Bush has helped out this area.... Our Oil Folks here are making money like mad millionares (and they are) It is Crazy in Central Kansas Oil Derricks are growing like weeds..... Praise God.....Praise Bush....
It has always been like this though when the rest of the country is down in the dumps, Kansas gets rich...

God is with Kansas, it would seem...

Guess I'll start at the beginning. You've defined morality but you've not justified your definition. Why is your definition the constant here? In my argument I justify what is moral by referencing the bible as I believe it is the word of God who is infallible, that's how I justify my morality. It's handed down to me from an indisputable source. Now it's your turn, without God justify why your definition of morality is indisputable.



Any 4 year old Sunday Schooler could tell you God does not inspire evil, Satan does. God gave a list of rules (commandments) and the free-will to chose whether to follow them or not. However, knowing that mankind was incapable of following the strict guidelines he had set forth he sent his son (or rather, himself in the flesh), second Christ, Jesus, to die for the sins of man. So even having committed abominations like murder one who in his heart and soul was truly repentant could be set free from his eternal damnation if only he asks for forgiveness. God is merciful (James 5:11) and would take pity even on those we mortals could never forgive if only they would ask for it.



I don't really feel I need to delve deep into this one, I only offered up the contrast of God's vision of morality and man's vision of morality to stress the absolute ridiculousness of being let off the hook because one thought that it was the "good" thing to do. You know how the saying goes "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."



Judgement is determined by intelligence AND wisdom, two seperate things. Wisdom comes from life experience. Intelligence from indisputable facts one has learned from books and the like. Knowing A^2 + B^2 = C^2 is intelligence, knowing that the salesman adding a $250 fee for undercoating is bullshitting you is wisdom. The wisdom of ages is in the bible so that anyone who seeks it won't make the judgemental mistake of rebelling against God. Those that excercise their free-will and do so indeed deserve to be punished for making that judgemental mistake. However, if it's just the eternity you're concerned about, pick your poison. Catholicism offers up purgatory for some while further review on the soul is conducted. Then your good intentions just might pay off in the end, if enough people pray for you.




Look at everything fantastic in your life. Everything beautiful. Look at the times when things seemed too hard to press forward and yet everything turned out alright. God has made Himself evident to those that wish to see him. It sounds like it is your eagerness to not see him that is making Him so hard to find.



I never said God was worthy of love because he doesn't force you to love Him. I simply contested your belief that he demands it, he doesn't. He gives you choice : a) see what he has given you, love him for it and ask forgiveness for your failings when you have them so that you may eventually join him in the kingdom of heaven or b) believe in him and hate him. Don't believe in him at all. Believe in him, love him, but be proud of your decisions and not ask for his forgiveness. all of which leads to, presumably, spending eternity in Hell. He has demanded nothing. He has given you a choice and though between the two it looks like it would be an obvious pick, alot of people don't get it right away... so he gives you time to come to the right decision. You are absolutely right though, taking away free-will would be immoral... we still have it, don't we?

It all goes back to my first point on justifying morality. God is "good" and "moral" because The Bible has said He is. The Bible is my justification because it is from an infallible source. You're argument is "God doesn't exist" with a sub-argument that "if He exists He's immoral." Now justify your definition of morality.

EDIT:

Guess I'll edit this to throw SlayeR a bone. SlayeR would I be correct in assuming you're an evolutionist? If so, which of the six forms of evolution do you believe in?

Cosmic evolution - the origin of time, space and matter. Big Bang.
Chemical evolution - the origin of higher elements from hydrogen.
Stellar and planetary evolution - Origin of stars and planets.
Organic evolution - Origin of life from inanimate matter.
Macro-evolution - Origin of major organisms.
Micro-evolution - Variations of species within a similar organism.

I am atheist, and I don't give a about since either...
Belive in what u want, but there is no god, u are animal just like we all are, when u die thats the end of your existence, u become food for others. And if there was your god that you belive in, and that u defend, than he is one big sadist taht sodomise you whole your life and finaliy when he kills you, than he gives you all lot of goodies and taht makes you his bitch, he pays u for torchering you, how splended, and if u didn't satisfy his twisted need someone to belive that he exists than he sodomies you for rest of the eternity... woo hoo! !!!PRAISE THE LORD!!! everyone

SlayeR I can't help but get this feeling that you are less trying to have a civilized discussion and more trying to get a rise out of someone or possibly even offend.



What this means SlayeR is that one should attempt discussion with a fool, so as not to make the fool think he has stumped you, but mind that in doing so you don't sink to the fool's level and be viewed as his equal by others. Through your insults I still tried to engage you in the discussion but you have failed to be civil. Lest you make us to look like fools as well I'm going to continue on as if you were never a part of this topic to begin with. Understand? If you'd like to have a civil discussion with Valience and I, I welcome you to organize and compose your thoughts the same as we. Otherwise, if you don't mind terribly, could you allow the two of us to continue our discussion?

haha I didn't even read your and Val's posts since they are 3 meters long, I don't have that much time to spend on reading some empty words, you can call me fool but what I wrote is reallity and you would be a fool to take it as an insult. You have problems with accepting reallity, so you and val may continue to write your giga posts I made my point.

don't...........type........response..........just.........leave........it alone...........will power..............needed

In answer to the main question "I am Here!" I refer you to Rastis blog I spoke to a god today

lol @ Tarnus.

I'd have to say that what Slayer said is truth, but it isn't conducive to debate, which is my goal. I don't believe god exists, but that is impossible to argue, so I'm attacking him from a different perspective by saying that if he does exist, worship should be unnecessary.

So, to continue...



Well, god is all-powerful right? Satan is inferior to him, no? So god allows satan to inspire evil. That's equivalent to doing evil ones self in my book. And anyway, I've really be arguing against any monotheistic god, not necessarily the christian god, so I don't innevitably come to the topic of satan. I'm just addressing any sort of all-powerful deity.

And I've actually never heard that saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." But as you can obviously tell from my argument, I don't think it should be.

Alright... you ask me to justify my definition of morality... Well, you said you got yours from the bible, which is an indisputable source to you. It is not an indisputable source to me. I believe that a collection of mortals wrote the bible. They may have truly believed that they had been inspired by a divine being, they may have set out to improve society by laying down a definition of morality and a system of enforcing it that could not be disproven, or maybe they just set out to play a cruel joke on humanity. I don't know, but I don't believe that the bible is holy.

So really, to me, your definition of morality is not justified. First, understand this.

I get my definition of morality from what I don't actually believe to be an infalliable source, but it's the only source I believe I can put any faith in: my own common sense.

I think it is obvious and common sense that if a person intends to do good, then they are a good person. If they have greedy or lustful intentions, then they are inherently bad, no matter the consequence of their actions. The relationship between intentions and consequences is, as you pointed out, intelligence and wisdom. I don't believe that a person's level of intelligence or wisdom is a decision that person makes. Babies don't just decide how smart they are going to be, just as people don't choose whether or not they are going to become wise as they grow older. Because people do not make this decision for themselves, they cannot be held accountable for it. What they can be held accountable for is their intentions. They can decide if they are going to try to do good or bad, so this is how they should be judged.

Again, I get this from my own common sense. I don't think people should face punishment for what is beyond their control, again, here meaning their intelligence and wisdom, and therefore the realization of their intentions.

I know that to you my common sense will not be good enough, just as to me, your bible is not good enough.

But really, if god exists, was it not he who gave me my common sense? Would it be an insult to him not to use it? Or, back to the initial question of morality, did he give me faulty common sense knowing that it would lead me astray (for he does know everything), and therefore condemn me from birth? Now, back to common sense: I think it would be immoral to create someone whose damnation is innevitable, but that's just me.

I admit, my intelligence is not flawless, but it's all I've got. Humans have proven their untrustworthiness, and for all I know, it was humans who wrote the bible.

I made a reply far longer than it should have been and when I went to preview i was logged out. I lost it all! sigh...



If you give somebody a choice between Coke and Pepsi, they choose Pepsi, and you take the can, smash it into the ground and ask them to choose again, did you ever really give them a choice? Could we really have free will if we only ever had one option for anything. In the Garden of Eden Adam was given a single rule. He chose NOT to obey it. We picked Satan, that's why he exists, that's why God allows him to inspire us, because WE use our free-will to choose it. Even those who don't believe in God are picking Satan.



The rules of a debate are to topple an opponents argument using the facts they themselves present. I have to topple your argument with what you give me, you have to topple mine with what I give you. Of course you don't believe the Bible is infallible, but I do, now it's your job to use the Bible to unjustify it's moral position.



In the first draft of this that was lost I went pretty deep into this part, let's see if I can keep it shorter this time. Let's start with what I was saying before, you don't believe my morality from the bible is just, but at least one of us does. However, it seems neither of us believe your source of morality is infallible. You've admitted that your rock, your foundation, is flawed. So I have to ask, what about your common sense morality do you KNOW is flawed, or do you just have blind faith that it probably is flawed?

I have a hypothetical. Before I get into it let's assume God doesn't exist. No Heaven or Hell. No replays. No extra balls. One credit and that's it. A bunch of men intend to do bad things, thus making them bad men. They go out and each kill a good person, wiping that person off the earth, there is no heaven for that good person, just dust in the wind. Then one guy decide to go vigilante style and kill all those bad men. He has good intentions, but he breaks the law and kills alot of people. Is he good or bad? He gets caught and tried and sentenced to death. Another good man just dust in the wind. Is the judge the bad one here? The Jury? The executioner? The police who caught him? Let's assume he didn't get put to death, but just got multiple life sentences. He'll get to live out the rest of his life being sodomized, beaten, and otherwise tortured by the very people he was dealing his sense of justice to. Our society condemned him to spend the rest of his life being tortured before he is lucky enough to die and rot for eternity. About the same as God condemning a bad person to an eternity in hell. The difference is that God is merciful and will forgive you if only you desire forgiveness.

In the civil war many people were killed fighting for what they believed in. Some for the right to own people as property, some for the belief that a person could not be owned. When two people or groups of people square off and do something that most sensible people know is "bad" (i.e. mass killings), which one is bad. Afterall, they both have good intentions. A person should indeed be judged by the choices he makes, not whether or not the result was as you intended. Especially when guidance to the "good" choices are made available to those that seek them.



Read scripture, even if only a little bit. Genesis. God did not give you common sense. God gave man free-will which they used to disobey his only rule at the time. He forbid man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He wanted man to trust that what he told them was good. Man disobeyed and ate, they stole common sense from God, resulting in their expulsion from paradise. Contrary to what you believe, it was an insult for man to steal common sense from God just like it is an insult to God to suggest he gave you common sense so that it might lead you astray. Man took common sense with their free-will and manipulate it to their liking... but man is fallible and sinful by nature, so their usage of common sense is equally fallible and sinful.

Let's see, you mentioned taking away free-will would be immoral. You claim creating us with the knowledge we will be damned is immoral. So let's observe the other two options. 1) To never have created us at all. Even those that are bad and will spend eternity in hell. Ask them at the end of their life. "If you were given the option to not goto hell, but all those experiences, all the love, all the joy. Everything glorious in the life you lead would be taken from you as if you never had existed at all. Children gone, influence gone, everything. Would you give it all up to avoid hell?" Odds are even one presented with the possibility of hell wouldn't sacrafice their existance to avoid it. 2) To never have let us experience free-will to begin with. Well what use is a person without free-will? A slave. What does God need with slaves if he's all-powerful. Which of these two do you think would have been the moral decision?

God chose to give us free-will because he didn't want slaves, he wanted children. And like any loving parent he set rules for the good of the child. Like any child we push the rules to the limit. We bend them. We break them. We are punished when we do. Does that mean the father doesn't love the son? No, discipline is neccessary to ensure that the freedom won't corrupt. However if the child doesn't grow to understand and respect these rules. If the child decides to rebel, the parent has no choice but to disown him. Weep though the parent does, it's a choice the child must make for themself.



You're wrong, you've got more but intelligence is all you'll accept. Look closely. Where you intelligence gets unsteady and reaches it's limits, faith continues on.

Your ball, Val. Sorry it didn't turn out any shorter than my first draft.

Actually, I don't want brevity. A more in depth argument is a better argument.



I get the rules of debate. I was just pointing out that your definition of morality is as justified in my eyes as yours is in mine.



Well, it is logically impossible for a person to know that their sense is flawwed. If they did, they would immediately amend it. I won't say I have faith that it's flawed, because you'll probably try to turn that around and ask if I have faith that it's flawed, why don't I have faith in god? I could respond to this, but it is easier to use the scientific approach: Because I have been wrong in the past, I must accept the posibility that I am wrong now, though I cannot say for sure either way. I do not think I'm wrong, but it is possible, because I am not all knowing.



Actually, yes, in my opinion, it would be the judge, the jury, the executioner, the police, and all others involved in his sentencing that did bad. This would not necessarily make them bad, because their intentions may not be bad, but in my opinion, they are doing evil. This is just a flaw of the American justice system. The vigil ante definitely did do good, and had good intentions, when the killed the murderers, and thereby saved innocent lives. So he's a good person. That means persecuting him is bad.



Well, as I said, I think the justice system in this case does bad, and god doing the same sort of thing is bad as well. If I were that vigil ante, I would not beg for mercy. I have too much pride for that. I would know that what I did was good, and that the people condemning me were doing bad, and I would not appeal to them for mercy. It's just the way I am. So, in such a case, I would say that god is doing bad. Because he inherently knows what he's doing, his intentions match his actions, and he therefore is bad. I will say that providing the option of forgiveness is good. I would not accept it, but it is good of him to offer the choice. But he is still doing bad, just less bad.



Alright, and yeah, what I said about god giving me common sense was not directed at christianity, but again at just any arbitrary deity, and in many other religions, it is the gods who determine traits of the mortals. The phrasing certainly doesn't work in the case of christianity, but I think there is still a point to be made here.

First, my using what I have is not sinful. I have common sense. Maybe Adam shouldn't have gotten it, but I broke no rules when I received it, unless being born is now a sin. Since a person does not choose to be born, I don't think it should be, but I can't say how you'll see it. Also, I'd say it would have been good of god to give us sense to begin with, since I do see intelligence/common sense as a gift/good thing to have. If I knew that a god existed, and that he intended for me to be intelligent (as the christian god did not), I would be grateful to him.

Next...



Well, I suppose the moral decision would be 1. Number two is certainly not moral. Again, I think it is silly to create a person who is doomed from the start, but if you're going to, the most humane thing to do is to give that person a choice: to have their life and be damned, or to not exist at all. The fairest thing god could do would be to leave the decision up to the most important party involved: the mortal in question.



Ok, what you said is true, but I have not seen evidence of god, so it really doesn't apply. And you seriously cloud up the situation by comparing god to a mortal parent, which I really don't think shoudl be done. Also, I don't think there are any rules, since I don't believe in god in the first place. The child should be made aware of the existence of the rules, certainly. And if there were rules I was aware of, I confess that I would judge them for myself. If I deemed them to be moral, I would obey them. If I deemed them to be immoral, I would break them. I think every person must think for themselves about the morality of what they do and what rules they obey, or else they may find themselves behaving immorally without even intending to; by just going with the flow. Such a person would not be immoral, but it is any moral persons duty to at least try to avoid such a situation.

Under mortal law, if I did know of these rules, and I deemed them to be immoral, and I broke them, and if they truly were moral laws, and I was simply wrong, it would be justified to punish me. I would not be a bad person, but though I may be good at heart, society does not deserve to come to harm at my hands simply because of my error in judgement. Punishing me won't undo the wrongs I did, but it will deter others.

That's mortal law. Not divine law. Now lets consider the implications of divine laws, and respective punishments. In such a situation, I don't think god should condemn someone to an eternity of suffering in hell because of an error in judgement. As I've already stated, I think that would be immoral, for reasons I've already stated. A less severe punishment would not be unwarranted however. But what would be the consequences of such a punishment? The person being good at heart, they should not need punishment to understand that what they did was wrong. Instead, god should simply explain to them the error of their ways. If they truly are a good person, they will understand, and they will ask for forgiveness. If I knew that I had actually done something wrong without realizing it at the time, I would ask for forgiveness, even though it is my opinion that I cannot be held responsible for it. I just think it is the right thing to do.

So punishment should be unnecessary for those pure in heart. But what about the preventive aspect? Won't it help deter others from doing bad? I don't think so. If others are of the same manner of thought as me, they will do what they think is right despite the punishment. If they believe the law is immoral, whether it is or not, and whether they face punishment or not, they will break it. So my punishment did not help them. Instead, they should get the same treatment as me: they should have the error of their ways simply explained to them, and they will ask for forgiveness.

So either way, these rules do not affect those good in heart. Those bad at heart will break them as long as they think that what they are doing is best for them. If they are afraid of punishment, they will not break the law, but this does not change the fact that they are bad at heart. Simply fearing punishment should not make a person worthy of heaven. So in the end, these laws are pointless. They shouldn't affect the good, and they don't redeem the bad. Instead of having this silly system of laws, god should simply cut to the chase and judge us by what we are, that is, our intentions, and not by the end results of our intentions, which are beyond our control.

I can understand you saying that god already knows he is infalliable, but he really shouldn't expect us to believe it from the beginning. That's too much to ask, because, as I said before, I think every person should judge right and wrong for themselves.



Well, no, I don't have faith. Maybe it would be a good thing to have, maybe not, but I don't have it. It could be bad. It could lead a person to throw their life away. Look at radical Islamics. They have faith in their god, and what does it do for them? They blow themselves up and kill other innocents with them. In that case, faith is a bad thing.

I'm sure you understand the rules, I just wanted to make sure you understood the disadvantage you have yourself in in this debate. It's a debate on morality. You are admittedly using what you believe is probably moral. I am using what I believe is infallibly moral. That means with every argument you present you have to accept the fact that it could be fundamentally flawed since, as you said, you have been wrong before. It's a hard hole to debate out of.



You're in the right area, but not on point. It was a trap of sorts though, good eye.



So let's expand upon this. Those involved in the sentencing can't be considered to have had bad intentions. So the vigilante's life is forfeit. Does that mean as long as two good intentioned people go against eachother, one of their lives is expendable? You never did acknowledge my civil war scenario.



Using it is not sinful. Manipulating it to view God as sinful is sinful, or more appropriately put, blasphemous.



Well actually it is. When you are born you are born with original sin. God, knowing as he is, decided this was too unfair a burden to leave on man, so he allowed them from infancy to be washed clean of this sin through baptism.



At the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden they were together with God. Adam was alive to witness the creation of Eve. What more evidence could one possibly need. At this point in time I wouldn't consider common sense or intelligence as good a thing as faith. I would trust that one who could create existence from non-existence would know what was and wasn't good for me.



God created the soul, the parents conceive the child. All goes back to free-will. It was the parents choice to have the child.



I think this is the foundation of your argument here. You probably obey most mortal law moral or no because it's without a doubt real. You know you can be punished for it. However you don't believe in God and thus believe his laws to be far easier to disobey. Then you feel it is immoral for God to give you the punishment that you were clearly informed of because you feel you weren't amply informed of his existence.



God tried this. To punish some in hopes that it would deter others. Read the book of Lamentations, or maybe just the cliff notes. Even so there were still Idolotors, there were still sodomites, there were still blasphemers. Examples deter few, but not many.



Are you familiar with the Tower of Babel. Mortals tried to get close to God by building a tower to heaven. They tried to bypass his way into heaven by making their own, and thus they cursed them by making the people speak different languages. The project fell into chaos. But there are still blasphemers, idolotors, murderers. Lighter penalties don't work either. Nothing will deter the impure from being impure except the will of God, which he of course cannot force upon you without taking away free-will.



If they are truly a good person that would trust the word of God when He explained the error of their ways, then they would be the type of person who would read The Bible and know prior to making their error that it was wrong. The person wouldn't need God to explain it because if they are the type to accept His explanation then they probably already know it and have asked for forgiveness. It is not possible for man to live through life without sinning. God knows and understands this, that's why He doesn't ask you not to sin. He only asks you to repent for your sins.



What happens if a persons intentions change? What if a person does good all his life, but at one point intends to do bad? What if it is half and half? How do you judge a person who's indifferent when it comes to his intent? One way or the other doesn't really concern him?



Okay, let's look at this instance. Radical Islamics are Idolotors, blasphemers, and murderers in the eyes of a Christian God. However they truly believe in their cause, they believe their intentions are good because they are smiting the enemies of their God to honor their family and glorify their own god. By your logic these Radical Islamics should be permitted into heaven by God, if he truly is moral, because they intended to do good. Do you dispute that?

Okay Smarty Pants (plural), Change up on your religion and make the same arguements....(Different Religions) (too many margaritas: made me weak minded and I responded....Damn that TO_ KiLL_YA)

haha, sorry, Lucky Starr, I only know the two arguments, "For Christian God" and "Against Any God." I have no experience arguing for any other diety, so I can't switch it up. Hand around though, this weekend this topic should really get fun.

wow i never thought that this would go this far 40 somemit post's and still counting.

if god is there why doesnt he show himself??

or give a sign??

He Moons us everynight, and has a sunny smile every day....