Why does evil exist?

[Ringtone]

Evil exists because it is the direct opposite of good. If God never told us, "thou shalt not kill", would we know that killing is evil? Without the law given to us by God, would we know what is right or wrong? Simply by giving us the law of what is good, the opposite then exists. By nature, there is opposition in all things. Once you define what is good, it then has its opposite. The principle of evil exists whenever goodness exists. Whether we choose to do good or evil is left up to us of our own free will. Without defining good, you would not have evil. Simply defining what is good has its opposite. God could never establish goodness without its opposite existing also. So, in principle, you cannot have goodness without its opposite also existing, at least in principle. Free will allows each of us to choose between good and evil. If everyone chose goodness over evil, there would be no evil in the world but the principle would still exist. God wants us all to know the difference between good and evil and wants us all to learn to choose the good over the evil. If man chooses good over evil of his own free will, then the man's character becomes good. He becomes a good being in and of himself. If a person is forced to become good, then is he/she really a good person in and of him/her self? No! For this reason are we given free will so that we can truly become good beings of our free will and choice. For this reason God places us in a temporary existence with free will to choose good or evil of our own personal desire. Free will is an eternal principle of heaven and earth. Evil only exists because it is the opposite of good and because some choose with their free will to follow evil instead of good. The only way to rid ourselves of the principle of evil is to destroy goodness itself. However, if mankind were to choose only good, then evil would have very little if any consequence even though the principle (opposite) still exists.

..there is no god--we've been over this a million times
see post # 33

And yet you unwitting claim to be God, to know all things. Zoom The inherent contradiction, the inherent negation of your contention and the ramifications thereof, fly right over your head. It is not possible to rationally deny God's existence flatout.

1. pure double talk babble from you
2.your post is not proof of god--which adds proof to my post

Zoom Right over your head again.

 

[alang1216]

Why does god allow evil? because humans choose it.

I think the concepts of good and evil are too simplistic to be of use. I don't know anyone who was completely good or evil. Hitler loved the German people and did what he did for them. To his victims he was evil but if he had won the war Germany would have benefited greatly and he probably be viewed as a savior. I'm in no way defending what he did, just using him to explore the extremes. MLK is viewed as a great liberator of Blacks, a good thing, but the Southern Whites of his day viewed him as a destroyer of their way of life.

This world is not black and white, it is a rainbow.

So there's no moral absolute except the absolute that there's no moral absolute?! You unwittingly made an inherently contradictory, indeed, self-negating assertion, essentially proving that the opposite, i.e., that the positive, is true. Relativism is rank irrationality. The essence of evil—the essence of all sin— is irrationality.

I don't know of any place in the universe where the fundamental laws of physics don't apply. Those are absolutes. Morality is just the opposite as there are likely no two places where morality is exactly the same. Even in the US we have Red and Blue states.

You can construct your semantic Mobius Strip but that is just an example of irrationality.

Nonsense. The imperatives of logic and, therefore, natural law, i.e., the imperatives of the Golden Rule, are universally understood. Your prattle is the stuff of rank irrationality and sociopathology, but, then, even the sociopath understands the principle of fight or flee.

People generally operate according to the Golden Rule only within their group. The Rule for those outside your group has always been: You have what we want, we are the stronger, we will take what we want.

Survival of the fittest applies just as much to human societies as to wildebeest and lions. Lions are ruthless and aggressive just as human societies are warlike and for the same reason.

 

[Ringtone]

Why does god allow evil? because humans choose it.

I think the concepts of good and evil are too simplistic to be of use. I don't know anyone who was completely good or evil. Hitler loved the German people and did what he did for them. To his victims he was evil but if he had won the war Germany would have benefited greatly and he probably be viewed as a savior. I'm in no way defending what he did, just using him to explore the extremes. MLK is viewed as a great liberator of Blacks, a good thing, but the Southern Whites of his day viewed him as a destroyer of their way of life.

This world is not black and white, it is a rainbow.

So there's no moral absolute except the absolute that there's no moral absolute?! You unwittingly made an inherently contradictory, indeed, self-negating assertion, essentially proving that the opposite, i.e., that the positive, is true. Relativism is rank irrationality. The essence of evil—the essence of all sin— is irrationality.

I don't know of any place in the universe where the fundamental laws of physics don't apply. Those are absolutes. Morality is just the opposite as there are likely no two places where morality is exactly the same. Even in the US we have Red and Blue states.

You can construct your semantic Mobius Strip but that is just an example of irrationality.

Nonsense. The imperatives of logic and, therefore, natural law, i.e., the imperatives of the Golden Rule, are universally understood. Your prattle is the stuff of rank irrationality and sociopathology, but, then, even the sociopath understands the principle of fight or flee.

People generally operate according to the Golden Rule only within their group. The Rule for those outside your group has always been: You have what we want, we are the stronger, we will take what we want.

Survival of the fittest applies just as much to human societies as to wildebeest and lions. Lions are ruthless and aggressive just as human societies are warlike and for the same reason.

Dude, the epistemological apprehension of morality's universality has nothing to do with instances of cultural or material violations. The issue is ultimately ontological. You just conceded the ontological reality of natural law, indeed, that it's universally apprehended by man. Zoom Right over your head. Moral relativism is the stuff of baby talk, pseudo-intellectual gibberish. The stuff of inherently contradictory, self-negating la-la. Beyond that, all you're really saying is that men don't always obey the universal moral imperative. Every man knows that it's wrong to violate the life, liberty or property of another. Why? Because every man knows that he would not will another to violate his fundamental rights. Everybody knows that to violate the rights of another entails force or deception, indeed, overwhelming force to sustain it, or necessarily entails the flight of the culprit from justice when he doesn't have the means of overwhelming force to sustain his injustices against others.

 

[alang1216]

Why does god allow evil? because humans choose it.

I think the concepts of good and evil are too simplistic to be of use. I don't know anyone who was completely good or evil. Hitler loved the German people and did what he did for them. To his victims he was evil but if he had won the war Germany would have benefited greatly and he probably be viewed as a savior. I'm in no way defending what he did, just using him to explore the extremes. MLK is viewed as a great liberator of Blacks, a good thing, but the Southern Whites of his day viewed him as a destroyer of their way of life.

This world is not black and white, it is a rainbow.

So there's no moral absolute except the absolute that there's no moral absolute?! You unwittingly made an inherently contradictory, indeed, self-negating assertion, essentially proving that the opposite, i.e., that the positive, is true. Relativism is rank irrationality. The essence of evil—the essence of all sin— is irrationality.

I don't know of any place in the universe where the fundamental laws of physics don't apply. Those are absolutes. Morality is just the opposite as there are likely no two places where morality is exactly the same. Even in the US we have Red and Blue states.

You can construct your semantic Mobius Strip but that is just an example of irrationality.

Nonsense. The imperatives of logic and, therefore, natural law, i.e., the imperatives of the Golden Rule, are universally understood. Your prattle is the stuff of rank irrationality and sociopathology, but, then, even the sociopath understands the principle of fight or flee.

People generally operate according to the Golden Rule only within their group. The Rule for those outside your group has always been: You have what we want, we are the stronger, we will take what we want.

Survival of the fittest applies just as much to human societies as to wildebeest and lions. Lions are ruthless and aggressive just as human societies are warlike and for the same reason.

Dude, the epistemological apprehension of morality's universality has nothing to do with instances of cultural or material violations. The issue is ultimately ontological. You just conceded the ontological reality of natural law, indeed, that it's universally apprehended by man. Zoom Right over your head. Moral relativism is the stuff of baby talk, pseudo-intellectual gibberish. The stuff of inherently contradictory, self-negating la-la. Beyond that, all you're really saying is that men don't always obey the universal moral imperative. Every man knows that it's wrong to violate the life, liberty or property of another. Why? Because every man knows that he would not will another to violate his fundamental rights. Everybody knows that to violate the rights of another entails force or deception, indeed, overwhelming force to sustain it, or necessarily entails the flight of the culprit from justice when he doesn't have the means of overwhelming force to sustain his injustices against others.

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

 

[Hollie]

As definitions of good / evil, right / wrong vary with time and cultures, it suggests that the various gods need to unionize so we mere humans can have a consistent policy.

And yet you follow a moral code. Go figure.

Precisely! Zoom Right over their heads.

As usual, the hyper-religious are utterly befuddled. Morals and ethics touted by the hyper-religious xtians are said to be the result of the xtian gods (an utterly untrue assertion with reams of evidence against it), which is then touted as the wondrous panacea that solves all the world's ills and makes all those who believe people deserving of eternal paradise. What they want to avoid is the undercurrent of fear and arrogance used to justify their appalling behavior. There is no more evil villain in all of literature than the gods xtianity from the Hebrews.

The hyper-religious should consider that before making any case that their stolen xtian gods proscribed any morals to humanity, they might want to first make a rational case for the existence of their gods.

Morality is both transitory and fully natural in its source. Take gods away tomorrow and humans would behave pretty much like they do with their various gods in place. We are a mixture of selfishness and cooperation and it serves us pretty well. Most people do behave morally, often in spite of the teachings of their gods.

Evil exists because it is the default position of man. The religious will contest this point of view, by claiming how could God create evil? My answer is I don’t know, but it’s pretty obvious man is naturally evil.

Evil existed before man chose evil, i.e., chose disobedience over God. From that moment on it became "the default position of man", the essence of his fallen nature. God did not create evil; rather, he created beings of free will capable of choosing disobedience.

It's a rather pointless attempt at argument to presume you conclusion (evil existed before man), on an unverified, unverifiable appeal to supernatural gods. You have offered no reason for anyone to accept claims to your partisan versions of gods.

Oh, and you apparently have never bothered to read the Genesis fable, or, you don't have the cognitive skills to understand the obvious problems with it. First, according the fable, evil already existed prior to your versions of gods magically poofing A&E into existence. Did you read the part about the tree of knowledge and good and evil? The tree existed prior to A&E, (not the cable network), making their appearance, therefore evil already existed before A&E arrived. Who created evil?

 

[Ringtone]

First, according to the fable, evil already existed prior to your versions of gods magically poofing A&E into existence. Did you read the part about the tree of knowledge and good and evil? The tree existed prior to A&E, (not the cable network), making their appearance, therefore evil already existed before A&E arrived.

Well, the gibberish about fables aside, that's what I said. Go back and read my post. Also, according to the Bible, evil didn't just exist before Adam and Eve, it existed before the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Who created evil?

Once again, God created beings capable of free will, capable of choosing disobedience. Evil came into existence as a result of Lucifer's disobedience. That's why God "sealed" the obedience of the holy angels thereafter. All that according to the biblical narrative of things.

 

[Ringtone]

Why does god allow evil? because humans choose it.

I think the concepts of good and evil are too simplistic to be of use. I don't know anyone who was completely good or evil. Hitler loved the German people and did what he did for them. To his victims he was evil but if he had won the war Germany would have benefited greatly and he probably be viewed as a savior. I'm in no way defending what he did, just using him to explore the extremes. MLK is viewed as a great liberator of Blacks, a good thing, but the Southern Whites of his day viewed him as a destroyer of their way of life.

This world is not black and white, it is a rainbow.

So there's no moral absolute except the absolute that there's no moral absolute?! You unwittingly made an inherently contradictory, indeed, self-negating assertion, essentially proving that the opposite, i.e., that the positive, is true. Relativism is rank irrationality. The essence of evil—the essence of all sin— is irrationality.

I don't know of any place in the universe where the fundamental laws of physics don't apply. Those are absolutes. Morality is just the opposite as there are likely no two places where morality is exactly the same. Even in the US we have Red and Blue states.

You can construct your semantic Mobius Strip but that is just an example of irrationality.

Nonsense. The imperatives of logic and, therefore, natural law, i.e., the imperatives of the Golden Rule, are universally understood. Your prattle is the stuff of rank irrationality and sociopathology, but, then, even the sociopath understands the principle of fight or flee.

People generally operate according to the Golden Rule only within their group. The Rule for those outside your group has always been: You have what we want, we are the stronger, we will take what we want.

Survival of the fittest applies just as much to human societies as to wildebeest and lions. Lions are ruthless and aggressive just as human societies are warlike and for the same reason.

Dude, the epistemological apprehension of morality's universality has nothing to do with instances of cultural or material violations. The issue is ultimately ontological. You just conceded the ontological reality of natural law, indeed, that it's universally apprehended by man. Zoom Right over your head. Moral relativism is the stuff of baby talk, pseudo-intellectual gibberish. The stuff of inherently contradictory, self-negating la-la. Beyond that, all you're really saying is that men don't always obey the universal moral imperative. Every man knows that it's wrong to violate the life, liberty or property of another. Why? Because every man knows that he would not will another to violate his fundamental rights. Everybody knows that to violate the rights of another entails force or deception, indeed, overwhelming force to sustain it, or necessarily entails the flight of the culprit from justice when he doesn't have the means of overwhelming force to sustain his injustices against others.

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

Saddam's regime was evil to be sure.

 

[Ringtone]

 

[Hollie]

First, according to the fable, evil already existed prior to your versions of gods magically poofing A&E into existence. Did you read the part about the tree of knowledge and good and evil? The tree existed prior to A&E, (not the cable network), making their appearance, therefore evil already existed before A&E arrived.

Well, the gibberish about fables aside, that's what I said. Go back and read my post. Also, according to the Bible, evil didn't just exist before Adam and Eve, it existed before the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Who created evil?

Once again, God created beings capable of free will, capable of choosing disobedience. Evil came into existence as a result of Lucifer's disobedience. That's why God "sealed" the obedience of the holy angels thereafter. All that according to the biblical narrative of things.

I can see you are embarrassed about never having understood the implication of the Genesis fable. As I noted, the fable identifies that evil existed prior to A&E, hence the tree being there upon A&E's arrival. Nothing in the Genesis fable indicates that evil existed before the fruit tree. The tree could have been proofed into existence fully formed as the evil used to tempt A&E.

Obviously critical thinking skills are not a focus of your study at the madrassah.


I have no reason to accept unsupported claims about your version of partisan gods. A rational argument would suggest that you first support your claims to gods prior to adding a host of attributes and actions taken by your gods. Your appeal to biblical narratives as true doesn't place any burden on me to accept claims to magic and supernaturalism that you are willing to uncritically accept. Are takes of space aliens, Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny, etc. literally true because they are characters in books?

 

[alang1216]

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

Saddam's regime was evil to be sure.

No doubt but were the Iraqi soldiers (drafted?) fighting to defend their country also evil? Were the soldiers that fought under Obama evil while those that fought under Trump were not? What about the reverse?

 

[HenryBHough]

Evil exists to show humankind what Hell is really like.

Chicago, New York and Seattle are God's convenient theme parks so nobody has to travel too far to see for themselves.

 

[Hollie]

I'm mightily impressed that Frank Turek has a 'doctorate in apologetics' from something called Southern Evangelical Seminary.

That sounds like one ot those fraud online Seminaries that churns out 'doctorates' after a 20 question true or false quiz.


I'm guessing you mean this Frank Turek, right?

Encyclopedia of American Loons

It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

americanloons.blogspot.com

Frank Turek is a famous fundie author and motivational speaker. He is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct (you get the gist) and co-author with Norman Geisler of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Legislating Morality. His level of fundie insanity can probably be gauged from his participation in Bob Cornuke’s expedition to find Noah’s Ark in Turkey, an expedition the participants judged to be successful (though their findings don’t seem to have convinced the skeptics – or fellow creationists, for that matter.)

Turek is also a hardline theocrat. Of course, he claims not to be a theocrat (since “theocrat” is a poor sales pitch even in wingnut circles). Indeed he insists that Christians (that would be ChristiansTM – those who agree with Turek) don’t want theocracy, they just want the government to enforce Biblical moral laws on people who don’t believe in them.

Turek is of course also negatively inclined toward gay people, and laid out his views in the Correct book. After the publication of that one, Turek did, however, notice that it became harder to sell his dayjob services as a team-building consultant – he was booted by Cisco Systems and Bank of America, for instance – since the rather rank bigotry of his book sort of tended to undermine his team-building message. Guess who screamed “persecution” because people didn’t want to buy his product and convinced himself he was a martyr, persecuted for just saying that he believed marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman? Of course, what Turek did claim was (for instance) that gays and radical muslims have united to destroy Western civilization – gays (and muslims) want to bring about totalitarianism, and they have united because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values” – gay marriage will, in Turek’s mind, cause Americans to “lose the freedom of speech,” and his arguments are quite clearly taken rather directly from the arguments against interracial marriage used in the 50s. His denunciation of diversity training programs (as well as gay pride events – “[p]ride is, as we all know, really the root of all sin,” though one suspect his main problem isn’t with the “pride” part) for religious reasons might also have been considered not entirely irrelevant to companies’ assessment of the suitability of his team-building consultancy practice.

A particularly notable feature is Turek’s borderline amazing inability to understand what marriage equality is all about and what the position of those in favor of marriage equality actually is – thus providing a rather stunning example of how bigotry-induced bias can blind one to the issues at stake. He has, at least, admitted that he sees no-fault marriage as an even greater threat than gay marriage.

Here is Turek being a wingnut moron on the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Diagnosis: Rank theocrat and Taliban fundie. Relatively standard fare for this Encyclopedia, in other words, but Turek seems to have risen to a position of some prominence in the wingnut community.

 

[Ringtone]

I'm mightily impressed that Frank Turek has a 'doctorate in apologetics' from something called Southern Evangelical Seminary.

That sounds like one ot those fraud online Seminaries that churns out 'doctorates' after a 20 question true or false quiz.


I'm guessing you mean this Frank Turek, right?

Encyclopedia of American Loons

It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

americanloons.blogspot.com

Frank Turek is a famous fundie author and motivational speaker. He is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct (you get the gist) and co-author with Norman Geisler of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Legislating Morality. His level of fundie insanity can probably be gauged from his participation in Bob Cornuke’s expedition to find Noah’s Ark in Turkey, an expedition the participants judged to be successful (though their findings don’t seem to have convinced the skeptics – or fellow creationists, for that matter.)

Turek is also a hardline theocrat. Of course, he claims not to be a theocrat (since “theocrat” is a poor sales pitch even in wingnut circles). Indeed he insists that Christians (that would be ChristiansTM – those who agree with Turek) don’t want theocracy, they just want the government to enforce Biblical moral laws on people who don’t believe in them.

Turek is of course also negatively inclined toward gay people, and laid out his views in the Correct book. After the publication of that one, Turek did, however, notice that it became harder to sell his dayjob services as a team-building consultant – he was booted by Cisco Systems and Bank of America, for instance – since the rather rank bigotry of his book sort of tended to undermine his team-building message. Guess who screamed “persecution” because people didn’t want to buy his product and convinced himself he was a martyr, persecuted for just saying that he believed marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman? Of course, what Turek did claim was (for instance) that gays and radical muslims have united to destroy Western civilization – gays (and muslims) want to bring about totalitarianism, and they have united because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values” – gay marriage will, in Turek’s mind, cause Americans to “lose the freedom of speech,” and his arguments are quite clearly taken rather directly from the arguments against interracial marriage used in the 50s. His denunciation of diversity training programs (as well as gay pride events – “[p]ride is, as we all know, really the root of all sin,” though one suspect his main problem isn’t with the “pride” part) for religious reasons might also have been considered not entirely irrelevant to companies’ assessment of the suitability of his team-building consultancy practice.

A particularly notable feature is Turek’s borderline amazing inability to understand what marriage equality is all about and what the position of those in favor of marriage equality actually is – thus providing a rather stunning example of how bigotry-induced bias can blind one to the issues at stake. He has, at least, admitted that he sees no-fault marriage as an even greater threat than gay marriage.

Here is Turek being a wingnut moron on the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Diagnosis: Rank theocrat and Taliban fundie. Relatively standard fare for this Encyclopedia, in other words, but Turek seems to have risen to a position of some prominence in the wingnut community.

Hollie

 

[Ringtone]

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

Saddam's regime was evil to be sure.

No doubt but were the Iraqi soldiers (drafted?) fighting to defend their country also evil? Were the soldiers that fought under Obama evil while those that fought under Trump were not? What about the reverse?

State your point, please. You seem to think that something relative to the topic is obvious.

 

[Hollie]

I'm mightily impressed that Frank Turek has a 'doctorate in apologetics' from something called Southern Evangelical Seminary.

That sounds like one ot those fraud online Seminaries that churns out 'doctorates' after a 20 question true or false quiz.


I'm guessing you mean this Frank Turek, right?

Encyclopedia of American Loons

It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

americanloons.blogspot.com

Frank Turek is a famous fundie author and motivational speaker. He is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct (you get the gist) and co-author with Norman Geisler of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Legislating Morality. His level of fundie insanity can probably be gauged from his participation in Bob Cornuke’s expedition to find Noah’s Ark in Turkey, an expedition the participants judged to be successful (though their findings don’t seem to have convinced the skeptics – or fellow creationists, for that matter.)

Turek is also a hardline theocrat. Of course, he claims not to be a theocrat (since “theocrat” is a poor sales pitch even in wingnut circles). Indeed he insists that Christians (that would be ChristiansTM – those who agree with Turek) don’t want theocracy, they just want the government to enforce Biblical moral laws on people who don’t believe in them.

Turek is of course also negatively inclined toward gay people, and laid out his views in the Correct book. After the publication of that one, Turek did, however, notice that it became harder to sell his dayjob services as a team-building consultant – he was booted by Cisco Systems and Bank of America, for instance – since the rather rank bigotry of his book sort of tended to undermine his team-building message. Guess who screamed “persecution” because people didn’t want to buy his product and convinced himself he was a martyr, persecuted for just saying that he believed marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman? Of course, what Turek did claim was (for instance) that gays and radical muslims have united to destroy Western civilization – gays (and muslims) want to bring about totalitarianism, and they have united because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values” – gay marriage will, in Turek’s mind, cause Americans to “lose the freedom of speech,” and his arguments are quite clearly taken rather directly from the arguments against interracial marriage used in the 50s. His denunciation of diversity training programs (as well as gay pride events – “[p]ride is, as we all know, really the root of all sin,” though one suspect his main problem isn’t with the “pride” part) for religious reasons might also have been considered not entirely irrelevant to companies’ assessment of the suitability of his team-building consultancy practice.

A particularly notable feature is Turek’s borderline amazing inability to understand what marriage equality is all about and what the position of those in favor of marriage equality actually is – thus providing a rather stunning example of how bigotry-induced bias can blind one to the issues at stake. He has, at least, admitted that he sees no-fault marriage as an even greater threat than gay marriage.

Here is Turek being a wingnut moron on the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Diagnosis: Rank theocrat and Taliban fundie. Relatively standard fare for this Encyclopedia, in other words, but Turek seems to have risen to a position of some prominence in the wingnut community.

Hollie
View attachment 436979

I'll take your juvenile tirade to mean that you won't try to defend a fundie charlatan,

I'm afraid your behavior mimics a petulent child who falls to the floor in screeching, foot-stomping tirades.

It's a time out for you. Go to your room and think about your actions.

 

[Ringtone]

I'm mightily impressed that Frank Turek has a 'doctorate in apologetics' from something called Southern Evangelical Seminary.

That sounds like one ot those fraud online Seminaries that churns out 'doctorates' after a 20 question true or false quiz.


I'm guessing you mean this Frank Turek, right?

Encyclopedia of American Loons

It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

americanloons.blogspot.com

Frank Turek is a famous fundie author and motivational speaker. He is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct (you get the gist) and co-author with Norman Geisler of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Legislating Morality. His level of fundie insanity can probably be gauged from his participation in Bob Cornuke’s expedition to find Noah’s Ark in Turkey, an expedition the participants judged to be successful (though their findings don’t seem to have convinced the skeptics – or fellow creationists, for that matter.)

Turek is also a hardline theocrat. Of course, he claims not to be a theocrat (since “theocrat” is a poor sales pitch even in wingnut circles). Indeed he insists that Christians (that would be ChristiansTM – those who agree with Turek) don’t want theocracy, they just want the government to enforce Biblical moral laws on people who don’t believe in them.

Turek is of course also negatively inclined toward gay people, and laid out his views in the Correct book. After the publication of that one, Turek did, however, notice that it became harder to sell his dayjob services as a team-building consultant – he was booted by Cisco Systems and Bank of America, for instance – since the rather rank bigotry of his book sort of tended to undermine his team-building message. Guess who screamed “persecution” because people didn’t want to buy his product and convinced himself he was a martyr, persecuted for just saying that he believed marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman? Of course, what Turek did claim was (for instance) that gays and radical muslims have united to destroy Western civilization – gays (and muslims) want to bring about totalitarianism, and they have united because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values” – gay marriage will, in Turek’s mind, cause Americans to “lose the freedom of speech,” and his arguments are quite clearly taken rather directly from the arguments against interracial marriage used in the 50s. His denunciation of diversity training programs (as well as gay pride events – “[p]ride is, as we all know, really the root of all sin,” though one suspect his main problem isn’t with the “pride” part) for religious reasons might also have been considered not entirely irrelevant to companies’ assessment of the suitability of his team-building consultancy practice.

A particularly notable feature is Turek’s borderline amazing inability to understand what marriage equality is all about and what the position of those in favor of marriage equality actually is – thus providing a rather stunning example of how bigotry-induced bias can blind one to the issues at stake. He has, at least, admitted that he sees no-fault marriage as an even greater threat than gay marriage.

Here is Turek being a wingnut moron on the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Diagnosis: Rank theocrat and Taliban fundie. Relatively standard fare for this Encyclopedia, in other words, but Turek seems to have risen to a position of some prominence in the wingnut community.

Hollie
View attachment 436979

I'll take your juvenile tirade to mean that you won't try to defend a fundie charlatan,

I'm afraid your behavior mimics a petulent child who falls to the floor in screeching, foot-stomping tirades.

It's a time out for you. Go to your room and think about your actions.

Hollie

 

[alang1216]

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

Saddam's regime was evil to be sure.

No doubt but were the Iraqi soldiers (drafted?) fighting to defend their country also evil? Were the soldiers that fought under Obama evil while those that fought under Trump were not? What about the reverse?

State your point, please. You seem to think that something relative to the topic is obvious.

I thought I had but here goes. If morality is absolute and two people are on opposite sides trying to kill the other then:

• one is evil and one is good
• both are evil
• both are good

 

[Hollie]

I'm mightily impressed that Frank Turek has a 'doctorate in apologetics' from something called Southern Evangelical Seminary.

That sounds like one ot those fraud online Seminaries that churns out 'doctorates' after a 20 question true or false quiz.


I'm guessing you mean this Frank Turek, right?

Encyclopedia of American Loons

It’s … The Encyclopedia of American loons! Our new and exciting series presenting a representative sample of American loons from A-Z.

americanloons.blogspot.com

Frank Turek is a famous fundie author and motivational speaker. He is the author of Correct, Not Politically Correct (you get the gist) and co-author with Norman Geisler of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist and Legislating Morality. His level of fundie insanity can probably be gauged from his participation in Bob Cornuke’s expedition to find Noah’s Ark in Turkey, an expedition the participants judged to be successful (though their findings don’t seem to have convinced the skeptics – or fellow creationists, for that matter.)

Turek is also a hardline theocrat. Of course, he claims not to be a theocrat (since “theocrat” is a poor sales pitch even in wingnut circles). Indeed he insists that Christians (that would be ChristiansTM – those who agree with Turek) don’t want theocracy, they just want the government to enforce Biblical moral laws on people who don’t believe in them.

Turek is of course also negatively inclined toward gay people, and laid out his views in the Correct book. After the publication of that one, Turek did, however, notice that it became harder to sell his dayjob services as a team-building consultant – he was booted by Cisco Systems and Bank of America, for instance – since the rather rank bigotry of his book sort of tended to undermine his team-building message. Guess who screamed “persecution” because people didn’t want to buy his product and convinced himself he was a martyr, persecuted for just saying that he believed marriage should be restricted to one man and one woman? Of course, what Turek did claim was (for instance) that gays and radical muslims have united to destroy Western civilization – gays (and muslims) want to bring about totalitarianism, and they have united because “they both hate Western Civilization” and “hate Judeo-Christian natural law values” – gay marriage will, in Turek’s mind, cause Americans to “lose the freedom of speech,” and his arguments are quite clearly taken rather directly from the arguments against interracial marriage used in the 50s. His denunciation of diversity training programs (as well as gay pride events – “[p]ride is, as we all know, really the root of all sin,” though one suspect his main problem isn’t with the “pride” part) for religious reasons might also have been considered not entirely irrelevant to companies’ assessment of the suitability of his team-building consultancy practice.

A particularly notable feature is Turek’s borderline amazing inability to understand what marriage equality is all about and what the position of those in favor of marriage equality actually is – thus providing a rather stunning example of how bigotry-induced bias can blind one to the issues at stake. He has, at least, admitted that he sees no-fault marriage as an even greater threat than gay marriage.

Here is Turek being a wingnut moron on the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Diagnosis: Rank theocrat and Taliban fundie. Relatively standard fare for this Encyclopedia, in other words, but Turek seems to have risen to a position of some prominence in the wingnut community.

Hollie
View attachment 436979

I'll take your juvenile tirade to mean that you won't try to defend a fundie charlatan,

I'm afraid your behavior mimics a petulent child who falls to the floor in screeching, foot-stomping tirades.

It's a time out for you. Go to your room and think about your actions.

Hollie
View attachment 436994

Your time-out just got longer. You behavior is really creepy.

You're not emotionally (or intellectually), prepared to have your specious opinions challenged so why participate in these forums? Did you really believe everyone would accept your claims without question or comment?

 

[BreezeWood]

First, according to the fable, evil already existed prior to your versions of gods magically poofing A&E into existence. Did you read the part about the tree of knowledge and good and evil? The tree existed prior to A&E, (not the cable network), making their appearance, therefore evil already existed before A&E arrived.

Well, the gibberish about fables aside, that's what I said. Go back and read my post. Also, according to the Bible, evil didn't just exist before Adam and Eve, it existed before the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Who created evil?

Once again, God created beings capable of free will, capable of choosing disobedience. Evil came into existence as a result of Lucifer's disobedience. That's why God "sealed" the obedience of the holy angels thereafter. All that according to the biblical narrative of things.

.

Evil came into existence as a result of Lucifer's disobedience.

Once again, God created beings capable of free will, capable of choosing disobedience. Evil came into existence as a result of Lucifer's disobedience.

.
that's not an oxymoron ...

the metaphysical is a collective there is no such act as disobedience which were it not the norm being challenged would not necessarily be an "evil" act per se anyway - what is free will. ringtone hasn't a clue.

for anyone familiar with the events of the 1st century and that discourse the evil in accordance with ringtone would have been non other than the religious itinerant the future false religion they champion is based on.

 

[Ringtone]

Here on Earth things are very different. We overthrew Saddam at cost 10s of thousands of Iraqi lives. Our soldiers killed their soldiers. Which side was moral and which was immoral?

Saddam's regime was evil to be sure.

No doubt but were the Iraqi soldiers (drafted?) fighting to defend their country also evil? Were the soldiers that fought under Obama evil while those that fought under Trump were not? What about the reverse?

State your point, please. You seem to think that something relative to the topic is obvious.

I thought I had but here goes. If morality is absolute and two people are on opposite sides trying to kill the other then:

• one is evil and one is good
• both are evil
• both are good

You don't seem to grasp the ontology of the matter. Either an absolute, universal and, therefore, objective standard of moral good exists or it doesn't. It's existence and primacy would not be subject to the whims of situational ethics or attitudes, and the exact nature of any given act, good or bad, would be determined by that standard. You just unwittingly made the very distinction between good and evil, which is inescapable, howbeit, unwittingly. In any event, are you saying that the killing of another human being is necessarily evil?