re: Why do American Christians support Israel?

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What I care about is how the religious beliefs of large groups of people impact me and my country. For instance, my interest in Islam has nothing to do with the religion itself. It’s the fact that aspects of the religion seem to disproportionately predispose its followers to becoming honocidal lunatics

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Well, with organized religion having less and less political sway by the day, I don’t think you have to worry about that. You have far too many other things vying to infringe on your liberties.

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I only support Israel because Muslims are extremists who tend to create terrorist.

The religion is incompatible with western values.

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America funds and supports various terrorism around the world so long as it aligns with its interests. So it’s hard to say Islam is incompatible with western values.

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Christianity is the last of this country’s problems.

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It’s certainly not the biggest problem, but in as much as the socially conservative Christian political lobby is cumulatively the largest in the world it still represents a major issue. Like I said, the fact that this lobby is right on some issues for the wrong reasons doesn’t prevent them from posing a major risk. The mental algorithms in use are fundamentally flawed and based on a reality that doesn’t exist, which means they are prone to error.

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I mean, nobody HAS to have a logically consistent worldview.

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I disagree entirely. While people often times act contrary to their worldviews, the worldview, itself, must be coherent, otherwise it's irrational. An irrational worldview is not something to be desired.

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Most of us have at least a couple blind spots where the consistency of our logic comes into question.

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Blind spots, yes, but what I and others here are trying to do is point out the blind spots. If you agree that your worldview cannot provide rational basis for objective moral reasoning and yet act as though it can anyway, that's irrational and incoherent and not something that a rational person should pursue.

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But I'm arguing that certain moral ideas within society are necessary for our society to exist as is, regardless of why that is the case.

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I agree, yet the basis for those moral ideas is what is in question. If we know what is right yet reject the only consistent and rational basis for that standard, we are acting irrationally. Rational and irrational worldviews are not on the same playing ground and shouldn't be treated as such.

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You just happen to believe they represent a universal objective morality ordained by a deity. There are other potential explanations for why this would be however. It could be a pure blind accident of evolutionary biology and still explain exactly what we see.

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No, a blind accident of evolutionary biology cannot provide a rational basis for objective moral reasoning. Humans who have evolved by dumb luck and chance have no objective standard for moral reasoning, and thus any view of morality we would have would be purely subjective and arbitrary at its core.

Can you have a society that arbitrary chooses "moral values" that we have? Sure, but the point is that those "moral values" are no better or worse than those that include rape, theft, and murder as moral necessity or moral goodness. It means that while a society can choose the values we have, it has no basis to condemn the values that a Nazi Germany has, or Islamic Iran.

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You continuing to opine about this "stealing from a christian worldview" remains meaningless because these ideas aren't unique to christianity and in fact predate it by thousands of years, and because all you're doing is looking at reality as is and ascribing supernatural order to it. Your assumption that our moral realities could only exist if God exists is baseless.

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Stealing from a Christian worldview is exactly what's happening. The timing doesn't matter, only the objective reality.

What you don't seem to understand is that if the Christian beliefs are true, then God's moral law didn't start 2,000 years ago with Jesus, nor did it start a few thousand year prior to that with Moses. It would have existed for eternity and be a reality for all humanity for all time. The revelation from God in the Bible is merely explaining a reality that existed prior to the revelation, itself.

And yes, when an individual or a society acts as though moral absolutes exist, they have to borrow from a Christian worldview to do so (even if they aren't aware of it) because there would be no way to have a rational basis or foundation for the moral absolutes they hold to otherwise.

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So again, yes, under a consistent atheistic worldview there is no true universal and objective moral code. I agree many atheists are inconsistent when they argue otherwise. What you continue to fail to address however is WHY a universal moral code must exist to explain reality as we see it. Why is it that a reality governed entirely by subjective morality, where certain behaviors are selected for due to their predilection for generating successful societies with evolutionary advantages for our species, cannot exist? Such a society would be indistinguishable from our perspective from one governed by genuine universal morality, because the behaviors we label as moral and immoral would be programmed into our genetics.

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The key here is "due to their predilection for generating successful societies with evolutionary advantages for our species". This, right here is the standard that you have chosen to adhere to for judging actions as moral or immoral. The standard, itself, is arbitrary, as any other standard could be utilized, such as the destruction of society or disfunction within society for the sake of a smaller group of those in power. Also, the word "successful" in relation to societies is subjective and others might have a different perspective of what makes society "successful".

In a materialistic, evolutionary worldview where moral absolutes are impossible, you can choose any standard for success you want, and there are many ways to apply morality subjectively to achieve the same goal of a successful society. You can enslave certain people, you can kill certain people, and you can steal from certain people, all while maintaining order within society at large.

There were successful societies in Europe, America, and in countries all over the world to varying degrees where chattel slavery was practiced. There were successful societies that practiced human sacrifice and temple worship that included forced prostitution (Babylon, in particular, required all women to have sex with a stranger at least once in their lives as part of temple worship, regardless of how they felt about it). "Successful" societies can turn a blind eye towards all sorts of things that we view as immoral today, and some things we tolerate other successful societies abhor (such as individual gun ownership, for instance).

So yes, it matters what the standard is for moral and where it comes from. As rational creatures, we need to be rationally consistent with what be believe to be true, and that includes our own moral reasoning.

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You’re never going to square this circle.

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I can and have. You must have missed the discussion.

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Why not the Buddhist worldview?

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The Buddhist worldview is incoherent. They believe that Nirvana is a state without distinctions, and without distinctions, you can be in Nirvana and not in Nirvana at the same time (a logical contradiction). Distinctions are important, and if you do away with them, you do away with rationality. If you have an irrational worldview, it provides no basis for moral reasoning.

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The Buddhist worldview is incoherent. They believe that Nirvana is a state without distinctions, and without distinctions, you can be in Nirvana and not in Nirvana at the same time (a logical contradiction). Distinctions are important, and if you do away with them, you do away with rationality. If you have an irrational worldview, it provides no basis for moral reasoning.

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Now do every other religion

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we tend to choose

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We don’t “tend” to choose, especially not in the sense your describing. We choose what our brains determine us to choose.

Take every choice you’ve ever made in your entire life - you would make the same choice every single time under the same conditions. If we had the ability to go back in time and watch you relive the past few days over and over again, you’d post the same replies in this thread word for word in every single instance (absent the effect of something like quantum mechanics). Certainly you were free to choose otherwise, but you didn’t because you had no control over your genetics and the prior causes that led you to make the choices you made.

Choices, efforts, intentions, and reasoning influence our behavior, but they are themselves part of a chain of causes that precede conscious awareness and over which we exert no ultimate control.

You are free to choose as you will, but you cannot will what you will. In this way, there’s no meaningful difference between “free will” and “free volition.” In both cases, the freedom you’re describing is illusory.

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. The Jews did not directly order the killing of Jesus. Pontius Pilate gave in to the demands of the Jewish court who accused Jesus of blasphemy. Simply put the Jewish people did not recognize him as the "savior" but an upstart who threatened the "status quo".

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I mean Pilate held out a known murderer juxtaposed to Jesus and said "who should i set free?" and the Jewish crowd said Barabas. He then washed his hands of it.

Trying to pull away the blame of Jesus' crucifixion from the Jews is a pretty weird flex. It's not like most in the Christian faith hold it against Jewish people 2000 years ago or today.

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Jesus's roots will forever tie him to the Jews regardless of whether they consider him the messiah or not. Putting aside politics both Jews and Christians worldwide share the same family values and hard work ethics in addition to believing in "God the Father".

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no argument.

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When you say,” church tradition” I assume you mean the Roman Catholic Church?
Since their traditions are ever changing and evolving to mirror society ( something real truth never does) how can it be followed?

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Not so much, and one of the biggest criticisms I have of the Roman Catholic Church. The Orthodox who have changed the least perhaps represent the closest to an ideal model.