I just replied to him from that post, 3 months ago:
ok so this was 3 months ago, when you were getting all worked up, mentioning these videos.
Masonry's Satanic Doctrine - From Their Own Books (Original Classic) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRl-ITShKhY
The New Age Fully Exposed (UPDATED) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAQyVF7gjz0
Gods of the New Age (Original Classic) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tix1t6wUU9A
The New Age's Antichrist Connection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrtdI0CF_28
New Age Satanism Exposed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjt3MTNqr4k
Aquarius: The Age of Evil (Original Classic) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00WBV-i-zRM
I'm there, calm down.. give me some time here. I put each of them on the bookmarks bar. And during meals I'd gradually check them out. Note the time in the bookmark and resume next meal.
Well.. 3 months later I'm starting to check out the last one here.. These videos were as informative about what's going on with the cabal running the world, as how you were getting all worked-up about it. Once you check out all these half dozen videos, it helps you put together lots of puzzle pieces you've been researching over the years, that you didn't understand what these cabal guys are up to.
Before this I'd have researched about some of these characters but didn't really put it all together. The new age movement there.. that's the freemason, luciferian agenda.
I looked into Manly P. Hall's stuff.. and he was talking about these things. I had heard about Blavatsky.. and Alice Bailey. How Lucifer publishing, Lucis trust, was involved with the united nations. You get guys like Aleister Crowley.. what kinds of things was he into. On and on with all these guys. How about that Freemason guy there.. Pike.
I didn't really think about these eastern religions. The religions in India. The meditating. Even the Muslims.. what was going on BEFORE Mohammed.. when they'd sacrifice stuff. Where they had this black cube. Those guys are bad too. The Jews with the ark of the covenant.. sacrificing stuff.. splashing blood on it. They're bad too. Any sacrificing there.. that's bad.
How about people who wonder, how come the immigration keeps going on, even though people here can't get a job. That's to mix in all these religions so the catholic people are minority.
Jack up inflation so those left can't afford to have kids. So, sooner than later, they'll be "out".
Then you come in with this new world order there. It's all the Luciferian agenda. And they disguise it as this New age movement with the meditating.
What do you think about all this stuff in these half dozen videos you were getting all worked up about, 3 months ago. And I was there, calm down.. give me some time. I also had other things I might have to check out before I could get around to these.
But on the last one. 12 minutes.. 2 hours long. I don't like the way these guys stretch 4:3 aspect ratio videos.. they should leave it how it was instead of stretching people's bodies and heads. Whatever.. checking out the videos. You learn a lot about what's going on out there and some "why".
Oh, you think human parthenogenesis is a speculative miracle because it's never been observed scientifically in our species like it has for others? That's not an appeal to miracle. From the standpoint of the Bible literalist, he already believes in parthenogenesis and Nephilim so adding a little bit in our favor to find Cain's wife is no problem for him. From the standpoint of the skeptic, it doesn't matter what solution is proposed, theistic evolutionists believe in pre-Adamites for instance, but the issue is that he already disbelieves the Bible and is just using Cain's wife as a human shield. That's why I feel totally free to share my own literalist answers with you, to encourage you that they exist, not to say you must believe them; but from your standpoint of skepticism you need to have consistent methodology first before you even have the power to complain about Cain's wife.
Glad you understand that part so well! The Near East case law that has shining moments in Hammurabi and Moses and Solomon is indeed one of the better cultural expressions of natural law. America comes close, it has a secure Constitutional foundation but it's been more easily distracted than Moses's nation was overall.
I knew you were asking questions where you might not like my candid answers, so I was prepared for that; but I answered candidly anyway, because I can. Your logic doesn't follow though. First, the US kills for treason and that position is highly approved on this platform. However, second, the right of a people to execute traitors does not extend to corrupt tyrants who have seized the power to execute arbitrarily and capriciously. Perhaps your view of moral law as monolithic is getting in the way. When following one law you don't get to ignore other laws by claiming they are in conflict, you must (like good judges do in this country) resolve the apparent conflict and find the distinction you need. In your proposed case, the fact that a culture is anti-Christ does not give them legitimate power to restrict or punish peaceful minority religions (we call that observation "1A" here) because personal practice is not treasonous, and attempts to make personal practice tantamount to treason (Daniel in the lion's den) are themselves destructive of their own government (his attackers wound up in the same lion's den). By authorizing capital punishment, Noah's statement (whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed) emphasizes that execution must be deliberative and transparent to prevent becoming vengeful and cyclical. That precedes any tyrant's distortion.
TLDR: If you choose not to follow up on these notices, it's sufficient that you have been informed that you'll do better to build on your view of moral law and recognize that it assumes class applications such as man and woman, adult and child. And you'll do better to question the quibbles that atheists wrote dogmatically in the same way you question other religions. For that, I'll leave you to Jesus's statement, love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, love neighbor as self, and on these two hang all law and commandments.
I told you there are several solutions accepted by believers in morality, and I told you you don't have to accept mine just because I find it suitable for me. If you quibble at a narrative because you believe there's no way to interpret it except for there being two people who were morally barred from creating an extended family and thus a contradiction, the burden is on you to prove that's the only way to interpret the text, because billions have had no problem with rejecting that reading. Cain's wife doesn't justify throwing out the Ten Commandments. If the theistic evolutionists are right and we're both wrong, presumably we can both be corrected; but even if you think I'm wrong it doesn't make your opinion right by default because it's not a binary argument. Now, since you ask, I do believe that (the law of entropy indicates) human powers were greater in the past and, just as other powers go extinct in e.g. past gigantism in many species, there's nothing wrong with parthenogenesis going dormant in humans (with the notable exception of Mary) but remaining present in a number of animal species. It's devolution that makes it not happen anymore. Not a miracle, it's been observed by scientists, just not recently in humans. But for you to focus on this quibble while letting others go suggests the basic methodology issue I've been describing.
I didn't change my morality. "Authority" means legitimate power, not illegitimate. Morality is not to reject community authority, but of course one should reject tyranny, and one is responsible to know the difference. As I said, leaders lose their righteous authority by themselves transgressing moral law such as by abusing their constituency. It's natural that moral law deals with issues like failures of government, and decisions that war is necessary, and it's natural that these are not always the simplest questions even though morality when grasped on a subject is itself simple. The fact that some questions have layers doesn't prohibit authority.
Now, the basic methodology issue here is that you rightly assume an objective transcendent morality just by engaging the topic. First you assume that having the discussion is better than not having it; then you assume that your view of my description is better than what you think I mean by it. Those express moral preference and the use of an external standard that you wish to hold me to. It is common in these discussions to tell the Christian that if he believes in a high standard he must be held to it; Christians should admit that, and also admit that we're not perfect and fall short of it, and that since that's always been part of our gospel it's no shame to admit it. But everyone treats standards the same: they seek to use something external and direct others to the same as what they see, even for things as simple as "you took my seat". The person who holds off from believing in the Christian's detailed (and work-in-progress) morality often doesn't realize that he also has quite a nuanced, and occasionally self-reworked, morality himself.
So it's a categorical error to say that simply because one can find open questions that appear to be zingers for Christians therefore one has no responsibility to declare any morality. Most atheists agree murder is always wrong, and lots use the Golden Rule for simplicity. If you simply said that there exist a small number of human conventions that appear to meet the high bar of being universal morals, you'd immediately position your case better: because then you wouldn't be arguing the illogical "morality is bad", but the much more debatable "my morality is better than yours". You'd be free to call out the Christians for being casuists and also pushovers, by referring them to (what are often called) simple laws of Noah instead. But if you refer people to nothing then the methodology is fatal to the argument.
It's not about what I want anyway as to what you believe. What I ask is whether you want to believe what is true. If you do, you will be guided by the cosmos into all truth, and that includes getting morality questions settled to your satisfaction and not mine. I'm just someone guessing what may help. And I think that backing away from the failed 1800s approach of throwing out the Baby with the bathwater will help you, as you instead focus on what you know to be right and wrong (as expressed by what you do and don't do). Picking on someone else taking up a hard responsibility (even if he's failing) doesn't help, but picking up what responsibility you do see makes you a brother.
Heh heh, that's another trope from the same book. The transcendent position is "no adultery", that a marriage relationship should not be adulterated. There are cultures, including in the Bible, where it has been held that the polygynous form does not adulterate any woman and is permitted. Jesus said on the related issue of divorce that questions like this come up because of hardness of human hearts, though, so the cultural permission always arises from prior faults in the culture that encourage an alternative to the monogamous standard that Jesus pointed to. Since divorce always arises from human sin but the church has recognized that it's possible to be an innocent party to a divorce, it seems to me that the point of the Bible's description of polygamy is to say it always arises from human sin but it's possible to be an innocent party to it also. As with the other issues, there are several ways to slice it, and some Christians say there are cultural cases where participation in polygamy might be innocent based on cultural understanding while others say it's always wrong, but this difference doesn't disprove objective morality. It rather reinforces my point that the simple principles ("no adultery") do permit more complicated principles to be drawn that are also transcendent (such as churches declaring a divorcee innocent if all conditions are met), and that both the simple laws and the case laws are part of the same objective system that can be apprehended sufficiently by anyone.
What's your position on when the Golden Rule can be "rightly" thwarted, and what superior "right" can be asserted that transcends it? If the only transcendence you permit is "dependent upon variables like context and situation (relativity)", then no standard can be maintained. However much you proclaim something to be true for you due to inner light, I could just say it's not true for me due to what I believe to be my inner light, and there is no meeting of minds. When that happens, the only proof is by force, which is a shoddy way to decide things. It seems we must either have agreement on something transcendent, such as the existence of Good and Truth, or we have no means to interact as humans but only as irreconcilable savages.
I left this comment behind earlier so I could read and answer it fully in its time.
That's your assumptions and opinions. So how do we reach meeting of the minds?
Not at all, I said there are several ways incest is not inherent to the design (naming parthenogenesis and pre-Adamites, to which you add genepool changes and I guess Ken Ham); and I chose one way. You say making it inher[en]t, I say not making it inherent; so how do we reach meeting of the minds?
Devolution of genotypes is the ordinary course, you just admitted it by reference to scientific notice of genepool damage, so it's odd you should reject science that agrees that positive macroevolution is excessively rare and is outpaced by harmful mutation by orders of at least thousands to one.
It's also odd that you propose a paradox in the case where Adam and Eve were inexplicably created and then complain that my resolution involves an unstated additional inexplicable detail, as if I don't forego objectivity when arguing special creation but do forego objectivity when arguing parthenogenesis, even though both are Christian doctrine (that I'm making special application of). That's flatly illogical.
There's only one reality and as a student of truth I am constantly learning more and making my models of reality more accurate. I concluded that recent creation is the most accurate model on scientific grounds, and concluded that incest is immoral on conscientious grounds, and recognized that there was an 1800s Cain's-wife paradox proposed, and investigated it and didn't like any of the Christian answers 100% so determined my own. If your objection is to Christianity then you could propose any subset of that modeling to be wrong: you could have a "crevo" debate where we discuss old/young models, or you could have a moral debate where we discuss if incest is ever right, or you could have an intramural Christian debate where we discuss, if the Bible is correct, how to solve Cain's wife. But you're bobbing and weaving among those by tentatively entering the Christian in-universe view and challenging it as if from within, and then patching that together with arguments that come from without as if there's no morality at all.
Let's assume that's simply a matter of inexperience in internet discussion, and give you another opportunity to state a positive proposition instead of just picking against another person's. What do you actually believe? Closest I can find is "good or bad ... depends upon the context". That's ultimately illogical as all atheists discover sooner or later and find one dodge or another: the reason is that I simply propose that "if all things are good in some contexts, then 'good or bad being independent of context' is good in some contexts", and suddenly it's false that good or bad always depends on context. It's self-defeating and inherently contradictory. So I don't mind your asking diagnostic questions as you regroup to work out that contradiction, but I do want you to come to an answer sooner or later.
If I were doing that, which is an unproven minor premise. So how do we reach meeting of the minds?
The testimony of 2 billion current Christians (Apostles' Creed) is a pretty common testimony based on historically established facts. But you really are wasting time by picking on my formulation when there are several other answers to Cain's wife and your argument doesn't apply to any of them. If I simply bounced to "You're right, it was actually pre-Adamites" (which I could do at any moment, though I won't), your time would've been wasted and you'd need to launch a new attack against pre-Adamites and I could bounce again. Bad debate method.
I don't recall bringing that up. I does come up in c/Conspiracies, but it really doesn't say anything about Christianity because it's not essential to Christianity. Why are you lasering in on certain arguments that arise as intramural debates within Christianity if you don't believe any of it? Is it that you still haven't conceived that faiths are not monolithic and that people with the same macro belief have micro differences? Is that why you act like case law destroys rather than upholds transcendent morality? What liberal university are you attending?
I don't believe I said anything about blind-on-blind violence.
Permit me to apologize on behalf of the church for failing you in something important. The church has worked so hard to publish the Bible that has failed to give first-impression readers the cultural context in which the writers had different concepts in mind than those our English words mean. It can actually be traumatic to hear "daughter of my father" (Gen. 20:12) as a child and only many years later to be told that your initial English-inspired thought was incorrect and in that cultural context the word meant "granddaughter of my father" (niece, which is not incestuous). So I recognize that others harmed you by not providing good context; they abrogated their duty to explain the actual text as they believed it. I will be happy to make up the harm to you on their behalf. Now that you understand that your initial impression was incorrect, what penalty should I pay you for the damage you suffered by not being disabused of that impression earlier? Unironically.
No, I didn't, read it again. When I first used the word "authority" I had the definition in mind, which I later gave, of "legitimate power". There is no "illegitimate authority", there is only illegitimate power. So when I first defined treason I fully intended the details that you asked for later. No subjectivity at all. (There are cases when a person does refine or retcon a definition in process, but even when that happens a gotcha in response is not always the best debate tactic. Better to note the issue silently and then only bring it up if he does it several times in a row, with a list, to show that it's an endemic logic fail.)
Legitimate power is defined by Romans 13, there being no authority except that established by God. If leaders fail spectacularly to carry out morality, they lose power by natural causes, such as revolt. If the US gives a legal command and if someone goes out of his way to take an action in protest of the command (like the "Seditious 6" did), the US has authority to try such a person for treason, and the penalty goes all the way up to death if the situation is severe enough. In all legal construction from Hammurabi to today, the state is not required to enforce a penalty, it is given as a maximum possibility. The only reason people find the Sabbath-breaker to be different from treason is that they don't think the context (presumptuous sin) was enough to justify the judicial proceeding; these are the same people who say "he was only waving a sign in a public street" as if such a person shouldn't be investigated, arrested, and punished under the existing law after his motives and history are determined. If the offender knows full well the traffic law prohibits protesting in the street and prescribes a certain limitation on maximal punishment, it's more than just pickup sticks going on.
Now, if we were to give maximal credit to the critics, let's consider whether it may be that we should discount the connection of the passage to the presumptuousness paragraph before it, and we should argue that the case (there is a law with a penalty for breaking, the person broke the law, the penalty is applied) is tyrannical. Well, swift application of good law is the opposite of tyranny, so the consideration only applies if the law itself is bad. That means you're sitting in judgment against the lawgiver as if he should've thought better of what he promulgated. A law that people (former slaves who had no rest days) should rest regularly isn't really tyrannical or evil on its face, but let's continue to pretend.
The text states that the law was given in the first three months of the first year, but the offense happened sometime between the third month of the second year and the first month of the fortieth year (no other time reference is given). So the entire community had been doing just fine resting every Sabbath for a whole year and probably many such, and then this person decides to go gather sticks against the capital law for whatever reason. He was a grown man, not a child, and we can infer that he's not ignorant of what he's doing. So you be the DA: what possible motive could such a person have for rejecting a promulgated law knowing that it was contrary to a community of millions? Starving? Rather silly when it's said they had double manna every week (Friday). It was a knowing rebellion against community authority.
Now is the community being tyrannical? Is the law bad? We can infer it was only used this once during the 40 years because it would've been appropriate to mention other cases if they'd happened. All legists recognize it was not a required penalty but a maximum penalty. Moses testifies against himself by including this vignette when he didn't have to: that implies he believed it was done rightly and needed to be repeated to illustrate the legal application. There was no communal fuss about mistreatment of the condemned (as there was in the prior two chapters about rebels dying of fire and earthquake). They did not judge him immediately, merely arrested him (implying that something about the situation led to his liberty being considered threatening, which is more likely violence than that he was some kind of political prisoner whose speech was being suppressed). They reviewed the case and obtained a revelation, attributed to God, about what to do, which is good jurisprudence whether or not one's revelation of the law comes from God. Then they decided it was a capital case, the only capital case in those 38 years.
So I can only conclude that when Moses reports the story he believes it to be an example of good law, meaning that if we are assuming it is bad law we are refusing to even understand the intent. The biased reader argues all points in agreement with bias, the neutral reader doesn't come down with a moral judgment against the text's author and recognizes the author believed the judgment correct. So the question comes back down to your judgment versus Moses's judgment. So how do we reach meeting of the minds?
If that's your answer, what prevents anyone from killing you if that's their morality? How could such a philosophy be anything other than self-destructive? Let's reason together.