Saturday, January 02, 2010

Abraham's Test

I hope to publish something on this in the next day or two. Bear with me. Meanwhile, on the other posts, I can feeeeeeel the love!

Duke on!


9 comments:

Joe_Agnost said...

In another thread RkBall wrote about Abraham's test:

"Abraham's attempted sacrificwe of his son,

A divine test that turned out well."

So I guess that's how Ball feels about it.

I point to this story as an example of the horrific morals depicted in the bible by god.

I can't think of a more horrific thing than asking a parent to kill (burn at the stake!) their child. It's barbaric and disgusting.

That christians claim that god did this, and that it was "good", just underscores how evil religion can be.

Joe said...

Funny that you know Agnasty that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his promised son even though he never did and you think that was horrible.

The Athesitic Science god says its quite all right to slaughter your unborn in the abortuaries and I don't hear a peep out of you. Atheistic Communism slaughtered millions upon millions of people but again its that mean old Christian God who asked a man to do what was normal in his society and stopped him before he did it.

You did know that the sacrificing of children was common back in Abraham's time don't you? In today's terms it would be similar to a young woman feeling God wanted her to get an abortion and then God providing her with an alternative just before she underwent the procedure.

Joe_Agnost said...

Joe wrote: "Funny that you know Agnasty that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his promised son even though he never did and you think that was horrible."

It's kinda hard following your words here... but I gather that you think it's funny that I think it is horrible for Abraham to consider burning his son alive.

I think most people would agree that it's horrible - but once you dress it up in the bible people ignore the obvious evil acts because of some sort of respect for the bible.

Joe continues: "The Athesitic Science god..."

Showing you don't know what the word "atheist" means... (hint: no god(s).)

"says its quite all right to slaughter your unborn in the abortuaries and I don't hear a peep out of you."

Really? Since you made up a "athesitic(sic) god" your claim is pretty hard to take seriously.

"Atheistic Communism..."

Putting two words together doesn't always yield succesful results Joe. Communism has nothing to do with Atheism.

"...its that mean old Christian God who asked a man to do what was normal in his society and stopped him before he did it."

Ok - so you claim it was normal for a man to burn his son to death in this period of human history? Do you have any evidence of this (because I don't believe you)?

And even if it was "normal" back then - shouldn't god know better??

Joe_Agnost said...

Since discussing science on this site is fruitless - perhaps this thread will yield a better discussion. At least you I doubt you'll be spewing your ignorant creationist babble about this topic.

So what about it? How can you defend god instructing Abraham to burn his son at the stake? How can you defend Abraham actually following through with it until god told him 'ha - just kidding'?

Joe_Agnost said...

I understand your not wanting to defend this vile and barbaric story from the bible - it's indefensible.

BallBounces said...

It's on my "to-do" list. Give me a week.

Of course, without God, an eternal, moral being, there's no good reason to believe that right and wrong actually exist, as you have admitted. So, I wouldn't get too exercised about it. If it all comes down to morality being nothing more than a human fabrication, and ourselves nothing more than the product of amoral, mindless processes, who's to say one person's good is better or worse than someone else's -- it's all subjective, as you have admitted.

Joe_Agnost said...

Ball wrote: "there's no good reason to believe that right and wrong actually exist, as you have admitted."

I have admitted no such thing.

Ball continues: "who's to say one person's good is better or worse than someone else's -- it's all subjective, as you have admitted."

I thought I'd "admitted" that it didn't exist? You claimed such in the opening sentence of this comment... if you're going to contradict yourself (and lie about someone) you might not want to do it in the SAME comment!

If you don't feel that a parent burning their child to death is wrong that says a lot about ~you~. I believe that most humans would think it's evil and cruel - but because it's in the bible they don't look at it objectively.

BallBounces said...

By actually I mean objectively, as opposed to subjectively.

By objectively, I mean they exist "out there", whether or not identified and recognized by humans, as opposed to them merely existing subjectively, as mindless chemical reactions inside our reptilian, darwinian brains.

Everything that begins to exists must not only have a cause, but a sufficient cause. A mindless cause is not a sufficient cause to produce objective moral values, i.e, actual right, and actual wrong -- which is what I mean by actually.

I'm getting ready for Africa. I've gotta run.

Joe_Agnost said...

Ball wrote: "Everything that begins to exists must not only have a cause, but a sufficient cause."

This comment would be taken seriously if you actually held to it - but you don't.

The solution you assert for just about everything you don't have an answer for (god) breaks this very 'rule'.

You can't make the claim that everything that begins MUST have a cause and then posit something (god) which doesn't have a cause. Well, you can make the claim but nobody should take it seriously. It's the definition of irrational.

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"