Are you worth saving?

[basics]

Basics,
So you're just ignoring the part where he specifically said this isn't about god or religion, then?

Akar,

A guid New Year to you. Don't you ever read my posts because the very first thing I asked was " Saving from what?" If it isn't about a Saving God then what or how can man be saved since death is insurmountable wiithout God.

[AqD]

And also paid by HIM assuming he's a tax payer. That's the entire concept of a society and government, the social safety net. If you don't want any of the benefits of society, go live by yourself in the jungle or some .

Assuming he had paid. What if he hasn't? Are you suggesting if he hasn't or if he's born into a place where people don't have tax money entering healthcare system, he would not deserve treatment as much as others do? (PS: plenty of places are like that, I was born in one)

Again, huh? You didn't "show" anything, you made baseless claims without backing it up with evidence or logic.

You grow up on a land where native people were nearly exterminated a few centuries ago.

Do you miss them? Do you feel their loss? What exact positive effect do you think if it might have to you, if they're still there today? Or if Neanderthals are still alive? Or if Black Death or WW never occurred?

None. Same for all of us.

Yes, everyone is worth saving.

That is the question! What logic do we have to support that?

Is that pursuit driven by rationality and desire toward certain outcome (but then, what would you hope to achieve by saving someone who's 90, for example?) Or is driven by basic emotion like other mammals, unintelligent as they are?

Saving from what though? Perhaps saving from Akar? Look, God's word tells us that no-one is worthy of saving. The other side of the fence says what is there to be saved from as when we die that's it, nothing else. Death strikes at any time and any moment so if there is a salvation there is only One Source for it and that comes not from or by man but by our Creator's Grace.

Apparently many seek to be saved from gruesome death. But if what you say is true, why would those believers beg for anything from him at all? Why not just accept whatever thrown at them with dignity?

[Himster]

I really liked Messiah, it was a well thought out show and didn't deserve that silly backlash it got.

Nobody deserves to be saved.
Either goodness is measured in this material world along relative and mutable lines, we will all die anyway and can't be saved. Or goodness is an arbitrary and unattainable state dictated by an incomprehensible deity which condemns all life as unworthy and deserving of infinite torment with the only exception being those few "elect" lottery winners randomly selected for eternal bliss, despite explicitly not deserving it.

[Akar]

That is the question! What logic do we have to support that?


Is that pursuit driven by rationality and desire toward certain outcome (but then, what would you hope to achieve by saving someone who's 90, for example?) Or is driven by basic emotion like other mammals, unintelligent as they are?

The logic I explained in my post... Read my post again. I get the feeling you don't understand evolution all that well, or you wouldn't be asking these sorts of questions.


You would hope that the person would survive, obviously? I don't really understand that question.

You grow up on a land where native people were nearly exterminated a few centuries ago.

Do you miss them? Do you feel their loss? What exact positive effect do you think if it might have to you, if they're still there today? Or if Neanderthals are still alive? Or if Black Death or WW never occurred?

None. Same for all of us.

Huh? What does that have to do with you not showing evidence for spurious claims? You once again make a claim that neanderthals still existing, black death or WW1/2 never happening would change nothing without providing any evidence or reasoning for that claim. You seem to be unfamiliar with the butterfly effect. Changing any small part of the past would likely alter the future. If the 100m or so native americans were never wiped out, you really don't think it would be any different today?

Assuming he had paid. What if he hasn't? Are you suggesting if he hasn't or if he's born into a place where people don't have tax money entering healthcare system, he would not deserve treatment as much as others do? (PS: plenty of places are like that, I was born in one)

No I'm obviously not suggesting that, don't be intentionally obtuse mate. Everyone has a right to healthcare and treatment, whether they pay taxes or not. That's what everyone's taxes go towards, the social safety net. Why do you think you're paying taxes? Do you not understand how this works? ALL earned/spent money is taxed, which pays for all of the goods and services that society comes to expect.

[AqD]

You once again make a claim that neanderthals still existing, black death or WW1/2 never happening would change nothing without providing any evidence or reasoning for that claim. You seem to be unfamiliar with the butterfly effect. Changing any small part of the past would likely alter the future. If the 100m or so native americans were never wiped out, you really don't think it would be any different today?

I didn't ask whether it'd be different, but whether you might be personally better off. Because you're arguing everyone are (equally) worthy to be saved.

Tell me, what part of modern political system, social or technological development is built on top of their legacy? Or related to most humans beings or societies at all? I'm pretty sure none of my ancestors are, nor were most peasants in medieval period.

No I'm obviously not suggesting that, don't be intentionally obtuse mate. Everyone has a right to healthcare and treatment, whether they pay taxes or not. That's what everyone's taxes go towards, the social safety net. Why do you think you're paying taxes? Do you not understand how this works?

So now you're telling us most humans are protected by social safety net? because otherwise what you claim would be a fantasy.

Have you visited any poor countries with universal healthcare and seen how it works out? How are their governments supposed to pay for cancer treatments if a person makes less than a dollar a day, or support families whose breadwinners are sick?

[Akar]

Because you're arguing everyone are (equally) worthy to be saved.

First of all, I didn't say everyone was equally worthy of being saved, just that everyone was worthy of being saved. Don't put words into my mouth. We are as a species and society in a position where everyone can be "saved". There's no reason to not try to save everyone.

There doesn't have to be a net personal benefit to you for it to be a benefit to the survival of the species and society. Everyone benefits when the helpless are helped. Even looking at it from the edgy misanthropic perspective of yours it stands to reason that you can extract more value from a resource if you don't let it die of easily preventable things. I can't believe you seriously think that people don't deserve to be helped if they haven't done enough for society or can pay for the treatment directly themselves.

A society grows great when old men plants trees they know they wont sit in the shade of.

Tell me, what part of modern political system, social or technological development is built on top of their legacy? Or related to most humans beings or societies at all? I'm pretty sure none of my ancestors are, nor were most peasants in medieval period.

What does this have to do with anything? You're only worth saving if you have already provided X benefit to society? There's no logic for your arguments at all. I'm not sure you're even sure what your argument is aside from lashing out with a general sense of misanthropy and a deep misunderstanding of evolution and biology.

So now you're telling us most humans are protected by social safety net? because otherwise what you claim would be a fantasy.

Why don't you find where I said "most humans are protected by social safety net"? Did you seriously misread "taxes pay for a social safety net" to be "most humans are protected by social safety net" or are you just arguing in bad faith?

Have you visited any poor countries with universal healthcare and seen how it works out? How are their governments supposed to pay for cancer treatments if a person makes less than a dollar a day, or support families whose breadwinners are sick?

How about not spending it on corruption? How about paying more than a dollar a day? How about any number of better things than just going "oh well, the poor"?

[basics]

So Akar has but one aim in life and that is to survive as his belief in Darwin explains. So, survive what? When death comes for him it is nothing bur blankety blank and nothing else and there you have it. There's a surprise in store for him.

[Sir Adrian]

I really liked Messiah, it was a well thought out show and didn't deserve that silly backlash it got.

Nobody deserves to be saved.
Either goodness is measured in this material world along relative and mutable lines, we will all die anyway and can't be saved. Or goodness is an arbitrary and unattainable state dictated by an incomprehensible deity which condemns all life as unworthy and deserving of infinite torment with the only exception being those few "elect" lottery winners randomly selected for eternal bliss, despite explicitly not deserving it.

Or the divinity does not condemn anybody and anything and man actually chooses condemnation by rejecting said divinity while the dinity does nothing more that respect your wishes and stand by until you aready to accept him.

[Akar]

So Akar has but one aim in life and that is to survive as his belief in Darwin explains.

That's not what Darwin says nor what I said. Go read through this thread and all my posts before you try to make a smart ass reply again, you're just making yourself look bad.

Maybe even wait until you figure out something substantial to add to the conversation, rather than attempting wit.

[Kyriakos]

I don't mean to be dramatic, but the aliens running this experiment you call "Earth" literally only care about me.

[Sar1n]

I don't mean to be dramatic, but the aliens running this experiment you call "Earth" literally only care about me.

No way.

Cogito ergo sum. Since I clearly exist and think, it therefore follows that I'm the centerpoint around which this simulation revolve.

[Akar]

I don't mean to be dramatic, but the aliens running this experiment you call "Earth" literally only care about me.

wtf they told me the same thing???

[pacifism]

That is a false dychotomy if I ever saw one. God gave man free will. Man chose to use that free will to turn away from God. God loves man and will accept man back if man does the most minimal of effort and repents. What does any of this have to do with human dignity and other concepts that only really exist in a handfull of countries?

I will admit that I’m not very well-versed in more Eastern Orthodox schools of theology, but I’m usually unimpressed by it when I encounter it. It’s not really “the most minimal of effort” to repent and seek God if literally no one on Earth does it, at least not according to the Bible in passages such as Romans 3.

Regardless, maybe you could dig a little deeper and envision the thought process of the Christians who do believe the thing I said and do have the conundrum that I was outlining. I bet that will be more on topic than this aside.

Christians are not allowed to punish sinners at all. "Le he who is without sin cast the first stone" and all that. Hate the sin, love the sinner is one of the mandatory rules you have to live by if you want to be a Christian.

In that case, why do ostensibly Christian countries have prisons? I’m not saying that a government’s laws are a 1:1 ratio to sin, but prisons do punish thieves and murderers for being thieves and murderers. The Bible itself instructed God’s people to prescribe such and such a punishment for such and such a sin in the Mosaic law, and so forth.

[Kyriakos]

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and eternal punishment if you don't believe in god

When I was 8, I was very interested in ants. During the summer break I would focus on a large fire-ant nest, in our vacation house. I'd spend hours observing them and (in my view) improving the architecture of their nest, by removing sand and forming it like a bunker with a moat.
The ants didn't like it, and they'd attack me.
Then, one afternoon, I noticed a peculiar looking yellow ant, elsewhere in the yard. I took it in my hand and moved it to the fire-ant nest, expecting to see some interesting ritual of greeting between it and the red ants. Instead they instantly rushed to it and killed it with a hundred mandible bites. This led me to feel enraged and stomp on them. But, in reality, it was just wrong on my part to expect something like a greeting, the ants are not humans and have their own ways, and my act of divine vengeance certainly wasn't warranted.

You can ask of the ants to like you, or behave in a way you condone, and kill them if they don't, but it is irrational to expect gratitude for doing stuff they don't want in the first place. Likewise with the supposed existence of a god. After all, why would a human want something like a god to exist? To become an ant? Or to - as Nietzsche put it - hope that in the afterlife he will be rewarded for being an ant in this one, with others punished just for having an easier life here.

[Cope]

I think that for a lot of Christians there is some point they have to resolve for themselves the tension between the theological concept of original sin with their belief in human rights and whatnot. It’s obvious enough why: due to sin, no one truly deserves anything but hell and no one has any meaningful standing before God, and yet all people are also supposed to have irrevocable rights for their livelihood and being treated with dignity. I suppose there is also a slightly more nihilistic approach to the question of why its worth the bother to make any sacrifice to improve anyone’s life, which basically causes the same basic ideas to be at odds.

In that case, I think that there are plenty of ways individuals can reconcile these two things. The most obvious one to me is that we accept that people have rights because we are all equal persons and ostensibly nothing makes one person’s life more valuable than another’s. In the Christian perspective, there is a clear limit to how much one sinner is morally allowed to punish another for something. From a nihilist perspective, since life has no inherent meaning … there is no point to unnecessary suffering, I guess?

Human rights only make sense in the context of sin. If mankind had not fallen short of the glory of God, we would need neither protection from, nor forgiveness for, our sinful nature. Jesus expresses this idea when dining at Levi's house among tax collectors and sinners, saying "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Mark 2:17). However, manmade laws (e.g. human rights), even if they are a product of Christianized reasoning, concern the material, not the spiritual. The sovereignty of the state cannot take precedence over the sovereignty of God, nor can it be the path to redemption (forgiveness is through Christ alone). Thus, Jesus gives us the separation of church from state: "Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matt 22:21).

Supposing one were to accept the existence of a "tension" between man's inherited "unrighteousness" and the need for "irrevocable rights", the most obvious resolution would be found in Christ's altruistic appeal to "love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matt 22:39). This is explored more substantially during the Sermon on the Mount: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" (Matt 5:44-46). This principle finds a material example when Christ redeems the repentant, but undeserving, malefactor on Calvary, promising that "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

[basics]

AqD,

Quote, " Apparently many seek to be saved from gruesome death. But if what you say is true, why would those believers beg for anything from him at all? Why not just accept whatever thrown at them with dignity?" Unquote.

Well ole sir all believers know that they were condemned because God broke down their hardened hearts to let them see just how far from their Creator they were and on Whom that could be rectified. Man cannot escape from God. Man is only a part of God's plan for all creation. That is why our Creator Jesus Christ came into the world to die and rise again to eternal Glory. He preached the Gospel and but for a few all rejected Him and still do despite the signs and wonders He displayed. When death comes there are but two roads on which one travels, one heaven and two hell. Make no mistake about this if anyone reading this feels God telling them they need help, get on your knees and admit it from the depths of your heart for Jesus Christ is that help.

[Infidel144]

In that case, why do ostensibly Christian countries have prisons? I’m not saying that a government’s laws are a 1:1 ratio to sin, but prisons do punish thieves and murderers for being thieves and murderers. The Bible itself instructed God’s people to prescribe such and such a punishment for such and such a sin in the Mosaic law, and so forth.

"God's people" there being the Israelites, who were setting up a state or government. The only "punishment" Christians were 'instructed' to give was to dis-associate with the sinner. E.g. see 1 Corinthians 5. Christians had no legal authority when that religion was formed, but were under the legal authority of others (Rome).

[Gigantus]

It is a simple question whether you think you're worth saving if you're in deep trouble.

Simple answer: YES!
Everyone thinks he\she is deserving\worthy, regardless of circumstances and proselyting. I can only speculate about the mental state of someone who says: 'Don't help me in my dire need, I am not worthy'

What's the point of the question?

[Akar]

What's the point of the question?

To espouse some sort of high-and-mighty better-than-thou misanthropy.

[Prodromos]

In that case, why do ostensibly Christian countries have prisons? I’m not saying that a government’s laws are a 1:1 ratio to sin, but prisons do punish thieves and murderers for being thieves and murderers.

Thieves and murderers aren't punished for being sinners, though, but for violating other people's rights. Sins that don't involve rights violations, like envy or greed, can't be punished through violence, since that would itself be sinful.