Posts by TonusOH

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: When a person abandons the rights to himself and 'dies" to himself for Christ, he immediaetly becomes an adopted member of God's family

This doesn't change the dynamic. As you note, we break god's rules all the time, and we have absolutely no way to recover from this on our own merits. Even those who want nothing more than to serve god as perfectly and purely as they can, fail constantly. Humanity is inherently incapable of following god's rules and commands.

The only way to avoid this would be to have our free will stripped away, to become someone -or something- that we are not. So, I will either spend eternity incapable of independent thought/action, or I will spend eternity suffering because I invariably broke a rule or crossed a line. The belief appears to be that god won't act this way, but that approach isn't logical. That's not who god is.

Sea Breeze: How do you arrive at universal correct reasoning in a chance universe?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "universal correct reasoning." You mean a moral code that everyone, everywhere, will agree with? Assuming such a thing is possible, you get there by trial and error. You experience things, you learn, you adjust. Over and over and over.

This is why so many old religious texts seem out of touch with modern times. They reflect the state of human moral reasoning of their time. Time goes on, we gain more experience and learn more, we update our moral guidelines, and the cycle continues.

Sea Breeze: You are standing on Christian ground when you appeal to reason.

This was the problem I ran into, when I was trying to make a case for god. Once I stopped relying on presuppositions, I had no basis for anything I believed. Stating that god is real, or that reason is impossible without god, allowed me to skip past the difficult parts and demand that others disprove or account for something that I did not prove or demonstrate in the first place.

The thing is, even if we grant the presupposition, we now have the ability to reason. And that means we can make determinations about moral behavior without having those rules imposed on us without explanation. I don't have to 'get my own reason.' Using the god-given ability to reason allows me to remove god from the moral equation. If god's own gift allows me to set him aside, then perhaps that is what god wanted all along?

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

slimboyfat: Making money on YouTube is probably a (relatively) transitory phenomenon.

I agree. Trusting that YouTube revenue will keep coming in for any extended period of time is very risky. Not only because tastes change and the landscape for video content can change, but companies like YT have an unpleasant habit of changing the rules on monetization, and those tend to work in favor of the company and not the content creator.

Patreon itself may be gone in twenty years, but I think the subscriber model for direct support of a content creator will still exist. However, it requires a steady stream of content produced on a regular schedule, and Evans seems to be struggling with this at present. He was able to become a big fish in the very small exJW pond. But the atheist 'pond' is vastly larger and more competitive, and the less we say about his singing and comedic abilities, the better.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: Because of this, we are under a sentence of death. We are not God's children. He has absolutly zero obligation to any of us for anything good at all. Your next breath is a kindness from the Lord.

This is the part that worries me. Even if I was loyal and obedient and dedicated to god and his will, I am still in this position. It is, as you note, only due to god's willingness to overlook this that I have any hope of an eternal future. But not a happy one, because even at that point, I am still in that position of deserving nothing from god but death. God's position is absolute. Nothing he or I do can change that.

And we know, from his actions in the book that he inspired, that he is given to abrupt action taken in anger, or 'justice' delivered in a thoroughly brutal fashion. I cannot expect that this would change, as he has lived an eternity and this is who he is. I don't want to spend an eternity wondering when the other shoe will drop, when I live within reach of such a dangerous person.

Sea Breeze: Atheists just can't come up with a plausible explanation of how they got it.

I mentioned this in another discussion. If we can reason out why actions are moral or immoral, no god is necessary. For example, if you were asked to explain why murder is wrong, would your only explanation be "because god says it is"? You wouldn't have any other way to explain why murder is wrong? Or theft? Or deception? Do you view these actions as neutral in the absence of god's moral pronouncement?

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

LMsA: The Patreon spike being unsustainable argument has been supported by three straight 20+ drops since the begging stunt happened in April.

Maybe it shouldn't, but that still amazes me. His support is so fickle, you wonder why some of those supporters bothered at all. He said he needed additional subscribers, but it looks like they offered the equivalent of a one-time donation. Did they not understand what he was asking for? Or are more of the long-term supporters leaving as they finally discover who he really is? How many of them left because of the dropoff in quantity/quality?

30+ gone after everything that has happened the past few months? That's a bad sign. For him, anyway...

15

Samson kills 1,000 Philistine military men with a donkey's jawbone...I think not!

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

the watchtower—study edition | september 2023. study article 37. rely on jehovah, as samson did.

4 consider an example of samson’s trust in jehovah and of the support that god supplied.

on one occasion, a philistine military force had come to capture samson at lehi, evidently in judah.

TonusOH

Simon: They finally catch him by learning the secret being his long hair

Imagine that whole process, as well. The Philistines offer Delilah a small fortune for the secret of Samson's strength. Three times --three times!-- he deceives her and easily escapes an attempted capture... which she announces each time! And yet, though he must know this, she finally nags him until he gives up the secret. And after three humiliating failures, the Philistines still trusted her!

Also, the story of Samson's life in Judges 13-16 is... just a bit insane.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

TonusOH

Badfish: God made everything. He has every right to do as he pleases with his own creation. Just because you—who were made by God—do not understand your maker, it does not mean he does not exist. From our viewpoint, many things seem unjust. But we don’t know everything. He does. And his ways are higher than ours.

This concept frightens me. We describe god as good, and just, and loving. He not only displays these qualities, he personifies them. God is love. No one can be as good as god. His justice is true justice. And so on.

And then, we turn around and claim that his ways are inscrutable to us, and we do not have the understanding necessary to judge his actions. The things that seem unjust to us, only seem so because we don't comprehend god's ways.

In other words, god can do anything, and it is good. He can take any action, and it is done out of love. He can do things that we would roundly and utterly condemn a human for, and it would be a hallmark of justice. So when god drowns the world to no real benefit, it is the loving and just act of a good person. When he instantly strikes down a man for the simple act of trying to steady the ark of the covenant, it is a just act by a loving deity. When he orders his army to sack a city and cut down all of its inhabitants --save for the virgin girls that they can take as wives-- there is nothing wrong with this.

So words like good, kind, loving, and just mean something very different when we apply them to god. They do not represent the expectations we have of a human being. What action could god take that you would consider evil? Or hateful? Or unjust? None. Nothing this being does can be seen as a bad thing.

You expect to spend an eternity with an unpredictable and unstoppable being whose actions --no matter how horrifying-- must be praised. I certainly hope that no such being exists!

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: But, he does desire a relationship with us, because relationship is a requirement of love, his chief attribute.

I don't see how god can personify love, at least not as humans understand it and express it. He does things that we do not expect from a loving person, much less a being of such immense power and freedom to act.

You mention intrinsic versus instrumental value, and I am brought back to a point I made elsewhere before- that this is an example of the idea that god is necessary. That he has to exist. It is a reminder that we cannot positively demonstrate god, we can only do so by some form of a process of elimination. If X is not possible without a god, then a god must exist.

There is an alternative- we don't know enough about X yet. Thus far, anytime we learn about X, we don't find god. This works against the idea of a god who wants a relationship with us, or who sees value in us.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

TonusOH

Journeyman: "Still deciding" - in other words, it must be really bad.

That didn't stop him from posting the first one.

4

"Jehovah Will Help You Deal With Life’s Uncertainties" - WT Study Edition | April 2023

by aqwsed12345 in

i'm talking about paragraph 15 of this article:.

the title of the study article: "jehovah will help you deal with life’s uncertainties".

accordingly, does it count as an "unexpected difficulty" when it turns out that a prophet's declaration made in the name of god does not come true?

TonusOH

It sounds like an attempt to have it both ways. If the prediction they make comes to pass, they can claim that it is evidence that they have Jehovah's favor. If the prediction does not come to pass, they can explain that they didn't claim to be prophets and thus the failed prediction does not imply that they lack God's favor. The WTS has occasionally gone further and accused the rank and file of reading too much into a prediction, and thus having unreasonable expectations.

168

Moral responsibility.

by nicolaou in

no subtlety here, it's going to be obvious where i'm going with this.

please consider the following scenario.. you're seated on a railway platform bench waiting for your train.

a high speed intercity is about to hurtle through without stopping when you see a small child running to the platforms edge!

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: Christians can logically answer this question because of their belief that we are made in the image of a loving God and have intrinsic value.

Do we really have intrinsic value in a universe created by god? God does not need us. No matter how I behave in my lifetime, god could justifiably end my existence. Who would stop him? My behavior, good or ill, does not affect him, it does not change him. It cannot, by definition, since god is already perfect.

Putting aside the difficulty of reconciling his actions with the notion that he personifies love, we can logically recognize that we do not have intrinsic value in a reality where we are created by this being.