An Eye For An Eye?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='AudreyGrace' timestamp='1305580427' post='2242492']
If I may ask, what are your thoughts on moral relativism? do you think there is such thing as an absolute truth? [/quote]

Bring out the tough question

Um...to lay the ground work I don't think that morality exists outside of social interactions, so no, I don't think there is an absolute moral law. For instance, natural "evils" are not immoral but are perceived as such because they cause suffering and pain, which no one in their right mind wants. Naturally occurring things such as an animal hunting another to survive is not immoral either, even though the hunted animal suffers.

There are two things that go hand in hand with this: society and what rules everybody would have to follow in order to live in a stable society and our biological feelings of empathy and altruism which some say evolved to 'help' human beings be good social animals. I think that there is a part that is hardwired, and another that is learned.

I usually look to other social animals to illustrate my point: [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_pictus"]African Wildogs[/url] have a social 'morality' that allowed them to be very successful pack animals, so successful in fact that their packs usually consist of a large number of dogs and that they sometimes have trouble feeding themselves.

A bit on their social structure:

[quote]Packs are separated into male and female hierarchies that will split up if either of the alphas die. In the female group, the oldest will have alpha status over the others, so a mother will retain her alpha status over her daughters. Among males, the eldest brother or the father of the other males will be dominant. When two such loner separate-gender groups meet, they may form a pack together if unrelated. Dominance is established without blood-shed, as most dogs within a group tend to be related to one another in some way. When this is not the case, they form a hierarchy based on submission rather than dominance. Submission and nonaggression are emphasized heavily; even over food, they will beg energetically instead of fight. This behavior may be due to their manner of raising large litters of dependent pups in which the loss of a single individual due to injury would mean that the hunting pack might not be able to provide for all the pack's members.[sup][/sup][sup][i][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot"]
[/url][/i][/sup]

Unrelated African Wild Dogs sometimes join in packs, but this is usually temporary. Instead, unrelated cape dogs will occasionally attempt hostile takeovers of packs.[/quote]

Sick dogs are usually looked after by the pack and older dogs who cannot contribute by joining in the hunts look after the young. It's a high level of cooperation with everybody's well-being in mind.

As for moral absolutes, it gets a bit complicated because things are not black-and-white. If it were to be established that people should not kill others for instance and this has arguments going for it because people feel empathy and feel incapable of killing another as if there were a biological barrier and a society which needs a high level of cooperation in which people kill eachother indiscriminately will not be stable. You'd eventually get a few isolated lone cutthroats trying to stab eachother in the back. If you inflate that scenario to the species level, the species can be at a risk of killing itself into extinction. So there are good reasons not to kill others based on those two aspects: biological and societal.

But for instance what about when someone is threatening your family or in self defense? If someone had someone you loved at gunpoint and you could prevent him from firing by killing him, is it morally justifiable then? If you say 'yes', then doesn't that become relativistic?

In what sense exactly do you mean 'absolute truth'? As absolute moral laws or as in Truth?

[quote]God does not need our faith to exist. Catholics believe that we were created to ultimately join God in complete happiness and love- heaven, that we were created out of his love for us, and that he loved us so much that he gave us the option to choose him and his path for us. What kind of love is it if you are being forced to love someone in return? That is why we have the free will to seek the truth, to ask for faith, and to ultimately find God. As for unbelievers and the afterlife (unbelievers in this sense meaning those who chose not to believe), they led their lives in a determined and chosen absence of God. Hell is just that- a place void of God's presence. Everything has opposites. Good vs evil, up vs down, light vs dark, cold vs hot, heaven vs hell. Whereas heaven is complete unity with God, hell is complete separation from God. What we do in this life decides where we are in the next. [u]Living a purposefully godless life on earth will logically lead to a godless afterlife. [/u]
So, to answer your question, God wants our faith so badly because he wants us to choose Him, to share in his love for eternity. If you truly loved someone, wouldn't you hope that they have faith in you and choose to love you back?
[/quote]

Okay, the underlined bit makes a bit more sense.

But your second sentence bears the problem that is Epicurus' Riddle, which I'm sure you all have heard ad nauseam, especially in the context of an all-loving god...

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1305580440' post='2242493']
SilverPhinx, allow me to seperate what I believe from that of Western Christians. I do not believe that only believers in what I believe will be in heaven. I do not believe that this place called "hell" is necessarily a physical location but rather a condition of the soul. I also do not believe those in a state of "hell" are seperated from the love of G-d, as many have said. St. Isaac the Syrian put it well:

[quote]As for me I say that those who are tormented in hell are tormented by the invasion of love. What is there more bitter and violent than the pains of love? Those who feel they have sinned against love bear in themselves a damnation much heavier than the most dreaded punishments. The suffering with which sinning against love afflicts the heart is more keenly felt than any other torment. It is absurd to assume that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is offered impartially. But by its very power it acts in two ways. It torments sinners, as happens here on earth when we are tormented by the presence of a friend to whom we have been unfaithful. And it gives joy to those who have been faithful.[/quote][/quote]

You're an orthodox Christian?

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305579221' post='2242486']
That's what I'm talking about...
[/quote]


You have chosen to seperate yourself from Him, he has no need to beaver dam you, you have chosen damnnation.


One thing I want to address, though this " Hell is simply a seperation from God" has become quite fashionable it is not in keeping with Catholic doctrine.


Hell, according to the Church is a place of seperation from God (negative punishment), and positive punishment, both.

Reza's idea of Hell sounds very mch like positve ppunishment to me, and even hasthe virtue of having punishment be proportional to the deeds tha brought you to Hell.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305588213' post='2242554']
You're an orthodox Christian?
[/quote]

Yes, Oriental Orthodox, not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305612088' post='2242686']
One thing I want to address, though this " Hell is simply a seperation from God" has become quite fashionable it is not in keeping with Catholic doctrine.


Hell, according to the Church is a place of seperation from God (negative punishment), and positive punishment, both.

Reza's idea of Hell sounds very mch like positve ppunishment to me, and even hasthe virtue of having punishment be proportional to the deeds tha brought you to Hell.
[/quote]

It's by no means posetive. Have you ever met someone who was in hell on earth? I knew someone who was in hell on earth and he committed suicide. It was not a pretty situation.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305612088' post='2242686']
You have chosen to seperate yourself from Him, he has no need to beaver dam you, you have chosen damnnation.


One thing I want to address, though this " Hell is simply a seperation from God" has become quite fashionable it is not in keeping with Catholic doctrine.


Hell, according to the Church is a place of seperation from God (negative punishment), and positive punishment, both.

Reza's idea of Hell sounds very mch like positve ppunishment to me, and even hasthe virtue of having punishment be proportional to the deeds tha brought you to Hell.
[/quote]

It's not that "I've chosen to separate myself" from anything, just as I haven't chosen to separate myself from the god of Islam (who says that [i]you're[/i] going to hell) or Zeus or whatever. Like I said, you can't just "choose" to believe in something. You either believe it or you don't.

I can get into my volkswagon every morning and choose to sincerly believe that it's a BMW. Won't work. I can try and choose to sincerely believe that we're all really just brains in a vat and that none of this is real. Won't work either. See where I'm getting at?

And btw, an omniscient god would've already known that I couldn't believe in him, wouldn't he? A good god? (I sense a string of fallacies coming my way...)

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1305612606' post='2242690']
Yes, Oriental Orthodox, not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
[/quote]

And all this time I thought that you were Roman Catholic (you didn't add anything to your religious tag)

Anyways, I know even less about Oriental Orthodox Christians than I know about Catholics...

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1305612606' post='2242690']
Yes, Oriental Orthodox, not affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.



It's by no means posetive. Have you ever met someone who was in hell on earth? I knew someone who was in hell on earth and he committed suicide. It was not a pretty situation.
[/quote]

No mean positive punishment in the philosophical sense.


Positive = active as opposed negative = passive.... not exactly equivelent but as close as i can come toa simple synonym at this time of night

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305613137' post='2242693']
It's not that "I've chosen to separate myself" from anything, just as I haven't chosen to separate myself from the god of Islam (who says that [i]you're[/i] going to hell) or Zeus or whatever. Like I said, you can't just "choose" to believe in something. You either believe it or you don't.

I can get into my volkswagon every morning and choose to sincerly believe that it's a BMW. Won't work. I can try and choose to sincerely believe that we're all really just brains in a vat and that none of this is real. Won't work either. See where I'm getting at?

And btw, an omniscient god would've already known that I couldn't believe in him, wouldn't he? A good god? (I sense a string of fallacies coming my way...)
[/quote]


can't is not a word that could be accepted by a religious ( non Calvinst) person in this situation. If you do not choose to accept Him then you have chosen to reject Him, unless you have had no oppertunity to learn of Him at all. I belive firmly that the Gift of Faith is offered to all. in order to be incapable of beiliving in Him, you would have to be mentally ill.

Islam worships the same God, they have just butchered Him and worship specific parts of HIm.

Zues is another matter entirely, one which would only distract the conversation.


If you are truely incapable of beliveing, then you would by definition be invicibly ignorant, and the Church teaches that God would not beaver dam those who are invincibly ignorant, as that would not be Just.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305613779' post='2242698']
can't is not a word that could be accepted by a religious ( non Calvinist) person in this situation. If you do not choose to accept Him then you have chosen to reject Him, unless you have had no opportunity to learn of Him at all. I believe firmly that the Gift of Faith is offered to all. in order to be incapable of believing in Him, you would have to be mentally ill.

Islam worships the same God, they have just butchered Him and worship specific parts of HIm.

Zeus is another matter entirely, one which would only distract the conversation.


If you are truly incapable of believing, then you would by definition be invincible ignorant, and the Church teaches that God would not beaver dam those who are invincibly ignorant, as that would not be Just.
[/quote]

I'm not looking for inclusion here, I don't believe in Heaven either. And you have to be realistic, a specific version of a god with human-like characteristics and a bible full of errors, inconsistencies and [b]incompatibilities[/b] is something that I just [i]can't [/i]believe. That's right, [i]can't[/i].

When you say that if I choose not to accept him, then that automatically means that I have chosen to reject him is not the way I see things at all. If something doesn't exist, then it's not that I've chosen to reject him [i]as if he did[/i].

Mentally ill? Well, that isn't as bad as being told that I'm possessed by a demon or something of that nature (ironic). And I really resent that you put it that way, who are you to say that somebody is mentally ill if they dismiss beliefs there is no evidence for? (oh, the irony ) How well do you even know your beliefs to make that assertion that only somebody who is mentally ill [u]cannot[/u] see what you say is god?

*Edited to replace 'will not' with the underlined 'cannot' as that was the original intention since the discussion is on how I'm saying that I cannot believe in the christian version of god. I can grasp the concept on an intellectual level, but as for really believing, won't happen.

Edited May 17, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305614524' post='2242701']
I'm not looking for inclusion here, I don't believe in Heaven either. And you have to be realistic, a specific version of a god with human-like characteristics and a bible full of errors, inconsistencies and [b]incompatibilities[/b] is something that I just [i]can't [/i]believe. That's right, [i]can't[/i].

When you say that if I choose not to accept him, then that automatically means that I have chosen to reject him is not the way I see things at all. If something doesn't exist, then it's not that I've chosen to reject him [i]as if he did[/i].

Mentally ill? Well, that isn't as bad as being told that I'm possessed by a demon or something of that nature (ironic). And I really resent that you put it that way, who are you to say that somebody is mentally ill if they dismiss beliefs there is no evidence for? (oh, the irony ) How well do you even know your beliefs to make that assertion that only somebody who is mentally ill will not see what you say is god?
[/quote]
I never said that only someone who is mentally ill [i]would[/i] not see what I say is God.


I said, if you truly [i]cannot[/i].

Edited May 17, 2011 by Don John of Austria

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305614524' post='2242701']
I'm not looking for inclusion here, I don't believe in Heaven either. And you have to be realistic, a specific version of a god with human-like characteristics and a bible full of errors, inconsistencies and [b]incompatibilities[/b] is something that I just [i]can't [/i]believe. That's right, [i]can't[/i].

When you say that if I choose not to accept him, then that automatically means that I have chosen to reject him is not the way I see things at all. If something doesn't exist, then it's not that I've chosen to reject him [i]as if he did[/i].

Mentally ill? Well, that isn't as bad as being told that I'm possessed by a demon or something of that nature (ironic). And I really resent that you put it that way, who are you to say that somebody is mentally ill if they dismiss beliefs there is no evidence for? (oh, the irony ) How well do you even know your beliefs to make that assertion that only somebody who is mentally ill will not see what you say is god?
[/quote]
What human like characteristics do you mean... be specific, I won't be offended.

Obviously, the Son, Incarnated as we beleive he is, has human characteristics, but I suspect that is not what you mean.


I don' know what you mean about the Bible, accept to tell you that Catholicism does not teach, and has never taught that the Bible is to be taken 100% literally, only that it is 100 % True. Those are not the same thing.

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305614826' post='2242703']
I never said that only someone who is mentally ill [i]would[/i] not see what I say is God.


I said, if you truly [i]cannot[/i].
[/quote]

I truly cannot.

But anyways, this topic is getting a bit tiring.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='xSilverPhinx' timestamp='1305615315' post='2242706']
I truly cannot.

But anyways, this topic is getting a bit tiring.
[/quote]


I hope I did not offend.

May I ask, what would it take for you to believe?

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305615209' post='2242705']
What human like characteristics do you mean... be specific, I won't be offended.

Obviously, the Son, Incarnated as we beleive he is, has human characteristics, but I suspect that is not what you mean.


I don' know what you mean about the Bible, accept to tell you that Catholicism does not teach, and has never taught that the Bible is to be taken 100% literally, only that it is 100 % True. Those are not the same thing.
[/quote]

Basically that god (and this is not limited to the christian god) can be anything for anyone and was and is what peoples need him to be. I'll elaborate on this further later...

No, I wasn't talking about Jesus and I know that catholics don't take the bible literally.

Edited May 17, 2011 by xSilverPhinx

[xSilverPhinx]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' timestamp='1305615431' post='2242707']
I hope I did not offend.

May I ask, what would it take for you to believe?
[/quote]

Don't worry about it. I just didn't like something trivial being referred to as a mental illness which causes immense suffering. Probably over reacting on my part.

Good question. I don't really know, I guess it's one of those things that you'll only know once you see it. But I question things a lot, and even my own beliefs, and so any belief that can't take questions won't 'stick'. I don't have the highest opinion of blind faith as in something that you just believe because someone told you to, just before telling you not to ask questions. I think that faith should be the result of a reasoned conclusion, since I know that there will be things in the world that have to be taken on some degree of faith.

If they could take a DNA sample from a transformed Jesus cracker fromdifferent people that was consistently proven to be one person's DNA, then I'm sold. Doesn't even have to conclusively link that DNA to Jesus or to a male of judean lineage.

Edited May 17, 2011 by xSilverPhinx