I used to hear Cliffe and his son on modern day debate all the time, but at that time I was an atheist so I never thoroughly or honestly listened to what they had to say. All I wanted was the "dumpster fire" debates where the atheist would shout, swear, mock and demean the Christian. Wow, how arrogant and dishonest I really was... I've been saved for about 3 years now and the growth I've seen in my life, sincw then, has been more pronounce than ever. I can only thank Jesus Christ for cleansing me with his shed blood. I'm so glad Jesus saves.
Hello and greetings to both you, (Pr. Cliffe and Son) in the precious name of Jesus, the Christ. I am a father of four very young boys, a husband, and believer in Jesus. I recently came across your program for about a week now, and like many other Christian programs in the past I enjoy listening to your point of views. Nevertheless, I also felt sometimes that other simple facts could be added to explain things to the students. Very often when you speak, I inserted other options in my mind. Ideas such as (Human's and or nothing is really complete in themselves - no, not completely). I am not an one hundred percent human, or Christian, nor even on our beliefs because of our sin nature. No one is 100% Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, ect. However, Jesus Christ offers his creation Himself- LIFE, so we may become our Real Self. Some would understand that a Tree can be itself, Wind more than a Tree. While they can be more of themselves in one sense, humans are being less than who they are. This is the inconsistency that you have been referring to. Have them understand that faith is the ground they stand on, the chair they sit on, the bed they sleep on, the doors they walk in. The same with Jesus Christ, that he is the object on whom Trust is put on, as putting water into a cup, or the tangible substance to put faith in. Though they have faith in all sort of things, it will fail them. They are all quicksands while Jesus Christ is the solid ground. I believe these explanations will help your alredy convincing points and truth of Christ. I will continue listen to your program to learn more. You are a blessing. Thank the Lord, our Father, through Christ for your ministry. Amen.
Gavin will hold on to this worldview that a person's evil choice is just as legitimate as a person's good choice UNTIL that person's evil choice negatively affect him, THEN he will vehemently disapprove of their incorrect behavior.
Of course and it makes sense from his perspective, as is contradicts his own choice to live a peaceful life. It really gets interesting when you ask the following questions: What if there is a group that plans to eradicate all of mankind to safe the planet and the environment? Is it right? What if there is a person who says: I can't be happy as long as this person or that people are around. So they are staying in the way of my happyness and the world would be a better place without them. This is where moral relativism comes to an end because obviously these persons also want happyness. It just so happens that their definition of it differs from ours. So who is the judge? It boils down to: nobody. The stronger, more aggressive or more capable person/group wins.
@Thirty3rty, I think you will find most atheists *aren't* moral relativists, we don't believe, for example that it's ok if someone wants to rape or kill.
@@bonnie43uk I didn't claim that I think atheists are ok with it. That's clearly what Cliff said, too. The point is you can't explain why your morality is superiour to an "evil one" or why anyone should stick to your special moral code.
Thank you Cliff for your Apoligetics and reasoning with these little children or should I say students, you've helped me grow and get encouragement from these U YUBE videos.
I would never hire Gavin for any important roles in my company, neither will he be in my inner circle. If I hired him, I'd have iron-clad contracts and won't go into entrepreneurship with him. This is because you will never know when he changes his purpose and that whatever his purpose is rooted in right now, it's based on something relative, where his own feelings and wellbeing is number one. I know he will only stick with me so long as he gets richer and feels good about his ego and not have the dedication towards a higher goal outside of himself. A person being led by his own greed while believing we make our own realities is a dangerous thing. Even if he chooses to do altruistic things, he will change his course when things go badly for there is nothing outside of him to hold him back Mother Theresa kept pushing against the machine while having very difficult days because she felt and believed in God, so she sacrificed immediate grave discomfort in the hope that God has something greater in the future.
Hey everybody! This guy Kenneth blessed us with real-world, RELEVANT circumstances that truly highlight GOOD reasons why atheistic/agnostic relativism and those who believe it should not be trusted in life nor in the workplace! Good for you, Sir! Keep up the good work!
Who is Gavin?, is he the guy at the beginning?, he seemed a pretty rational guy to me. Mother Teresa wasn't the caring nun that she was portrayed as, the poor people who died in her Calcutta 'hospital' were not given very good palliative care from what I heard, they were denied basic painkillers and other drugs which would have eased their last moments on the planet. Mother Teresa was given huge donations from all over the world, yet her 'hospital' in Calcutta would not have passed any high standards check you'd find in Western hospitals.
@@bonnie43uk Bonnie, your childish jab at Mother Theresa based on something that you HEARD is so pathetic, it's ridiculous AND it doesn't do anything to help your cause except make a bunch of people who don't want to be accountable to God anyway, be firm in their decision that's going to cost them dearly. Mother Theresa isn't my standard of living and she didn't die and rise from her grave to save me either. I choose Jesus who did no wrong! As for Theresa, I pick it the meat from her life and throw away the bones. It's so crazy how you nitpick at something that you, yourself have said that you don't even know to be true because out of your own mouth, you only heard it and yet you believe so fully in a PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY (because evolution is not science) that has not been proven because no one was there to OBSERVE it occur and no one can do an experiment to REPEAT it... Yet you believe this fairytale that we magically came from apes or fish by way of brainless/mindless processes with no decision-making capabilities whatsoever.
@@bonnie43uk By the way, many Western hospitals target people of color for very nefarious reasons, including giving black women unnecessary C-Sections during child birth that end up killing them.
@SoulSAFE, not at all, it's not a childish jab whatsoever, I'm happy to admit that Christians generally do an amazing amount of good for poor people around the world, but Mother Teresa had a thing about suffering, she's gone on record as saying if people were suffering it brought them closer to Jesus, because he suffered on the cross, you only have to look at her missionary in Calcutta to see the very poor conditions that dying people spent their last days, they were refused painkillers, nurses who worked there testified to this. She recieved millions of dollars from rich people, but it didn't seem to reach those in need. Evolution is a fact of life, without it we wouldn't have other branches of science like biology and genetics which stem from the theory of evolution. Your description that we "magically came from apes" shows me that you don't understand how it works. SoulSAFE, you mentioned in a previous comment that mankind has been here for a very long time. How old do you believe this planet to be? And how long do you think humans have been around?
@@michaeljones5138 You know what Michael, I hope that the Holy Spirit falls heavily on your house and that He inhabits everyone who is part of your household. I hope that no demon are able enter your house or your family members during this season, but I hope that that spirit of the living God manifests in you and your family.
2:57 - 3:24 that's a scary mindset to have as a person studying medicine and biology. "there most likely is not a real significance." Please, nobody go to a doctor that has this mindset!!!
Has anyone noticed that relativists always assert that cultures establish their own morals when we point out that there are right and wrong morals, but they act as if only OTHER cultures will create uncomfortable morals, but their culture will only create altruistic and good morals???
@SOULSafe. Most atheists I know aren't moral relativists. We learn our moral code from our parents. I'm well aware that the culture I live in has lots of bad elements, crime etc, it's why we live in societies that have Police, law courts, prisons etc, that deal with the bad elements. I'm also aware that people do bad things for any number of reasons, when I was a young teen I got involved with other troubled teenagers which resulted in me doing bad things, none of us are perfect. I'm sure you've done things in the past which you regret.
@@bonnie43uk Why do a lot of atheist (not all, but a lot) take this cry baby approach to what many Christians say as if, in this particular example, I'm saying that I'm perfect and you are not or that I'm morally superior and and you're morally inferior??????? If I was, I WOULDN'T NEED THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST! You say you learned your morality from your parents? Good. Who did your parents learn theirs from? And who did THEIR parents learn there's from? See where I'm going with this? Many atheists claim that we believers have this type of dilemma on our backs when it comes to God: "... If God created everything then who created God...?" And it's rather funny to me because the knuckleheads who pose this question ACTUALLY THINK THEY'VE KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK when they ask it! Problem is, they've actually unknowingly answered the question WITHIN THEIR QUESTION. According TO their question...GOD CREATED EVERYTHING!😁😁 Included in everything is time. If (since) He created time then He had to have existed before time and if one exists before time which measures starting points then that must mean God cannot have had a starting point. In such a case He could only be eternal. No beginning, no end. You can't answer this way with your dilemma of morality and it's origins because the very first humans, even without the education we have today knew enough to not kill off other humans. And we know they knew this because had they not known and acted in opposite manner, no humans would be here today. Therefore, it is posed to you, if morals are handed down by humans, who handed it down to the first humans? Can't say humans because the first human is THE FIRST! Also, you can come up with how you THINK it happened, but that's just your theory aka a glorified opinion. You don't get to give that...I don't care about your opinion.
@@bonnie43uk And I guarantee that if I were to observe your moral relativist atheist friends, I would never see them consistently live out their moral relativism. Why? Because they're all hunky dory and skipping through the tulips on their moral relativist kick...UNTIL SOMEONE DOES THEM WRONG. At that point you will see a miraculous transformation before your eyes as they morph into a moral objectivist, saying things like, "...you should/ought not have..." You go to another society that believes and acts differently than you and yours and they infringe upon your "personal space" because in that culture there is no such thing as "personal space" and all of a sudden your uncomfortable and as it gets more boisterous, you're all up in arms about it. Problem is, a true relativist would need to accept that cultures' norms and adapted manner of living as equally valid and absolutely shut up crying about their own preferences. Or even worse live in a constant state diametrical opposition, constantly pushing away as the person from the touchy feely culture constantly forces themselves on you, neither of you ever getting anything done because both of you have complete equal right to force your views on the other and neither has any recourse. Because again, in true moral relativism ALL OPPOSING VIEWS ARE EQUALLY VALID AND ARE TO BE REGARDED AS SUCH. Can you live out that life? I'll answer for you. NO! Because you don't now!
@@SOULSafeProductionZ Yes indeed, we learnt our morals from our parents, and they learnt it from their parents, the ancestry link goes back a long long long way, ..at various points in that chain of links, there would have been slight variations whereby a member of that family link would have recognized that by doing, or not doing something in terms of good/bad,right wrong behavior and it improved things, so that would have been passed down to the next generation, .. hence, the next generation would have learnt not to do that certain thing that made matters worse..I mentioned to you yesterday that here in the UK ( and in most Western countries), we don't view people in same sex relationships as immoral. My view has been changed to now see same sex marriage as totally acceptable. I can give you lots of examples of how something viewed as immoral 500 years ago, is now perfectly acceptable, and vise- versa. Morality is fluid in lots of ways. Regarding your point about 'the first human', there never was a 'first human', we slowly evolved over eons of time. eg: if you took a photo of your face every day, show me the photo where you changed from a boy into a man?, you can't, because it's such a tiny incremental change from day to day, you never notice it. There was no original "Adam and Eve", any anthropologist will tell you that. It's fascinating stuff. It's not based purely on opinion as you stated, it's based on studying the remains of long-dead humanoid bones and gradual changes to skull size, the modern day homo sapien has a much larger brain capacity, which gave us a massive advantage over other living creatures, our ability to solve problems and to think abstractly was a major game changer for mankind. We learned how to make basic weapons, light fires, build huts, wear the skins and furs of animals we killed to keep us warm, .. the key to us becoming so dominant over all other animals was our power of thinking, and out thinking our rivals, ..we are now the most dominant force on the planet. But we're not indestructible, we could be wiped out by any number of catastrophes. We weren't created specially by God, we came about via a long long chain of evolution. You are free to believe otherwise just as I'm free not to believe the Bible as fact. Either way it's a fascinating subject.
@@SOULSafeProductionZ I can't speak for what other atheists might think, but I'm not a moral relativist who believes it's ok for people to do as they please in terms of causing someone unnecessary harm. Lets take the example of people in Afghanistan being stoned to death for adultery, I have every right to state that it's wrong, although I can't force my view on them, I can argue rationally that it's barbaric, and give valid reasons why I believe that to be the case. A question for you. Do you think stoning people to death ( for any reason) is an immoral act?
The Bible says that people who hate God Love death. So God gives it to them so that they are happy. Where as the Bible says God takes no pleasure in the (death) of the wicked, God hates even death when asked and given to the wicked. They get what they love and God takes no pleasure in it.
That lady,”I think I’ll grow everyday until I’m 40 years old...” 🤣🤣🤣💀⚰️ I know I guy who got just got started at 75 with a move out from his own country!(Abraham) 🤣🤣 I personally know of a guy who was married for 40+ years and then after his wife passed away, got married again at 83! He finally died at 90! What in the stop growing at 40 yo is that lady talking about?! 🤣🤣 Repent and believe the Gospel...stop venting your meaningless words, repent and believe the Gospel.
Its weird to see how many people really think. I see why this world is in the condition it is because the way Gavin is talking is scary man. I see why people commit bad crimes. It's a very cold world view. Hopefully Jesus draws him near.
It doesn't matter to the animals or on Saturn. It matters in the sense of the human experience. Cliffe's argument that it's meaningless is weak. Meaning is subjective. Morality is a human condition and Cliffe can try to attribute it to his invisible friend. If Cliffe were in Germany, would he have told Hitler he was wrong?
Question for Christians. What are these objectively wrong morals? Is there a list somewhere in the Bible of things mankind must not do under any circumstances because they are wrong on all levels?. I can think of quite a few things which I regard as wrong, but I know they are wrong because I have something called empathy that allows me to think, "if someone did that to me, i'd hate it". I don't think you need a God to tell you something is wrong/bad.
The Bible certainly tells us the objective fundamental thing that mankind MUST do under ALL circumstances. None other than Jesus Christ Himself tells us that all law (immoral things we should not do under any circumstances) can be summed up into one Law and this single commandment is conveyed to us in Matthew 22: 37Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I guess you think of it like this, if you had perfect knowledge that the God of the Bible (and Jesus Christ) were real and the Bible teachings true, how would you think and how would you behave to God, Christ and other people? If you only do things you think are morally good to others without considering God, you only fulfil half the commandment, if you add the first part, you make an objective moral choice for God and your moral behaviour is then objectively founded and not built on the shifting sands of community preferences.
@PeterBear. Thanks for that reply Peter, what I'm specifically asking is, as a Christian, what type of things do you consider 'objectively bad' ?( something that you consider to be bad no matter what the situation) eg: I could argue that there are circumstances whereby telling a lie could be a morally right thing to do, and had you told someone the truth, it could make a situation much worse. Certainly, in most cases it's wrong to tell a lie, but I don't think lying is 'objectively wrong' in all cases. I've told people a lie in order to protect their feelings for example.
@@bonnie43uk -- I have thought of this question on and off for a while. Thankyou for asking, it is a very good question. Here are my thoughts; it is my opinion, I do not speak for all Christians, nor possibly even any one other Christian, pastor or theologian. Each time I picked an example, lying, taking of a life, etc. I could also think of situations where the ethical dilemma could leave me in a quandary and I wondered why. Short answer, I see that there is potential hypocrisy in a Christian life in that we are supposed to know what is objectively right and do it always, but it is not possible for any human (excl. Christ) to achieve as we do not have the ability of God, and we do not fully trust the whispers of Christ in us. In more detail as far as I understand it: a) Objective good is a standard set by God's character Himself and so can only be attained by Christ as God in human form. He did achieve this else His work on the Cross would not be sufficient, see for example book of Hebrews chpts 8 to 12. People ourselves are not able to attain to the (objective) standards of good set by God - we are not God. God is super Holy and cannot abide any sin, even the sin of lying for what our limited thoughts might consider a "good" cause (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hebrews 6:17-18). Regardless of situation, God will find a way to obtain good out of the situation without resorting to trickery or sin (Gen 50:20). He is omniscient and has an infinite mind and capability and as Christians we are called on to trust Him in all situations; but do we do so? b) To answer your question for me personally, trying to permit Christ in me to work to do (objective) good things but me overriding His gentle direction and not trusting Him totally, but instead permitting my own human character, mind and will to drive my life, I am not able to live up to His objective standard and so I do the things I may not want to do; I think Paul may have written about this too in Romans 7:15-20, so it is not a new problem. Hence, while I understand that God has objective standards of good, which I am called on to emulate, I personally am unable to do so, and so I also do tell "white" lies which from my tiny vantage point appear to be for the best, I use and take home office stationery for personal use, I walk past the needy on the street without pity, I don't pray enough, and the list goes on... and I make my excuses for these choices. In short, I know what (objective) good I should do, but I do not always do it, only when I want - and I know this is not right; but hopefully I do this less and less if I am moving in the right direction with God through Christ. I admit in prayer that I do not always do what is (objectively) right (for if I say that I do not sin, I am a liar - 1 John 1:10) and I move on to try again knowing that Christ is an advocate for me in Heaven (1 John 2:1).
@@peterberr3888 Thanks for that Peter, good to hear from you again. I think we are taught what is right and wrong from our parents, and they from their parents.. etc. But over time we fine tune what we deem as right and wrong, eg: when I was a child it was perfectly acceptable for a parent to beat a child for misbehaving.. i got quite a few severe beatings for doing bad things, but today I wouldn't dream of hitting a child, causing him physical harm, there are other methods we use to punish a child, depriving them of tv, taking away their cell phone etc. I'm sure in other cultures beating a child is still acceptable, but it's a societal thing, some societies work out better forms of punishment, and we treat people in a more humane way. I think this is something the Bible doesn't teach as such. .. we even go against what the Bible teaches sometimes because we've found a more moral system. ie, we don't kill witches anymore.
bonnie43uk : possibly. Two things here. 1) That a moral code exists where a societal group of people are in agreement , is a relative morality. It changes as societies change with time. You seem to define it like this. But what happens when if in 50 or 25 years the group decided that something you detest now becomes the right thing to do, you would necessarily have to go along with it and agree cos hey, you abide with the definition. So is it really a good moral code to allow a subset of people to define the standard of morality for all? This is precisely what many on the web criticise Christians for in the past and even today. 2) My understanding is that the Bible is not a moral rule book to be literally obeyed (Christ was upset with the Pharisees for that) just as much as it is not a history or science book - rather it teaches one about Who God is (including many things about the things He has done and why, His Omni-properties, standards of moral goodness and meanings of love), the relationship humans had with God, what happened to that relationship and how it can be restored by each individual. To just think of the Bible as a list of moral rules is to limit the ability to rediscover Christ. Also btw, Christ never beat up any child or burned any witches, He taught Love your neighbour.
When we as believers, will not allow ourselves to seriously consider or entertain the idea, that compared to God we are nothing, We, because of this incapacity, have no real rights to expect atheists to do what we ourselves will not do. They, the atheists, need to realise that it’s the greatness of God thats dramatically reducing their greatness, to the extent that they prefer the idea of believing in the non existence of God, to overcome their amazing reduction, which essentially is being nothing by comparison to God. But how will they ever come to terms with this if you as a believer cannot come to terms with your own nothingness compared to God. I know you want to be something. We all do. But compared to God you’re nothing and it’s the same deal for everyone. I’m nothing compared to God. Yes compared to each other and the animal kingdom we can be something but not so if we compare ourselves to God. Certainly, compared to God in the form of Jesus Christ, we have some resemblance of equality, having 10 fingers and 10 toes. But hey let’s be real. He created us. Right? What have you done? Yes sure you’ve done a few things. But you haven’t lived forever have you? You haven’t made the stars, the entire universe and all its contents have you? Be real. Compared to God we don’t even begin to compare. It’s a self deception that’s preventing us from realising our extraordinary insignificance in comparison to God. Our core motivation is to be accepted as being worthwhile people, in the eyes of those whom we deem to be the worthy people, and we achieve or believe we have this acceptance through achieving what we believe to be worthwhile achievements, which we use to validate our own worthiness. This innate desire to be worthwhile is the blocking agent that prevents the believers from realising in a greater way the greatness of God. The perceived greatness of ourselves prevents us from more fully appreciating God and His greatness. Everyone has a story and if you want to check out mine sometime,click on the link below. th-cam.com/video/Iv7GJMNM0Y8/w-d-xo.html
Paul, what prevents me from believing in God are various things. Lets look at the properties of God. You can't see him, hear him, touch him, smell him,or taste him, in other words he's 100% invisible to the 5 human senses. I absolutely agree with you, if he exists, then in comparison, we are nothing in comparison to him. Gods exist in people's minds all over the world, perhaps in a similar way to how Santa Claus exists in the minds of children all over the world, they are raised up to hear and see stories of Santa Claus, he is 100% real in their heads. You were raised to believe in the God of the Bible by your parents. Had you been born and raised in a country where people believed in a different type of God, ..that would be the God you fully believed in.
bonnie43uk If I was you Tom I’d give up trying to believe in God. Bottom line He doesn’t want you Tom. Many are called, few are chosen. But Tom it appears that you’re not called. What God is looking for is faithfulness, gratefulness and obedience. That’s not you Tom is it.
bonnie43uk You and I have talked a lot Tom. You have a mindset of unbelief regarding the existence of God. You try to believe in God Tom but you can’t. God chooses people Tom. He hasn’t chosen you or your friend John Cassin If He did choose you Tom He would furnish you with belief. But He hasn’t done that. If you ask why is this, I would answer your question by saying the following. God chooses those whom He can develop because we need to be developed. We cannot progress along our never ending journey through eternity without the development of ourselves by God. To be able to be developed by God and his angels we have to be 100% obedient to God. You by your own admission aren’t prepared to be this way Tom. Hence you are not chosen by God. You don’t want to obey God. You don’t want to be faithful and obedient to Him. That is your fault Tom. That’s your wrong choice. Yes you’ve got your reasons which you’d like to think are valid but actually Tom they are invalid. You made the mistake of not being submissive to God. You don’t want to submit to God Tom therefore as you won’t be able to get the necessary development by God, because you don’t want to be meek and lowly of heart, you do not get chosen by God. You will regret it but perhaps it’s not that bad. The chosen will live for eternity but you won’t. And that should be somewhat ok with you Tom because you’re not expecting life after death. Therefore when you get what you bargained for which is no everlasting life, by being snuffed out by God in hell, yes you’ll be disappointed alright but as you weren’t expecting to get eternal life it might soften the blow. Tom you are not chosen by God. And He hasn’t chosen you because you won’t pay the price of being faithful to Him therefore He disallows you from believing in Him. Therefore you’ll never believe Tom because you’re not going to be given the gift of belief. I am sorry to say this Tom but God doesn’t want you. And hey maybe you are ok about this. And you’ve only got yourself to blame. It’s your all your fault Tom. No one can help you. You don’t want to repent. You don’t want to 100% surrender to God. You aren’t prepared to say to God, ok God you got me. Whatever which way you want me to be I’ll be that way Lord. I will never ever wag my finger at you again Lord. But you won’t do this Tom. That’s why God has not and will not choose you because you can’t repent. Therefore you’ll never believe in God’s existence.
I gave up a number of years ago Paul, although, as they say, "never say never", if God exists and I see credible evidence, I will adjust my thinking accordingly. Clearly, my upbringing, and early belief has left an indelible mark on me, hence my interest in these conversations. I'm fascinated in why people believe in God, and the entire history of Gods throughout human history. Paul, try and imagine a world in which we all lived in where there were no churches, no mosque's, no holy books. I think human ingenuity and our scope for discovery would have far exceeded current knowledge, religion has held us back for thousands of years. Just a thought.
bonnie43uk Tom it’s taken me quite a while to figure out your dilemma but all the while it was staring me right in the face but I couldn’t see it. But it’s not rocket science Tom. I now see why God hasn’t chosen you. And perhaps this is something you’ll never understand and maybe you’re not meant to. Those who lack the capacity to repent, and this is you isn’t it Tom, do not get any special help from God to help them to repent. It’s a waste of time so He doesn’t bother. Can you see this Tom? I don’t suppose you can. I’m sorry to say this Tom but God has passed you by. Cliffe and his son like their master want to gather thy children ( the unrepentant) together like a hen doth gather her brood under her wings in Luke 13:34 And it’s good that they are like their master in this regard, all true believers are, giving people chances. But when the writing is on the wall like I’m now seeing it with you and John, I need to tell you straight.
Its good to be motivated to build a cool house that will fall in time but I'm motivated by a house that won't fall, a house pertected by eternal life in Jesus I choose an infinite house. So then your happy with things that die and so that God will let you die so that you may be happy with yourself. Why then are you mad at God don't things that die motivate you and make you happy?
Cliffe asks a great question in this video: Where do we get our morals from?, I believe we get them from our parents and the people around us in society. We all know the rules, that it's not ok to steal, harm others, kill etc, we start learning the basics from the moment we're able to comprehend as babies, one of the first words we learn from our mothers is "No"! .. that is our very first comprehension of what is right and wrong/good and bad.
@CuriousAbsolution, well, you're free to believe that, I'm not sure these 'absolute morals' exist, is there a list of these absolute morals that I can see,? how many absolute morals are there? .. I'm sure there will be people out there with a different list of things they might describe as 'absolutely immoral'. I can certainly agree that something like a brutal rape, or the torture of someone might be classed as absolutely wrong/bad, but that doesn't mean that God dictated that it was immoral, we can work that out for ourselves that it's wrong, you don't need a God to tell you that.
@@bonnie43uk Hey Bonnie43uk, to hear some great dialog about morals please check out some videos of Ravi Zacharias (spelling may be off). Ravi is a great speaker on this topic and he addresses it specifically. PS, I found a post where you explained your screen name.... Don't you know who built Atlantis and returned it to the sea? When I read your explanation of your screen name I liked you right away.
@@johndavis7078 Hi John sorry for the late reply, TH-cam doesn't always notify me of replies, just came across your reply. I'm not sure what the Atlantis reference is. Yes, I have watched quite a few Ravi Zacharias videos over the years. Although i agree that he's a great speaker and communicator, I disagree with his conclusions. I don't see God as a logical conclusion. But I'm open to be convinced. What do you find as the best evidence for God?
@@bonnie43uk I'm glad you found my post, nice to meet you! I will address your God question soon but I first must find out what rock you live under that prevents you from knowing my Atlantis remark?? What?? Didn't you say you like Prefab Sprout? I was shocked you didn't chime in with the next line! Prefab Sprout had two singles that I played in heavy rotation when I worked at a small alternative radio station. "Appetite" and "Looking for Atlantis". Looking for Atlantis was one of my 5 favorite songs of 1990 to 1993. That song was the main reason I bought their greatest hits CD. For the love of all things holy you got to try that song. Man I couldn't get enough of that song! It was guaranteed to be played in the first hour of my show. I know some albums have different tracks on them depending on the country it is released in, in the US Looking for Atlantis was their biggest hit. I will answer your God question tomorrow, since it's so close to my bedtime. But for our first meeting we need to get you up to speed on those two songs. So get your earbuds in and give it a listen. We'll chat again tomorrow.
the flaw in his argument, is, equaliy legitimate to be a dr, or an extortionist, until the extortionist preys on him- then it would be wrong. but thats being dishonest, as basically hes saying, as long as i dont get extorted, its all good. WE CANT AND WE DONT, and its in the we dont, think like that, because we have a conscience
@ilkin engin. He's not getting his point across very well, he was right when he said we all create our own meaning. However, if your meaning is to do harm to others, that is not good because our actions have consequences, and as we're social creatures, we're all very well aware that stealing or hurting someone is bad, ..if we use the old adage "how would I like it if someone did that to me"?, or as Jesus said "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", it's the same kind of thing. You are correct, the vast majority of us have a conscience. This was instilled in us at a very early part of our lives.
@@bonnie43uk No... He's not correct in thinking that we create our own standards. Because it will be so UNTIL the person whose standards are diametrically opposed to yours comes to you and imposes those standards on you and declares that yours are inferior... Then you and Gavin will begin to fight... You and him will begin to subconsciously cry out for standards that mirror yours be established...
SOULSafeProductionZ society develops standards of morality and what’s good and bad. It’s part of evolution in that all living creatures have to empathise within their species to survive. It’s not perfect, there are exceptions but generally that’s how our civilisations have progressed.
@SoulsafeProductionZ, No, i don't think he meant it in the way you are describing it, if I understand him correctly, he's not saying it's ok to hold bad standards, it's just the way things are, someone will hold a "bad view" for any number of reasons. Who gets to say what is right and what is wrong?, I'm sure you and I will agree on lots of things, but there are other aspects of life we will disagree on. People in different cultures and countries have differing opinions about what is right and wrong.
What we call 'free will' is basically the decisions that we make that are actually based on complicated mental and psychological processes that happen within our brains, it's not like we can somehow just make decisions out of thin air in some mysterious way, that would be truly free will if that is how it worked but it would also be impossible, a brain/mind in a vacuum could not function, it needs information and experiences to process, when Bible believers talk about us all "having a free will", they think that we can just make choices out of nothing and somehow make choices that have not been influenced and shaped by any external sources, in other words, they are talking about a concept that is like I say, impossible. Because, we aren't born able to make decisions just like that, the human brain or any kind of a brain for that matter has to, first of all, go through a process of development from the day we are born, we then had to be taught by our parents or whoever looked after us the basics, eg, talking, what we should and shouldn't do etc, this takes a good few years, then as we get older we are continually subject to processes of socialization and orientation within the environment we are being raised in, we then also have the individual experiences that our developing brains go through as we continue to live and all of these things strongly affect the decisions that we make in life then and more to the point, later on in our lives, there's an old adage 'give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man', this sums it all up really, we are all products of our upbringing and experiances, especially in those early years and even after that, throughout our lives we are processing new information that effects our decisions, note, we get the information FIRST, then we decide, not the other way around. All of the decisions we make are based on past experiences, even if we can't quite remember the detail, our brain has certain patterns that have been established as a result of something that happened in our past, it gets buried deep in the subconscious areas of our brains but they are there and they affect what he decided today, we simply cannot make decisions about anything without information in the form of past experiences or present information to guide us and shape our conclusions, so how does this relate to why some believe in God and others don't and what religion/faith/ideology/way of life they choose??? Well, it's very simple, your experiences have led you to where you are today in terms of whether you believe a God exists or not, if you have had an experience that leads you to believe that a God exists then, of course, you will believe in a Gods existence and if you haven't had any such experience then you probably won't believe in God and I haven't, so guess what? Surprise surprise I don't lol, it's a no-brainer really. Ask yourself this very simple question, if your parents or the people who brought you up hadn't taught you that a God exists, would you still believe that a God exists without having some kind of an experience that led you to that conclusion or someone introducing the idea to you? Think about it, there would be no reason for you to believe there was any God unless you were taught or had some experience that got you to be convinced, you didn't just decide out of thin air "hey, there's a God and he had a son called Jesus who died for me, I believe, hallelujah", you were taught this by someone or this concept was presented to you in some way or another, correct? It's all about experience, had you been born and raised the way I was and experienced all of the things that I have, chances are you would now be questioning Gods existence like me, once again, it's all about experience, what we call "free will" isn't really free, it's tied into those experiences we have which then lead us to certain conclusions about reality and the things we believe or don't believe come from those conclusions which in turn come from our experiences, now, whether our conclusions are correct or not is another matter, it is true to say that if one believes that a God exists and the other doesn't, one of them will be wrong because either there is a God or no God exists, what we need is to find a way to establish which is the case and I am happy to discuss that with anyone too but I'm just trying to explain why we make those decisions in the first place and that so-called "free will" is an illusion, it's not free for the reasons I have pointed out.
Excellent points John. Yes indeed, I was raised to believe the Bible was the 'word of God', but, as you say, had I been raised without that belief, it would entirely change my whole mindset growing up. This obviously explains a lot about me as a person, as an adult now I have a different opinion about God/Jesus, those early years left a big imprint on my brain, hence why I find myself in discussion about Christianity albeit from outside of that Christian bubble. I have the benefit as I see it, of having a different perspective on it. It's a little like a scene from Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy looks behind the curtain and finds out there isn't a magic Wizard controlling things, it was just an old guy. Heh, i only mention that because it was on one of the tv channels yesterday and I caught the last 20 minutes.. heh, Merry Christmas. Have a good one :-) btw, i was chatting to a woman who I had to take up the hospital in Oxford for radiotherapy treatment last week, she'd had a big chunk of her brain removed so they could remove a tumor, it resulted in her having a change in personality and loss of certain limb movements, which I suppose bears out your point about how the brain works. In biblical times when someone was having a brain seizure or schitzophrenia episode they would see it as someone being possessed by a demon. Medical science has come a long way.
You're both incorrect. Hypothetically, I could walk up to you and lick your face with my tongue and it would be based on no preconceived notion or subconsciously ingrained social construct that comes from my past. The only reason you all hold to this ridiculous notion that there is no free will is because you all want someone to blame for the hellbound circumstance that you refuse to get out of even though the lifeline, Jesus has been thrown down to you. There's something in the pit your in, amongst the snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders and deadly reptiles that you like. And, you like it enough to risk death and dismemberment via the deadly animals in the pit. Your mentality is an illusion. Free will is real I have a choice to do whatever I please and you do too. You just want to do whatever you please without consequences and repercussions, but since you know you can't, you make up this crock that there's no free will so you can cry, moan and complain about your chosen end. Problem is, there's no more crackers and cheese for your whine. You need to GROW UP and accept responsibility for your actions and if the consequences you have coming your way is undesirable, then BOSS UP, SHUT UP AND CHANGE IT! But stop crying about it! GEEZ!
@@SOULSafeProductionZ Actually, you don't have a choice to do "whatever you please" and I can demonstrate that practically, you couldn't just flap your arms and fly up in the air like a bird even if you wanted to, could you? You might say you don't want to, fine but you don't have a choice about that anyway, you just can't because you are a human being who has evolved differently from birds (or were created differently if you prefer as you are a theist ), you are not a bird, birds can do that, they have that choice, you don't, you couldn't walk up a sheer walk unaided like a spider either, because you're not a spider, spiders can, they have the choice to do things you don't have the choice to do, there are many different creatures on earth who can do things you could never do, your choices are limited to what is within your CAPABILITY to do, if you were severely mentally or physically handicapped (I presume you are not but if you are then you will know what I am saying here), your choices would also be limited even more so. It is true to say that you can EFFECTIVELY choose to do something that is within your ability to do, sure but once again, you have to ask yourself why you "choose" to do one thing and not another and that "choice" does most definitely come from your past, I'll give you some more simple examples, do you have a favorite color shirt? Is there a particular style of clothing that you prefer? Do you have a favorite food? I could go on, you name it, the principle is EXACTLY the same because the one thing all of your "choice preferences" will have in common is your past and how you were brought up will play a massive part in all of your decisions about everything. Even if it was because you wanted to rebel against your past, you are still being affected by that past because, without it, you wouldn't then have the trigger that led you to those decisions, eg, if someone had a bad father, they might want to try and be a better father to their children because of that, you see, you cannot get away from your upbringing, even when you think you are, even if you think you are being nothing like your parents or whoever brought you up, they will still be affecting you. You might think you have 'grown up' but the reality is that you cannot escape your childhood, none of us can, of course we should accept responsibility as the agents of our actions, I never suggested we shouldn't take responsibility in principle, this is where I think you are misunderstanding the point, I am simply explaining that what we call "free will" isn't something that comes out of thin air, it is a product, a result of many different factors including and especially our upbringing, yes, I am responsible as the agent of my actions for everything I do but what I do can be EXPLAINED by how I was brought up and other social and psychological factors, not by some mysterious "divinely given free will". Also, you mentioned about us being "hellbound", I presume this is hellbound as in you think we are going to hell, correct? Well, let me ask you this, have you ever actually seen hell? If so, then you have a right to believe it exists but as someone who has never seen it, why should I believe there is such a place? Show me this place called hell and then I might be a lot more convinced and while you're at it, show me a heaven and show me a creator, show me all of these things you say exist but I know you won't be able to and that's the problem, back to your limits again, you CAN'T do whatever you like, you can only do what is within your ability, just like all of us and it is not within your ability to show us these things, if you could show us, you wouldn't be just posting back an angry response (yes I caught your tone, expressions like "GEEZ!" and "SHUT UP" are a little clue lol)), you would actually show us, if there really is a God then it would be within his ability to show us but so far he hasn't, therefore, I have no reason to believe that this being exists at all, sure, that might change in the future but I can only tell you what I am experiancing in the present and what I have experianced in the past, not what I am GOING to experiance in the future, many thanks for your effort to respond as best you can though, I appreciate it.
@SoulSAFE. Free will can be quite complicated to fully grasp, yes I would agree that we've got degree's of free will, ie, if I look in my fridge and I have 2 lots of ice cream , one chocolate and one strawberry, I do indeed have a choice of whatever takes my fancy. Shouldn't a free will choice come without any type of outside coercion or threat. eg: If I say to you, you've got a choice of an apple or an orange, but if you choose the orange I'm going to hit you with a baseball bat. Would you say you had a free will choice to choose either?, or will your decision be based on what I told you would happen if you chose the orange?, I'm guessing in that hypothetical scenario, most if not all people would choose the apple ( who wants to get hit with a baseball bat?) Now if we compare that with the choice of accepting Jesus as our savior, most Christians would tell you we have a free will choice to accept or reject. But it's not a truly free will choice is it. I am being coerced with a much greater threat than being hit with a baseball bat. Unless I choose to accept Jesus there is the terrible threat of eternal damnation in Hell. Now you have to ask yourself *why* I would choose to reject Jesus? There are lots of reasons for me personally, but basically I don't believe the New Testament stories, or indeed, the Bible itself, it's not, as you suggested, than John and I, and all other atheists 'want to sin, or prefer to sin', I 100% believe that we're all responsible for our actions, if I wrong someone, it's absolutely upon me to accept my wrongdoing. Any crimes I may commit are down to me, I will accept any punishment that comes my way. I've never committed any crime in which another person was killed or badly injured, or whom I've caused them to be destitute. What crimes have I committed over the past year or so?, none that I'm aware of, certainly nothing that would involve me going to prison. ..yet, if I reject Christ as my saviour, because I honestly cannot see any credible evidence of God/Jesus, no matter if I live a decent life, I am condemned to Hell. ..infinite punishment of any kind is abhorrent. I think John mentioned somewhere in this thread that we're not even sure what does 'Hell' actually consist of?, no one seems to know for certain, is it torture?, a 'separation from God'?.. whatever that means. Where is the DEFINITIVE description of Hell that ALL Christians can agree on? It very much depends on which Christian, and what denomination of Christianity he/she adhere's to. As I don't believe God exists, a separation from God is fine with me as I don't feel I am connected in any way with God. If God DOES exist, and this God can read my thoughts and inner feelings, then he knows exactly why I don't believe in him. He/she/it, is free to contact me anytime.
I used to hear Cliffe and his son on modern day debate all the time, but at that time I was an atheist so I never thoroughly or honestly listened to what they had to say. All I wanted was the "dumpster fire" debates where the atheist would shout, swear, mock and demean the Christian. Wow, how arrogant and dishonest I really was... I've been saved for about 3 years now and the growth I've seen in my life, sincw then, has been more pronounce than ever. I can only thank Jesus Christ for cleansing me with his shed blood. I'm so glad Jesus saves.
The Lord used these videos to save me praise be to Christ forever and ever
Same with me man helped me so much to understand my own misconceptions and biases thanks to Cliff’s style of conversation.
Drives me nuts how fallen humanity has become! This "Do What Thall Wilt" Attitude view of reality is absolute poison to living soul beings!
People don't determine RIGHT and wrong , ALMIGHTY GOD does !!.
Thank you for the video Pastor Cliffe!!!
Cliff walks in light not darkness. That is why he does what he does.
Thank you so much for your teachings and evangelism Cliffe. It has helped me so much in my own growth. Praise God.
Hello and greetings to both you, (Pr. Cliffe and Son) in the precious name of Jesus, the Christ. I am a father of four very young boys, a husband, and believer in Jesus. I recently came across your program for about a week now, and like many other Christian programs in the past I enjoy listening to your point of views. Nevertheless, I also felt sometimes that other simple facts could be added to explain things to the students. Very often when you speak, I inserted other options in my mind. Ideas such as (Human's and or nothing is really complete in themselves - no, not completely). I am not an one hundred percent human, or Christian, nor even on our beliefs because of our sin nature. No one is 100% Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, ect. However, Jesus Christ offers his creation Himself- LIFE, so we may become our Real Self. Some would understand that a Tree can be itself, Wind more than a Tree. While they can be more of themselves in one sense, humans are being less than who they are. This is the inconsistency that you have been referring to. Have them understand that faith is the ground they stand on, the chair they sit on, the bed they sleep on, the doors they walk in. The same with Jesus Christ, that he is the object on whom Trust is put on, as putting water into a cup, or the tangible substance to put faith in. Though they have faith in all sort of things, it will fail them. They are all quicksands while Jesus Christ is the solid ground. I believe these explanations will help your alredy convincing points and truth of Christ. I will continue listen to your program to learn more. You are a blessing. Thank the Lord, our Father, through Christ for your ministry. Amen.
Yes another new video!!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
Perfect listening for wrapping Christmas gifts! Merry Christmas 🎁🎄 God bless you!
OOOOO! 👀👀👀 I'm a try that next year. Wrapping gifts and listening to Cliffe! Oh yeah!
Gavin will hold on to this worldview that a person's evil choice is just as legitimate as a person's good choice UNTIL that person's evil choice negatively affect him, THEN he will vehemently disapprove of their incorrect behavior.
Well said. Thats true
Of course and it makes sense from his perspective, as is contradicts his own choice to live a peaceful life.
It really gets interesting when you ask the following questions:
What if there is a group that plans to eradicate all of mankind to safe the planet and the environment? Is it right?
What if there is a person who says: I can't be happy as long as this person or that people are around. So they are staying in the way of my happyness and the world would be a better place without them.
This is where moral relativism comes to an end because obviously these persons also want happyness. It just so happens that their definition of it differs from ours. So who is the judge? It boils down to: nobody. The stronger, more aggressive or more capable person/group wins.
Well said. God bless you. ☺
@Thirty3rty, I think you will find most atheists *aren't* moral relativists, we don't believe, for example that it's ok if someone wants to rape or kill.
@@bonnie43uk I didn't claim that I think atheists are ok with it. That's clearly what Cliff said, too. The point is you can't explain why your morality is superiour to an "evil one" or why anyone should stick to your special moral code.
Thank you Cliff for your Apoligetics and reasoning with these little children or should I say students, you've helped me grow and get encouragement from these U YUBE videos.
Thank you Cliff I really enjoy your videos they’ve helped me so much in my walk with Christ thank you sir I appreciate you brother God bless you
Thanks Cliffe, you're an inspiration
Great job brother Cliff , super encouraged by your ministry .
Roman's 10:15
The clock bells toll at just the right time!!!! 🙌
Another misguided soul...keep trying to get them to open their minds, Cliffe.
Intellectually stomped him Cliffe! Well done friend! Keep doing what you do! You're awesome! Thanks!
Even matter and Energy comes from somewhere ❤❤❤
I would never hire Gavin for any important roles in my company, neither will he be in my inner circle. If I hired him, I'd have iron-clad contracts and won't go into entrepreneurship with him. This is because you will never know when he changes his purpose and that whatever his purpose is rooted in right now, it's based on something relative, where his own feelings and wellbeing is number one. I know he will only stick with me so long as he gets richer and feels good about his ego and not have the dedication towards a higher goal outside of himself. A person being led by his own greed while believing we make our own realities is a dangerous thing. Even if he chooses to do altruistic things, he will change his course when things go badly for there is nothing outside of him to hold him back Mother Theresa kept pushing against the machine while having very difficult days because she felt and believed in God, so she sacrificed immediate grave discomfort in the hope that God has something greater in the future.
Hey everybody! This guy Kenneth blessed us with real-world, RELEVANT circumstances that truly highlight GOOD reasons why atheistic/agnostic relativism and those who believe it should not be trusted in life nor in the workplace! Good for you, Sir! Keep up the good work!
Who is Gavin?, is he the guy at the beginning?, he seemed a pretty rational guy to me. Mother Teresa wasn't the caring nun that she was portrayed as, the poor people who died in her Calcutta 'hospital' were not given very good palliative care from what I heard, they were denied basic painkillers and other drugs which would have eased their last moments on the planet. Mother Teresa was given huge donations from all over the world, yet her 'hospital' in Calcutta would not have passed any high standards check you'd find in Western hospitals.
@@bonnie43uk Bonnie, your childish jab at Mother Theresa based on something that you HEARD is so pathetic, it's ridiculous AND it doesn't do anything to help your cause except make a bunch of people who don't want to be accountable to God anyway, be firm in their decision that's going to cost them dearly.
Mother Theresa isn't my standard of living and she didn't die and rise from her grave to save me either.
I choose Jesus who did no wrong!
As for Theresa, I pick it the meat from her life and throw away the bones.
It's so crazy how you nitpick at something that you, yourself have said that you don't even know to be true because out of your own mouth, you only heard it and yet you believe so fully in a PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY (because evolution is not science) that has not been proven because no one was there to OBSERVE it occur and no one can do an experiment to REPEAT it... Yet you believe this fairytale that we magically came from apes or fish by way of brainless/mindless processes with no decision-making capabilities whatsoever.
@@bonnie43uk By the way, many Western hospitals target people of color for very nefarious reasons, including giving black women unnecessary C-Sections during child birth that end up killing them.
@SoulSAFE, not at all, it's not a childish jab whatsoever, I'm happy to admit that Christians generally do an amazing amount of good for poor people around the world, but Mother Teresa had a thing about suffering, she's gone on record as saying if people were suffering it brought them closer to Jesus, because he suffered on the cross, you only have to look at her missionary in Calcutta to see the very poor conditions that dying people spent their last days, they were refused painkillers, nurses who worked there testified to this. She recieved millions of dollars from rich people, but it didn't seem to reach those in need.
Evolution is a fact of life, without it we wouldn't have other branches of science like biology and genetics which stem from the theory of evolution. Your description that we "magically came from apes" shows me that you don't understand how it works. SoulSAFE, you mentioned in a previous comment that mankind has been here for a very long time. How old do you believe this planet to be? And how long do you think humans have been around?
Merry Christmas everyone. Season's greetings.
Merry Christmas.. I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful day.
Merry Christmas to you and your family
Merry Christmas, tell the Queen, the American in the polo shirt said 'hi.'
Merry Christmas!!!!!
Merry Christmas Everyone! :-D
Merry Christmas everyone.
Merry Christmas to you and your family. I love these videos from Cliff.
@@michaeljones5138 You know what Michael, I hope that the Holy Spirit falls heavily on your house and that He inhabits everyone who is part of your household. I hope that no demon are able enter your house or your family members during this season, but I hope that that spirit of the living God manifests in you and your family.
Thank you Soul Safe. That meant a lot. I pray the same for you as well. It is great and beautiful to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The kid was determined to misunderstand.
2:57 - 3:24 that's a scary mindset to have as a person studying medicine and biology.
"there most likely is not a real significance."
Please, nobody go to a doctor that has this mindset!!!
A lot of seeking students questioning and hopefully finding Jesus and Salvation.
African people have shown there strength in America but I'm impressed with there humility that it took to do it.
Has anyone noticed that relativists always assert that cultures establish their own morals when we point out that there are right and wrong morals, but they act as if only OTHER cultures will create uncomfortable morals, but their culture will only create altruistic and good morals???
@SOULSafe. Most atheists I know aren't moral relativists. We learn our moral code from our parents. I'm well aware that the culture I live in has lots of bad elements, crime etc, it's why we live in societies that have Police, law courts, prisons etc, that deal with the bad elements. I'm also aware that people do bad things for any number of reasons, when I was a young teen I got involved with other troubled teenagers which resulted in me doing bad things, none of us are perfect. I'm sure you've done things in the past which you regret.
@@bonnie43uk Why do a lot of atheist (not all, but a lot) take this cry baby approach to what many Christians say as if, in this particular example, I'm saying that I'm perfect and you are not or that I'm morally superior and and you're morally inferior??????? If I was, I WOULDN'T NEED THE REDEMPTIVE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST!
You say you learned your morality from your parents? Good. Who did your parents learn theirs from? And who did THEIR parents learn there's from? See where I'm going with this?
Many atheists claim that we believers have this type of dilemma on our backs when it comes to God: "... If God created everything then who created God...?" And it's rather funny to me because the knuckleheads who pose this question ACTUALLY THINK THEY'VE KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK when they ask it! Problem is, they've actually unknowingly answered the question WITHIN THEIR QUESTION. According TO their question...GOD CREATED EVERYTHING!😁😁 Included in everything is time. If (since) He created time then He had to have existed before time and if one exists before time which measures starting points then that must mean God cannot have had a starting point. In such a case He could only be eternal. No beginning, no end.
You can't answer this way with your dilemma of morality and it's origins because the very first humans, even without the education we have today knew enough to not kill off other humans. And we know they knew this because had they not known and acted in opposite manner, no humans would be here today. Therefore, it is posed to you, if morals are handed down by humans, who handed it down to the first humans? Can't say humans because the first human is THE FIRST! Also, you can come up with how you THINK it happened, but that's just your theory aka a glorified opinion. You don't get to give that...I don't care about your opinion.
@@bonnie43uk And I guarantee that if I were to observe your moral relativist atheist friends, I would never see them consistently live out their moral relativism. Why? Because they're all hunky dory and skipping through the tulips on their moral relativist kick...UNTIL SOMEONE DOES THEM WRONG. At that point you will see a miraculous transformation before your eyes as they morph into a moral objectivist, saying things like, "...you should/ought not have..." You go to another society that believes and acts differently than you and yours and they infringe upon your "personal space" because in that culture there is no such thing as "personal space" and all of a sudden your uncomfortable and as it gets more boisterous, you're all up in arms about it. Problem is, a true relativist would need to accept that cultures' norms and adapted manner of living as equally valid and absolutely shut up crying about their own preferences. Or even worse live in a constant state diametrical opposition, constantly pushing away as the person from the touchy feely culture constantly forces themselves on you, neither of you ever getting anything done because both of you have complete equal right to force your views on the other and neither has any recourse. Because again, in true moral relativism ALL OPPOSING VIEWS ARE EQUALLY VALID AND ARE TO BE REGARDED AS SUCH.
Can you live out that life? I'll answer for you. NO! Because you don't now!
@@SOULSafeProductionZ Yes indeed, we learnt our morals from our parents, and they learnt it from their parents, the ancestry link goes back a long long long way, ..at various points in that chain of links, there would have been slight variations whereby a member of that family link would have recognized that by doing, or not doing something in terms of good/bad,right wrong behavior and it improved things, so that would have been passed down to the next generation, .. hence, the next generation would have learnt not to do that certain thing that made matters worse..I mentioned to you yesterday that here in the UK ( and in most Western countries), we don't view people in same sex relationships as immoral. My view has been changed to now see same sex marriage as totally acceptable. I can give you lots of examples of how something viewed as immoral 500 years ago, is now perfectly acceptable, and vise- versa. Morality is fluid in lots of ways.
Regarding your point about 'the first human', there never was a 'first human', we slowly evolved over eons of time. eg: if you took a photo of your face every day, show me the photo where you changed from a boy into a man?, you can't, because it's such a tiny incremental change from day to day, you never notice it. There was no original "Adam and Eve", any anthropologist will tell you that. It's fascinating stuff. It's not based purely on opinion as you stated, it's based on studying the remains of long-dead humanoid bones and gradual changes to skull size, the modern day homo sapien has a much larger brain capacity, which gave us a massive advantage over other living creatures, our ability to solve problems and to think abstractly was a major game changer for mankind. We learned how to make basic weapons, light fires, build huts, wear the skins and furs of animals we killed to keep us warm, .. the key to us becoming so dominant over all other animals was our power of thinking, and out thinking our rivals, ..we are now the most dominant force on the planet. But we're not indestructible, we could be wiped out by any number of catastrophes. We weren't created specially by God, we came about via a long long chain of evolution. You are free to believe otherwise just as I'm free not to believe the Bible as fact. Either way it's a fascinating subject.
@@SOULSafeProductionZ I can't speak for what other atheists might think, but I'm not a moral relativist who believes it's ok for people to do as they please in terms of causing someone unnecessary harm. Lets take the example of people in Afghanistan being stoned to death for adultery, I have every right to state that it's wrong, although I can't force my view on them, I can argue rationally that it's barbaric, and give valid reasons why I believe that to be the case.
A question for you. Do you think stoning people to death ( for any reason) is an immoral act?
👍👍👍
The Bible says that people who hate God Love death. So God gives it to them so that they are happy. Where as the Bible says God takes no pleasure in the (death) of the wicked, God hates even death when asked and given to the wicked. They get what they love and God takes no pleasure in it.
That lady,”I think I’ll grow everyday until I’m 40 years old...” 🤣🤣🤣💀⚰️
I know I guy who got just got started at 75 with a move out from his own country!(Abraham) 🤣🤣 I personally know of a guy who was married for 40+ years and then after his wife passed away, got married again at 83! He finally died at 90!
What in the stop growing at 40 yo is that lady talking about?! 🤣🤣 Repent and believe the Gospel...stop venting your meaningless words, repent and believe the Gospel.
EXACTLY! LOL
Its weird to see how many people really think. I see why this world is in the condition it is because the way Gavin is talking is scary man. I see why people commit bad crimes. It's a very cold world view. Hopefully Jesus draws him near.
It doesn't matter to the animals or on Saturn. It matters in the sense of the human experience. Cliffe's argument that it's meaningless is weak. Meaning is subjective. Morality is a human condition and Cliffe can try to attribute it to his invisible friend. If Cliffe were in Germany, would he have told Hitler he was wrong?
If he wanted to loose his life yes ,or could have given a high salute and help like in Schindler's list.
He Talking Bout Life Meaning? #ReadEcclesiastes
Question for Christians. What are these objectively wrong morals? Is there a list somewhere in the Bible of things mankind must not do under any circumstances because they are wrong on all levels?. I can think of quite a few things which I regard as wrong, but I know they are wrong because I have something called empathy that allows me to think, "if someone did that to me, i'd hate it". I don't think you need a God to tell you something is wrong/bad.
The Bible certainly tells us the objective fundamental thing that mankind MUST do under ALL circumstances. None other than Jesus Christ Himself tells us that all law (immoral things we should not do under any circumstances) can be summed up into one Law and this single commandment is conveyed to us in Matthew 22: 37Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I guess you think of it like this, if you had perfect knowledge that the God of the Bible (and Jesus Christ) were real and the Bible teachings true, how would you think and how would you behave to God, Christ and other people? If you only do things you think are morally good to others without considering God, you only fulfil half the commandment, if you add the first part, you make an objective moral choice for God and your moral behaviour is then objectively founded and not built on the shifting sands of community preferences.
@PeterBear. Thanks for that reply Peter, what I'm specifically asking is, as a Christian, what type of things do you consider 'objectively bad' ?( something that you consider to be bad no matter what the situation) eg: I could argue that there are circumstances whereby telling a lie could be a morally right thing to do, and had you told someone the truth, it could make a situation much worse. Certainly, in most cases it's wrong to tell a lie, but I don't think lying is 'objectively wrong' in all cases. I've told people a lie in order to protect their feelings for example.
@@bonnie43uk -- I have thought of this question on and off for a while. Thankyou for asking, it is a very good question. Here are my thoughts; it is my opinion, I do not speak for all Christians, nor possibly even any one other Christian, pastor or theologian. Each time I picked an example, lying, taking of a life, etc. I could also think of situations where the ethical dilemma could leave me in a quandary and I wondered why. Short answer, I see that there is potential hypocrisy in a Christian life in that we are supposed to know what is objectively right and do it always, but it is not possible for any human (excl. Christ) to achieve as we do not have the ability of God, and we do not fully trust the whispers of Christ in us. In more detail as far as I understand it:
a) Objective good is a standard set by God's character Himself and so can only be attained by Christ as God in human form. He did achieve this else His work on the Cross would not be sufficient, see for example book of Hebrews chpts 8 to 12. People ourselves are not able to attain to the (objective) standards of good set by God - we are not God. God is super Holy and cannot abide any sin, even the sin of lying for what our limited thoughts might consider a "good" cause (Numbers 23:19, Titus 1:2, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hebrews 6:17-18). Regardless of situation, God will find a way to obtain good out of the situation without resorting to trickery or sin (Gen 50:20). He is omniscient and has an infinite mind and capability and as Christians we are called on to trust Him in all situations; but do we do so?
b) To answer your question for me personally, trying to permit Christ in me to work to do (objective) good things but me overriding His gentle direction and not trusting Him totally, but instead permitting my own human character, mind and will to drive my life, I am not able to live up to His objective standard and so I do the things I may not want to do; I think Paul may have written about this too in Romans 7:15-20, so it is not a new problem. Hence, while I understand that God has objective standards of good, which I am called on to emulate, I personally am unable to do so, and so I also do tell "white" lies which from my tiny vantage point appear to be for the best, I use and take home office stationery for personal use, I walk past the needy on the street without pity, I don't pray enough, and the list goes on... and I make my excuses for these choices. In short, I know what (objective) good I should do, but I do not always do it, only when I want - and I know this is not right; but hopefully I do this less and less if I am moving in the right direction with God through Christ. I admit in prayer that I do not always do what is (objectively) right (for if I say that I do not sin, I am a liar - 1 John 1:10) and I move on to try again knowing that Christ is an advocate for me in Heaven (1 John 2:1).
@@peterberr3888 Thanks for that Peter, good to hear from you again. I think we are taught what is right and wrong from our parents, and they from their parents.. etc. But over time we fine tune what we deem as right and wrong, eg: when I was a child it was perfectly acceptable for a parent to beat a child for misbehaving.. i got quite a few severe beatings for doing bad things, but today I wouldn't dream of hitting a child, causing him physical harm, there are other methods we use to punish a child, depriving them of tv, taking away their cell phone etc. I'm sure in other cultures beating a child is still acceptable, but it's a societal thing, some societies work out better forms of punishment, and we treat people in a more humane way. I think this is something the Bible doesn't teach as such. .. we even go against what the Bible teaches sometimes because we've found a more moral system. ie, we don't kill witches anymore.
bonnie43uk : possibly. Two things here. 1) That a moral code exists where a societal group of people are in agreement , is a relative morality. It changes as societies change with time. You seem to define it like this. But what happens when if in 50 or 25 years the group decided that something you detest now becomes the right thing to do, you would necessarily have to go along with it and agree cos hey, you abide with the definition. So is it really a good moral code to allow a subset of people to define the standard of morality for all? This is precisely what many on the web criticise Christians for in the past and even today. 2) My understanding is that the Bible is not a moral rule book to be literally obeyed (Christ was upset with the Pharisees for that) just as much as it is not a history or science book - rather it teaches one about Who God is (including many things about the things He has done and why, His Omni-properties, standards of moral goodness and meanings of love), the relationship humans had with God, what happened to that relationship and how it can be restored by each individual. To just think of the Bible as a list of moral rules is to limit the ability to rediscover Christ. Also btw, Christ never beat up any child or burned any witches, He taught Love your neighbour.
When we as believers, will not allow ourselves to seriously consider or entertain the idea, that compared to God we are nothing, We, because of this incapacity, have no real rights to expect atheists to do what we ourselves will not do.
They, the atheists, need to realise that it’s the greatness of God thats dramatically reducing their greatness, to the extent that they prefer the idea of believing in the non existence of God, to overcome their amazing reduction, which essentially is being nothing by comparison to God.
But how will they ever come to terms with this if you as a believer cannot come to terms with your own nothingness compared to God.
I know you want to be something. We all do. But compared to God you’re nothing and it’s the same deal for everyone.
I’m nothing compared to God.
Yes compared to each other and the animal kingdom we can be something but not so if we compare ourselves to God.
Certainly, compared to God in the form of Jesus Christ, we have some resemblance of equality, having 10 fingers and 10 toes. But hey let’s be real. He created us. Right?
What have you done?
Yes sure you’ve done a few things.
But you haven’t lived forever have you?
You haven’t made the stars, the entire universe and all its contents have you?
Be real. Compared to God we don’t even begin to compare.
It’s a self deception that’s preventing us from realising our extraordinary insignificance in comparison to God.
Our core motivation is to be accepted as being worthwhile people, in the eyes of those whom we deem to be the worthy people, and we achieve or believe we have this acceptance through achieving what we believe to be worthwhile achievements, which we use to validate our own worthiness.
This innate desire to be worthwhile is the blocking agent that prevents the believers from realising in a greater way the greatness of God. The perceived greatness of ourselves prevents us from more fully appreciating God and His greatness.
Everyone has a story and if you want to check out mine sometime,click on the link below.
th-cam.com/video/Iv7GJMNM0Y8/w-d-xo.html
Paul, what prevents me from believing in God are various things. Lets look at the properties of God. You can't see him, hear him, touch him, smell him,or taste him, in other words he's 100% invisible to the 5 human senses. I absolutely agree with you, if he exists, then in comparison, we are nothing in comparison to him. Gods exist in people's minds all over the world, perhaps in a similar way to how Santa Claus exists in the minds of children all over the world, they are raised up to hear and see stories of Santa Claus, he is 100% real in their heads.
You were raised to believe in the God of the Bible by your parents. Had you been born and raised in a country where people believed in a different type of God, ..that would be the God you fully believed in.
bonnie43uk If I was you Tom I’d give up trying to believe in God.
Bottom line He doesn’t want you Tom. Many are called, few are chosen.
But Tom it appears that you’re not called.
What God is looking for is faithfulness, gratefulness and obedience.
That’s not you Tom is it.
bonnie43uk You and I
have talked a lot Tom.
You have a mindset of unbelief regarding the existence of God.
You try to believe in God Tom but you can’t.
God chooses people Tom.
He hasn’t chosen you or your friend John Cassin
If He did choose you Tom He would furnish you with belief.
But He hasn’t done that.
If you ask why is this, I would answer your question by saying the following.
God chooses those whom He can develop because we need to be developed.
We cannot progress along our never ending journey through eternity without the development of ourselves by God.
To be able to be developed by God and his angels we have to be 100% obedient to God.
You by your own admission aren’t prepared to be this way Tom.
Hence you are not chosen by God.
You don’t want to obey God.
You don’t want to be faithful and obedient to Him.
That is your fault Tom.
That’s your wrong choice.
Yes you’ve got your reasons which you’d like to think are valid but actually Tom they are invalid.
You made the mistake of not being submissive to God.
You don’t want to submit to God Tom therefore as you won’t be able to get the necessary development by God, because you don’t want to be meek and lowly of heart, you do not get chosen by God.
You will regret it but perhaps it’s not that bad.
The chosen will live for eternity but you won’t.
And that should be somewhat ok with you Tom because you’re not expecting life after death.
Therefore when you get what you bargained for which is no everlasting life, by being snuffed out by God in hell, yes you’ll be disappointed alright but as you weren’t expecting to get eternal life it might soften the blow.
Tom you are not chosen by God.
And He hasn’t chosen you because you won’t pay the price of being faithful to Him therefore He disallows you from believing in Him.
Therefore you’ll never believe Tom because you’re not going to be given the gift of belief.
I am sorry to say this Tom but God doesn’t want you. And hey maybe you are ok about this.
And you’ve only got yourself to blame.
It’s your all your fault Tom.
No one can help you.
You don’t want to repent.
You don’t want to 100% surrender to God.
You aren’t prepared to say to God, ok God you got me. Whatever which way you want me to be I’ll be that way Lord. I will never ever wag my finger at you again Lord.
But you won’t do this Tom.
That’s why God has not and will not choose you because you can’t repent.
Therefore you’ll never believe in God’s existence.
I gave up a number of years ago Paul, although, as they say, "never say never", if God exists and I see credible evidence, I will adjust my thinking accordingly. Clearly, my upbringing, and early belief has left an indelible mark on me, hence my interest in these conversations. I'm fascinated in why people believe in God, and the entire history of Gods throughout human history.
Paul, try and imagine a world in which we all lived in where there were no churches, no mosque's, no holy books. I think human ingenuity and our scope for discovery would have far exceeded current knowledge, religion has held us back for thousands of years. Just a thought.
bonnie43uk Tom it’s taken me quite a while to figure out your dilemma but all the while it was staring me right in the face but I couldn’t see it.
But it’s not rocket science Tom.
I now see why God hasn’t chosen you.
And perhaps this is something you’ll never understand and maybe you’re not meant to.
Those who lack the capacity to repent, and this is you isn’t it Tom, do not get any special help from God to help them to repent.
It’s a waste of time so He doesn’t bother. Can you see this Tom?
I don’t suppose you can.
I’m sorry to say this Tom but God has passed you by.
Cliffe and his son like their master want to gather thy children ( the unrepentant) together like a hen doth gather her brood under her wings in Luke 13:34
And it’s good that they are like their master in this regard, all true believers are, giving people chances. But when the writing is on the wall like I’m now seeing it with you and John, I need to tell you straight.
Its good to be motivated to build a cool house that will fall in time but I'm motivated by a house that won't fall, a house pertected by eternal life in Jesus I choose an infinite house. So then your happy with things that die and so that God will let you die so that you may be happy with yourself. Why then are you mad at God don't things that die motivate you and make you happy?
Cliffe asks a great question in this video: Where do we get our morals from?, I believe we get them from our parents and the people around us in society. We all know the rules, that it's not ok to steal, harm others, kill etc, we start learning the basics from the moment we're able to comprehend as babies, one of the first words we learn from our mothers is "No"! .. that is our very first comprehension of what is right and wrong/good and bad.
bonnie43uk cultural morality is from our parents and what we experience within the areas that we live. I get my absolute morals from God.
@CuriousAbsolution, well, you're free to believe that, I'm not sure these 'absolute morals' exist, is there a list of these absolute morals that I can see,? how many absolute morals are there? .. I'm sure there will be people out there with a different list of things they might describe as 'absolutely immoral'. I can certainly agree that something like a brutal rape, or the torture of someone might be classed as absolutely wrong/bad, but that doesn't mean that God dictated that it was immoral, we can work that out for ourselves that it's wrong, you don't need a God to tell you that.
@@bonnie43uk Hey Bonnie43uk, to hear some great dialog about morals please check out some videos of Ravi Zacharias (spelling may be off).
Ravi is a great speaker on this topic and he addresses it specifically.
PS, I found a post where you explained your screen name.... Don't you know who built Atlantis and returned it to the sea?
When I read your explanation of your screen name I liked you right away.
@@johndavis7078 Hi John sorry for the late reply, TH-cam doesn't always notify me of replies, just came across your reply. I'm not sure what the Atlantis reference is.
Yes, I have watched quite a few Ravi Zacharias videos over the years. Although i agree that he's a great speaker and communicator, I disagree with his conclusions. I don't see God as a logical conclusion. But I'm open to be convinced. What do you find as the best evidence for God?
@@bonnie43uk I'm glad you found my post, nice to meet you!
I will address your God question soon but I first must find out what rock you live under that prevents you from knowing my Atlantis remark?? What?? Didn't you say you like Prefab Sprout? I was shocked you didn't chime in with the next line!
Prefab Sprout had two singles that I played in heavy rotation when I worked at a small alternative radio station. "Appetite" and "Looking for Atlantis". Looking for Atlantis was one of my 5 favorite songs of 1990 to 1993. That song was the main reason I bought their greatest hits CD.
For the love of all things holy you got to try that song. Man I couldn't get enough of that song! It was guaranteed to be played in the first hour of my show.
I know some albums have different tracks on them depending on the country it is released in, in the US Looking for Atlantis was their biggest hit.
I will answer your God question tomorrow, since it's so close to my bedtime. But for our first meeting we need to get you up to speed on those two songs.
So get your earbuds in and give it a listen. We'll chat again tomorrow.
the flaw in his argument, is, equaliy legitimate to be a dr, or an extortionist, until the extortionist preys on him- then it would be wrong. but thats being dishonest, as basically hes saying, as long as i dont get extorted, its all good. WE CANT AND WE DONT, and its in the we dont, think like that, because we have a conscience
@ilkin engin. He's not getting his point across very well, he was right when he said we all create our own meaning. However, if your meaning is to do harm to others, that is not good because our actions have consequences, and as we're social creatures, we're all very well aware that stealing or hurting someone is bad, ..if we use the old adage "how would I like it if someone did that to me"?, or as Jesus said "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", it's the same kind of thing. You are correct, the vast majority of us have a conscience. This was instilled in us at a very early part of our lives.
Exactly! He holds this high-minded and faux enlightenment and sets upon his broken soap box UNTIL the extortionist comes to his doorstep...
@@bonnie43uk No... He's not correct in thinking that we create our own standards. Because it will be so UNTIL the person whose standards are diametrically opposed to yours comes to you and imposes those standards on you and declares that yours are inferior... Then you and Gavin will begin to fight... You and him will begin to subconsciously cry out for standards that mirror yours be established...
SOULSafeProductionZ society develops standards of morality and what’s good and bad. It’s part of evolution in that all living creatures have to empathise within their species to survive. It’s not perfect, there are exceptions but generally that’s how our civilisations have progressed.
@SoulsafeProductionZ, No, i don't think he meant it in the way you are describing it, if I understand him correctly, he's not saying it's ok to hold bad standards, it's just the way things are, someone will hold a "bad view" for any number of reasons. Who gets to say what is right and what is wrong?, I'm sure you and I will agree on lots of things, but there are other aspects of life we will disagree on. People in different cultures and countries have differing opinions about what is right and wrong.
You don't have to follow God.
What we call 'free will' is basically the decisions that we make that are actually based on complicated mental and psychological processes that happen within our brains, it's not like we can somehow just make decisions out of thin air in some mysterious way, that would be truly free will if that is how it worked but it would also be impossible, a brain/mind in a vacuum could not function, it needs information and experiences to process, when Bible believers talk about us all "having a free will", they think that we can just make choices out of nothing and somehow make choices that have not been influenced and shaped by any external sources, in other words, they are talking about a concept that is like I say, impossible.
Because, we aren't born able to make decisions just like that, the human brain or any kind of a brain for that matter has to, first of all, go through a process of development from the day we are born, we then had to be taught by our parents or whoever looked after us the basics, eg, talking, what we should and shouldn't do etc, this takes a good few years, then as we get older we are continually subject to processes of socialization and orientation within the environment we are being raised in, we then also have the individual experiences that our developing brains go through as we continue to live and all of these things strongly affect the decisions that we make in life then and more to the point, later on in our lives, there's an old adage 'give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man', this sums it all up really, we are all products of our upbringing and experiances, especially in those early years and even after that, throughout our lives we are processing new information that effects our decisions, note, we get the information FIRST, then we decide, not the other way around.
All of the decisions we make are based on past experiences, even if we can't quite remember the detail, our brain has certain patterns that have been established as a result of something that happened in our past, it gets buried deep in the subconscious areas of our brains but they are there and they affect what he decided today, we simply cannot make decisions about anything without information in the form of past experiences or present information to guide us and shape our conclusions, so how does this relate to why some believe in God and others don't and what religion/faith/ideology/way of life they choose??? Well, it's very simple, your experiences have led you to where you are today in terms of whether you believe a God exists or not, if you have had an experience that leads you to believe that a God exists then, of course, you will believe in a Gods existence and if you haven't had any such experience then you probably won't believe in God and I haven't, so guess what? Surprise surprise I don't lol, it's a no-brainer really.
Ask yourself this very simple question, if your parents or the people who brought you up hadn't taught you that a God exists, would you still believe that a God exists without having some kind of an experience that led you to that conclusion or someone introducing the idea to you? Think about it, there would be no reason for you to believe there was any God unless you were taught or had some experience that got you to be convinced, you didn't just decide out of thin air "hey, there's a God and he had a son called Jesus who died for me, I believe, hallelujah", you were taught this by someone or this concept was presented to you in some way or another, correct?
It's all about experience, had you been born and raised the way I was and experienced all of the things that I have, chances are you would now be questioning Gods existence like me, once again, it's all about experience, what we call "free will" isn't really free, it's tied into those experiences we have which then lead us to certain conclusions about reality and the things we believe or don't believe come from those conclusions which in turn come from our experiences, now, whether our conclusions are correct or not is another matter, it is true to say that if one believes that a God exists and the other doesn't, one of them will be wrong because either there is a God or no God exists, what we need is to find a way to establish which is the case and I am happy to discuss that with anyone too but I'm just trying to explain why we make those decisions in the first place and that so-called "free will" is an illusion, it's not free for the reasons I have pointed out.
Excellent points John. Yes indeed, I was raised to believe the Bible was the 'word of God', but, as you say, had I been raised without that belief, it would entirely change my whole mindset growing up. This obviously explains a lot about me as a person, as an adult now I have a different opinion about God/Jesus, those early years left a big imprint on my brain, hence why I find myself in discussion about Christianity albeit from outside of that Christian bubble. I have the benefit as I see it, of having a different perspective on it. It's a little like a scene from Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy looks behind the curtain and finds out there isn't a magic Wizard controlling things, it was just an old guy. Heh, i only mention that because it was on one of the tv channels yesterday and I caught the last 20 minutes.. heh, Merry Christmas. Have a good one :-)
btw, i was chatting to a woman who I had to take up the hospital in Oxford for radiotherapy treatment last week, she'd had a big chunk of her brain removed so they could remove a tumor, it resulted in her having a change in personality and loss of certain limb movements, which I suppose bears out your point about how the brain works. In biblical times when someone was having a brain seizure or schitzophrenia episode they would see it as someone being possessed by a demon. Medical science has come a long way.
You're both incorrect. Hypothetically, I could walk up to you and lick your face with my tongue and it would be based on no preconceived notion or subconsciously ingrained social construct that comes from my past.
The only reason you all hold to this ridiculous notion that there is no free will is because you all want someone to blame for the hellbound circumstance that you refuse to get out of even though the lifeline, Jesus has been thrown down to you. There's something in the pit your in, amongst the snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders and deadly reptiles that you like. And, you like it enough to risk death and dismemberment via the deadly animals in the pit.
Your mentality is an illusion. Free will is real I have a choice to do whatever I please and you do too. You just want to do whatever you please without consequences and repercussions, but since you know you can't, you make up this crock that there's no free will so you can cry, moan and complain about your chosen end. Problem is, there's no more crackers and cheese for your whine. You need to GROW UP and accept responsibility for your actions and if the consequences you have coming your way is undesirable, then BOSS UP, SHUT UP AND CHANGE IT! But stop crying about it! GEEZ!
@@SOULSafeProductionZ
Actually, you don't have a choice to do "whatever you please" and I can demonstrate that practically, you couldn't just flap your arms and fly up in the air like a bird even if you wanted to, could you? You might say you don't want to, fine but you don't have a choice about that anyway, you just can't because you are a human being who has evolved differently from birds (or were created differently if you prefer as you are a theist ), you are not a bird, birds can do that, they have that choice, you don't, you couldn't walk up a sheer walk unaided like a spider either, because you're not a spider, spiders can, they have the choice to do things you don't have the choice to do, there are many different creatures on earth who can do things you could never do, your choices are limited to what is within your CAPABILITY to do, if you were severely mentally or physically handicapped (I presume you are not but if you are then you will know what I am saying here), your choices would also be limited even more so.
It is true to say that you can EFFECTIVELY choose to do something that is within your ability to do, sure but once again, you have to ask yourself why you "choose" to do one thing and not another and that "choice" does most definitely come from your past, I'll give you some more simple examples, do you have a favorite color shirt? Is there a particular style of clothing that you prefer? Do you have a favorite food? I could go on, you name it, the principle is EXACTLY the same because the one thing all of your "choice preferences" will have in common is your past and how you were brought up will play a massive part in all of your decisions about everything.
Even if it was because you wanted to rebel against your past, you are still being affected by that past because, without it, you wouldn't then have the trigger that led you to those decisions, eg, if someone had a bad father, they might want to try and be a better father to their children because of that, you see, you cannot get away from your upbringing, even when you think you are, even if you think you are being nothing like your parents or whoever brought you up, they will still be affecting you.
You might think you have 'grown up' but the reality is that you cannot escape your childhood, none of us can, of course we should accept responsibility as the agents of our actions, I never suggested we shouldn't take responsibility in principle, this is where I think you are misunderstanding the point, I am simply explaining that what we call "free will" isn't something that comes out of thin air, it is a product, a result of many different factors including and especially our upbringing, yes, I am responsible as the agent of my actions for everything I do but what I do can be EXPLAINED by how I was brought up and other social and psychological factors, not by some mysterious "divinely given free will".
Also, you mentioned about us being "hellbound", I presume this is hellbound as in you think we are going to hell, correct? Well, let me ask you this, have you ever actually seen hell? If so, then you have a right to believe it exists but as someone who has never seen it, why should I believe there is such a place? Show me this place called hell and then I might be a lot more convinced and while you're at it, show me a heaven and show me a creator, show me all of these things you say exist but I know you won't be able to and that's the problem, back to your limits again, you CAN'T do whatever you like, you can only do what is within your ability, just like all of us and it is not within your ability to show us these things, if you could show us, you wouldn't be just posting back an angry response (yes I caught your tone, expressions like "GEEZ!" and "SHUT UP" are a little clue lol)), you would actually show us, if there really is a God then it would be within his ability to show us but so far he hasn't, therefore, I have no reason to believe that this being exists at all, sure, that might change in the future but I can only tell you what I am experiancing in the present and what I have experianced in the past, not what I am GOING to experiance in the future, many thanks for your effort to respond as best you can though, I appreciate it.
I concur John.
@SoulSAFE. Free will can be quite complicated to fully grasp, yes I would agree that we've got degree's of free will, ie, if I look in my fridge and I have 2 lots of ice cream , one chocolate and one strawberry, I do indeed have a choice of whatever takes my fancy. Shouldn't a free will choice come without any type of outside coercion or threat. eg: If I say to you, you've got a choice of an apple or an orange, but if you choose the orange I'm going to hit you with a baseball bat. Would you say you had a free will choice to choose either?, or will your decision be based on what I told you would happen if you chose the orange?, I'm guessing in that hypothetical scenario, most if not all people would choose the apple ( who wants to get hit with a baseball bat?)
Now if we compare that with the choice of accepting Jesus as our savior, most Christians would tell you we have a free will choice to accept or reject. But it's not a truly free will choice is it. I am being coerced with a much greater threat than being hit with a baseball bat. Unless I choose to accept Jesus there is the terrible threat of eternal damnation in Hell.
Now you have to ask yourself *why* I would choose to reject Jesus? There are lots of reasons for me personally, but basically I don't believe the New Testament stories, or indeed, the Bible itself, it's not, as you suggested, than John and I, and all other atheists 'want to sin, or prefer to sin', I 100% believe that we're all responsible for our actions, if I wrong someone, it's absolutely upon me to accept my wrongdoing. Any crimes I may commit are down to me, I will accept any punishment that comes my way. I've never committed any crime in which another person was killed or badly injured, or whom I've caused them to be destitute. What crimes have I committed over the past year or so?, none that I'm aware of, certainly nothing that would involve me going to prison.
..yet, if I reject Christ as my saviour, because I honestly cannot see any credible evidence of God/Jesus, no matter if I live a decent life, I am condemned to Hell. ..infinite punishment of any kind is abhorrent.
I think John mentioned somewhere in this thread that we're not even sure what does 'Hell' actually consist of?, no one seems to know for certain, is it torture?, a 'separation from God'?.. whatever that means. Where is the DEFINITIVE description of Hell that ALL Christians can agree on? It very much depends on which Christian, and what denomination of Christianity he/she adhere's to.
As I don't believe God exists, a separation from God is fine with me as I don't feel I am connected in any way with God. If God DOES exist, and this God can read my thoughts and inner feelings, then he knows exactly why I don't believe in him. He/she/it, is free to contact me anytime.
A lot of seeking students questioning and hopefully finding Jesus and Salvation.
A lot of seeking students questioning and hopefully finding Jesus and Salvation.