Is communism evil? Eminent domain? Socialism?

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Atoms are observable, though.



https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/i ... 924AAcubIF

"Observable" is not the same as sight. I can see my hands, but I cannot see, in the human sense, the atoms they contain. I suggest you reword your post.

Atoms can be observed, as I have said. This leads us to ask - if we cannot see God, why do we deny him outright? We cannot see atoms, yet we can observe them. We cannot see God, yet we can observe Him (in the Bible). We cannot see natural rights, yet we can observe them.

[The Sons of Adam]

Owning land in general is a right, sanctioned by the constitution. I don't think anyone has a problem with having large swaths of land, especially if used responsibly.

Clearly some of us have a problem with it. Until the 13th amendment owning humans as property was protected as a right, you haven't refuted my argument.

What argument? I didn't refute it, I just respectably disagree.

Btw, do you know that the phrase the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness used to be the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?

[Benuty]

"God can either do nothing to stop evil, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely."

or, to quote Epícuros of Athens (341–270 BCE):
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

I went into this thread specifically because I knew someone would bring up this misattribution given the thread title.

Epicurus almost certainly said no such thing. The so-called "Epicurean paradox" is, in its original form, an early Christian satire of Epicureanism.

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to repeat this, but...

I wish people who aren't nearly as clever as they think they are would stop misattributing this quote.

It almost certainly wasn't written by Epicurus. The quote is generally believed to have originated as a satirical argument by the Christian apologist Lactantius in his De Ira Dei, written in c.300 AD - some 650 years after Epicurus' death - and designed to critique a general later classical Epicurean position rather than a specific argument by Epicurus himself.

The more modern version - Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil? - can be found in David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

If we must quote the 'Epicurean Paradox', can we please either correctly attribute it as an early 4th century Christian apologetic satire designed to criticise Epicureanism if using the original, or to David Hume if using the more modern version.

Now if the bullshit about Epicurus will stop.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Clearly some of us have a problem with it. Until the 13th amendment owning humans as property was protected as a right, you haven't refuted my argument.

What argument? I didn't refute it, I just respectably disagree.

Btw, do you know that the phrase the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness used to be the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?

Really?

[The Sons of Adam]

What argument? I didn't refute it, I just respectably disagree.

Btw, do you know that the phrase the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness used to be the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?

Really?

Yeah, excepting the US constitution.

[Olerand]

No such thing as "God-given" rights. All rights are granted by humanity to humanity.

Also, when did God give one the "right" to private property? I went to Catholic school, and it seems my socialist-communist Catholic priest/catechism educator neglected to mention that.

God or no God, you were born with responsibilities.
I have the responsibility to feed myself, therefore I have the right to seek food, therefore I own the labor and fruits thereof, because I'm responsible for myself.
We are all born to the same condition, so no one has any right to dictate to another how best to fulfill their responsibilities to themselves or say at what point they are fulfilled.
In a benign community, association and charity are freely given.

No. All your "rights" and "responsibilities" are given to you, or required of you, by society.

Nature only wants you to survive. Nothing else.

It couldn't care less how you do so, or how many you help, or kill, along the way.

[Otrenia]

Clearly some of us have a problem with it. Until the 13th amendment owning humans as property was protected as a right, you haven't refuted my argument.

What argument? I didn't refute it, I just respectably disagree.

Btw, do you know that the phrase the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness used to be the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?

If by "used to be" you mean Locke wrote it that way and Jefferson changed it, presumably to expand it's purpose beyond simple material wealth.

My argument was that "rights" as such are social constructs and liable to change over time, and therefore the fact that the right to own land has existed for a long time doesn't give it any weight in the present.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Also, people can observe and see atoms as well. Look, they even took a picture of one.

[Rushtar]

Now tell me where sin comes and why God allows it.

Take it to another thread and I'll happily answer your question in detail. If you read my post, you can see that I already answered why sin exists.

For now, we are discussing the moral and Biblical nature of God-given rights, and whether or not they exist.

Why would God create and allow people to be sinful or corruptible, when He can remove sin when He wants? it's like sadism, I can but I don't want, then He's not good, or is lazy? If he can't then isn't almighty. I mean, if I want to create a race, I don't make a defective product, and if it becomes defective, I can change since I'm almighty and good at the same time.

[Otrenia]

Also, people can observe and see atoms as well. Look, they even took a picture of one.

Doesn't arguing that people believe in atoms because they can see them work against the argument for a belief in God? Or am I missing some part of this? Admittedly I haven't been following this particular sub-argument very well.

[Communist Volkstrad]

"Observable" is not the same as sight. I can see my hands, but I cannot see, in the human sense, the atoms they contain. I suggest you reword your post.

Atoms can be observed, as I have said. This leads us to ask - if we cannot see God, why do we deny him outright? We cannot see atoms, yet we can observe them. We cannot see God, yet we can observe Him (in the Bible). We cannot see natural rights, yet we can observe them.

The Bible is not, nor any holy book, proof of a God. It's pure mythology. We can observe atoms as you said, but aside from various flaw ridden ancient mythology, we have no way of detecting a deity. The concept of a God is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, meaning it cannot be proven wrong, and thus isn't any sort of acceptable hypothesis at all. For anything to be done with science, there has to be a test to prove it wrong. There isn't for a deity. Blind faith in ancient mythology is silly.

[Kelinfort]

"Observable" is not the same as sight. I can see my hands, but I cannot see, in the human sense, the atoms they contain. I suggest you reword your post.

Atoms can be observed, as I have said. This leads us to ask - if we cannot see God, why do we deny him outright? We cannot see atoms, yet we can observe them. We cannot see God, yet we can observe Him (in the Bible). We cannot see natural rights, yet we can observe them.

We can observe the effects of natural rights, we have mathematical proof of atoms and observations by our devices. We have no evidence of a deity. There are numerous "holy books" each claiming to be evidence of a deity and proof. Yet, you only believe one.

Even if we decided to believe a deity existed, which ones and why? Why is your God any different from Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, Zeus, and the like?

[Benuty]

Atoms can be observed, as I have said. This leads us to ask - if we cannot see God, why do we deny him outright? We cannot see atoms, yet we can observe them. We cannot see God, yet we can observe Him (in the Bible). We cannot see natural rights, yet we can observe them.

The Bible is not, nor any holy book, proof of a God. It's pure mythology. We can observe atoms as you said, but aside from various flaw ridden ancient mythology, we have no way of detecting a deity. The concept of a God is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, meaning it cannot be proven wrong, and thus isn't any sort of acceptable hypothesis at all. For anything to be done with science, there has to be a test to prove it wrong. There isn't for a deity. Blind faith in ancient mythology is silly.

The Iron Age is hardly ancient.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Take it to another thread and I'll happily answer your question in detail. If you read my post, you can see that I already answered why sin exists.

For now, we are discussing the moral and Biblical nature of God-given rights, and whether or not they exist.

Why would God create and allow people to be sinful or corruptible, when He can remove sin when He wants, it's like sadism, I can but I don't want, then He's not good, or is lazy? If he can't then isn't almighty. I mean, if I want to create a race, I don't make a defective product, and if it becomes defective, I can change since I'm almighty and good at the same time.

Wouldn't we be robots if he forced us to be perfect and never do anything bad? How would you like it if God never let you look at pornography? How would you like it if God never let you disobey your parents? And so on. God has given us the choice to do good or evil, but because we will always do some kind of evil, he has given us Christ to be a salvation from our sins. Eventually (in the age to come, religiously speaking) our sinful nature will be removed, we will be perfected and still have free will. With the absence of sin, our free will will not be constrained, but expanded infinitely.

Edit - Woohoo! 2000th post!

[Benuty]

Atoms can be observed, as I have said. This leads us to ask - if we cannot see God, why do we deny him outright? We cannot see atoms, yet we can observe them. We cannot see God, yet we can observe Him (in the Bible). We cannot see natural rights, yet we can observe them.

We can observe the effects of natural rights, we have mathematical proof of atoms and observations by our devices. We have no evidence of a deity.

Even if we decided to believe a deity existed, which ones and why? Why is your God any different from Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, Zeus, and the like?

They are a semitic deity of Fortune who wound up in Germany for one .

[The Liberated Territories]

Well, I don't believe in a God-given right to anything.

I believe that people have the right to own private property, however it is not an absolute right, and in any conflict of interest, human well-being and people are always more important than property, and there must be a just distribution of wealth. Positive rights are just as important as negative liberty, so therefore people may have to see their negative rights (to own property) partially imposed on, in order to protect positive rights and collective rights.

The problem I have with positive "rights" (which aren't actually rights but privileges) is it's inherit subjectivity, especially alongside reasoning such as "the greater good." My idea of the "greater good" is way different then yours, yet if yours is the majority opinion there is nothing I can do to stop your idea of the greater good from affecting me. And it if really was a greater good, then you'd have 100% of the people agreeing with it.

[Kelinfort]

Why would God create and allow people to be sinful or corruptible, when He can remove sin when He wants, it's like sadism, I can but I don't want, then He's not good, or is lazy? If he can't then isn't almighty. I mean, if I want to create a race, I don't make a defective product, and if it becomes defective, I can change since I'm almighty and good at the same time.

Wouldn't we be robots if he forced us to be perfect and never do anything bad? How would you like it if God never let you look at pornography? How would you like it if God never let you disobey your parents? And so on. God has given us the choice to do good or evil, but because we will always do some kind of evil, he has given us Christ to be a salvation from our sins. Eventually (in the age to come, religiously speaking) our sinful nature will be removed, we will be perfected and still have free will. With the absence of sin, our free will will not be constrained, but expanded infinitely.

Then why create objects that are sinful or cause sin? Better yet, why make these acts evil?

[Communist Volkstrad]

We can observe the effects of natural rights, we have mathematical proof of atoms and observations by our devices. We have no evidence of a deity. There are numerous "holy books" each claiming to be evidence of a deity and proof. Yet, you only believe one.

Even if we decided to believe a deity existed, which ones and why? Why is your God any different from Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, Zeus, and the like?

I agree, what makes the Bible more credible than the Qu'ran, or the Poetic Edda?

[Communist Volkstrad]

The Bible is not, nor any holy book, proof of a God. It's pure mythology. We can observe atoms as you said, but aside from various flaw ridden ancient mythology, we have no way of detecting a deity. The concept of a God is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, meaning it cannot be proven wrong, and thus isn't any sort of acceptable hypothesis at all. For anything to be done with science, there has to be a test to prove it wrong. There isn't for a deity. Blind faith in ancient mythology is silly.

The Iron Age is hardly ancient.

That is true, but it is still a few thousand years back, and it still is mythology all the same

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Wouldn't we be robots if he forced us to be perfect and never do anything bad? How would you like it if God never let you look at pornography? How would you like it if God never let you disobey your parents? And so on. God has given us the choice to do good or evil, but because we will always do some kind of evil, he has given us Christ to be a salvation from our sins. Eventually (in the age to come, religiously speaking) our sinful nature will be removed, we will be perfected and still have free will. With the absence of sin, our free will will not be constrained, but expanded infinitely.

Then why create objects that are sinful or cause sin? Better yet, why make these acts evil?

God has determined what is evil and what is good; it's up to us to follow His rules (or not, and face the consequences).

[Benuty]

We can observe the effects of natural rights, we have mathematical proof of atoms and observations by our devices. We have no evidence of a deity. There are numerous "holy books" each claiming to be evidence of a deity and proof. Yet, you only believe one.

Even if we decided to believe a deity existed, which ones and why? Why is your God any different from Allah, Vishnu, Krishna, Zeus, and the like?

I agree, what makes the Bible more credible than the Qu'ran, or the Poetic Edda?

Kind of hard for the Poetic Eddas to be holy (for the original Norse) given a 13th Century bishop in Iceland compounded them.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

The Iron Age is hardly ancient.

That is true, but it is still a few thousand years back, and it still is mythology all the same

How do you know it's mythology? Were you there?

[Otrenia]

And it if really was a greater good, then you'd have 100% of the people agreeing with it.

Don't really wish to engage your entire argument, but this point I thought I should. The people aren't especially well-known for knowing what's good for them. Some things are objectively good for you, such as not eating so much that you get fat and die, yet people do it all the time.

[Olerand]

I agree, what makes the Bible more credible than the Qu'ran, or the Poetic Edda?

Kind of hard for the Poetic Eddas to be holy (for the original Norse) given a 13th Century bishop in Iceland compounded them.

Your knowledge of obscure religious trivia is both impressive and irritating at the same time. Congratulations.

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

I agree, what makes the Bible more credible than the Qu'ran, or the Poetic Edda?

Kind of hard for the Poetic Eddas to be holy (for the original Norse) given a 13th Century bishop in Iceland compounded them.

A Christian bishop, I'm assuming, as well. I have heard of it, but don't know for sure what the Eddas are about. I am guessing them to be an interesting piece of mythology.