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You did not even offer a quote from that speech! In fact you acknowledged (in post #2007) that you did not even have the text of that speech! Why should we take seriously your claim that you know what it "plainly implies"?

Each of us, individually, determines what position we take on whether something is right or wrong. Nobody can "determine" whether something is right or wrong, in the sense of causing something to be right or wrong. Legislators can decree something to be illegal, and it will become illegal, but...

Dōmo arigatō!

You offer no evidence that Hitler ever read this passage, let alone based any of his ideology or actions on it. I'm going to assume you have none. And you still have not offered anything showing Hitler claiming that Darwin's teaching required the eradication of the Jews, though my request that...

I'm afraid I only have time for hit-and-run posting at the moment, but I'll do my best to get back to you on this when we get home, which will be the 29th. Don't let that stop you from posting further excerpts or summaries from later letters.

Because "we should let nature take its course" makes no sense either logically or morally. "X happens, therefore X should happen, and we should make sure it happens" is a non sequitur. And "give no assistance to the disabled" is a violation of the golden rule (among other ethical principles I...

If somebody tells me a "physical truth" which seems repellent to my intuitions -- like "time appreciably slows down for an observer traveling at high speeds" -- they may be able to offer both equations and empirical demonstrations of the truth of that proposition, and then I have to acknowledge...

Suppose we could put this proposition to Wallenberg himself: "we can't have a world without Hitler in it, because then we would be deprived of your moral fortitude in resisting Hitler." Do you imagine he would be pleased at this thought? That he would have agreed that [Hitler + Wallenberg] >=...

I'm not sure what your objection is here. So far as I know, speaking of "inflicting" some punishment does not connote that the punishment must be unjust or otherwise objectionable. In this world at least, it would be presumed to be procedurally just, but not necessarily substantively just. If a...

You have offered nothing to show that Hitler ever attempted "to justify the Holocaust scientifically." The only quote you have offered, repeatedly, has Hitler saying that nature is pitiless, which appears to be a justification of eugenics. Eugenics is not the same thing as the Holocaust, and the...

No you did not, but EB was asking, roughly, "why does God permit these Christians to do such evil in His name," and your response is that they are not true Christians, because Christians actually know the love of God and are motivated to do good in His name. But this is not something which a...

It's not a specific thing in utilitarian philosophy, so far as I know. I was just saying that, to a utilitarian (or at least to one who defined "the greatest good" in terms of pleasure) the best possible world (IOW "Paradise") would be one in which there was the greatest amount of pleasure and...

Even if this is the case, it doesn't follow that any punishment God inflicts as part of that judgment is necessarily right and just. (It may be that as an annihilationist you actually agree with that.) Isn't this "alternative" a great oversimplification? I assume I have as much free will as...

Sorry for not getting back to you here; I’m in the middle of some hectic days. Will respond soon!

They are in motion, but it is motion without any velocity?

It isn't clear to me either, though it seems suggestive of theocracy. I remember Pat Robertson once advocating that a council of spirit-filled Christians should have veto power over all government decisions, which would make them a kind of "delegated authority." This may have been a case of...

If all the Bible said was "Jesus taught us that we should be loving and patient," then maybe that's a reasonable answer. But the Bible seems to go beyond that to say "you will be given the gifts of love and patience," which is a claim that seems empirically testable, and falsifiable. It would...

An agnostic would be more persuadable that God exists than a positive atheist, but might be just as resistant to persuasion that Christianity is true. But my point was that EB's objection about the evils done by the church isn't really answered by saying "when you experience God's presence and...

If you're defining any evil act as a rebellion against God, then all true believers rebel against God in this life, since all continue to commit evil acts. Why does that change in the next life? Moreover, every believer I've heard from is very insistent that it was God who brought them to Him...

As I'm pretty sure you realize, the existence of a set of human beings -- namely, Christians -- who are more loving than the rest of us, more patient than the rest of us, more honest than the rest of us, etc., is not something which nonbelievers see as manifestly true. To use considerable...