dermdoc said:

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kurt vonnegut said:

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We can both be wrong.

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Actually we can not my friend. That is what is wrong in my opinion with moral relativism. Either Jesus Christ is who he said he is or he is a lunatic.

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Or he lived during a vastly different period in human history and believed he was fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish messiah without having the knowledge of science, history, even theology, to understand where he was wrong. And those who wrote the gospels, who were not eyewitnesses, wrote according to the needs of their communities and their own understanding of the theological requirements and proselytizing conventions of the era in their regions.

Honor your father and your mother.

You shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

You shall not covet.

Why did God in Christ not mess these up?

kurt vonnegut said:

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AGC said:

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I think that leads in well to the second part. It's not about believing the best, but wish the best for others. The Christian wishes the best for others which comes only through knowing God. The person who wishes atheism for others doesn't wish the best but merely something else. It's not the same as, 'I want the best for you in life.' There is no equivalent value exchange.

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Trying once more -

Your paragraph is written from the perspective of a person that believes in God and that the best is achieved through knowing God. To wish for them anything else is to not wish for the best. No, I view it through the original poster's lense. It's not hard to do that even if I believe.

From the perspective of a person who does not believe in God, wishing for them to find God is not equivalent to wishing for them the best. Wishing for them to be free of a religion might be equivalent to wishing them the best. A a fundamental difference in 'best' is the openness of your wish. There is no system or structure for atheism. You may have chosen what you value through experience and 'reason' or 'logic'' (your own experience plus some axioms based on limited knowledge, really), but it is not the same for everyone. You can't generalize the things it allows you to believe on others. It could equally lead to nihilism. Whatever ill befalls one after pursuit of this 'best' wish does not get redeemed, it cannot get justice, it can only go out with a whimper because, as you said, the universe is chaos. We live in randomness and chance. This is not a comparison of truth (which, I think, is why you keep saying I limit myself to my Christian lense - like your graphs below), but an exploration of the implication of whether these 'bests' are equivalent. Would you really look at someone liberated from Christianity that chose to explore drugs and wound up on the streets of Philly in a zombie-like state as a 'best' if they followed your wish? Does it not sound absurd to say, 'at least they overdosed as a non-Christian?' Yes, we all agree that's absurd and not what you wish but it's fully encompassed by your idea of 'best'.

I believe that through this discussion you have been completely incapable or unwilling to look at the question from a different point of view. In your mind, Christianity is best and atheism is lesser. And so nothing I say makes sense. You have to step out of yourself and look at the question from my point of view. Until you do that, nothing me or Aggrad will make any sense and you'll continue to radically misrepresent our positions. See above. I believe your 'best' is couched in radically different assumptions than what's on the surface -
I think your idea of 'best' goes beyond 'I hope you become an atheist' into something much more specific, a system, an arbitrary morality based on your own life, such as 'do no harm', 'be kind to others,' etc. please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you want to liberate people from religion into anarchy, which again is a very reasonable path for someone who follows your best.

I understand why you wishing for me to find God is well intentioned. You are not able to understand why my wishing for you to find secular philosophy is equally well intentioned from my point of view. Until you are willing to look from my point of view, this discussion is simply going nowhere. I understand. You ground much if your secular philosophy in your own personal beliefs and morals, rather than the general chaos and absurdity that you believe exists. You put guardrails on atheism really quick when it's pointed out that there are no morals inherent outside of what one chooses for themself (whether through experience, culture, etc.).

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Hope that addresses some of this.

I don't necessarily think wishing someone would find Jesus is an entirely benign desire. Jesus turned away a lot of people that wanted to follow him, because they weren't ready to give up everything in that pursuit. He told people to give away all their wealth, cut ties with their families, and carry a freakin cross in order to follow him. He tells his followers that they will be hated by the world, including those closest to them. On the face of it, that's not a very nice thing to wish on anyone. Of course it is balanced by the idea of personal spiritual growth, the deep satisfaction in your soul of living a selfless, good life, and the promise of an eternal existence removed from the above suffering. But let's not pretend that being a Christian is rainbows and lollipops that brings people immediate and eternal happiness without any cost or suffering.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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I don't necessarily think wishing someone would find Jesus is an entirely benign desire. Jesus turned away a lot of people that wanted to follow him, because they weren't ready to give up everything in that pursuit. He told people to give away all their wealth, cut ties with their families, and carry a freakin cross in order to follow him. He tells his followers that they will be hated by the world, including those closest to them. On the face of it, that's not a very nice thing to wish on anyone. Of course it is balanced by the idea of personal spiritual growth, the deep satisfaction in your soul of living a selfless, good life, and the promise of an eternal existence removed from the above suffering. But let's not pretend that being a Christian is rainbows and lollipops that brings people immediate and eternal happiness without any cost or suffering.

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Sure, but I'm not certain I'd call it malignant either. There's a connotation with that. It's not a formulaic life, where if you do x, y, and z you live in perfect harmony and prosperity. That's why I've tried to emphasize that ultimately in the Christian wish, in the next life there is justice, restoration, and everything that's missing here. That's a contrast with chaos and absurdity where it doesn't exist at all. **** happens and then you die. Maybe you have a few years of happiness if all your choices pan out and you avoid suffering and harm.

These are two different 'bests'. It's the difference between the finale of The Office (and Seinfeld if I really want to get feisty) and Lost.

No doubt.

True.