is god necessary for morality?.
below are videos of two debates on this topic.
each debate features dr. william lane craig, an american evangelical apologist, theologian and philosopher.
So now that we've established that believers and non-believers can both be similarly moral and immoral, and faith in God seems to have absolutely no bearing on whether or not someone is a moral person....
....can we conclude that God is completely unnecessary for morality?
my mom is addicted to the wts.
i've recently brought up the many false prophecies and she calls almost every week to show me new things that the society has said about false prophets and how they are not one.. the latest was the account where king david wanted to build god a temple.
he told nathan the prophet about his idea and nathan basically said, well god is with you, you should do it.
Well the light IS getting brighter.
my mom is addicted to the wts.
i've recently brought up the many false prophecies and she calls almost every week to show me new things that the society has said about false prophets and how they are not one.. the latest was the account where king david wanted to build god a temple.
he told nathan the prophet about his idea and nathan basically said, well god is with you, you should do it.
If she gave them something that God did not say, that would make her a false prophet just as much as if she had predicted a future event that did not happen. Both scenarios would classify her as a false prophet.
It is also more difficult to verify.
In the first case you can say "God says to give me money" - maybe he did and maybe he didn't.
In the second "God said he'd blow up Paris next week" - Paris is ok seven days from now...false prophet.
Obviously JWs are guilty of the second. apologists like debator would like to focus on the OTHER forms of prophet, and whether or not the JWs have done things that qualify them as the bard-ish prophet. They make the argument about what the word means or could mean, rather than whether or not they ever made predictions which did not come true. Classic misdirection. It's always good to be aware of this tactic because they employ it on almost every point which they have no defense for, which is why you also cannot allow them to control the conversation, or your head will start spinning and frustration sets in.
my mom is addicted to the wts.
i've recently brought up the many false prophecies and she calls almost every week to show me new things that the society has said about false prophets and how they are not one.. the latest was the account where king david wanted to build god a temple.
he told nathan the prophet about his idea and nathan basically said, well god is with you, you should do it.
However, if that prophet in the process of "speaking before" an individual or group made predictions that didn't come to pass, he/she was a false prophet.
Boom.
As it relates to what the JWs have done, this is where they damn themselves.
If they just did the whole "Hey everyone needs to live by God's word and morals and you'll all be happier, that's what God wants you to do or he'll be pissed" - then they could be "prophets" in the sense they try to claim.
However, since they have made predictions, as JWoods mentioned, they have made themselves into prophets who prophesy - in the modern, Christian sense of the word. When those predictions fail to come true, they may then accurately be regarded as false prophets.
I just wanted to point out that there are many biblical senses of the word prophet. Not all prophets must "prophesy".
my mom is addicted to the wts.
i've recently brought up the many false prophecies and she calls almost every week to show me new things that the society has said about false prophets and how they are not one.. the latest was the account where king david wanted to build god a temple.
he told nathan the prophet about his idea and nathan basically said, well god is with you, you should do it.
brotherdan,
In Christianity, the word prophet always means what you say it does, however;
I'd also like to make a comment on people in the Bible that were called prophets, but as you say, did not prophecy. I believe they did. A prophet MUST prophecy or he is not a prophet. Mariam was a prophetess. I believed that she prophesied. She brought the people the words of God. Maybe much of it was not recorded in the Bible, but if she was called a prophet, she MUST, by definition, prophecy.
in ancient Hebrew this was not always the case. To be regarded a Jewish "prophet" you did not have to make predictions of any sort. You could be delivering a personal revelation (i.e. "Listen up Israel, this is what Yahweh told me-he's pissed and you need to change), or you could simply be a notable musician/poet. A similar modern-day equivalent would be to call them bards. Jewish tradition cites that there were were about 600,000 recognized "prophets" - certainly not all "prophesied", in the modern sense of the word.
This doesn't help the JW position at all, since it is obvious from their context that they condemn themselves. I just thought I would clear that up.
is god necessary for morality?.
below are videos of two debates on this topic.
each debate features dr. william lane craig, an american evangelical apologist, theologian and philosopher.
Morality is rightly said to be nothing more than empathy - or that empathy is the foundation of morality.
Sociopaths cannot feel empathy, and therefore do not share the morals of those who can.
If God made us with empathy and morals, who made the sociopaths?
i was brought up to reply to a question that i didn't understand, or know the answer to, in a modest, humble manner - true, sometimes it was embarrassing, but if i didn't know the answer, i'd (usually) admit it, and then start trying to find the answer.
this was time consuming, and required work - sometimes, a lot of research.
but, it has usually stood me in good stead.
It is important for their followers, for sure.
If a difficult question comes up, the followers go to mother for the answer. If mother doesn't have *an* answer, the followers will be taken aback, and may look elsewhere to satisfy their curiosity.
As long as mother has *an* answer, it doesn't matter if it's right or logical. It just exists. The follower trusts mother, stops thinking about it, accepts the answer and moves on.
my mom is addicted to the wts.
i've recently brought up the many false prophecies and she calls almost every week to show me new things that the society has said about false prophets and how they are not one.. the latest was the account where king david wanted to build god a temple.
he told nathan the prophet about his idea and nathan basically said, well god is with you, you should do it.
Another side point is that they do not try and put a date on armageddon itself they are talking about Jesus's presence and the end of gentile times this is not the same thing.
Interesting.
Matthew 24:23
23 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it.
Also, why would they bother trying to predict this when Jesus himself said;
Matthew 24:36
36 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, [ f ] but only the Father.
http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/646-why-did-jesus-curse-the-fig-tree.
black sheep/chris, have you read this?.
syl.
I like this little bit;
Third, it must be emphasized that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He himself possesses the nature of deity (Jn. 1:1; 10:30; 20:28). As deity, therefore, the earth and its fullness are his (Psa. 24:1). He has the sovereign right to use the elements of creation to accomplish those higher goals which man, limited in his knowledge, may not perceive at a given moment in time. And that includes the destruction of a tree, or even a herd of swine (cf. Mk. 5:13). No man has the right to say of him, “What doest thou?” (Dan. 4:35; cf. Rom. 11:33-36).
First of all, this is all lovely but is fully assumption. But ok, we've established that Jesus "possesses the nature of deity".
(2) In order to put this situation into sharper focus, the student needs to examine the meaning behind this action by Christ. When the Lord first saw the tree, he was yet “afar off.” He could only discern that it had leaves (v. 13).
Obviously, considering what was just said, we are now wondering why this "deity" couldn't use his super-eyesight to discern a little bit more about the tree.
One must conclude that this circumstance reveals that though he was deity, Jesus did not exercise the full range of his divine powers constantly; he did not know the details regarding this tree until he was in close proximity (v. 13b).
Oh, THERE it is! "One must conclude" - this seems to be this particular author's version of the WTS's "evidently". We've now established that this account will only make sense if you read it under Trinitarian assumptions. I think it bears saying, however, that neither Matthew or Mark appear to subscribe to Trinitarian viewpoint - their accounts abound with examples of Jesus being imminently human, and being so limited - it wasn't until John's gospel that Jesus started to transmorph into "deity". John wouldn't include accounts where Jesus did things like curse trees which he didn't possess the power to see from far away.
"Evidently."
Perhaps most important is the apologetic's continual insistence that this was some sort of "lesson" for the Jews. Was the Messiah really so inadequate a teacher? His audience at the time of the cursing consisted of a few disciples - of which apparently only Peter got the point. What sort of teacher tries to impart a lesson to an audience that isn't even present? Not only that, but he didn't reference that lesson in any way whatsoever. Instead, when Peter pointed the tree out, Jesus started to ramble on about throwing mountains into the ocean.
Not to mention the fact that in Matthew's account, the sequence goes (Jesus sees tree > Curses Tree > Tree withers > Disciples ask why tree withered so fast > Jesus says if you have faith you can throw mountains into the ocean >>>>>>>Making it appear like this is not a lesson to the Jews, it is a lesson about the power of faith, i.e. with faith you can control the elements like Jesus), but in Mark's account it goes (Sees tree > Curses tree > Goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the temple > leaves Jerusalem the next morning > PETER points the now-withered tree out > Jesus talks about throwing mountains into the ocean >>>>> No direct question is asked, therefore Jesus' message is far more ambiguous)
The apologetics for this account are pure nonsense. Much better to say that we have no idea why Jesus did this, we have no idea why the account was included in either account, unless to say that Jesus was just showing off for the disciples, and be done with it.
All apologetics for this account fall flat.
i'm afraid of starting a new post because i've stepped on a few feet here with my last post... but i still love you guys.. last night i went home to find my wife and her friend on the couch with the bible, ready to show me how i'm wrong and exercising "apostate thinking".
my wife said, "i am unable to fight you with the bible because you know more than me about it.
but k** knows more and will be able to show you how you are wrong.. so my wife went into the other room so as not to be stumbled by my discussion.
All Leavingwt examples show is that they use the word "prophet" for themselves but this is not False prophecy and just a misdirection into a red herring and in fact again redefining false prophecy away from clear bible definitions.
LMAO!
This is basically what you just tried to do.
