for telling the Israelites to wage war and obliterate certain nations including women and children. Or one can ask about why there is evil in the world. The religious answer is: the ways of God are beyond our understanding. So what is wrong with atheists saying "I don't know"?
It seems to me that often the areas where atheists say "I don't know" (e.g. how did life come about? how did the universe begin?) the theists say "God did it. But I don't know how it actually happened." My question is, how does that give the theist the upper hand in showing their belief system is superior? |
| Loading... | |
| noseeum |
| Posted 07/01/11 at 03:25 AM | Reply with quote #3 |
|
Resounding silence  |
| Loading... | |
| emailestthoume |
| Posted 07/02/11 at 12:54 AM | Reply with quote #4 |
|
Quote: Originally Posted by EGregI want to make one more point. A lot of the issues which are raised against atheists are actually found on both sides. Let me take one more example of the terms above and talk about it. Free will. One of the charges Dr. Craig leveled against Sam Harris is the question of how can humans be responsible for something if their actions are all predetermined by causality and therefore they have no "free will"? How can there be morality at all if everything is deterministic?
Well, the same problem occurs in religion, but it is pushed back into the realm of the unknowable. One can ask why Adam was responsible for sinning if God knew he was going to sin when He created him. One can ask about God's motives for telling the Israelites to wage war and obliterate certain nations including women and children. Or one can ask about why there is evil in the world. The religious answer is: the ways of God are beyond our understanding. So what is wrong with atheists saying "I don't know"?
It seems to me that often the areas where atheists say "I don't know" (e.g. how did life come about? how did the universe begin?) the theists say "God did it. But I don't know how it actually happened." My question is, how does that give the theist the upper hand in showing their belief system is superior?
EGreg, its good to hear from you again. As for your question about definitions, I think Dr. Craig would be happy using the common dictionary definition of those terms. I think it is actually Sam Harris who redefines the words. This quote from a "Question of the Week," explains both...
"Theists are not offering theistic definitions of moral terms. We are not saying, for example, that “obligatory” means “commanded by God” or some such thing. We are using the terms in their ordinary sense in English. What we are doing is offering an ontology of moral values and duties that grounds them in the reality of God and His commands. This is very important because Harris was making a semantic claim, defining “good” as “the well-being of conscious creatures.” It was only on this basis that he could dismiss as senseless the obvious question, why, on atheism, is the well-being of conscious creatures objectively good? The problem for him is, not only does the English word “good” not mean what he says (look in any dictionary), but his re-definition is arbitrary and idiosyncratic."
As for whether foreknowledge disproves freewill, I don't think this is much of a problem for theists. To give a quick example, if I go into the future and know how you will respond to this post, does that mean, in virtue of my knowing what you will say that you don't respond freely? I don't see this as a problem, but more a confusion. Dr. Craig gets into much more detail here...
| 2010/05/24 | Doctrine of God | #14 |    |
|
As for why there is evil in the world, I don't think theists just say, "I don't know." I have an answer for you right now: certian goods you cannot experience without evil (like justice, mercy, etc...), and evidently God thought that this world, perhaps not till it is completed, will have more, or greater overall good than a world with no evil at all. If you are going to say that there is a possible world that God could have created which has greater overall good (both in quantity and quality) I think you would simply not be in a position to do so given that you are dealing with a hypothetically omnipotent being. Its not special pleading, its simply what happens when you consider the possibility of an omnipotent being.
I am not sure what your point about absolute and relative obligations is, so perhaps you could clarify. However, on your definition, wouldn't stoping someone from molesting a child if you could easily do so with overwhelmingly positive results be an absolute obligation? If so, then there are absolute obligations... given that I am understanding you correctly.
Why prefer theism over atheism? As Dr. Craig defends in his debates, I think there are good arguments for the former and not for the latter. Atheists wont even defend atheism for crying out loud. They are refusing to defend the claim "God does not exist." Instead, they define atheism as a psychological state of the lack of belief in God, and often refuse to argue that God does not exist for that reason. If ever there was a indication that a position was weak, this is it.
Anyway, good to see you back on the site  I don't take any disagreements personally, just so you know.
|
| Loading... | |
