Hume

Why do you choose to do so? There is no other reason other than the author requests for it to be locked. If that was not the reason then the moderator would say "Locked for spam" or give a warning to stay on topic. Instead we get "Thread locked on authors request", and no other reason. Nothing is stopping me making a thread on topic again (which does not have much to do with the point of this topic), but there is no reason for it to be locked in the first place other than the authors wishes. The 16 page thread which I am referring to had long posts yet to be answered that people spent time on making and thinking out. Just for their time to be wasted for the sole reason that the author wants a thread locked. What if other people find it interesting? Whats stopping the author from creating a new thread and specifying the topic he wants discussed a little more? Whats the point in locking a thread soley on the authors wishes? What I am bringing up is why can an author request a lock to their thread on a public forum. It is not like they have an authority over it or can control the discussion, thats the moderators job. If there was a reason for locking these threads then they should be given, I understand there was a request on these boards awhile ago that moderators continue to post reasons as to why threads are locked on their reply so people could ask them to be unlocked if they disagreed with them. What does "thread locked on authors request" tell us? Nothing.

This is not directed at one thread, I spoke to Tallest about this a few weeks ago, it came up in a subject for the clan boards. The one that annoyed me most was maybe 4 weeks ago when there was a 16 page long thread that was locked on the authors request after he had not posted on it since the start. The direction of the topic did not go the way he planned. What does locking a thread on the authors request achive? Surley if the thread was so off topic it would be locked by a moderator or warned to get back on track. What actually comes from locking the thread? Why stop a discussion thats already happened, and why doesn't the author open a new thread? If anyone can give me something good that comes from authors being able to lock their threads then please give me a reason. Otherwise it's an uneeded and useless rule.

Hence "moderator like ability". Perhaps you can comment on the point rather than the semantics?

So why are you arguing for this being correct? So answer my question, why does a non believer have to exist so someone already pre-destined to believe can believe? So God sacrificing us so that you can have faith is not martyrdom? God is the one making the sacrifice here, we are the sacrifice to you apparently.

No one's belief is robotic. The believers have enhanced belief towards God's love because of the presence of non-believers, and the non-believers have enhanced belief away from God's love because of the presence of believers. As I have said repeatedly, true love cannot exist without evil and vice versa. You are giving non-believers nothing more than a robotic purpose by saying that we are here so others can use us in order to develop their faith and go to heaven. We have been reduced from humans and equals to an object by your theory, an object in which for some reason enables the true selected few to believe. Yeah, I think so too. In this concept, the non-believers are considered subpar. I can not actually beleive you agree with this. You are saying Christians are worth more than non believers, thats called inequality. It's as bad as racism. God sentences all non-believers, including Muslims, to hell as part of the environment for conditioning believers. Allah sentences all non-believers, including Christians, to hell as part of the environment for conditioning believers. I used Christianity in my self-debate instead of Islam because this thread is about Christianity. This thread assumes the existance of the Christian God. Please answer the question. Are you God? If you aren't, then how do you know sacrifices ended with Jesus? It is one of the main outcomes of Jesus' death. The end of moasic sacrifices, because God sacrificed his son to atone us of our sins.

Why do authors of topics have a moderator like ability to lock their own threads. I can understand this if the threads about them or about their actions but in threads that are discussion, or things that are not about them - it's stupid. If the discussion does not go the way it was planned the author has the ability to lock it, despite the time and effort some people put into their posts and despite any interest others have in the direction of the topic. What is this rule? Whats it's purpose and justification? To me it's just a way for them to take back a thread when they no longer like it, and moderators keep enforcing it. Last time I checked moderators were the ones who are trained to decide when threads go over a certain boundary and up to date on the rules that are enforced. They decide if it is off topic, and so should act appropriately(ie split those posts from the thread) and not close threads on an the authors request.

No one's belief is robotic. The believers have enhanced belief towards God's love because of the presence of non-believers, and the non-believers have enhanced belief away from God's love because of the presence of believers. As I have said repeatedly, true love cannot exist without evil and vice versa. You are giving non-believers nothing more than a robotic purpose by saying that we are here so others can use us in order to develop their faith and go to heaven. We have been reduced from humans and equals to an object by your theory, an object in which for some reason enables the true selected few to believe. Can you please actually explain why someone who believes in the Islamic God affects someone else to beleive in the Christian God, when both are already pre-destined to these choices? What relation do they have to one another? Please do not answer with "We need evil to know love" because it does not explain anything. Yes that is what I'm saying. How many times are you going to repeat what I already said? :P You are not responding to the problem with that conclusion, that being "Sacrifices ended with Jesus Christ" and you saying that God continues to sacrifice non believers for other people.

You are arguing against one type of belief being a robotic action, and promoting another type of belief as being robotic. Which to me seems like a complete contradiction, if someone believing in the Islamic God is a robotic belief, then someone believing in the Christian God is also a robotic belief. Your theory comes down to sacrificing the majority for the minority, sacrificies ended with Jesus Christ. By saying athiests are pre-determined to be atheists you're saying God is sacrificing a huge amount of people so that some may experience him.

Which does not make sense in comparison to what you have written. You claim atheists are pre-destined to be atheists to create an enviroment so a chosen few may develop faith (which you still have not explained why atheism leads to others developing faith), which sounds exactly like the thing you are arguing against. You're saying that we need these robotic like atheists in order for Christians to develop their faith. You are basically saying that we need atheists in order to show faith as not a robotic action, but in reality you have made the atheists nothing more than robots. Yeah, pretty much. But you got one part of that wrong. It's not so that they savor life more, but so that they can savor Him more. Well, that makes all the billions and billions of people throughout history who have died not beleiving, or believing in something else alright then. As long as these chosen few can savour God better, talk about selfishness?

The Christian God therefore sacrifices the majority of people so that a chosen few may spend eternity with him in heaven on purpose? I thought the sacrifices ended with Jesus Christ? According to you, an atheist is predetermined to be atheist to create an "enviroment" so that faith can come about for these pre-chosen minority. How does someone being atheist create an enviroment for someone else to find faith, surley it would lead to the opposite? So your theory leads God to be no better than someone who kills one million people so that a thousand can savour life a little more. How benevolent.

[/hide] Atheism - "No + God". Directly or indirectly, it seems to be a rejection of God. Lack of faith can be one factor, but selfish ideals are one of the things that can BLIND people to any such faith. Also, your "you need to reject something that is real" is correct, although to some atheists, Christianity IS just an idea. You are assuming that atheists first accept that God is more than an idea, then reject it through selfish blindness. Can you tell me what makes a Christian less selfish than an atheist? Is it soley because the Christian is submissive? Is the fact that atheists are not submissive to God the reason why they are selfish? Or are you just assuming that atheists lack any sense of morality, or right and wrong because they lack a God, or to be more specific, lack your God? Yes, the Bible is the only factor for determining if someone is Christian or not. How else would one become Christian if not through the Bible? Someone could become deist (without beleiving in a specific God) or agnostic without reading the Bible, but in order to find and beleive in specifically the Christian God it takes the Bible, and therefore also takes illogical circular reasoning.

I would agree, if that was the case. However we both know that is not true, your assumption that atheism is a rejection of God is incorrect and your reasoning that they can live life on their own and have no need for God is also incorrect. The lack of belief does not come from some selfish ideal. It comes from just a lack of faith, like you have a lack of faith in Scientology or Islam, and to reject something that something first must have to exist. Otherwise you're rejecting merley an idea of it. What i find to be the main factor in this is that God seems not to want to be seen to exist. He's nothing more than a collection of contradictions we are led to beleive exist because he is infinite, beyond us, and beyond our intellect. If he exists he is the biggest paradox we can imagine. What does this point to? Surley the road to belief should be quite an easy one or as easy as a lack of belief. Not 100% dependant on faith, with no evidence and nothing even pointing to his existance. Only a book written two thousand years ago to tell us to believe and have faith, against logic through circular reasoning we are led to need to believe in God or we are to be without him. Yet this is a free choice to you? The scales are weighed equally in each direction for you?

And where does knowledge come from? Experience (or a priori propsitions which are not relevant). We do not experience God, we experience the attributes in God on this earth then apply them infintley.

Of course not, our ideas of God come from our already pre-existing experiences. Omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, perfection and infinite existance all are forms are things we experience taken to another level. Descartes argued that we can not imagine things we do not experience, such as perfection and so the idea must have come from something greater than us, which was God. However perfection is a subjective trait, we can not experience it but we can assign abilities and traits to something in order to make that perfect. I exist in and experience a finite universe, God is perfect so he must be neccessary and therefore must exist infinitely. You can see how these things therefore come about from what we already experience.

Everything our brain imagines is based upon experience, you're saying that our brains are something that they are not. They can not just make up objects without experience of objects.

We can not just be a being, floating and imagining a world for the simple reason that we require our senses to imagine. As this brain i would have no ability to know where i actually was, no touch, smell, taste, sight or sound could i sense. So how would I possibly imagine an entire world with these things when in reality i would not know what these things were. As an example of what it would be like, try imagining a new colour, you can not. There must be something in which i percieve and experience to be able to imagine that. Just like all of our ideas of beings that do not exist are made up of pre-existing materials or feelings which we have experienced. The only version of solipsism that is possible is if we were a brain in a vat, hooked up to eletronical impulses which would initiate these experiences.

When you take things and put them into perspective, like humanity in the universe you quickly realize how ridiculously insignificant we really are. Even if we limit ourself to the world, this is still the case. Until we look closley at that man, and his humanity. Then we find the reason for our existance in the universe, which is a self created reason. That it is to do our best for humanity and ourselves on utilitarian grounds and make lives better. This is the only known concious thought and experience of happiness we are certain of and therefore that is our priority.

I don't think anything interesting comes from perfection. So I'd probably want it to be a place where questions still go unanswered and controversy still has a place, because from that arises art and expression and everything I'm intersested in. I fear that if i entered perfection I'd kill myself through boredom. So my perfect heaven would be an imperfect place. To quote my favourite film;

This somewhat reminds me of a case where one baby was joined to her twin through the head. The twin was considered in this case a growth since it needed the other to feed and sustain itself, and was killed because it was putting to much pressure on the baby to keep it alive with providing oxygen and other things. Now this sounded heart breaking to me, since this "growth" did have a concious state and i would have considered it a human being. However it did raise a good question as to what we can consider a growth. I don't see how a collection of cells growing in a woman is any different from a growth, it can become human but at that point it is not. Which leads us to you seeming to think that you're killing someones future dreams and aspirations by having an abortion. Thats not the case since the embryo does not have a mind or any form of concious state. How can you kill something that hasn't come into existance yet? The dreams and aspirations are finite and don't exist beyond that (except some would beleive they would after death). So all i can take from your argument is that you draw the line at what you perceive to be a human being. An embryo is by some token "human" but it's not a being. It's as much a being as a growth is.

Im pretty sure if he was some form of God he could have stopped that bullet.

Sparta was no true democracy. Firstly it had near enough the same regulations on who could vote as Athens. Democracy as a political system doesn't mean "rule by the citizen, for the citizen" infact that legitimises any sort of tyranny by the bourgeoisie as we have seen in the past through misuse of the word. Democracy is distinctly "rule by the people for the people" so things like taking away someones vote can not be done on those grounds. Today you have to be a citizen but it's meaning has not changed, it has simply got new criteria in your country. The criteria in those times did not include women, slaves and people who were foreign. Selecting people who can vote and who can't isn't democracy it's tyranny of the minority/majority. All of which can also be said also for pre-imperial rome's 'democracy' except they were more leinient on letting some foreign people vote.

What if I rephrase "left alone" to "without unnatural intervention"? Then thats a different meaning which to me means very little. You are not clearing up your definition of what you consider to be "human" because you have not yet responded to my first paragraph.

We're not talking about whether or not abortion is legal. We're talking about whether it's moral. Thus I guess if you're a moral relativist your argument can't be anything other than "what I think is right is right for me", which is a pretty useless argument. The Law attempts to define what is moral but it does a poor job in my eyes. Look at the issue in realist terms. An embryo at early stages is nothing more than a collection of cells developing together. It can't think, it can't feel and can't do anything which makes a human a human. If you choose to argue that this embryo has the capability of life then you can argue the same for sperm or unfertilized eggs. An embryo with the proper conditions to grow will become a human, and so will these two things that create life. Yet millions die on their way to hopefully fertilizing an egg, do we kick up a fuss for those who had the chance to become human too? Or the unfertilized eggs that go without fertilization? The law has the issue correct - an early embryo isn't human it only has the capability of becoming one. I think very few people take the issue lightly, and it should not be. However a group of cells multiplying together and nothing else doesn't warrant taking the option away from people who arn't ready to take the responsibility of raising a child. There's a difference between the potential an embryo has and the potential sperm and egg have. Left to its own, an embryo will develop into a child. Left to their own, sperm and egg will not develop into a child. The potential argument is a valid argument as long as you give a clear definition on where to draw the line. In my case, the potential for human life begins when, left to its own, the group of cells will develop into a human. I believe that is at conception. Sperm and egg will never come into contact if left to their own. You are merely attempting to blur the line and then attacking the argument; you're using a straw man refutation. Then how do you contend that the sperm on it's way to the egg as not being similar to an embryo. That has the potential to become human. It seems your argument for distinguishing between the sperm and unfertilized eggs is "left alone they wont produce a human" but sperm on it's way to an unfertilized egg left alone does have the chance to create a human. It simply dies on it's way to the egg, and so according to your argument it's no different from an embryo as far a potential is concerned. You are drawing the line at what you concieve as "human" because "left on it's own it will become human". Which is not true because it depends on another human - an embryo gets the needed nutrients, develops and lives through that person. I would agree with you, if the case was that 'left alone it would grow' but it's wrong.

It's commonly refered to as 'The General Will' and is the basis of Rousseau's political ideology. In his system he kept the idea of democracy but changed the rules. The voting was public so people voting against the general will could be shunned into doing so - which undermines democracy. The general will is nothing more than a legitimate justification for tyranny of the majority. Neglecting the minority is just as big a crime as neglecting the majority, in a liberal state all opinions should count no matter how radical, vile or oppressive they may be. It's the basis of epistomology - to gather all the infomation we have and make a reasonable judegement. So no, I don't beleive voting for the general will is a valuable system and as previously said, it's only a justification for tyranny of the majority.

We're not talking about whether or not abortion is legal. We're talking about whether it's moral. Thus I guess if you're a moral relativist your argument can't be anything other than "what I think is right is right for me", which is a pretty useless argument. The Law attempts to define what is moral but it does a poor job in my eyes. Look at the issue in realist terms. An embryo at early stages is nothing more than a collection of cells developing together. It can't think, it can't feel and can't do anything which makes a human a human. If you choose to argue that this embryo has the capability of life then you can argue the same for sperm or unfertilized eggs. An embryo with the proper conditions to grow will become a human, and so will these two things that create life. Yet millions die on their way to hopefully fertilizing an egg, do we kick up a fuss for those who had the chance to become human too? Or the unfertilized eggs that go without fertilization? The law has the issue correct - an early embryo isn't human it only has the capability of becoming one. I think very few people take the issue lightly, and it should not be. However a group of cells multiplying together and nothing else doesn't warrant taking the option away from people who arn't ready to take the responsibility of raising a child.