The criticism being opened up to being: "I don't like your morality so it must be wrong."
No, I never said that. I am just saying the consequence is you would be fine with rape, provided your god OKed it. I think a large number of people find that morally abhorrent. That is my only point. I am not saying anything other then I consider that immoral.
If an actual God (proven to be such etc etc etc) actually came down and did something most people considered wrong, I think it would be time to reconsider what we call "moral".
I think it would be time to be very, *very* afraid. Just because this thing was super-powerful doesn't mean I need to start thinking rape is cool.
I don't really have a problem with you not agreeing with my view that morality is necessarily either defined by God or non-existent. I think it would be awful presumptuous for us to say "Hey, you! All-Knowing God! You're WRONG!"
See I find it problematic when you can possibly reconcile rape as kosher. I think that is downright dangerous. That same justification is exactly how a suicide bomber thinks it is good to go blow people up. After all: God commands it.
I also don't see any way for morality to come into existence, or have any meaning without a God.
Why does meaning require authority/arbitration through power? That step has never been justified.
While goodness is entirely objective, badness is entirely subjective; thus, when you perceive God to "go against a moral truth statement," you may automatically jump to the conclusion that God is prevented from alsoremaining consistent with moral truth in general.
However, if you do, that's your error. God is capable of violating a generalization about morality that you may have made while also remaining consistent with morality as an absolute. This is because each particular situation occurs under different moral circumstances than does any other, and so when you try to apply the exact same rigid moral standards to one situation as you have to another, it is no fault of God's that you will come up short.
*sigh* you really are missing the point. I got to the stage where we *could* apply morality to God already. I am not gonna drag back into that again!
Lol, then when people try to blame God for not holding up their precious moral beliefs again, they can recede into an even more rigid stance, and bone themselves even further...
Must God epitomize human morality? I thought God was omnipotent. You're saying God has no say in this matter?
Once again you are saying he is beyond morality. Also you appeal to agree with people being "boned" because they don't believe in God. I find that proposition incredibly immoral.
Quote from Blatch »
I don't see anything inconsistent within this statement, nor do I really see anything inherently wrong with Morality being "bent" to fit God's will. (Assuming for argument's sake that he exists). I'm a firm believer that if God exists, morality is defined by him, and if God does not exist, there is no such thing as morality. But that is an entirely separate topic.
If you read what I wrote I said it wasn't inconsistent... However you opened yourself up to some obvious criticism. You just said you had no problem with the example I gave. Which means if God came down and started raping people, you would be fine with that.
A good illustration of why Might is Right is such a worthless theory of morality.
Quote from Darkwater »
Of course it's been debunked. Misery is the human condition-- everyone suffer's, and some suffer more. And those who suffer less outwardly have been known to suffer themselves inwardly.
I fail to see why God plays into this at all.
You don't understand the problem of evil then. It is quite apparent how God would be involved.
More often than not, in my experience, they don't.
Fair enough.
In the story, as much as humans.
Then my knee-jerk reaction is that their society is immoral. I would need to read the story however.
So, you're saying He could be moral then? 'Cuz, it seems to me you're saying He can't.
Ah, sorry. With all of this cross threading I have gotten you mixed with someone else. I re-read, and you're right, you're using the classic 'Evil Bible' argument, not the classic 'good things happen to bad people' argument. I am getting my sects of the atheism mixed up, my b.
Yep. No worries, my argument was along the lines of the evil bible site.
Sorry, no. If your trying to say He is NOT something, you better be able to say what that something is. So what is it?
Haha, suppose you are correct.
Ok, an omni-benevolent being is one that commits the best possible moral action at all times. Furthermore a being with this property would desire to bring about maximal goodness for everyone he could. He has ultimate benelovence in the sense that he would try to bring maximal good for the maximal amount within his abilities.
Ok: Yes, it does.
Yay!
Nope. You have already demonstrated it's not. You say that apes are held to a different moral standard than humans, and that God is also held to a different moral standard. If morality is SUBJECTIVE to what its being applied to then its NOT objective, is it?
It is different for apes, because apes cannot commit moral actions.
It is only different for God in that it is claimed he is morally perfect. To help clarify, the tri-omni God would still be subject to the same moral statements as the human, however God claims to always be doing the morally correct action. He is held to a higher standard only in that, if he did go against a moral truth statement he would be shown to be not morally perfect. The standards being applied are the same, however if God fails just once he loses a claimed property.
The standards that God made explicitly for humans? Those standards?
That's almost like saying you want to convict the judge for murder that sentenced the guilty man to death.
The standards that are generally accepted upon, and not under much debate. If I say rape is morally wrong and then did not apply that to God, then I would be inconsistent.
I apply the moral truth statement: "Rape is morrally wrong" (for example) and expect all moral agents to recognize that statement. If I do not apply the standard to God, then either I think I am incorrect about the standard.... or.... ???
Sounds different to me. You're saying because of His intrinsic qualities you're judging Him more harshly.
Like I said earlier, he is claiming a property that makes him always pass the standards. Thus if he doesnt pass, he loses the ability to claim that property.
A human could ALSO claim to be morally perfect, however I don't think anyone would reasonably believe him.
Also, you also already said you hold apes to a 'lesser' set of moral standards.
I don't consider apes to be moral agents. I could be wrong, maybe they *do know* the difference between wrong and right. However if they do not, then they aren't really moral agents. I speak as someone who isn't terribly knowledgable about the capabilities of Ape brains however, so this part could be thrown out.
While I admit, and apologies, for making that assumption, BUT the part you have quoted there has nothing to do with the problem of evil. I was just stating that I intended to prove that God could be moral, if He existed.
Cool, and again no worries.
I think God *could* be moral hypothetically. I think there is contradiction in core Christian Theology and morallity (such as hell), however I would also be prepared to take the rock solid position that it is just *probabalistically highly unlikely* that God is moral, given those core Christian beliefs.
Well, I am asking you for justification of WHY its immoral. Justice is immoral now?
Claimed Justice is not Justice. Assuming you are talking about Hell here:
Hell has two rather large problems.
1: Hell is infinite and eternal torture, any actions taken to put someone in Hell are finite by their nature. Thus the punishment is always more severe then the crime.
2. You can lead a good life, and still end up in Hell is you do not believe in Jesus. Thus Hell is not about justice, but belief.
Also as a tongue in cheek sidenote: Essentially it makes a mockery of human free will. God says, hey you have free will, you dont NEED to believe in me, you can make the choice.... but if you don't choose the way I want you burn in hell for all eternity, no biggie.
EDIT: I Have to catch up with around 5 pages here, so I will be adding edits as I go.
@ Blatch
A Christian is 100% consistent when he says "it is wrong for me to do X, but not wrong for God to do X."
The Christian here is consistent logically... however he is accepting might is right. And is thus saying that at its core, morality can be changed at a whim to fit God. If God then wanted, he cold just say: "Rape is awesome" and it wouldn't be immoral anymore. That is what would logically be the result.
Note: Saying: But God would never do that is not a valid counter-point.
Quote from Taylor »
@r3p3nt: I feel a little bad for this whole misunderstanding about your point.(now that I have had time to reflect on it more) I do actually find the 'Hell' argument to be a pretty close to valid one, but I also do find starting assumptions that would allow for there to be a hell and for God to be moral. Based on the ones I am guessing you will be imposing, your reasoning will probably turn out to be sound to me in the end.
Your might want to check out this thread, if you have not already: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=105189
Thanks, don't worry about it. It is at least partially my fault for being inarticulate.
Quote from Fox »
Threads like this piss me off. As if any one of you here can truly answer any of these questions, a bunch of people on a magic forum. None of you can honestly say that you have a remote clue on the existence of some sort of supreme deity. There are arguments for and against, but none are full proof because you'll never know. Just keep playing magic and leave the philosophy to the philosophers, and the science to the scientists. Makes me sick.
Many of us (me included) find debate and philosophy lots of fun. And some of us actually do research and challenge our views. I don't think anyone in here is claiming metaphysical certainty.
Quote from HighRoller »
There's this thing I don't get about this whole discussion, and maybe someone can explain it for me.
We're talking about suffering, and why does suffering exist if God exists.
I could understand why atheists keep asking this question if they had a counter explanation to this. The problem with this is that atheism offers absolutely no explanation for this question either.
Atheism doesn't need explanation here. There is no contradiction between a naturalistic world view and suffering. 0_o Generally arguments from suffering deal with apparent contradictions in a tri-omni being and suffering. Take out the being, and the contradiction goes away.
Quote from Blatch »
The problem of suffering has been logically debunked many times over. The emotional "I don't like your answer, so I won't accept it" argument is not enough to overcome a logical refutation of the problem of suffering.
how many times do we have to say that?
You only really need the evidential argument from suffering. However saying it has been logical debunked is a rather strong and silly claim. I think many apologists would scoff at that notion.
That is enough for now. This post is already way too long to read.
Meh, I think its a good idea. God arguments always do come down to the same thing each time. Instead of have 100 threads with the same termination point, its probably best there is just one.
I am reminded of my own poem whenever I start one of these arguments.
How do they always come down to the same thing? Maybe it appears that way to people that don't debate it. There are numerous arguments for and against God.
The aliens in Stranger in a Strange Land were all cannibals (and they would eat young as well as the old). I am guessing you would condone the whole race then?
Do they have free will?
And your claiming you KNOW, 100% sure, God has no justification for His actions?
No.... I am not. Wrong on nearly every level.
A child dying of starvation falls under a 'bad thing happing to a good/innocent person' does it not? I do not think I am strawmanning you here. You're complained the world ain't perfect, and blaming God for that imperfection.
I am saying the world could be perfect, and we are just seeing a small piece of it that looks imperfect in our imperfect understanding of it.
Lol! If that is what you got out of my initial post then you should go back and re-read it. My post was not reliant upon anything more then objective moral truth statements.
No, I would ask what the heck 'all good' meant.
Omni-benevolence.
Ask the theist, they are the one's who make that claim, not me. I am showing immoral actions that this all-good being takes.
If He makes every rule, than He would follow them.
So yes, morality does apply to him?
Again I am not seeing how your arguments would say that morality does not apply to God. Once we establish that point, *then* we can move on.
I have intended to prove that 'morality' is subjective.
My arguments obviously assumed objective morality. 0_o
So God would not be 'beyond morality' at all, He would just be 'beyond'(whatever the heck 'beyond' means in this context) the version ECP/r3p3nt is/are trying to apply to Him.
So it misses the entire point of the argument then.
Let me explain: Christians generally assume objective morality. I want to take that objective morality and use it to say that God is immoral by those standards.
r3p3nt has already stated that he holds God to a different set of standards than he does humans, so I have more or less already gotten him to admit that morality is subjective
Wrong.
He would still be applicable to the same moral truth statements. Since he has perfect knowledge and a supposed desire to always do good, the point was that we should expect him to then always do good. And thus achieve morality on a level we would generally consider humans to be unable to accomplish.
, since its dependent on the thing its being applied to. The next step is to show that when morality is applied to God, He COULD 'pass.' (I don't want/need to prove He MUST pass, just that it's reasonable to assume He could)
See, this really bothers me. I am not making logical arguments like the logical problem of evil!
I am saying things like: Hell is IMMORAL, and then I asked for justification into how it could be seen as moral. If you think moral relativism is true then obviously this argument is meaningless to you.
So, **** yeah I am ignoring it. I have made no intuitions of proving: "God is beyond morality" nor is it something I have ever intended to do, and I make it a habit of ignoring stawmen.
How am I strawmanning? This entire side argument has been over applying morality to God. If you accept that we could then great, just say so. Then we could move on to my actual problems.
Ugh, it took me a while to find this. And quite frankly I think this conversation is rather silly in this thread. I don't like the whole mixing of stuff into this horrendous thread of unreadable doom. But, I digress...
Your not making any sense.
I said 'we hold non-humans to a different moral standard.'
Your saying "yes, we hold them(meaning non-humans) to a lesser moral standard" and then immediately contradict yourself.
Let me explain better then, that was not my point. The meaningful distinction is not being human. I would hold an alien being with human intelligence to the same moral standards I would hold a human. I have been saying that the important distinction is free-will and agency.
But, assuming you do not mean what you say. You missed the other point where I was talking about humans we DO hold to a 'higher standard,' like the president. Obama did not order the troops home the moment he took office, because of that DIRECT inaction on his part, men died. If someone dies because of your DIRECT inaction, under normal conditions, you are morally held responsible for it.
Yet people are not going into Obama's office and telling him he is a murder, why? Because there is a large picture at work here, there is more to the situation than just that one aspect. While we do hold him accountable, we must judge him differently then we judge other men.
And? In that case, the action is justified... if God's inactivity served a greater good then I wouldn't have a problem with it. The question posed to me stipulated God being a direct cause of someone's death. Again, let's *bring it back* to the original argument. You have not adequately defended that God is beyond morality.
It is impossible for us to know the whole situation of everything that goes on everywhere. This is even more true if a God were to exist, and yet you're going into His office and saying: "Bad things happen to good people, and its Your fault. Therefor You're evil. QED."
What a terrible strawman. I laid out specific things that seem immoral to me. And then you started to say how we can't apply morality to him. The ensuing discussion has been about that point.
But you say this with your very human, and very limited understanding. It's WORSE than if a gorilla said you're evil because you don't conform to its sense of right and wrong. You can say "we hold Him to a higher than a human standard" all you want, but you don't really know what 'higher than a human standard' means, since you're human.
If I claimed to be all good you would hold my all goodness up to a very high standard. A standard that no human could possibly pass. Thus a higher standard then we would normally assign to humans.
Again though, let's bring it back.. at this point all we are arguing is *does morality apply to god?*
r3p3nt, I'm sorry if I misrepresented you by not thoroughly following the preceding discussion. I'll try to do a reread later.
No worries. It's hard for me to understand myself when I go back and re-read it sometimes.
Quote from Panda »
Well, I do wonder as to how much of what we experience as "free will" has to do simply with our not having all the data in front of us. The only reason good people experience moral dillemmas is that they cannot foresee the consequences of their choices with anything like real clarity. If we were omniscient, we would perhaps behave much more consistently, to the point that a non-omniscient observer would wonder whether we in fact could behave any other way.
This could be the case... omniscience is always tricky to deal with. However, I *think* that just because you always know what to do does not eliminate free will. Free will is more a question of agency and being able to make up your own mind. In a certain sense I could see this posing problems. Again though, I would think any problems with reconciling omniscience and free-will would be rather detrimental to the christian conception of God.
Hmmm, for example if a human had omniscience but still had his limited human capabilities, I don't think we would say he was acting without free-will unless someone started to force him to do things. I am not sure though.
And we should hold the sun to a higher standard of providing heat and light than we hold a candle flame. But in order for the sun to meet that standard, and be the life-giving fireball that it is, it must also be free of certain of the restrictions that govern "proper behavior" for candle flames.
I think you need a better analogy, I don't really see how this applies. Moral standards are not really equivalent to functional standards.
Would you consider the perpetuity of life as we know it -- a world where there is only so much matter available to sustain life, necessitating the death of the old to make way for new generations -- a greater justification? Or is God unjust for having produced such an arrangement in the first place?
You related it directly to a human causing another human to die remember? In this sense God would be doing a similar act, (He shoots a lightning bolt down to kill someone) is that not immoral?
But yeah, the whole arangement is pretty crappy.
To bring it back to the whole point:
The gist of our current moral argument is this:
If you think morality does not apply to god you are saying God could take a 5 year old girl, torture her, and then kill her, and not have been immoral. I call BS on that. I think morality most certainly DOES apply, and we can agree on that, then we can start to talk about the other parts of my post.
The majority of proposed schema of Hell are indeed morally abominable. But Hell could be moral, I suppose, if it were true that "the gates of Hell are locked from the inside," because "Hell is Hell, not from its own point of view, but from the heavenly point of view." If Hell were a place for everyone who looked with clear eyes on who and what God is and decided that they wanted no part of Him. A self-imposed quarantine away from the rest of Creation, grudgingly approved by a loving God who would rather his creatures try to find happiness apart from Him than force them to be in His presence against their will.
As C.S. Lewis mused in The Problem of Pain, "Even if it were possible that the experience of the lost contained no pain and much pleasure, still, that black pleasure would be such as to send any soul, not already damned, flying to its prayers in nighttime terror: even if there were pains in heaven, all who understand would desire them."
Interesting. I wonder if it has a theological/biblical justification. Sure if hell is actually a pleasurable place to be, then it is not immoral.
Quote from Taylor »
We do NOT hold apes and gorillas to human standards of morality, and I think its safe to say we all agree to do so would be absurd.
I think I have addressed the core of your objections above.
"We do not hold non-humans, regardless of sentience, to the same moral standards as we hold humans."
Yeah, we hold them to a lesser moral standard. For your analogy to truly work, humans should be held to a lesser moral standard then God would be.
EDIT: Also, let me know if I am being unclear, and I will try to explain more coherently.
Neither utilitarianism nor duty morals are "objective morality" -- neither qualify as subscriptive absolutism. References to utility or duty don't reveal what utility should mean or what the duties should be.
Right, I was unclear. Earlier Taylor was asking about what our morality was. I meant to suggest to apply two common systems of ethics to God. Both of those work for my purposes.
Humans alone have "sentience"?
Animals are merely "driven by instinct"?
I remember when I used to think it was that easy.
It's not black and white, but the comparison to a wolf holds. I think it is immoral to kill sentient animals (like the later koko example ) as well. Anyway, the purpose of this point (it is always important to keep that in mind) is to show that in general we only consider human level or close intelligent creatures to have free will. We do not call a wolf who kills his prey "evil" because the wolf is not capable of moral actions.
I fail to see how that can be applied to God. (We have to always bring it back to the topic at hand)
Who says that Christian philosophy agrees with this? I'm sure some Christians agree with this, just as I'm sure some atheists agree with this.
I can't possibly try and address all of the myriad Christian viewpoints on every topic. In general the theistic thinks that humans have free will, at least in the compatablist sense. (I don't care for liibertarian free will either)
You are indeed a slave or a robot. Determinists have no problem biting the bullet on such derisive nomenclature -- it's preferable to throwing about an incoherent notion of libertarian free will.
There is more then libertarian free will. *Obviously*, or else the free will defense for evil that you yourself use is meaningless.
Probably so, unless you define consciousness by substance rather than by function.
Oh right, I should have constrained to talking about free will.
I think he's saying that your "if/then" statement is a non sequitur, as I would.
Really? You think god can not possess free will and still be allgood or all-powerful? I think that is incoherent.
And why must this greater justification be apparent to every human, every time?
It doesn't, but he would require that justification. Don't you agree? Taylor's post suggested he wouldn't. We need to keep what I was addressing in mind.
Because that's what you're insisting when you talk about humans holding God to imperative standards.
I am saying God is NOT beyound morality!
(I hope) no one's saying that God is "beyond" morality. "God is good" only means something to us if we know what "good" means -- according to the Bible, it probably means "for the freedom and satisfaction of humanity."
That is what I have been trying to address. The suggestion, HAS in fact been that God is beyond morality. Or as far as I understood the initial responses to my post.
I will get to the rest of your post and everyone else's later. Off to class!
I still would like you to define this 'our.' I am assuming you do not want me to apply MY ethical system to this 'God' fellow.
I am being general to make it easier to apply to numerous people. I really don't feel motivated enough to post up reasons for objective moral beliefs at the moment.
For example, apply utilitarianism or duty morals onto God.
and humans DO? I do not know why you feel a human has free will but a wolf does not.
Are you serious? (Genuine question) I would think the difference between a sentient conscious human being with agency and a primitive animal driven by instinct are obvious?
Could you elaborate for me? Or just link me to whatever (pre-made belief system)/(smart guy's book) you're buying into, that might be easier/shorter. (or if you have written your own thing somewhere else, that would be good too.) It does? What about the whole 'has to be good all the time' part of the definition of God?
Sure I can explain:
I should not possess properties that an all-powerful being does not. If I am conscious and have free will (which Christian philosophy agrees with) then a being that is better then me in every way should as well.
Also being good all the time does not entail being a robot. An all-good being would simply *choose* to be good all the time. But at any given point an all-good being has the option to do evil (at which point he is no longer all-good). If you are not actively determining to do good deeds then you are not good, you are just a slave.... or a robot. Free will is a necessity for a moral agent.
Well anyway....
Let us assume, for your sake, He does.
So what? His nature would still not be human at all, why should it be subject to human definitions?
Most would say logic still applies to god.
I do not accuse an exterminator of committing genocide. Do you?
If I were to delete and AI, would I be a murderer? What if I programed it myself?
Do any of those have consciousness?
But I think we can all agree that when we are talking about human to non-human interaction, compared to human to human interaction, there is a FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE in what actions are thought of as 'evil' and 'good.'
It is not the non-human bit that is important. As I have illustrated earlier. Also, the Christian God supposedly loves all of us, and has a fatherly role which each human being. I am sorry but I think your argument does not apply.
Quote from Panda »
Actually, if we go by the Christian conception of God as all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, then he really doesn't have free will in the sense we're familiar with. With perfect knowledge, there can be no doubt about the best course of action; and with perfect goodness, there can be no doubt as to whether one will pursue that course of action.
I already addressed this. If God does not possess free-will he is neither all-good nor all-powerful. Are you saying he has contradictory properties?
Of course he will fail; but is the comparison fair? Is it appropriate?
It is immoral for one human to cause another human to die. Is it therefore also immoral for God to cause humans to die?
Yes it is MORE then fair. We should hold such a powerful and goodly creature to a HIGHER standard then we impose (and HE imposes) on imperfect creatures such as humans.
And yes, if God causes humans to die, it is immoral unless their is greater justification.
I find it interesting that thus far the arguments are trying to say that morality does not apply to God. This seems patently absurd to me, especially if you think their are objective moral truths.
I am far more interested in the question of how things such as Hell could be seen as moral.
By my understanding, theism and atheism are on different axes, in a manner of speaking, and agnosticism is the intersection of the two. If you think of theism as (1, 0), then atheism is (0, 1), and agnosticism is (0, 0). (And the self-contradictory position that there both is and isn't a God is (1, 1), just to complete the square.) These axes are binary; "strength" is going to be at least one other axis, possibly more.
I am still not sure how you would classify something like God as 'evil' or 'good.' Do you classify everything like that?
Do you feel a wolf is 'evil?' Most say its not, since is 'just acting within its nature.'
What is the nature of a God?
Who do you mean by 'our?'
Or do you mean 'Mine?'
A Wolf does not have free will...... an all-powerful being by definition has free-will.
I am saying apply to God whatever ethical system you apply to humans. You will find he fails.
Assuming the hypothetical that some God exists I would postulate that words like 'evil' or 'incompetent' could not apply to Him any real objective sense.
Since those are subjective concepts.
Evil in relation to our standard conception of ethics. I disagree with moral relativism.
Incompetent in relation to a being with tri-omni states (Which is what the Christian god is claimed to have).
...What? Where are your assertions to back up the statement? How and why would you come to this conclusion (I'm not saying it's wrong, I'd just like to see your train of thought).
Well I did not have the time/desire to post out the justification.
Briefly on some of the larger points:
- The acts and commands of God in the bible are often immoral.
- The concept of original sin is immoral.
- The concept of hell is extremely immoral.
- The concept of faith-based afterlife determination as opposed to deed-based is immoral.
- Suffering in the world.
- Prayer as alleviation from suffering.
-etc.
I am sure this will be controversial, so fire away. I can further justify individual points.
c'mon R3p3nt, you know you were thinking of me, don't be afraid to call me out.
It's not just you. Fear has nothing to do with it.
Is there a "nice" way for me to say that people who believe in God are irrational and believe in baseless fairy tales to the extent that they donate their time and money to it??
I'm sorry, but if calling you out on your lack of proof, if asking you to show some evidence, if calling you irrational for believe in something that contradicts the facts that we do know about the universe, if doing these things makes me a bad bad angry mean atheist.
The why are we having a debate?? What you, and panda, and many other theists want, is to have people pat you on the back, and say "hey god job, you stood in the face of reality and didn't lose your faith in fantasy, congrats."
Emphasis mine.
Wait...... you think *I* am a theist? :rofl:*wipes tear from eye*
I think our changes in race issues alone show a clear moral improvement.
No, I never said that. I am just saying the consequence is you would be fine with rape, provided your god OKed it. I think a large number of people find that morally abhorrent. That is my only point. I am not saying anything other then I consider that immoral.
I think it would be time to be very, *very* afraid. Just because this thing was super-powerful doesn't mean I need to start thinking rape is cool.
See I find it problematic when you can possibly reconcile rape as kosher. I think that is downright dangerous. That same justification is exactly how a suicide bomber thinks it is good to go blow people up. After all: God commands it.
Why does meaning require authority/arbitration through power? That step has never been justified.
*sigh* you really are missing the point. I got to the stage where we *could* apply morality to God already. I am not gonna drag back into that again!
Once again you are saying he is beyond morality. Also you appeal to agree with people being "boned" because they don't believe in God. I find that proposition incredibly immoral.
If you read what I wrote I said it wasn't inconsistent... However you opened yourself up to some obvious criticism. You just said you had no problem with the example I gave. Which means if God came down and started raping people, you would be fine with that.
A good illustration of why Might is Right is such a worthless theory of morality.
You don't understand the problem of evil then. It is quite apparent how God would be involved.
Fair enough.
Then my knee-jerk reaction is that their society is immoral. I would need to read the story however.
Yep. No worries, my argument was along the lines of the evil bible site.
Haha, suppose you are correct.
Ok, an omni-benevolent being is one that commits the best possible moral action at all times. Furthermore a being with this property would desire to bring about maximal goodness for everyone he could. He has ultimate benelovence in the sense that he would try to bring maximal good for the maximal amount within his abilities.
Yay!
It is different for apes, because apes cannot commit moral actions.
It is only different for God in that it is claimed he is morally perfect. To help clarify, the tri-omni God would still be subject to the same moral statements as the human, however God claims to always be doing the morally correct action. He is held to a higher standard only in that, if he did go against a moral truth statement he would be shown to be not morally perfect. The standards being applied are the same, however if God fails just once he loses a claimed property.
The standards that are generally accepted upon, and not under much debate. If I say rape is morally wrong and then did not apply that to God, then I would be inconsistent.
I apply the moral truth statement: "Rape is morrally wrong" (for example) and expect all moral agents to recognize that statement. If I do not apply the standard to God, then either I think I am incorrect about the standard.... or.... ???
Like I said earlier, he is claiming a property that makes him always pass the standards. Thus if he doesnt pass, he loses the ability to claim that property.
A human could ALSO claim to be morally perfect, however I don't think anyone would reasonably believe him.
I don't consider apes to be moral agents. I could be wrong, maybe they *do know* the difference between wrong and right. However if they do not, then they aren't really moral agents. I speak as someone who isn't terribly knowledgable about the capabilities of Ape brains however, so this part could be thrown out.
Cool, and again no worries.
I think God *could* be moral hypothetically. I think there is contradiction in core Christian Theology and morallity (such as hell), however I would also be prepared to take the rock solid position that it is just *probabalistically highly unlikely* that God is moral, given those core Christian beliefs.
Claimed Justice is not Justice. Assuming you are talking about Hell here:
Hell has two rather large problems.
1: Hell is infinite and eternal torture, any actions taken to put someone in Hell are finite by their nature. Thus the punishment is always more severe then the crime.
2. You can lead a good life, and still end up in Hell is you do not believe in Jesus. Thus Hell is not about justice, but belief.
Also as a tongue in cheek sidenote: Essentially it makes a mockery of human free will. God says, hey you have free will, you dont NEED to believe in me, you can make the choice.... but if you don't choose the way I want you burn in hell for all eternity, no biggie.
EDIT: I Have to catch up with around 5 pages here, so I will be adding edits as I go.
@ Blatch
The Christian here is consistent logically... however he is accepting might is right. And is thus saying that at its core, morality can be changed at a whim to fit God. If God then wanted, he cold just say: "Rape is awesome" and it wouldn't be immoral anymore. That is what would logically be the result.
Note: Saying: But God would never do that is not a valid counter-point.
Thanks, don't worry about it. It is at least partially my fault for being inarticulate.
Many of us (me included) find debate and philosophy lots of fun.
Atheism doesn't need explanation here. There is no contradiction between a naturalistic world view and suffering. 0_o Generally arguments from suffering deal with apparent contradictions in a tri-omni being and suffering. Take out the being, and the contradiction goes away.
You only really need the evidential argument from suffering. However saying it has been logical debunked is a rather strong and silly claim. I think many apologists would scoff at that notion.
That is enough for now. This post is already way too long to read.
How do they always come down to the same thing? Maybe it appears that way to people that don't debate it. There are numerous arguments for and against God.
Do they have free will?
No.... I am not. Wrong on nearly every level.
Lol! If that is what you got out of my initial post then you should go back and re-read it. My post was not reliant upon anything more then objective moral truth statements.
Omni-benevolence.
Ask the theist, they are the one's who make that claim, not me. I am showing immoral actions that this all-good being takes.
So yes, morality does apply to him?
Again I am not seeing how your arguments would say that morality does not apply to God. Once we establish that point, *then* we can move on.
My arguments obviously assumed objective morality. 0_o
So it misses the entire point of the argument then.
Let me explain: Christians generally assume objective morality. I want to take that objective morality and use it to say that God is immoral by those standards.
Wrong.
He would still be applicable to the same moral truth statements. Since he has perfect knowledge and a supposed desire to always do good, the point was that we should expect him to then always do good. And thus achieve morality on a level we would generally consider humans to be unable to accomplish.
See, this really bothers me. I am not making logical arguments like the logical problem of evil!
I am saying things like: Hell is IMMORAL, and then I asked for justification into how it could be seen as moral. If you think moral relativism is true then obviously this argument is meaningless to you.
How am I strawmanning? This entire side argument has been over applying morality to God. If you accept that we could then great, just say so. Then we could move on to my actual problems.
Let me explain better then, that was not my point. The meaningful distinction is not being human. I would hold an alien being with human intelligence to the same moral standards I would hold a human. I have been saying that the important distinction is free-will and agency.
And? In that case, the action is justified... if God's inactivity served a greater good then I wouldn't have a problem with it. The question posed to me stipulated God being a direct cause of someone's death. Again, let's *bring it back* to the original argument. You have not adequately defended that God is beyond morality.
What a terrible strawman. I laid out specific things that seem immoral to me. And then you started to say how we can't apply morality to him. The ensuing discussion has been about that point.
If I claimed to be all good you would hold my all goodness up to a very high standard. A standard that no human could possibly pass. Thus a higher standard then we would normally assign to humans.
Again though, let's bring it back.. at this point all we are arguing is *does morality apply to god?*
NOTE: I have never used pot.
No worries.
This could be the case... omniscience is always tricky to deal with. However, I *think* that just because you always know what to do does not eliminate free will. Free will is more a question of agency and being able to make up your own mind. In a certain sense I could see this posing problems. Again though, I would think any problems with reconciling omniscience and free-will would be rather detrimental to the christian conception of God.
Hmmm, for example if a human had omniscience but still had his limited human capabilities, I don't think we would say he was acting without free-will unless someone started to force him to do things. I am not sure though.
I think you need a better analogy, I don't really see how this applies. Moral standards are not really equivalent to functional standards.
You related it directly to a human causing another human to die remember? In this sense God would be doing a similar act, (He shoots a lightning bolt down to kill someone) is that not immoral?
But yeah, the whole arangement is pretty crappy.
To bring it back to the whole point:
The gist of our current moral argument is this:
If you think morality does not apply to god you are saying God could take a 5 year old girl, torture her, and then kill her, and not have been immoral. I call BS on that. I think morality most certainly DOES apply, and we can agree on that, then we can start to talk about the other parts of my post.
Interesting. I wonder if it has a theological/biblical justification. Sure if hell is actually a pleasurable place to be, then it is not immoral.
I think I have addressed the core of your objections above.
Yeah, we hold them to a lesser moral standard. For your analogy to truly work, humans should be held to a lesser moral standard then God would be.
EDIT: Also, let me know if I am being unclear, and I will try to explain more coherently.
Right, I was unclear. Earlier Taylor was asking about what our morality was. I meant to suggest to apply two common systems of ethics to God. Both of those work for my purposes.
It's not black and white, but the comparison to a wolf holds. I think it is immoral to kill sentient animals (like the later koko example ) as well. Anyway, the purpose of this point (it is always important to keep that in mind) is to show that in general we only consider human level or close intelligent creatures to have free will. We do not call a wolf who kills his prey "evil" because the wolf is not capable of moral actions.
I fail to see how that can be applied to God. (We have to always bring it back to the topic at hand)
I can't possibly try and address all of the myriad Christian viewpoints on every topic. In general the theistic thinks that humans have free will, at least in the compatablist sense. (I don't care for liibertarian free will either)
There is more then libertarian free will. *Obviously*, or else the free will defense for evil that you yourself use is meaningless.
Oh right, I should have constrained to talking about free will.
Really? You think god can not possess free will and still be allgood or all-powerful? I think that is incoherent.
It doesn't, but he would require that justification. Don't you agree? Taylor's post suggested he wouldn't. We need to keep what I was addressing in mind.
I am saying God is NOT beyound morality!
That is what I have been trying to address. The suggestion, HAS in fact been that God is beyond morality. Or as far as I understood the initial responses to my post.
I will get to the rest of your post and everyone else's later. Off to class!
Oh true, fast reading got the better of me there. =/
I am being general to make it easier to apply to numerous people. I really don't feel motivated enough to post up reasons for objective moral beliefs at the moment.
For example, apply utilitarianism or duty morals onto God.
Are you serious? (Genuine question) I would think the difference between a sentient conscious human being with agency and a primitive animal driven by instinct are obvious?
Sure I can explain:
I should not possess properties that an all-powerful being does not. If I am conscious and have free will (which Christian philosophy agrees with) then a being that is better then me in every way should as well.
Also being good all the time does not entail being a robot. An all-good being would simply *choose* to be good all the time. But at any given point an all-good being has the option to do evil (at which point he is no longer all-good). If you are not actively determining to do good deeds then you are not good, you are just a slave.... or a robot. Free will is a necessity for a moral agent.
Most would say logic still applies to god.
Do any of those have consciousness?
It is not the non-human bit that is important. As I have illustrated earlier. Also, the Christian God supposedly loves all of us, and has a fatherly role which each human being. I am sorry but I think your argument does not apply.
I already addressed this. If God does not possess free-will he is neither all-good nor all-powerful. Are you saying he has contradictory properties?
Yes it is MORE then fair. We should hold such a powerful and goodly creature to a HIGHER standard then we impose (and HE imposes) on imperfect creatures such as humans.
And yes, if God causes humans to die, it is immoral unless their is greater justification.
I find it interesting that thus far the arguments are trying to say that morality does not apply to God. This seems patently absurd to me, especially if you think their are objective moral truths.
I am far more interested in the question of how things such as Hell could be seen as moral.
Correct. Handy graph time!
A Wolf does not have free will...... an all-powerful being by definition has free-will.
I am saying apply to God whatever ethical system you apply to humans. You will find he fails.
Evil in relation to our standard conception of ethics. I disagree with moral relativism.
Incompetent in relation to a being with tri-omni states (Which is what the Christian god is claimed to have).
Well I did not have the time/desire to post out the justification.
Briefly on some of the larger points:
- The acts and commands of God in the bible are often immoral.
- The concept of original sin is immoral.
- The concept of hell is extremely immoral.
- The concept of faith-based afterlife determination as opposed to deed-based is immoral.
- Suffering in the world.
- Prayer as alleviation from suffering.
-etc.
I am sure this will be controversial, so fire away.
It's not just you.
Emphasis mine.
Wait...... you think *I* am a theist? :rofl:*wipes tear from eye*