re: Stephen Hawking Dead - Hawking Radiation Proves Existence of God

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It isn’t a matter of whether or not I “get it.” I do get it, it just doesn’t work. It isn’t compelling when other Apologists use it, and it’s not compelling now. Your belief in his transcendence does not matter to his claimed objectivity. Joan Osborne does not matter to his claimed objectivity. There is no objective morality with God. It’s opinion with claimed authority.

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I have claimed that God's moral law is an objective source of morality for humans because it is a solitary standard that is applied to all humans universally (not subject to individual feelings or opinions) and enforced by the law-giver. Your argument seems to be that God's law isn't objective because God isn't objective. That misses the point altogether because objectivity as we are discussing it is something that transcends individual human opinion or experience and God's law applies here making it objective as it relates to us regardless of whether or not God is ontologically objective where we aren't.

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Your examples continue to degrade in quality. A referee is even worse than your attempts to use the law. He doesn’t have objectivity just because he says he has objectivity. He has authority, granted to him by the organization that sets the rules that he must follow. Unfortunately for you, God sets those rules and makes those claims, and it leads to nothing more than circularity.

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My examples are illustrative and given to make a specific point. You seem to care more about where the analogies break down than where they matter for making the point. In this case, my point is that in a game, there is an objective standard that is applied to all participants and that no one can make up their own rules whenever they want without recourse by the judge/referee. That's how God's moral law is. He makes the rules and enforces them. There is no exact human corollary to God so any illustration provided will fall short. Get past that.

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It wasn’t unintentional. You aren’t the first to make these attempts, and you won’t be the last. Really, all that you did was admit that you didn't need me to explain it, which validates my choice not to spend time doing so.

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Of course it wasn't unintentional. I was making fun of your desire to deride my faith by talking about gaps while not offering anything to support your claim. While I'm happy to discuss those allegations, I'd rather not because it always ends the same way: "[claim 1]", "rebuttal", "ok but what about [claim 2]?", "rebuttal", "ok but what about [claim 3]?", and so on without conceding ground on anything and just trying to play a game of gotcha. I'm glad you don't want to play that game because I don't either. Not because I'm incapable of refutation, but because it's tedious and I'd rather continue talking about philosophical issues like morality.

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Reality isn’t a lie. We have what we have. You have faith that you believe supersedes knowledge.

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I'm not denying "reality" or "knowledge", just your interpretation of it. I believe reality is something different than what you believe it is and I believe truth supersedes lies.

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You are talking about claims of fact surrounding a subjective story. Only one of us has used the word “if” repetitively. That’s the first and best argument for my position.

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We are both talking about claims of fact, or rather we are both making truth claims and discussing the merits and demerits of each other's claims. I believe your truth claims are morally bankrupt and not an acceptable standard for a civilized society.

I use "if" because that's sometimes necessary when making an argument. Conditional statements help people understand logical outcomes of claims made when taken to their natural conclusions. I'm more than happy to stop using the word "if" and tell you consistently that what I believe to be true is actually true without using conditional statements about it, but I was doing that for your sake since you don't believe that the object of my faith is true.

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Explaining it to you is not the same as defending it. You’ve done nothing more than provide a definition pulled from Google, coupled with an incomplete understanding and attempts to redefine the term. I don’t need to defend anything if you can’t even understand it.

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You have certainly been defending your position while attacking mine. That is how a debate works. You've been defending yourself by saying that I don't actually know what you believe regarding moral relativism. Saying I have an incomplete understanding of the term is a defense because it is meant to lessen my attacks. If I'm ignorant of what it is I'm speaking about, no one should take my statements seriously because they aren't based in truth, just opinion. Ironically, statements based on opinion are all that is necessary for moral truth to exist in your relativistic worldview.

And yes, I do understand it just fine, like I've said. How about this: why not just give me your definition of moral relativism again and I'll use that as the basis for my refutation of it? Apparently you think "google" (more like the various dictionaries, encyclopedias, and philosophers that google connects us to) is insufficient though everything I've read in preparation for this discussion aligns exactly with what I've learned over the years.

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Your beliefs don’t excuse you from reality.

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Your beliefs don't excuse you from reality, either, but I haven't made a claim to the contrary. We differ on what is reality.

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It’s a story, and one that its writers didn’t bother to keep consistent.

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It's a narrative of the truth of God and His relationship with human beings. It's communication, and it is consistent with the underlying truths that it reveals to us.

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My worldview is true. It can be nothing but true. You likely can’t even define my worldview that you are making claims of truth about. Something that has meaning to you doesn’t necessarily have meaning in the discussion.

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Your worldview is false. From what I've deduced thus far, your worldview is based on presuppositions of relativity of truth and morality, materialism, and humanistic naturalism. You reject that that objective truth exists and all that does exist is the material and that which can be studied empirically through the scientific method.

Am I wrong, and if so, how would you describe your basic presuppositions that dictate how you understand how you perceive the world around you? Understanding worldview is fundamental to discussion. Otherwise we are arguing about symptoms rather than root causes.

We are talking about morality and whether or not it is objective or subjective at its core. If it is subjective, then my opinion of morality is pertinent to this discussion because it has to be, just as your opinion of morality has to be pertinent. In a worldview of moral relativism, moral truth is defined by the opinions and preferences of the individual. Since I'm an individual, my moral truth is defined by my opinions and preferences. Therefore, what I believe regarding morality is true and has to be true, even if it's just true for me. But even so, if it's only true for me, it carries equal weight to whatever you believe about morality because there is no objective standard to compare our moral codes to in order to judge which one is "better" or "worse".

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We aren’t discussing objective truth, either. We’re discussing objective morality.

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We are discussing objective truth. I'm saying that God's moral code is an objective reality and objective truth which requires the existence of objective truth to begin with.

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Yea, and?

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and... it's important to note when the argument is that they kept great records so therefore anything stated as historical fact that we don't have a record of is false. My point is that their great record keeping is only relevant if we have all of their records. In order to prove a contradiction, we have to have proof of two statements that are contradictory. If we are missing records of one statement, can't prove the records of the other statement that we have are contradictory.

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That doesn't give you the room to just make things up.

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Who is saying that Luke is making it up?

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There is a census, a well documented census, that fits every detail Luke mentioned. It also fits the historical context of Judea in 6 AD. It's clear to anyone who's looking at this reasonably that that's the census Luke is referring to. The only people who do not see it that way are the ones trying to force a round peg into a square hole and are insistent that it'll fit because the Bible says it'll fit.

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I think it's important to try to fit that peg if you think the Bible has to be accurate, which most Christians agree that it is. It is incumbent on Christians to provide an answer and so far there isn't a flat out contradiction to the text unless it is assumed that the historical records we have are what Luke is talking about. Just because "it fits" doesn't mean it's what Luke was referring to, but I can see why people would want to disprove the validity of the account without accepting a clear contradiction doesn't exist.

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Quirinius was off fighting the Homonadenses hundreds of miles away between 12-1 BC. You cannot shoe horn a second governorship of his to fit around Herod's death in 4 BC. Even if you could you're still missing a Roman census of Judea, which, as I've already argued, would be against Rome's traditional treatment of independent nations paying them tribute.

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What this boils down to is "absence of evidence is evidence of absence", which is why I keep harping on the fact that we don't have but a small portion of the records kept by Rome. The link I provided previously goes into great detail explaining the complaints you've levied here and how it could be possible for Quirinius to be given a title by Luke to describe his presence and authority during the time of Christ's birth.

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I don't see how mentioning being born in a barn would be counter to the narrative of painting Jesus as the "New Moses" nor do I see how mentioning the three wise men who came to visit Jesus would be counter to the narrative Luke wanted to push (painting Jesus as King of the Gentiles). You'll have to explain that one to me.

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It's not that those things would be counter to the message but that they were left out by the authors because those events didn't add to that narrative or message that the author wanted to relay about the life of Jesus. All four gospels together paint a complete picture of Jesus Christ and His mission based on the emphasis of each one. Matthew wants to show how Jesus' flight to Egypt fulfills Jewish prophecy. Luke only cared about Jesus' parents obeying the Jewish law and thus excludes the trip to Egypt as not necessary to the background, for example.

Remember that a contradiction only exists when A and Not-A exist at the same time and in the same sense. If Matthew and Luke provide different accounts based on the information given or left out, that isn't necessarily a contradiction. Silence neither proves or disproves a statement. Also, the different accounts are only problematic if both authors are claiming to provide the full story and that those things left out of the accounts are necessary bits of information that are central to the story.

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I have claimed that God's moral law is an objective source of morality for humans because it is a solitary standard that is applied to all humans universally (not subject to individual feelings or opinions) and enforced by the law-giver. Your argument seems to be that God's law isn't objective because God isn't objective. That misses the point altogether because objectivity as we are discussing it is something that transcends individual human opinion or experience and God's law applies here making it objective as it relates to us regardless of whether or not God is ontologically objective where we aren't.

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Yes, you certainly have claimed that, but you've offered nothing compelling to support your claim. It isn't an objective source of morality, and can't be an objective source of morality. The only thing you've accomplished is to shift the source of your morality, which does not give it any objectivity. It never will, and it never can.

God isn't objective because God claims to be objective. He can't be. It's circular, and there's nothing to break that other than "God says." Worse, it's not even what God says. It's what relatively ignorant men said thousands of years ago. We aren't even getting the information firsthand.

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My examples are illustrative and given to make a specific point. You seem to care more about where the analogies break down than where they matter for making the point. In this case, my point is that in a game, there is an objective standard that is applied to all participants and that no one can make up their own rules whenever they want without recourse by the judge/referee. That's how God's moral law is. He makes the rules and enforces them. There is no exact human corollary to God so any illustration provided will fall short. Get past that.

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Your examples are terrible. First, there is a large amount of subjectivity when officiating a game. It's even spelled out that way for the officials. Also, what happens when the participants and spectators do not agree with the rules? The same thing that happens with religion. We change the rules. So that actually is a great point, but for my position, not yours. That means we end up with subjectivity on a different level.

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Of course it wasn't unintentional. I was making fun of your desire to deride my faith by talking about gaps while not offering anything to support your claim. While I'm happy to discuss those allegations, I'd rather not because it always ends the same way: "[claim 1]", "rebuttal", "ok but what about [claim 2]?", "rebuttal", "ok but what about [claim 3]?", and so on without conceding ground on anything and just trying to play a game of gotcha. I'm glad you don't want to play that game because I don't either. Not because I'm incapable of refutation, but because it's tedious and I'd rather continue talking about philosophical issues like morality.

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If your rebuttals are as weak as they've been on everything else we're discussing, it's not difficult to see why those discussions end the same way every time. I think you are incapable of refuting those points convincingly, but I'm still fine with ignoring that nonsense.

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I'm not denying "reality" or "knowledge", just your interpretation of it. I believe reality is something different than what you believe it is and I believe truth supersedes lies.

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Of course you are. The only counter you can offer to that is that you believe differently. That's fine, but your beliefs do not alter reality.

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We are both talking about claims of fact, or rather we are both making truth claims and discussing the merits and demerits of each other's claims. I believe your truth claims are morally bankrupt and not an acceptable standard for a civilized society.

I use "if" because that's sometimes necessary when making an argument. Conditional statements help people understand logical outcomes of claims made when taken to their natural conclusions. I'm more than happy to stop using the word "if" and tell you consistently that what I believe to be true is actually true without using conditional statements about it, but I was doing that for your sake since you don't believe that the object of my faith is true.

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My claims are based on reality, or what is actually happening and what can be observed. Yours are based on ancient writings that are inconsistent at best. I'm just fine with where we each sit on that point. You use "if" because you must use "if." You have nothing valuable that supports your positions, so you are left to rely on conditions. It has to be an "if" because "is" does not exist in your faith.

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You have certainly been defending your position while attacking mine. That is how a debate works. You've been defending yourself by saying that I don't actually know what you believe regarding moral relativism. Saying I have an incomplete understanding of the term is a defense because it is meant to lessen my attacks. If I'm ignorant of what it is I'm speaking about, no one should take my statements seriously because they aren't based in truth, just opinion. Ironically, statements based on opinion are all that is necessary for moral truth to exist in your relativistic worldview.

And yes, I do understand it just fine, like I've said. How about this: why not just give me your definition of moral relativism again and I'll use that as the basis for my refutation of it? Apparently you think "google" (more like the various dictionaries, encyclopedias, and philosophers that google connects us to) is insufficient though everything I've read in preparation for this discussion aligns exactly with what I've learned over the years.

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Wrong. Explaining isn't defending. I don't know how I can say that any more plainly.

Everything I've said has been accurate, as demonstrated by your continued inability to explain moral relativism. You've parroted others, including those dictionaries and encyclopedias, but that doesn't mean you understand it. If you did understand it, we likely wouldn't even be discussing the point.

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Your beliefs don't excuse you from reality, either, but I haven't made a claim to the contrary. We differ on what is reality.

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No, they don't, but you're the only one trying to do it.

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It's a narrative of the truth of God and His relationship with human beings. It's communication, and it is consistent with the underlying truths that it reveals to us.

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It's a story, written by ignorant men thousands of years ago. It's exactly what we'd likely get today if we asked ignorant men to write a story about a particular deity, then denied them any information or communication with other writers.

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Your worldview is false.

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Prove it.

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Am I wrong

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Yes. For starters, I've never once suggested or even implied that objective truth does not exist or that the only thing that does or can exist is that which can be observed or studied. This is why I say you don't have the understanding to make these points. You don't even bother to understand something before you attack or reject it. Do that, and the discussion can progress.

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We are discussing objective truth. I'm saying that God's moral code is an objective reality and objective truth which requires the existence of objective truth to begin with.

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No, we aren't. We're discussion objective morality, which is not the same as objective truth. Objective truth can exist without the objective morality that you claim to have been given. You're intentionally trying to conflate the two in order to gain validity, and it's not happening.

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Yes, you certainly have claimed that, but you've offered nothing compelling to support your claim.

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I'm stating what I believe to be true. How compelling it is is largely based on the individual hearing/reading the message. Some statements and arguments are very compelling to one person and not compelling at all to someone else. I don't really care how compelling it is to you, frankly. Your ability to be persuaded by an argument or statement doesn't make that argument or statement any more or less truthful.

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It isn't an objective source of morality, and can't be an objective source of morality. The only thing you've accomplished is to shift the source of your morality, which does not give it any objectivity. It never will, and it never can.

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I don't know how many different ways I can say this but whether or not a moral source is "objective" is determined by its relationship to humans, since we are the ones who apply morality to our lives, not based on the supposed innate objectivity of the creator of that morality, though I think it could be argued that the God of the Bible is an ontologically objective moral arbiter since morality stems from His character rather than His opinion, which seems to be what you keep trying to hang your hat on to say God isn't objective.

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God isn't objective because God claims to be objective. He can't be. It's circular, and there's nothing to break that other than "God says." Worse, it's not even what God says. It's what relatively ignorant men said thousands of years ago. We aren't even getting the information firsthand.

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Like I said, I think God's ontological objectivity is based on His character, not simply because He says so, but even if that were the case, circularity would not be a logical fallacy in this instance as there cannot be any greater authority or cause to appeal to. At some point all arguments become "circular" (well, not really circular but not being able to be reduced or appealed further) as first principles eventually become the "why" or "because".

Regarding the transmission of the message, Christians (and Jews, for the OT) understand that the written word was transmitted by the inspiration of God, meaning that God used a supernatural act to ensure that the message was relayed as intended and without error when it was initially written. Given that assumption, the Bible becomes the literal word of God and we don't have to ask for a different or more direct source.

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Your examples are terrible. First, there is a large amount of subjectivity when officiating a game. It's even spelled out that way for the officials. Also, what happens when the participants and spectators do not agree with the rules? The same thing that happens with religion. We change the rules. So that actually is a great point, but for my position, not yours. That means we end up with subjectivity on a different level.

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You clearly don't care about the point being made so I'll leave it at what I said. You can pick nits all you like but you're not really addressing my point.

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If your rebuttals are as weak as they've been on everything else we're discussing, it's not difficult to see why those discussions end the same way every time. I think you are incapable of refuting those points convincingly, but I'm still fine with ignoring that nonsense.

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Thank you for sharing your personal opinion on the matter.

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Of course you are. The only counter you can offer to that is that you believe differently. That's fine, but your beliefs do not alter reality.

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No, I'm not. I'm denying your interpretation of reality just like you are denying mine. Your beliefs also do not alter reality and all you have to counter is that you believe differently, as well. People want to claim belief in moral relativism but they don't want to deal with the consequences of that philosophy so they live inconsistently with what they claim to believe.

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My claims are based on reality, or what is actually happening and what can be observed. Yours are based on ancient writings that are inconsistent at best. I'm just fine with where we each sit on that point. You use "if" because you must use "if." You have nothing valuable that supports your positions, so you are left to rely on conditions. It has to be an "if" because "is" does not exist in your faith.

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Your claims are based on your subjective worldview and I don't think you really understand that yet. Hopefully you will soon.

I use "if" for the sake of argument, as I've explained and as you seem to not understand (par for the course, apparently). "Is" does exist in my faith and I only use "if" for your own sake so we can have a productive dialogue. Perhaps I should be less gracious towards you since you interpret it as weakness in my position.

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Wrong. Explaining isn't defending. I don't know how I can say that any more plainly.

Everything I've said has been accurate, as demonstrated by your continued inability to explain moral relativism. You've parroted others, including those dictionaries and encyclopedias, but that doesn't mean you understand it. If you did understand it, we likely wouldn't even be discussing the point.

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Wrong. Moral relativism has been something discussed for ages and it's a simple concept to understand. Perhaps the reason you don't accept that I know what I'm talking about is that you don't actually understand it. I've not only given strict definitions of it but have described it in summation as well as discussed the ramifications of the worldview, which are things that people without understanding of a topic have no ability to do. I'm starting to think that because you disagree with me that you think I have no idea what I'm talking about. That's a sad position to take as it assumes that if only one is educated enough they will become singular in mind in every respect, and that's a truly ignorant opinion. Hopefully you don't actually think that way.

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No, they don't, but you're the only one trying to do it.

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False. I'm not trying to excuse myself from reality. I'm telling you that reality is aligned with my beliefs. It's why I say we disagree on what reality actually is.

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It's a story, written by ignorant men thousands of years ago. It's exactly what we'd likely get today if we asked ignorant men to write a story about a particular deity, then denied them any information or communication with other writers.

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You're wrong, but you've already shown that you don't know any other way than to be wrong, so I suppose that's forgivable; it's just your nature, apparently.

The Bible was written by the inspiration of God and therefore it doesn't require geniuses to communicate, just people who knew how to read and write. Infinite knowledge of the inner workings of the universe isn't a prerequisite to communicating spiritual truth. Because of that, your criticisms of the writers of the Bible are moot.

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Yes, it is. Scare tactics don't change that. The statement that I haven't face judgement carries no weight here. You are confusing the way you say things ought to be with the way things actually are. Your disagreement with the way things are doesn't change reality. In reality, we have moral relativism.

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No, we don't have moral relativism in reality. I reject your interpretation of reality. Reality is that there is a judge who judges people according to His objective moral standard. It's not a matter of what I think ought to be but what I believe actually is. In other words, reality involves an objective moral standard regardless of whether or not you agree with it.

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I didn't say you were "trying to scare" me. You use them because that's what worked on you, and that's what your religion does. It's what most religions do. It isn't about fear in 2018, it's about cognitive conditioning.

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Now who is making false assumptions? "Fear" didn't "work" on me because I didn't come to faith through fear. My eyes were opened to the truth and they can't be closed again. I don't live in fear now and I didn't live in fear at any point in my past. It's why I'm saying that telling the truth is not a scare tactic. A scare tactic is about manipulation through fear. I'm simply telling the truth of the matter and it so happens to create a fearful response in a lot of people. Intent is everything when determining if something is a scare tactic, though.

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None of that refutes my point, either.

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I'm confused. I thought your "point" was "No it isn't. That's what your Bible teach you. That isn't reality. Most people do live that way, whether they or you ever admit it." This was in direct response to me saying hedonism is selfish (it is) and leads to destruction of others for the sake of personal pleasure and perceived happiness (it does). You didn't refute that. You just said that isn't reality and most people don't live that way. I even said that I'm glad that most people don't live that way (consistently) even though they claim to agree with the philosophy, because they don't think it through to it's ultimate conclusion. If they did, they'd probably abandon it entirely.

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No it isn't. It's just one point of many to illustrate how Christianity and the Bible were invented and put together.

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Considering it doesn't contradict or refute anything claimed by Christianity I'd say you should probably pick a different way to make the illustration as it doesn't add anything.

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Better. Now, use this, rather than what you want it to be in order to support your agenda.

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No thanks. I've known what moral relativism was all along. You just didn't process what I was saying because you were hung up on trying to prove me wrong. I'll keep approaching it the same way I have been, because my understanding of the subject is correct.

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I've never said that I have a basis to objectively say that. Neither do you. That's the point. Everyone is entitled to create their own morality, and in fact, that's exactly what we do. Your ice cream example is another to add to the list of poor offerings. All you're doing with your religion is saying that vanilla is better, and I'm correct because God's favorite is also vanilla. That is just another preference, only you say that it carries some amount of authority over everything that exists.

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You want to have meaningful conversation yet you use meaningless words and concepts. Subjective morality is meaningless because there is no point of unity or agreement except by chance if you happen to meet up with someone who happens to like your flavor of morality. It carries no weight, which is my point. People don't live that way, though, which is also my point. The fact that people make moral judgments against others and try to change their behaviors is proof that people do not live consistently with a morally relativistic worldview. In order to make a judgement, you have to have a standard to judge by. If the standard only applies to yourself, it makes no sense to judge anyone else by it.

The ice cream analogy is as good as any other in talking about relative morality because, again, that philosophy reduces morality to a preference. A preference can be anything but I chose ice cream because it's understandable and relatable. God's morality isn't simply a preference, though, since it embodies God's very character. It's not just something He likes better than something else (a preference). It's objectively good, which is categorically different from a preference.

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Sure, but the difference is that I'm correct, and certainly so when following the flow of the discussion.

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You aren't correct, though.