[JWStipple]

JW, my argument is not who is moral immoral. I'm arguing that an atheist has no standard to judge anyone moral or immoral.

If the Christian worldview is the center of morality...then there would be no morality outside of that. Since there is morality outside of that...then your premise that there can be no standard for moral judgment outside of the Christian worldview is false.

If you base your arguments on false premises...you can't expect us to ignore that.

Now just so you don't think I'm trying to trap you (which is easy to do), before answering you must remind yourself that for an atheist morality is relative. And if relative, then no behavior of one human can be condemned by another human.

It's contextual. Christian morality is contextual, too. Your God murders. Which means your Christian morality is not absolute...but rather relative to who does it. So you've been trapped again, Tom.

You can rail against any short-comings you think I have, but you have no foundation to do so.

Honesty is not a matter of morality...it's a matter of consistency. You are not consistent...you promote arguments with false premises...you are dishonest.

My behavior may displease you but you can't really deem it immoral.

I didn't call you immoral. I called you dishonest.

When you make moral railings against me, you have left your atheist worldview and stepped into the Christian worldview. In doing so, you affirm your worldview as irrational.

Your charge that I'm calling you "immoral" is a lie and a strawman. You're dishonest. You have no empirical basis for your belief...so your worldview is irrational, by definition.

That's gotta hurt.

[TeeJay]

=DavisBJ;2476490]We would have to carefully agree on what exactly is meant by “intelligent information” first. I saw where you discussed this a bit recently elsewhere, but I did not follow that part of the thread. So at the risk of repeating an idea that may have come up earlier – assume the detailed instructions for building a commercial jet are sitting in an office. A blast of high-intensity radiation from a nearby supernova sterilizes the earth, so not even a microbe is left alive. Do those undisturbed plans in that office no longer contain information?

Brian, first, the plans to build the jet had to come from an intelligent mind. I'm sure you'll agree with this.

If the "detailed instructions" are undisturbed, the information is still on the plans.

If the plans were destroyed, the information is still in the mind of the man who drew up the plans.

If everything is destroyed (man and matter), then the information still exists in the mind the the man. The man is created an eternal being in the mage of God and he will exist forever (either with God or apart from God). I know you will not agree with this.

God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX

[I aint no monkey]

Here is the problem, assuming evolution to be true, when interpreting scientific data, is not considered being unobjective by scientists, when it really is. Whether or not a scientist knows the evidence for or aganst evolution, they assume it to be true and run with that.

[JWStipple]

Tom:

Your position is irrational by definition. To have any degree of rationality, you must borrow from the atheist position of empirical support in order to have any rational basis whatsoever...and the moment you do that, you are declaring the atheist position rational and your own position irrational.

We accept your concession there.

[JWStipple]

Here is the problem, assuming evolution when interpreting scientific data, is not considered being unobjective by scientists, when it really is. Whether or not a scientist knows the evidence for or aganst evolution, they assume it to be true and run with that.

Well, here is the problem. No scientist worthy of the name will accept evolution without knowing the evidence...otherwise, they have no basis whatsoever for assuming it to be either true or false. Clearly, you live in an isolated world with regard to how science works and what scientists think.

That is the problem.

[Jukia]

Originally Posted by JWStipple

It's contextual. Christian morality is contextual, too. Your God murders. Which means your Christian morality is not absolute...but rather relative to who does it. So you've been trapped again, Tom.

Boy, you really do not understand. If the Christian god kills someone, or millions, it is not murder. It is his plan and he is god. If the Muslim god kills people on the other hand, well...

[JWStipple]

Tom...if information is not dependent on physicality, then how can it be destroyed when all the physical structures (drawings, brains, etc) that contain the information are destroyed?

[I aint no monkey]

Originally Posted by JWStipple

Well, here is the problem. No scientist worthy of the name will accept evolution without knowing the evidence...otherwise, they have no basis whatsoever for assuming it to be either true or false. Clearly, you live in an isolated world with regard to how science works and what scientists think.

That is the problem.

Let me correct that for you. No scientist wanting a paycheck will question evolution.

[JWStipple]

Ahhh....Jukia...ty for setting me straight on that! How could I have been so stoo-pid?

[Jukia]

Originally Posted by I aint no monkey

Let me correct that for you. No scientist wanting a paycheck will question evolution.

The scientists working for Answers in Genesis, Liberty University etc work for free??

[JWStipple]

Let me correct that for you. No scientist wanting a paycheck will question evolution.

So...it's your contention that evolution is a conspiracy by scientists? That they're all paid off to keep their mouths shut?

Your evidence for this is ________________?

[I aint no monkey]

Originally Posted by JWStipple

Tom...if information is not dependent on physicality, then how can it be destroyed when all the physical structures (drawings, brains, etc) that contain the information are destroyed?

Information can be made up, via imagination, using our brains, similar to the ToE. However Darwin died and that information carries on.

[TeeJay]

=DavisBJ;2476500]As long as you won’t even acknowledge that morals are not only derived from religious beliefs, even though that has been repeatedly pointed out to you, then what you mean by morals is just your own self-serving definition.

On the contrary! The morals I ascribe to come from God and are therefore absolute. They are invariant and universal. And I could add that morals can't come from chemicals--which have been "repeated pointed out to you."

My non-god morals are fully functional, and I have come to believe they require a higher standard of conduct from me than your vaunted definition of morals do of you.

JW found out to his dismay that in order to argue against the laws of logic, he had to use the laws of logic and therefore he refuted his own argument. Likewise, one can't argue against absolute morality without assuming absolute morality. In this post, you used God's morality to judge me and argue against His morality. If morality is not absolute, then you can't use His morality to condemn me.

God bless, Tom from Mabank, TX

[alwight]

Originally Posted by I aint no monkey

There was no scientific discovery of evoluton, it was imagination that led to it. The question that fueled the imagination of Atheists was, if there is no God, then how did mankind come about.

Darwin was a creationist himself of course. He was until real first hand observations of nature and the way species adapted, to different environments of different islands, convinced him that natural selection was a crucial factor. With the truth of natural selection (and artificial selection) well established then by extension, the ToE is not really such a big leap of the imagination.
The ToE remains the accepted way that all life developed, not just mankind, by those of all shades of theistic belief. It is not some kind of atheistic plot.

[DavisBJ]

Originally Posted by Tom From Mabank

Brian, but suppose that others choose not to return the favor. Could you argue that their behavior was wrong? If so, by what standard?

Mine