This post is long overdue.
One doesn’t have to look far to find examples of moral outrage aimed towards theists in general and Christians in particular here at The Skeptical Zone.
Judgmentalism, oddly enough, is prevalent. A pungent odor of opprobrium frequently wafts its way forth from the atheist trenches, and it stinks.
Are we all moral realists after all? Do we all now agree on the existence of objective moral values? If so, what are they and what makes them objective?
As for you moral relativists, are there any of you left? Why ought anyone (including especially Erik, Gregory, myself, fifth, William) be subject to the vagaries of what you moral relativists think others ought to be doing or ought not be doing?
Such opprobrium. Based on what, exactly?
If you are going to claim that we have some moral obligation towards you, you really ought to support that claim or retract it.
After all, that’s the intellectually honest thing to do.
If I am mistaken about my presupposition that God exists knowledge is impossible.
If you disagree tell me how you know stuff.
so far Crickets
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
As keiths, among others, has pointed out multiple times, the issue isn’t some alleged god’s capabilities, it is your capabilities. Since you are fallible, there is no way for you to know that any of your beliefs are revealed knowledge. You admit that you could be mistaken about one of your beliefs being revealed knowledge. It is therefore logically possible that everything you think has been revealed to you is, in fact, just your own beliefs with no god involved.
I can be mistaken about some beliefs but not all. It depends on what God chooses to reveal to me
Peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You have yet to defend that claim with a rational argument or evidence.
Non-sequitur. Your claim stands or falls on its own.
fifthmonarchyman,
Not true. You have admitted that you are fallible. Logically, you could be mistaken about every one of your beliefs.
I can’t be wrong about truths that are revealed from an infallible God in such a way so that I can not be mistaken.
Do you disagree that revelation is possible?
knowledge is not dependent on rational argument or evidence.
If you disagree explain how you know that it is?
peace
So you are saying that revelation is impossible
How exactly do you know this? Are you certain?
peace
how do you know?
peace
Are you certain that logic is universal and eternal? Are you certain about your ability to reason logically.
IOW how do you know stuff?
peace
Something of which you’re (apparently) certain, yet may be mistaken.
I’ve repeated my response to your bot times many.
fifthmonarchyman,
Regardless of whether or not that’s possible, you can be wrong by believing that a “truth” was revealed to you when it was not. That fallibility undermines any claim you make about revelation because it is possible that no god has ever revealed anything to you and all of your beliefs are just your beliefs.
If you mean revelation from a god or gods, I’ve never seen any evidence that such things exist.
How exactly do you know this? Or are you just making unsubstantiated assertions.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
And we’re back to Hitchens’ Razor.
Is existence contingent on your own personal fallible evaluation of the evidence?
IOW
you are not the judge
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
I’m just applying logic to your claims. Since you admit that you can’t know that any of your beliefs are revealed knowledge, it is logically possible that none of your beliefs are revealed knowledge.
How exactly do you know logic is valid and unchanging?
peace
Is this really the only arrow in your quiver?
I’ve repeated my response times many.
fifthmonarchyman,
Now you’re just squirming.
As I said earlier, regardless of whether or not revelation is possible, you can be wrong by believing that a “truth” was revealed to you when it was not. That fallibility undermines any claim you make about revelation because it is possible that no god has ever revealed anything to you and all of your beliefs are just your beliefs.
Why is God’s existence a presupposition, has that not been revealed?
I know and I’d like to to support your assertion.
How do you know I could be wrong? Are you certain?
Can God reveal stuff in such a way as I can not be wrong?
Answer yes or no and explain how you know this. Please
peace
God’s existence is both revealed knowledge and the foundation for knowledge
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
You said you could be. I’m just following what you’re claiming to it’s logical conclusion.
Already answered. Even if a god existed and even if it had the power to reveal knowledge to you, your admitted fallibility means that you would be unable to distinguish that knowledge from other knowledge that you feel was revealed to you but that actually wasn’t. It remains logically possible that none of what you think of as your revealed knowledge is any such thing.
I feel like we are going in circles on this one
once again do you think logic is infallible and that your ability to think logically is certain ?
There is that appeal to logic again
It’s logically possible that your mental faculties are deficient and you are mistaken as to what is or is not logically possible. Do you disagree?
Do you have empirical evidence to support your assertion that your ability to think logically can’t ever be compromised?
And if you can’t ever be mistaken about knowledge you derive from thinking logically why do you deny that others (like me) have that capacity?
peace
I don’t see what fallibility has to do with it. Unless I misunderstood keiths, his argument is that even an infallible God can’t be certain that His beliefs are true.
Weird, I know. But that did seem to me to be his claim.
fifthmonarchyman,
That would be because you are failing to engage on the substantive issue.
Immaterial to the discussion. The issue is your admitted fallibility and the consequences of that.
No, it’s a demonstration of the consequences of your admitted fallibility.
You can stop the back-and-forth right now. Do you still agree that you could be mistaken in believing that a particular bit of knowledge was revealed to you by god? I’m not asking about the powers of your god, I’m asking about your abilities.
If the answer to that question is yes then do you understand that the possibility of being mistaken applies to all knowledge you think has been revealed to you?
I guess some people just can’t handle their revelation straight up.
If the offering is a burnt offering from the flock, from either the sheep or the goats, you are to offer a male without defect.
– Leviticus 1:10
Not sure how they would know it had no defects without examining it.
So?
You are not hungry.
It’s not like it’s a good scotch.
An omnipotent God is able to compensate for my lack of ability.
That is exactly the point of revelation.
peace
how exactly do you know this? You need to support the claim that your fallible reasoning ability is immaterial to the validity of the fruit of your reasoning.
Or you need to retract it in the interest of intellectual honesty 😉
peace
He is not even Budapest
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
So close! The point is that even if such an entity existed and could do what you say, you wouldn’t be able to tell because you are fallible.
So you claim that revelation is impossible because my inability is stronger than God’s ability.
OK that is something
You now need to support this claim. Mere assertion is not argument
How exactly do you know this?
If you could be mistaken about everything you know (your definition of fallible) how do you know that you are not mistaken right now?
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
No. Let me try to lay it out step by step:
a) You recognize that you are fallible.
b) (a) means that you may have beliefs that you consider revelation that are in fact not revelations
c) (b) means that you cannot determine, due to (a), whether any particular belief you have is actually a revelation
d) Applying (c) to each of your beliefs means that you cannot determine if any of your beliefs is actually a revelation
e) Therefore it is possible that you are mistaken about all of your beliefs and none of them is a revelation
If there is a mistake in any of these steps, please point it out.
I’m puzzled by FMM who seems to be regularly asking other commenters:
“How exactly do you know this?”
and yet doesn’t appear to have tried answering this question to his own presuppositions.
The mistake is that you assume that each step to be valid and that your conclusion flows infallibly from your premises.
Yet if you are correct in your premises then it “infallibly” flows that you could be mistaken in your conclusion.
If your “logic” proves both a thing and it’s opposite it is faulty.
If your argument is demonstrated then it is disproved.
peace
yes I have the and answer is………..revelation.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
That’s the most surreal way of saying “I can’t refute your argument but don’t want to admit defeat” that I’ve read in months. Well done.
I meant in the sense of examining the entrails for revelatory messages from god (which, whether the process of revelation worked or not, would be sorcery, and forbidden) that was the “examination” which had been done previously in Babylonian culture (and which the writers/editors of the first Jewish texts were aware of).
So the Levite priests examined the (living) animal for visible defects, skin blemishes, scars, etc. But as I say, that’s not sufficient for actual revelation from god. You need to read entrails for that. Which is why there hasn’t been any genuine true revelation since Babylonian times. Which is why, whatever fifthmonarchyman feels about his own “revelations from god”, they’re at best mistaken and at worst, sent by the devil.
OF course he thinks I’m wrong about that. Ha ha. The devil would make him think that, right? Right.
how do you know this?
could you be mistaken?
😉
peace
But how do you know this? How can you distinguish revelation from delusion?
I thought I made that clear God reveals it to me.
If you want me to elaborate further please tell me if you think it’s possible for an omnipotent God to reveal something to me in such a way so that I can’t be mistaken.
peace
Weird. The discussion proceeds as if FMM has not already conceeded this point:
FMM:
RB:
FMM:
RB:
From a message sent by Satan, from a dream, from childhood indoctrination, from a chemical imbalance, from a neural birth defect …
Any or all of which might appear exactly as a revelation from god, and feel exactly and completely true.
So what are the hallmarks which god could impress into its revelations so that you’d be able to tell the difference between a true revelation which came from it, and a not-quite-true revelation not-from-god which feels exactly the same as the “true revelation”?
The movie Inception comes to mind here. What’s the totem so you know you’re in “true revelation” state and not in a dream state?
It it possible that this statement of yours is incorrect?
Of course it is
peace
Yes.
Which completely failed, for me, to capture the feel of actual dreaming.
FMM:
That doesn’t help you. You’ve already affirmed that it IS correct.