re: Why can’t we separate Conservative values from religion?

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Since you deflect

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I didn't deflect. I'm being productive ITT and that's the point where we're at.

The point of the question was to get you to acknowledge that I'm being productive, which is not this:

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He must be the arbiter of all threads and if you disagree with him, her, they, it will just continue until you grow tired of responding. Never seen someone with such a complete lack of humility.

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or this

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argues for the sake of hearing themself speak.

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So, again

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Do you think slavery is "morally neutral" too?

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Maybe out of context b/c I'm not reading all 20 pages.

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But for some reason we can’t separate those great Christian values from religion.

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Because you are describing religion. Its like saying why can you separate religion from religion. Separate the values and incorporate them into a new religion if you want (that's what you would be doing).

.. an example from SFP

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All slavery is immoral

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is a religious claim by definition. Unless you want to logic your way to this answer in which case you walk the religious claim up the next rung of the ladder.

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Because you are describing religion.

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The point is that it doesn't have to describe religion.

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All slavery is immoral

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is a religious claim by definition.

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So now you believe claiming believing that slavery is moral is a tenet of the Christian religion?

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Unless you want to logic your way to this answer in which case you walk the religious claim up the next rung of the ladder.

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What does this mean? What "next rung of the ladder"?

No I don't believe slavery is morally neutral.

The text of the Old Testament does not invent slavery or present it as an ideal moral state; rather, it sets rules for a practice that was already universal in the ancient Near East.

Hebrew servants had specific protections and were usually released after six years or during the Year of Jubilee (Exodus 21:2, Leviticus 25:39–41). Foreign slaves from surrounding nations faced fewer legal restrictions on permanent ownership and could be passed down as property (Leviticus 25:44–46).

Mosaic law placed legal boundaries on the mistreatment of slaves, such as granting freedom if a master permanently injured a servant's eye or tooth (Exodus 21:26–27). Kidnapping a person to sell them into slavery was punishable by death (Exodus 21:16).

Many scholars and theologians argue that the Old Testament accommodated the social realities of the ancient world while embedding moral seeds—such as the creation of all humans in God's image and the memory of slavery in Egypt—that ultimately pointed toward human equality and freedom.

You argue that by permitting chattel slavery for foreigners, establishing rules for owning human property, and failing to issue a blanket moral condemnation, the bible implicitly condoned the institution.

We can talk about how the New Testament addresses the issue if you'd like.

What are your personal beliefs?

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So lets select an ideal set of "ethics, morals, beliefs, worldviews, etc" but not call it religion? O

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Yeah, sure.

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Or we could use the existing word for this.

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"Religion" denotes much more than what you just described.

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simply pointing out that saying "X is immoral" is explicitly a religious claim unless you are drawing on another set of higher order principles that would constitute your religious beliefs.

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False choice

Not a relevant question. Let's stick to the topic.

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It's most definitely relevant to the topic.

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Not at all. I'm anti-left and I can discuss all sorts of leftism. My personal beliefs aren't relevant.

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. This is what I mean, you respond the same way when people question your political leanings.

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My political leanings are well known and have been open for 20 years

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The basis of a good debate is usually built upon a foundation of understanding where your perspective is coming from.

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In terms of the ideas being discussed, sure. My stance about morality being developed via societal trial and error is out there (and I responded that way intentionally for this reason).

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Please elaborate

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on what? that is pretty clear, and obviously true.

Not groundbreaking at all. That was the entire point of Nietzche's "God is Dead" he is criticizing secularists for tossing away religion as society's primary mover, while keeping things wholly dependent on that religion. Things like objective morality, absolute truth, etc.

Reply Part I

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Quantum mechanics is something, not nothing.

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Yeah, that's what I said. That was my point as to why it's not valid.

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I suspect you misunderstood/confabulated such quotes that the universe literally sprang out of "nothing".

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I suspect you don't know how to use Google.

Those people make those claims when we all know they don't really mean "nothing," as I posted earlier. That doesn't mean they don't still say it.

Here's a video with it in the title and it quotes a couple of the people I listed. A few minutes into the video it tells the truth about what "nothing" actually means, but that didn't stop the guy from entitling it, "How Could The Universe Come From Nothing?" nor did it stop the people (who know better) from issuing the quotes in the video.

YouTube

Your claim is that people who know better don't make that claim. It's obvious that they do. Maybe you can tell me why they do it. My theory is that they are being intentionally disingenuous to influence those who don't know better and will take the statements at face value.

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Oh really?

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Yes, really. Because there is no alternative. The fact that you posted a laughing emoji tells me that you are relatively ignorant on the subject.

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Using that same logic I can say "Science also says matter can't be created, so matter has to have always existed (no creation event)".

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You could, except that mathematics tells us that that is impossible. I posted it earlier...are you not aware of the BGV Theorum?

The Borde–Guth–Vilenkin (BGV) theorem states that any universe with an average expansion rate greater than zero along its past geodesics (which ours conforms to) cannot be past-eternal and must have a past boundary or a beginning.

Read what I posted again. I said, GIVEN WHAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW FROM SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS, the universe was created. Mathematics says it can't be past-eternal and must have had a beginning. Simple logic says (based on what science tells us about the origin of the universe) that beginning couldn't have been the result of natural forces interacting—even you admitted that earlier in the thread.

So how was my statement wrong?