How you treat the people closest to you seems a more relevant measure of one's ethical behavior than what one says others should do for their fellow man.

Now I'm not saying that Einstein was a bad guy, he was a great thinker and humanitarian, but his personal ethics were deeply flawed. For that reason, I wouldn't take his advice on ethics and I don't take his judging others ethics to be very moving. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and I would guess just about every religion on the planet would condemn his treatment of his wife and his serial philandering. So is it any wonder that he would reject organized religion? And look how great his non-theological moral compass worked out! Cheating on his wife and treating her worse than a dog.

Judge not lest ye be judged sound familiar?. I think judging a persons personal choices like the person they live with is not only callous, but shortsighted and cruel. Pretty typical of the church however, you must suffer forever with the person your married or you are SINNING AGAINST GOD! lol what a joke.

My mother left my father because of her own reasons are you to judge her for that? Can you know her reasons? Can you know what she felt? Can you know anything about that personal situation? No matter what anyone writes or anyone's opinions, who you live with, who you consider your partner in life is your own choice and your character as a whole should not be judge based on that. Breaking a promise is the worst claim regarding adultery. Yea spider I am sure you have never broke a promise.


This is soo telling spider, you even show your hand, you are not judging Einstein based on his personal life because of his personal life. You are judging it based on his rejection of organized religion which is your bread and butter.

So every person that cheats on there wife or husband or who leaves there wife or husband isnt to be trusted about anything? ethical?

_____________________________________________________

So based on his breaking a promise you believe that his judgment concerning human rights was completely wrong? Or even slightly wrong? Or perhaps you can explain how it really has any relevance at all?

So point for point you think he was wrong in regards to his stance on human rights because of something that has no bearing on the truth of his stance?

You are so cute when you run out of logical arguments.

"My mommy is divorced! Will you judge her!!!!"

I haven't complained about his divorce, I mentioned it because it led to his later behavior of cheating on his new wife. His divorce is the least of the poor ethical choices he made and maybe he had some legitimate reasons for wanting a divorce. I don't know. What I do know is that following his divorce, he married his cousin and spent the rest of his life having one public affair after another. He didn't sleep with his wife, depriving her of her rights as a wife. She was so weak willed that she fed and cared for him and his many mistresses. But yet she loved him her entire life. It's a heartbreaking story, which should move you. I'm pretty sure it does, but the absolute terror of having to admit that quoting Einstein on personal morality is similar to quoting Hitler on race relation prevents you from being honest on the subject. You just so love the idea of Einstein hating religion on an intellectual level that you can't admit his dislike of religion was probably for the fact that his treatment of his wife was so terrible and would have brought him condemnation in any religion he choose to join. Usually, when someone makes a comment about a religion or group of people, you should look at both parties objectively to see if that comment was deserved. If David Duke complained about the NAACP, would you automatically take his word? If a man with 20 DUIs complained about MADD, would you automatically take his side? I think you need to use a little bit of discernment on what Einstein said.

I haven't questioned his credentials as a humanitarian (straw man fallacy on your part), I questioned his credentials on judging MORALITY. Him claiming that nobody needs religion to teach them right from wrong is a dubious claim if for no other reason than the fact the way he treated his second wife would be condemned...well by every human who believes in trust or respect and specifically by every organized religion that I've ever heard of. So he behaved in a way that is thoroughly repugnant to every religion, so his condemnation of religion should obviously be in question.

Oh and the whole "Judge not!" bit. Nice, but that doesn't mean anything to me. Unlike you and every other atheist who is completely ignorant of what Jesus was teaching, I understand Jesus' message. I haven't decided that Einstein is a bad person or that he deserves hell, what I have said is that his behavior was unethical and repugnant. We are allowed to discern behaviors and use that discernment to guide us in our choices of friends, who we take advice from, etc. Maybe you should use your ability to discern before quoting someone who has an obvious reason (and not the one you would like to believe) for making a statement?

Poor guy, you need to focus more on what I said instead of using appeal to emotion fallacies and straw man fallacies to try to confuse the issue. I'm not falling for it, but it did make me laugh reading your response.

Coming from someone who has, in the past on these boards, been an apologist for every God-sanctioned O.T. genocide (even of children), this comes off as a little 'pot/kettle'.

Do tell us again-- "They had it coming". It's so 'humanitarian' and 'ethical', isn't it?

-Kerry O.

This is another of his quotes that I keep posted nearby; Makes me think...

"The definition of insanity is
repeating the same action over and over and expecting
different results."

Kerry,

I didn't decide that those people deserved what happened, God did. It is my faith in God's goodness that assures me that God judged those he killed justly. As far as the children go, I'm not sure what you want. God to kill their evil parents to leave the kids to die from starvation, exposure and animal attacks? Maybe a children of the corn type town that was run by kids? I don't get it. Being killed prevented them from suffering any more and possibly saved their souls. I know it's an ugly alternative, but it was the best available to God. The parents had to be punished and part of their punishment was for them to be removed from this world. The children also had to be removed from this world, but their punishment stopped there, while their parents continued to be punished.

I think the problem is that you are looking at their life as the extent of their existence. But God did not. I can feel comfortable in what God did because I know that this life is just the beginning. A moment of pain saved those children an eternal punishment. It's a terrible choice and one that I could not and would not make, but God did. I trust God, so I trust his judgments.

I would say, based on this quote, that each of us in this forum fits the definition of insane.

The moment you amount adultery to mass genocide your arguments fall apart.

The truth of a mans words stand out from his actions.

You can choose to judge the truth of a mans words by his actions but that would be ignoring truth, regardless of its source.

No fallacies, not extra baggage, my argument is simple, and true.

Truth transcends human nature. I can take a quote from anyone and if it was right and correct it doesnt matter if it was hitler who said it, or even does it matter the reason they said it.

Some of the most despicable people use the truth and powerful truth to coerce you to send them lots of money . . . evangelist should be well versed in this issue.

To me this is the purest sort of evil. The evil that can use god to be good.

At least Einstein never said god said it was ok.

Spider please let me know if god tells you its just and ok to kill someone, please let someone like me know with advance warning.

Your first two sentences are gibberish, consider rewriting.

Einstein never said God said what was okay? Einstein didn't believe in the Bible, so why would he comment on the Bible? So I must assume you aren't talking about the Bible. You must mean that Einstein never suggested that God condoned his philandering. I'm sure that since Einstein surely felt guilty for how he was treating his wife, that he didn't need God to comment on his behavior in any way.

The age of prophecy is over, it ended with the Apostle John. God won't be telling anyone to kill anyone. The only prophets (there are two kinds of prophets) left are the kind that spread the gospel. So you have nothing to worry about from God, but the fact that you are worried should trouble you. If you don't believe in God, but you are afraid that God will tell his followers to kill you shows that you might not be entirely stable. I think it would be good for you to see a therapist, who can help you to work through those issues.

Judgments abound in this forum, no fighting, are we here to judge a man that has already answered his death call and paid his dues. He has already sat in judgement and continues to live it now. Judge not lest ye be judged, so, I am not going to care how Einstein lived his life or how anyone else does either. That is between them and god and not this forum.

I didn't, so my arguments still stand. My arguments won't fail, no matter how man straw man fallacies you through at them. What I did do is point out that someone who is a serial adulterer has as much room to judge the ethics of others as Hitler has to judge race relations. That is true, neither one of them have the high ground in that arena.



No, it's called hypocrisy to say one thing and do another.



Oh absolutely, the truth is the truth even when it comes from the lips of a liar or adulterer. But Einstein didn't speak the truth on religion and ethics, he spoke his opinion. And his opinion was critically flawed because his own actions were so immoral in how he treated his wife. If you wouldn't take ethical advice from Hitler, why would you from an serial adulterer? Isn't adultery wrong? So why should he be giving a pass for doing that? There is a church here in Toledo, with a pastor who was caught drunk driving twice. Now it doesn't matter that he is a great humanitarian and sends food and supplies to Africa and India, people are leaving his church, because a drunk driver has no place in educating others on ethical behavior. If you could be honest, you would just admit that Einstein's judgment of religion was clearly influenced by his own moral failings and drop the subject. But since you cannot, I will continue to administer egg to your face.



As mentioned above, Einstein didn't state an objective fact, but a subjective opinion. An opinion that was clearly influenced by his own immoral behavior in his marriage.



Wow, it seems that you are saying that the Gospel is a powerful truth. I agree.

I suggest you learn the difference between discernment and judgment, otherwise you will say "Judge not!" and follow a stranger into a dark parking lot because you are afraid to "judge" that his story about needing help with his car sounds like a lie.

Make sure to tell your kids to always trust strangers, you don't want your kids to be "judging" people!

Look what I quoted Spider, it might make sense then.

LOL spider this proves you either are completely incapable of understanding my arguments or you don't really read them.

Truth is truth no matter who or what states it, or even when. 1+1=2 no matter who you are, pedophile, pastor, ect.

Anyone can state that and be right, that doesn't make everything else they say true or right.

It amuses me to see how someone that has been banned from these forums can still entertain you. It should by now be clear to all that this man had only one intention, to stir trouble.
And he succeeded.

Noah's Flood

Either I must assume that the flood was good, because God is good...Or I can believe that there is no God, so the flood was a natural event and therefore not good or evil, it just happened.

I believe in God, so I believe the actions were good and that God justly judged those who died.

Jericho.

God either commanded the Israelites do destroy Jericho and therefore their conquest was good or the Israelites decided to destroy Jericho and their actions were bad.

I look at the facts determined by archeology about the city of Jericho.

1) The walls fell all around the city except the Northern part where Rahab is said to have lived.

2) The wealth of Jericho was left to rot.

3) The city was impenetrable to any army of that time. It was built on a hill with a natural spring. It had three walls surrounding it. Each wall had a gate in a different area and each wall had guards armed with bows. If you broke down one gate, you would have to go half way around the circle to get to the next wall, giving the citizens and guards time to react, even if you had somehow broken down the gate without them noticing. Only an army of incredibly vast numbers could have attacked the city with any chance of success. The small army of the Israelites wouldn't have been capable of that sort of attack.

Those facts offer a lot of support to the Biblical claim of how the siege happened. So I am inclined to believe the Biblical story and therefore believe that the siege was good.

-------------------------------------------------------

Your wording in your post didn't make your point clear.

"To me this is the purest sort of evil." --Good.

"The evil that can use god to be good." --This needs to be reworded. I think "The sort of evil that uses God to appear good." would have gotten your point across and been easier to read. I would still disagree, because your logic is faulty, but it would have been easier to understand.

I don't see any reason why you cant believe in god and reject the bible as history, many people do . . . .

The very notion that people could actually be getting banned from these forums makes me quite uncomfortable.

I suppose after the third time you get quite used to it.
As far as I can tell he is here again at the very moment.
It's easy to recognize patterns when they occur often enough.

Is this a fact or an opinion?

Now I agree with the second sentence. I don't believe that you are punished or rewarded for keeping the commandments or breaking them. We go to heaven or hell based on God's grace, not our own actions.

But that's is just an agreement of opinions, is either sentence the "truth"?

For it to be the "truth", it would have to be a fact, right? And a fact is verifiable. Has this statement by Einstein ever been verified? How would it be verified?

Einstein voiced an opinion, because there is no evidence that what he said is true. So Einstein's personal morality becomes evidence in any discussion in which he opines on morality.

Thus bringing us back to me being right:
1) Einstein didn't state a fact, he made a statement of opinion.
2) Since Einstein is opining on morality as it relates to religion, his personal morality becomes germane to the conversation.
3) Einstein's personal morality displayed a lack of love and a callous narcissism in how he treated his second wife.
4) Therefore Einsteins opinion on morality and religion should rightly be ignored as it comes from someone whose actions would have been condemned by any religion to which he might have aligned himself.