If there was really a God, bad things wouldn't happen.

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Yo El
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21 Jan 2017, 2:49 pm

Adamantium wrote:

Yo El wrote:

No. No. No.

That's a terrible argument. It comes down to "things are only bad because God says so."
Infanticide? Good if God says so, bad if God says no.

Also you get this weird consequence of thinking good=compliant. I heard this lady on the radio who was just fine with sexually assaulting kids using objects of various kinds, because it wasn't proscribed in the Bible. Two gay man making out though? Stone 'em to death. It's good because God says so. All you have to do is comply and you are a good person, no matter how nasty your actions and how much suffering you cause.

Sounds immoral at best, or even evil to me.

A utilitarian morality that seeks to minimize suffering ends up with all sorts of things being defined as good or bad because of the impact they have. You can take a few basic axioms and build a complex ethical system based on first principles, rather than arbitrary "will of god" statements.

Also, when you reject your own god-given faculty for moral reasoning and go into absolute unthinking obedience to God mode, you have the problem of knowing which version of God to obey. What's the authoritative source for information about what God defines as good and evil?

Do you trust and obey the Koran? The Torah? The Bible? The Noble 8 fold path? The guy who sleeps in the bushes behind the Metropolitan museum who is in constant dialog with a God only he can hear?

Having a book that says "you can trust me because I say so" is not very compelling.

Take a few basic principles:
Human life is immeasurably valuable. Inflicting suffering is bad. Alleviating suffering is good. Promoting misery is bad. Creating joy is good.
Build from there.

You'll end up with a large and complicated ethical system and set of laws. You don't need God for this.

Human is life valuable? You can compare this to gold. The reason gold has worth is because we decided to give it worth, right? But does gold actually have worth without humans? No. Because without humans gold would have no purpose, right? It would just be laying there doing nothing. The only reason human life has worth is because God gave it worth. If there was no God who said you are worth something people come up with their own ideas about how much a human life is worth. And how much it's worth differs from person to person. And nobody would be right or wrong, since what everyone accepts as right or wrong is based on it's own perspective meaning nothing is necessarily right or wrong, am I right? A famous example is Stalin, why are the things he did wrong? Well in his own eyes they aren't necessarily wrong. In my and your eyes he propably is. But who is right in the end? Who decides you and me are right, and he is wrong?

As for your basic principles you can just throw them right out of the window. Nobody does these things, not even you. And you are now trying to say that's how people should life. Funny, because these things are exactly the things Jesus said we should do. Yet, we don't do them. Why? Well that's a whole different story

SeeksForTruth
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21 Jan 2017, 11:11 pm

Yo El wrote:

If there is no God, there would not be things that are 'bad'.

Why do you say that?

Do you need to believe in a deity to know that forcing others to do your will is wrong?

And so what if this where true? If you unsupported assertion where true, that does not prove that a deity exist, it would just show that you would want one to exist.

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Yo El
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22 Jan 2017, 3:25 am

SeeksForTruth wrote:

Yo El wrote:

It indeed doesn't prove that such deity exists. God already proves himself by His creation. And according to God that already leaves you with no excuse. God’s amazing creation becomes more and more impressive as we learn more about it.

(Atheistic approach) 'Bad' is a concept of the human mind. It's not absolute since the things we perceive as bad differ from person to person. Not only this, it is highly situational. 'If there was really a God, bad things wouldn't happen', is a contradiction since there is no absolute thing that is 'bad'. Rather you should rephrase it to. 'Personally I think if there were a God, the things I perceive as bad wouldn't happen'. But then again the things you perceive as bad don't necessarily mean they are 'bad'. And I don't see how your perception of 'bad' apply to the existence of a God. So if I'm not mistaking, if God doesn't fit your perception of what a God should be therefore no such thing as God exists? No, that only means what you think what a God should be doesn't exist not the existence of God as a whole. We are crossing different territory here.

SeeksForTruth
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22 Jan 2017, 11:41 am

Yo El wrote:

SeeksForTruth wrote:

Yo El wrote:

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not purposefully lying about atheist positions on morality.

Believe it or not but I am a philosophy major in epistemology and ethics and I do believe in objective morality provided that we start from basic human empathy.

Also, I do not care if your book says that you should believe in your deity because of his creation, looking around how many cultures do you see that believed in your religion before it was brought to them?

Yo El
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22 Jan 2017, 12:55 pm

SeeksForTruth wrote:

Basic human empathy is limited. Since people only naturally do good when it doesn't require real sacrifice. Your opinion about this?

As for the whole atheistic point of view on morality. I wasn't implying that's what atheist's though about morality rather questioning wether morality is really a thing when there is no God. Because morality would be a human concept and the problem with this is that a human concept isn't objective but subjective. So this means there can not be an absolute 'right' or 'wrong'. Always when I take this what I call 'atheistic approach' ,I always get stuck in a paradox. Which makes everything feel so meaningless. Then again thats just subjective.

Adamantium
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23 Jan 2017, 4:48 pm

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

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Yo El
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26 Jan 2017, 10:21 am

Adamantium wrote:

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

And what do you see as evil?

Adamantium
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26 Jan 2017, 10:26 am

Yo El wrote:

Adamantium wrote:

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

And what do you see as evil?

Quite a few things. Murder. Torture. Cruelty. Sadism. It's actually based in the principles you rubbished earlier, while noting that they were wholly compatible with Christian ethics.

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androbot01
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26 Jan 2017, 10:28 am

Good and evil are human terms to define our concept of morality. God is above such things.

Adamantium
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26 Jan 2017, 10:44 am

androbot01 wrote:

Good and evil are human terms to define our concept of morality. God is above such things.

What does "above such things" mean?

I think it's evil to be gratuitously cruel. Imagine an evil act: Take the case of an innocent, sensitive young mammal -- a child or puppy, say -- and imagine some really baroque torture setup. Something involving protracted agony, excruciating pain, drawn out for as long as possible and ultimately resulting in death.

It's OK if God does it? Plans it? Causes others to do it?

I don't see how. It seems transcendentally evil to me.

There is no place, title or station so high you can do this kind of thing and somehow have it not be evil.

If you conceive of God as a different order of being or entity, one who does not engage with individuals in such a way that this torture murder scenario is possible, then I could see that sense of God being "above" it.

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Yo El
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26 Jan 2017, 11:01 am

Adamantium wrote:

androbot01 wrote:

Good and evil are human terms to define our concept of morality. God is above such things.

I find it hard to believe God will send someone who is innocent to hell. God is just after all.

androbot01
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26 Jan 2017, 11:09 am

Adamantium wrote:

I don't see how. It seems transcendentally evil to me.

It is, but that has nothing to do with God. It is evil based on our human definition.

Yo El
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26 Jan 2017, 11:15 am

Adamantium wrote:

Yo El wrote:

Adamantium wrote:

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

And what do you see as evil?

Quite a few things. Murder. Torture. Cruelty. Sadism. It's actually based in the principles you rubbished earlier, while noting that they were wholly compatible with Christian ethics.

Actually that are things humans do and are a part of the reason why God wanted to get rid of it. Even though humans were evil God still had Noah prepare an arc. But the people mocked him and thought he was crazy. Wouldn't suprise me if there were a few skeptics that were like "If God is really cares about us, wouldn't he do a better job at convincing us to get into this so called 'arc'?". It's the equivalent of someone stretching his hand out to you and trying to safe you out of a pit of fire. And you spitting directly in his face and saying things like "You don't even exist" or "You don't love me or care about me". Funny even when you do this God isn't going to pull His hand away. No matter how much you spit in his face or mock Him that hand will remain untill you die. Tell me God doesn't love us. People are evil not God.

Adamantium
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26 Jan 2017, 11:30 am

Yo El wrote:

Adamantium wrote:

Yo El wrote:

Adamantium wrote:

Divine command theory seems totally immoral to me.

Every evil thing is good if God says it is. No, that just can't be right, in any sense.

A good read on this:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/

And what do you see as evil?

Quite a few things. Murder. Torture. Cruelty. Sadism. It's actually based in the principles you rubbished earlier, while noting that they were wholly compatible with Christian ethics.

Actually that are things humans do and are a part of the reason why God wanted to get rid of it. Even though humans were evil God still had Noah prepare an arc. But the people mocked him and thought he was crazy. Wouldn't suprise me if there were a few skeptics that were like "If God is really going to send a flood, wouldn't he do a better job at convincing us to get into this so called 'arc'. It's the equivalent of someone stretching his hand out to you and trying to safe you out of a pit of fire. And you spitting directly in his face and saying things like "You don't even exist" or "You don't love me or care about me". Funny even when you do this God isn't going to pull His hand away. No matter how much you spit in his face or mock Him that hand will remain untill you die. Tell me God doesn't love us. People are evil not God.

The story of the Flood is much more complicated than that, it seems to me. It's more like the angel of death and the 10 plagues in Egypt. The simplistic story is that Ramses had a chance to listen and do the right thing, and then all the children were killed because of his failure to listen-- but the story includes the note that God hardened Ramses heart. Ramses had no choice to give in to the demands that were made because God took away his free will, directly manipulating him.

Likewise, the story of the flood relates that the human inclination was always evil, but this passage immediately follows the mysterious one about the nephilim, making the situation a bit more complicated. Finally we get to the selection of Noah. If his family are to be the only survivors and they are to reproduce, incest is obligatory, as it was in the days of Adam. But it was OK, because it had not been forbidden yet?

There is another issue about killing all the birds and animals for the sins of humans--that seems ethically suspect, at least, but the main one is this business of judging people for situations not entirely or at all of their making.

It doesn't seem right.

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Yo El
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26 Jan 2017, 11:45 am

https://www.gotquestions.org/God-harden ... heart.html

(Exodus 7:3-4 says, “But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my people the Israelites.” It seems unjust for God to harden Pharaoh’s heart and then to punish Pharaoh and Egypt for what Pharaoh decided when his heart was hardened. Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart just so He could judge Egypt more severely with additional plagues?

First, Pharaoh was not an innocent or godly man. He was a brutal dictator overseeing the terrible abuse and oppression of the Israelites, who likely numbered over 1.5 million people at that time. The Egyptian pharaohs had enslaved the Israelites for 400 years. A previous pharaoh—possibly even the pharaoh in question—ordered that male Israelite babies be killed at birth (Exodus 1:16). The pharaoh God hardened was an evil man, and the nation he ruled agreed with, or at least did not oppose, his evil actions.

Second, before the first few plagues, Pharaoh hardened his own heart against letting the Israelites go. “Pharaoh's heart became hard” (Exodus 7:13, 22; 8:19). “But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart” (Exodus 8:15). “But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart” (Exodus 8:32). Pharaoh could have spared Egypt of all the plagues if he had not hardened his own heart. God was giving Pharaoh increasingly severe warnings of the judgment that was to come. Pharaoh chose to bring judgment on himself and on his nation by hardening his own heart against God’s commands.

As a result of Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart even further, allowing for the last few plagues (Exodus 9:12; 10:20, 27). Pharaoh and Egypt had brought these judgments on themselves with 400 years of slavery and mass murder. Since the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and Pharaoh and Egypt had horribly sinned against God, it would have been just if God had completely annihilated Egypt. Therefore, God’s hardening Pharaoh’s heart was not unjust, and His bringing additional plagues against Egypt was not unjust. The plagues, as terrible as they were, actually demonstrate God’s mercy in not completely destroying Egypt, which would have been a perfectly just penalty.

Romans 9:17-18 declares, “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.” From a human perspective, it seems wrong for God to harden a person and then punish the person He has hardened. Biblically speaking, however, we have all sinned against God (Romans 3:23), and the just penalty for that sin is death (Romans 6:23). Therefore, God’s hardening and punishing a person is not unjust; it is actually merciful in comparison to what the person deserves.)
https://www.gotquestions.org/God-harden ... heart.html

Adamantium
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26 Jan 2017, 11:50 am

Yo El wrote:

From a human perspective, it seems wrong for God to harden a person and then punish the person He has hardened.

Yes, it does.

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