101 Contradictions in the Bible:

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hello rugged.. (might i ask if you're ribbed or plain?) heh.. thnx for contributing to the discussion.. i have read your post several times, it seems quite multi-layered and i enjoy this kind of talk..

Why do we need a day of judgement? From where I sit, it's an evolutionary pattern of self-interest that makes people act in ways that are not wholly altruistic.

well that's probably the crux of the matter right there.. you do not believe there is a higher power? (i hesitate to say God) -- i say it is needed because the humans are getting out of hand.. able to destroy the planet also.. (i'd rather be smashed by something interesting)

There are clear examples of this in nature, and we can test for it.

well.. i'd agree.. we see evolution for example.. untill we can all agree what set this sh*t in motion, we speculate & ponder.. some of us study but in the end info is info truth is truth wether you've got a PHD or not?

We can build a case that supports the materialistic view that human beings are a mixture of instinct, self-awareness / self-interest, and sentience which leads to behaviors that can be defined as both "good" and "evil", but only as to how they relate to what interests human beings.

great.. and you're about to do this in the next paragraph right? :)

If an alien race were to discover us, and they had no vested interest in our survival or demise as a species, they would not assess our actions as either good or evil just like we don't shake our heads at ant colonies and think, "How evil that those red ants have enslaved those black ants".

hmm.. it's a metaphor/parable.. it hinges on where you say "NO VESTED INTEREST" -- it equates out to EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT? do u suggest if they DID have a vested interest (emotional involvement of sorts) then they WOULD take that particular view? because i know from personal experience that some people have ascribed evil and good triats to the exact behaviour you have said of ants (colony raids on pupa etc ~ slavery) seems to me i might agree with you by saying those people are a bit soft in the head...

We dismiss ants as irrelevant to any meaningful importance to human interests, and thus we don't codify their behavior in any ethical or moral manner.

speak for yourself, dear sir :) personally, have been fascinated with ants all my life. can't speak for everyone else but people who do not like ants should be shot and flogged.. i guess there are different levels of human awareness.. even for laypeople who do not like ants scientists are now studying them to learn about how they produce natural antiobotics (they live in dirt for cryin' out loud!)

Meanwhile, the theist insists on a morality and "good and evil" duality that comes from a specific being-- God -- who at the same time is ONLY goodness, and who is ONLY fair;

hmm.. these ant-hating puny minded people..

and to rationalize the obvious self-conflicting nature of this belief they exempt God from the very moral criteria they insist we all must live by.

to be fair, i would expect anything calling itself a God to be beyond all this cr*p anyway..? (the problem is, the very texts themselves indicate the God to be flawed by saying things such as "I am a jealous God"..) /shrugs

Which makes God's moral criteria completely meaningless to us.

exactly..

If by mercy you mean God can do whatever he wants and torture us for eternity, one fails to see how or why one should implement a word like "mercy" or "all good" in the first place. since God is outside of these standards, good and evil are interchangeable according to his standards.

exactly..


:)

Which means you can "choose right" but still go to hell because God being untrustworthy is no different from him being trustworthy, and God being evil is the same as him being good, and God giving you a choice is no different from him denying you a choice, etc.

they're clever these lot, aren't they..? see how you are damned if you do and damned if you don't? ;)

In other words, all Abrahamic theism has done, is succeeded in painting a nonsensical being that they subsequently fall down to worship

yes, i see how you can say that because it definantly comes across this way..


good read, rugged.. i bet deep down inside you'd like a God if it was cool :) nice typing to you..