Posted On 21 May 2022
Greg Koukl answers the claim that Christians are close-minded.
#StandtoReason #Apologetics #Christianity
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KOGATI UNIVERSE
I dont see how you came to the conclusion that christians can be more openminded when they have been bound by religion tho.. i grew up in the Christian church and lol have only seen Christians become more openminded WHEN LOOKING in a scientific “naturalistic” way… lol i think the opposite is pretty obvious, thats why its called FAITH
KOGATI UNIVERSE
closeminded: sky is blue. thats what i was taught in school. ive seen it be blue so the sky must be blue. & water is blue because it reflects the sky
openminded: ive seen the sky & water be other colors than blue so while water does have reflecting properties, there could be other elements that cause them to be other colors.
One with Creation
100 percent close minded lol. An open minded person would’ve burn the Bible a long time ago and not out of bitterness, but what burning the Bible can do to another person on a positive spectrum which is to not BRAINWASH that person. Read your bibles. Then you can either read it for fun or burn it.
totiman
being supersticious does not make you more open minded. being closed minded is willing to go beyond logic just to prove your belief.
RunSwanson
Why is it wrong to destroy lives?
fabiodej
if there is at least one person who could understand that's wrong, then the problem is not religion, but people's interpretations. if a person in a secular society commits that violence, would you blame the secularity of that society or that very person?
Bill
Just one example of many. In Northern Pakistan under the Taliban, young girls run the risk of being shot in the face for the 'crime' of learning to read. If it weren't for the religion, the Taliban wouldn't exist.
Another very recent case saw the avoidable death of a young woman in Ireland who was refused an abortion by doctors, who cited their country's religious anti abortion laws. The child died in misscarriage anyway and the parents knew this was going to happen and asked for the abortion.
fabiodej
can you give an example of how religion destroys lives?
Bill
Science is far superior than the world destroying fantasy bullshit that most religious believe. Science saves lives. Religion destroys lives and the Bible and Quran are full of jibberish.
spider9243
Eyes on the prize my friend.
spider9243
Thus we must be narrow minded to travel that narrow road.
spider9243
Matthew 7:13-14, 13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
penilicious
@WestonPDX Sure, you can just email me directly at katerin-daryl@shaw.ca if you don't mind.
WestonPDX
@penilicious The comment notification has been pretty buggy lately. I saw a comment from you on my phone, but don't see it here. Maybe we could move this conversation somewhere else?
WestonPDX
@penilicious I see a number of issues with non-violent superstition. It undermines the perceived importance of scientific discovery. It perpetuates a culture of obedience and discourages critical thinking. It encourages reliance on wishful thinking and blind belief. It confuses serious discord and hijacks political progress with useless controversy. It perpetuates an acceptance of delusion and a lack of introspection. I can elaborate on any one of these, if you'd care to choose : )
penilicious
@WestonPDX Switching gears, if I could. You've made several comments in reference to being happy less people read the Bible in US, and how you feel shaming people about their religious beliefs is the best tactic. I'm curious why this is important to you, from an atheistic perspective. While I would share your concern with militant religious groups, I don't see the majority of religious followers as being harmful whatsoever, even though I disagree with most of them.
WestonPDX
@penilicious Natural selection takes millenia to yield meaningful change. In 1,000 years science will likely render humans unrecognizable to modern man. Natural selection is far too slow to be useful anymore. The impact natural selection has had on morality is long done as well. But the initial contribution will be a factor for a while, surely.
penilicious
@WestonPDX In many ways, absolutely, but that's a side issue.
Science will be responsible for all future development? Says who? It will obviously have a major impact, but I don't see how it suddenly puts natural selection out of a job if life operates on that principle, you can't just say "thanks universe, I've got it from here".
If morality is partially a product of natural selection, then it will continue to operate and change. Science has no impact here.
WestonPDX
@penilicious Natural selection got us where we were 200 years ago. But science will be responsible for all future development. Our progress was like a snail, that recently hopped on a rocket ship. Isn't that pretty obvious?
penilicious
@WestonPDX I find it a little odd, that on materialism, we evolve for billions of years progressing with each adaptation, and yet you can declare that any progression now has little, if anything to do with natural selection. What power do we have that we can just suddenly divorce ourselves from the process that has been responsible for our very existence?
WestonPDX
@penilicious I'd say our morality is 'loosely' based on a pack mentality. But yes, it is largely learned. Human progress at this point has little, if anything, to do with natural selection.
penilicious
@WestonPDX I echo what Darwin said, in that every species since day 1, weeds out the weak in the name of survival of the fittest, yet in human society we reject that notion, even abhor it, in practical application. There is no equality anywhere in nature, and if humans have invented it, like you suggest, than we are at odds with natural selection.
I don't say our instinctual sense of morality is in opposition to natural selection because I don't think our moral sense is instinctual.
WestonPDX
@penilicious So you're saying our instinctual sense of right and wrong is in opposition to the function of natural selection?
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 Darwin very rightly points out in The Descent of Man, that the ethic we seem to adopt that human beings are all equal, and that it is noble to help the poor and sick is what will inevitably lead to human beings' downfall. If he's right, and I think he is on a naturalistic world view, than these things we consider good need to change in order for our species to progress, yet it seems obvious to me, that some things are clearly wrong.
Weston
@penilicious Yes, I agree we have no objective right to decide ethics for anyone else. Often we are fighting for internal, objective, logic though. The assumption is made that human well being is good in everyone's mind. So then actions which work against that are bad and we have the right spread this ideology.
penilicious
@WestonPDX Okay, so I presume then that you would consider it improper for someone to say "that's wrong" in reference to a behavior, rather one would say "I think that's wrong", unless perhaps there was a law against it in the country where it happens, in which case you would be accurate in saying "that's wrong", is that your view?
WestonPDX
@penilicious When you say 'this is right or wrong' that sounds like an objective statement. Those words don't apply in any objective sense to meaning or morality. But yes, if the majority agreed, then it would be widely thought of as 'right'. Just as it is widely thought of as 'wrong' today.
penilicious
@WestonPDX This is where I see a contradiction. You say the basis is the collective agreement of billions of people. Yet when I suggest a scenario where the majority or collective agreement of billions of people approve slavery, you say slavery is never right, even when everyone is practicing it.
WestonPDX
@penilicious The basis is the collective agreement of billions of people. Just because something is relative, doesn't make it pointless. The entire meaning of our existence, and all that we care about is relative. As humans, we value the relative far above the objective.
penilicious
@WestonPDX I understand that, but you made all sorts of moral judgments against the God of the Bible, and I'm saying those statements, being relative, have no basis, so it's a pointless objection.
WestonPDX
@penilicious You can either say the Bible contains a timeless, objectively divine moral code, or you can say the morals are ancient and outdated, and man-made. You can't say both.
WestonPDX
@penilicious I wouldn't object, except a bunch of people in my country think the Bible holds objective, timeless morals that we should all live by. Luckily hardly any of them have actually read the Bible, and no one actually lives by Biblical rules.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 And what if I say at that time it wasn't? Judging a bronze age culture with 21st century North American standard doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Weston
@penilicious The morality of the Bible is barbaric compared to modern morality. It doesn't mean either is objectively right or wrong.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 I guess I'm confused then. A week ago, you made all sorts of claims attacking the morality of the God of Christianity, yet you just said that your criticism are based on a relative framework. So what's the point then in attacking the God of the Bible given there is no objective right or wrong. You may as well be attacking his favorite breakfast cereal, no?
Weston
@penilicious I feel like you're applying an objective framework to a relative concept. You simply can't say something is objectively 'right' or 'wrong'. Slavery is never 'right' even if everyone is practicing it, and it's not 'wrong' when no one is practicing it. Now if we have a relative framework to base the words right and wrong on, then we can say definitively, based on the framework.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 So slavery isn't bad in itself, it's only bad if a country (or similar large group of people) decides it is. So in theory, if enough people believed we should return to kidnapping Africans and using them as slaves, it would be right again, and anyone objecting would be wrong.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 No, all of my questions are probing to understand how, if morality is a man made idea, and their is no objective standard, than what gives you, or any country the right to impose it's morality on someone else? You appeal to logic and consistency, but on what grounds?
Weston
@penilicious I'm not following. It seems like you're just asking if his actions were 'right'. I thought I already answered that.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 His quest for a modern day utopia, using social Darwinism to achieve a human species that was superior to its predecessor.
Weston
@penilicious I think I could prove that his motives and his actions were in conflict with each other. But in order to answer the 'justified' question, I'd need some criteria for justification. Justified, based on what?
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 For arguments sake, let's say I disagree with you and say Hitler's motives were good, so it justifies his actions. Who's to say who's right?
Weston
@WestonPDX100 Personally I classify actions as 'Good' or 'Bad' based on their positive or negative impact on the welfare of conscious creatures. Hitler's actions would obviously fall into the 'Bad' category.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 Let me try a better example. I assume you'd agree that Hitler was bad (I'll avoid the word evil). Assuming you agree, if his ultimate aim was to create a better society, what gives anyone not targeted by Hitler, the right to call him bad?
Weston
@penilicious Personally, I don't think we have that 'right'. I would prefer we stick with the founder's vision and stay out of other countries business. But the 'right' is just an imaginary agreement, like everything else. There is widespread agreement on certain governmental ideas, like democracy and individual freedoms, so the rest of the world doesn't push back that hard when we decide to 'bomb' a country into a democracy.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 There's a few directions I can go here, but let me ask this: what gives the US the moral high ground by promoting equality? What gives the US the right to "force their flavor" so to speak, on other countries on issues of alleged homosexual discrimination or discrimination against women, etc?
Weston
@penilicious Consistency is often a standard that is appealed to for cases like this. We claim to promote the idea of 'equality' in the U.S. So any situation where rules aren't equal, someone objects. Even though the rules are relative, the rules of logic are objective, and can be used to object to inconsistencies.
penilicious
@WestonPDX100 I'm trying to understand that if morality is an invention, and the majority decides right and wrong, then there is no real standard of right or wrong. The standard is whatever a society decides is beneficial. So, if a society decides that homosexual behavior is wrong, they're right, unless they cease being the majority opinion, in which they become the minority and thus their view becomes wrong. On what standard could you object?