FacebookBatmanShootingGodComplete (Incomplete)

I realize this response has taken on incredibly hostile tones in places and that such confrontations between the two of us on such topics have escalated into nonsense before, so I will go ahead and lay that out before anything else. If you wish to continue discussing this after you've read my response, I am fully willing to to do so and do my best to maintain civility and peace. If you prefer to let it go after this, whether you agree with anything at all or nothing at all in this response, I accept that decision as well.

Initial Point: Batman Shooting Article

Here.

Amber Lynn Rethati

 Oh PLEASE tell me this is a terrible attempt at being funny. "Only in the eyes of a Christian can life be of immense value."

...I just...I can't even with this right now.

I mean, way to be compassionate.

Jamie Helbert

Compassion is yet another example of something humanism borrows from Christianity. Except, the world has no clue as to the true meaning of their stolen terms. It IS a tragedy that those people were shot, but it happened because of sin. We are sinful within our very hearts, nothing we do is good in and of itself. The only reason we can have a working society is because God, in His mercy and graciousness, suppresses the wickedness in man's heart. All mankind knows the Law of God, and those in rebellion hate it. Hating this truth or refusing to believe in it does not refute it, nor make it cease to be true.

All that said, it is not a lack of "compassion" that causes me to conclude that this tragedy was not "senseless". The world just shouldn't be using words it doesn't understand.


This Blog Post

Though it was a different post, I'm addressing the gun-related bit first.

If half or more of the people in that theater had been armed, there would have been a lot more people dead at the hands of those trying to defend themselves. You can't just throw guns into the population and assume they'll understand the fine points of operation they require.

If there had been one or two trained concealed weapon permit holders, sure, it could have ended a lot quicker and with a lot less damage but the majority of people in the world don't understand that you can't just throw a gun out in front of you, pull the trigger and hit what you want to hit. Like everything else in the universe, the path of a bullet is precise and is extremely dependent on its trajectory when it exits the barrel of the gun and that is a factor that any random untrained idiot with a gun would not be considering when they draw that gun to return fire. The casualties would increase almost exponentially for every armed moron with no respect for the weapon in their possession.

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The Batman article.

Whoever wrote this article clearly has no understanding of the concept of researching facts related to the subject upon which they are writing, nor do they have any grasp of how to actually write beyond a third grade level, if that. Sentence fragments, redundancy, incorrect punctuation and using the wrong words make this abominable compilation of text harder to follow than should be possible, given the overall short length of it.

Comparing life making sense and having moral values is apples and oranges. Nobody ever said you have to believe that life makes sense in order to have morals, and for those with no morals, those who commit the greatest crimes against humanity, life makes perfect sense.

"We as Christians have a worldview that allows us to see life as precious." Right, because NOBODY else in the world but Christians see life as precious. There are PLENTY of people beyond the Christian faith that hold life as precious. "Life is valuable because God has given it to us and we were created in his image to glorify Him." No, my parents gave me life and the image I was created in was a result of combinations of traits from each of them. There is nothing supernatural about reproduction. "However in the age of secular humanism, one cannot place any meaning or value on life. It has none." This is just a direct contradiction to the claim that Christians have the right to do exactly what was then said that nobody has the right to do. But then, "Well obviously it's just referring to those outside the church in the realm of secular humanism." It didn't say that, it doesn't apply.

“All of matter is... floating in space as the dominoes... continue to fall. That’s meaningless and senseless. “ Again, no. Once the laws of physics regarding any aspect of anything in the universe are understood, it makes perfect sense. The author of this article clearly has no comprehension of anything real and not written in the bible and as such has no right to even try to act like he knows what he's talking about.

“Over the next coming days there will be a lot of talk regarding James Holmes worldview and what would lead a man to do this. What would cause a man to do something so senseless? What would cause a man to take the lives of people who were simply trying to enjoy a movie? Let us remember that they are using our worldview to even make such a claim.” Once again, no. Anyone asking these questions is using the “worldview” of common sense and decency, things that existed long before Christianity was so kind as to grace the world with its presence.

“The secular humanists who destroy life with abortion...” This has so much less than nothing to do with abortion that I'm amazed the author's immense stupidity didn't cause him to collapse into a singularity, but since it's mentioned, do you know what a miscarriage is? It's a natural abortion, often due to the mother's body realizing that the fetus is not developing properly, and terminating its continued development. It is an abortion without the medical procedure. “It's God's will.” It's God performing an abortion. “God works in mysterious ways.” Then you admit you do not understand his motives nor his mechanics, and that revokes any privilege you had to speak on his behalf.

“... cannot suddenly become in favor of it.” There is a MASSIVE difference between supporting a woman's right to make her own decisions regarding an undeveloped fetus and placing value on the continued life of a person who is actually alive, living, interacting and contributing to the world.

“Only in the eyes of a Christian can life be of immense value. There can be no value to life in their worldview.” Every person I know, Christian or not, places “immense value” on being alive. If nobody but Christians held life to be “of immense value” then the world population would be much, much smaller. And nobody, especially the clearly-uneducated brainfart who wrote this shameful jumble of words, has the right to tell me what my “worldview” can consist of.

“The correct question is 'What restrains all men from doing this?' There is only one answer to that…it is the Grace of God.” Life has survived for hundreds of millions of years without “the Grace of God.” Just because Christianity had not rolled around yet doesn't mean that the only activity engaged in by every single living organism was running around willy nilly trying to kill everything else. If that was the case, life would have gotten nowhere. God is as necessary to “restrain[ing] all men from doing this” as a hemorrhoid is necessary for blowing your nose.

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The followup.

This did not happen because of sin. It's not like those people were having a Babyrapefest and the hand of some all-powerful being came down and crushed them. This happened because of a mentally unbalanced piece of trash taking his problems out on innocent lives, not because God said “Hey, crazy guy, on this night in this movie theater I will gather a bunch of sinners. Go color your hair red, booby-trap your apartment, kill as many as you can and then when they arrest you, tell them you're The Joker. That will make me proud of you.”

Nothing I do is good in and of itself? So the fact that I haven't drowned my children or beaten them to death with a video game controller is a bad thing? By feeding them to keep them alive and taking them for medical attention when they're sick, I'm not doing good? This is just an illogical statement. Animals in the wild tend to their young because that's what you do. Balanced, sane, sensible humans tend to their young because that's what you do and because they love them. There is no God involved. Just look at any non-Christian parent, especially those in secluded areas of other countries who have been lucky enough not to be bothered by Christianity yet. They tend to their children, keep them alive and well and they do it without God. If God was so necessary for people to do good, then, like I said, every population in the world except Christianity would be completely gone.

The reason we have a working society is because of what began as the barter system. Goods for goods. Trade what you can produce for that which you can't. Over time, currency systems were established and certain values of certain goods began to become associated with certain quantities of currency. If the “wickedness in man's heart” (implied by the word use that you are referring to all of humanity) were being suppressed, by God or whatever other force, then we wouldn't have leeches like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell (good riddance) polluting the face of the planet. There would be no multi-billionaires sitting in 300-room mansions that matched their other 9 properties. There would be no tax-free churches adding building after building to their real estate while they do nothing but bow their heads and offer pointless and fruitless prayers to starving and suffering people worldwide. There would be no Vatican, no Pope sitting on his golden throne, no religious harassment at your front door twice a month, no collection plates. There is no suppression of any wickedness except that which comes from within each individual. These megachurches with their gold-plated televangelists, these brand new churches that are being built everywhere all the time to give people a place to gather and compare clothing instead of giving any of that money wasted on the construction and maintenance to someone who could actually use it, THAT is wickedness. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Plus, you've saved yourself time and effort and you know that eventually he'll die of starvation and you will have less competition.

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There is nothing remotely difficult about the process of looking at a subject from a view that differs from that of your own, yet all I ever see Christians doing in any situation is refusing to even consider the possibility, as if merely thinking about looking outside the box will melt your face and bring a thousand angry pelicans down to consume your flesh. Any point that differs slightly from that of Christians, no matter how important or not it may be, is met with gnashing teeth and hateful poison spouted in the name of God. Part of actually using the brain in your head is being able to think beyond that which you observe. “The bible is true because it says so.” or “This is true because it's in the bible.” are just as logical statements as “Twilight is true because it takes place in this world and this world exists, so it has to be true.”

There were religions well before Christianity rolled around with its brand of evil, full of points and concepts stolen from other religions. You yourself are all the time bad-mouthing Pagans and yet Pagans were performing their ceremonies and living happy, joyous lives together, without God suppressing any wickedness, long before the king of Jews was nailed to a tree, and contrary to “the only thing keeping everybody from killing everybody else is God,” they survived because, guess what? They didn't run around killing each other all the time. Even without God and the teachings of the bible.

“All mankind knows the Law of God, and those in rebellion hate it.” All mankind was continuing to survive well before any Law of God was laid down by men. Not all who know and put faith in the Law abide by it and not all who deny it as God's Law are evil. There have been both violent murders and acts of decency from both Christians and non-Christians alike, as well as in the name of God and on behalf of simple human motives.

You claim “the world just shouldn't be using words it doesn't understand.” Compassion is the empathy for the suffering of others. I have been filled with nothing but compassion toward the victims of the incident that spawned the diarrhea of words in that article, and it comes from my own being able to think, to consider points beyond myself and my own opinions, to imagine, though not fully understand, just how terrible the event had to have been for them. My compassion does not come from a supernatural force or source, it comes from within me, myself.

Neither religion nor gods of any sort are necessary to continue living a good, happy and peaceful life, no matter how many times the stories say so. I hate beyond hate getting into religious debates when the person I'm talking to will do nothing but keep their head buried in the sand and spout off cookie cutter responses, and I realize you didn't bring this to me and slam it down on my table, but it just rubbed me all kinds of the wrong way and put me into one of those moods.

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Jesse Murch

Travis,

It's hard to keep this succinct. Your arguments are a little drawn out, so forgive me if I've returned the favor.

"Nobody ever said you have to believe that life makes sense in order to have morals, and for those with no morals, those who commit the greatest crimes against humanity, life makes perfect sense."

Morality is a subset of one's philosophy. If one's epistemology is that there is no meaning, value, purpose, etc. (or in other words, that philosophy itself is a sham), then one obviously cannot substantiate any moral theory. And while one may have a moral theory, this wouldn't necessarily mean it is legitimately drawn from their epistemology. Or simply put, one's moral theory may be incongruous with their stated epistemology, and this is irrational. In light of this, your comment, "There are PLENTY of people beyond the Christian faith that hold life as precious. " is actually irrelevant. The question is whether they can legitimately and consistently hold to it given their epistemology.

"[M]y parents gave me life and the image I was created in was a result of combinations of traits from each of them. There is nothing supernatural about reproduction."

The point, I think, of the writer's blog post was to show how the Christian faith substantiates meaning and value in people. To assert a contrary view, such as yours, is simply to show that your view doesn't have that aim While your materialism may conflict with Christianity, there is nothing forthcoming to demonstrate that the material universe is all there is. And I will emphasize that by virtue of your materialism you rule out the possibility of the supernatural at the outset.

"Once the laws of physics regarding any aspect of anything in the universe are understood, it [All of matter is floating in space as the dominoes fall] makes perfect sense."

I am not going to pretend to be a physicist because I am not. However, in terms of philosophy, the notion of all things being comprised of essentially atoms or quantum particles or "strings", or whatever next is espoused as making up the sum of our universe, has many problems with it. This is essentially corporeal monism which was espoused by the early Greek philosophers (specifically the Milesian philosophers). But if all is comprised of one "stuff", there is no hope of distinction or plurality. To state it another way, if you start with one, you end with one. I believe it was Parmenides that showed the absurdity of monism. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Parmenides was consistent in his monism. At any rate, if all is comprised of one stuff how do you make a distinction between yourself and another? Or you and the earth, animals, stones, etc.? Distinctions would have to be an illusion and thought itself merely atoms.

"Anyone asking these questions is using the “worldview” of common sense and decency, things that existed long before Christianity was so kind as to grace the world with its presence."

What is decency? What is common-sense? Surely anyone who has spent any deal of time understanding the divergent philosophies in history must recognize the naivety of assuming a common consensus. In fact, if history tells us anything (which it doesn't by itself) it is that "common-sense" is hardly common at all, or at other times what is "common" is hardly sensible. Of course, as a Christian, what I understand to be "decent" or "common-sense" is going to be quite different from yours. I think it only common-sense, for example that, that I render the whole of my being in the service of Jesus Christ. This is my "reasonable service" as the Apostle Paul said in Romans 11. Of course, as an unbeliever you think it only common-sense that religion should be ignored altogether. Why use these words as if they have any great deal of meaning?

However, I will supply the reason why there is a general consensus of man operating in a moral fashion (By moral I mean explicitly Christian morality. Nothing else is actually moral). Man is created in the image of God, which is comprised, not of the body, but of our rational faculties, the knowledge of God our Creator, and righteousness. We no longer have any righteousness because of the fall of Adam, our Federal head, who plunged his (all of humanity) posterity in sin and guilt. The knowledge of God we possess is the knowledge of God's moral law, or if you will, the conscience. But this too is affected by the root of sin so that we suppress this knowledge and desire it to be out of our beings. Our rational faculties we have, though we no longer use them in our natural state as they were intended, viz. to commune with God by obeying His commands and in knowing Him Who is life eternal. While man is still ruined apart from the redemption that is offered in Christ Jesus, he still, nevertheless, has a conscience, and by the mercy of God is moved by it to hate that which is evil at times and to enjoy the benefits of the good.

At all points that man suppresses this knowledge of God's moral law is what we see with all false religions, idolatry, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, lying, blasphemy, covenant breaking, etc. It is because men learn to sear their consciences or they are raised in a place where God's moral law is scorned that they may eventually eviscerate (though not wholly) the knowledge of God's law, thus creating a culture of moral chaos. Ideas have consequences.

"It's God performing an abortion. “God works in mysterious ways.” Then you admit you do not understand his motives nor his mechanics, and that revokes any privilege you had to speak on his behalf."

This is a classical example of what McDurmon calls a "worldview fallacy". It is quite common in the "new atheism" that can't think beyond their bigoted prejudice against Christianity. However, let me explain it to you. The argument you make can only be valid if you assume for a little while the legitimacy of the Christian worldview for the sake of argument. But if you assume this, this requires that you understand the /whole matter/ in terms of Christian values, ethics, purpose, etc., but the fact is you don't. What you do is only go half-way. You'll grant for the sake of argument that /God does something/, but then you proceed to examine the rest upon your atheistic presuppositions, i.e. "God performs abortions". If you were to genuinely argue from the Christian worldview (something you tried to do to try to reduce it to an absurdity) you would need to take into account the position of man as a creature and the position of God as the Creator. I don't even suspect you could begin to understand the implications. But you will need to if you wish for your argument to be valid.

"Every person I know, Christian or not, places “immense value” on being alive. If nobody but Christians held life to be “of immense value” then the world population would be much, much smaller. "

Again, you're not really getting it. I will point out, however, that people do commit suicide, there have been those who think it fine to commit genocide, euthanasia, infanticide, not to mention those who find it profitable to beat themselves or others, etc. You might say that most people place immense value on their /own/ lives. But the fact of murder and suicide (which has an exponentially high rate in our nation in our time) shows that some don't share this view. The point, to put it simply, is that Christianity provides the basis for morality. But Christian morality isn't just fictitious (as much as I know you wish it were); it is drawn from God's revelation of his law on the hearts of every single person. But the problem now has been and will remain the same: sin. Man needs a new heart to love and adore God which will, in turn, cause him to love his neighbor. Or to put it in another way, what you witness in the moral structure of people is the deformed - but not utterly wiped out - image of God. This morality, however, is Christian morality.

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