Nimos
Well-Known Member
Yes, I don't disagree with that, but not really sure how that ties to objective morality?
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Can God be moral?
- Thread starter Nimos
- Start date
Nimos
Well-Known Member
firedragon
Veteran Member
False article. No evidence, just a Christian apologetic piece. Its false. Thats not how these people do it.
Dave Watchman
Active Member
Yes, God created everything. And all the stars of heaven, ALL the angels shouted with one voice. When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. But they had free will to do as thou wilt. And now they do not sing with one voice.
I guess what you ask is if God is all powerful, why can't He snap His fingers and make everything perfect this minute?
Or fix the problem on the very day that Lucifer sinned, then there would be no serpent to cause Adam's fall in the garden. The clean slate hypothesis.
My answer is that it's not just all about humanity. My answer, based on my read, is that the angelic community remaining would have been asking many of the same questions that we are asking now. "What if God could have done this? What if God could have done that? What if God could have given the Devil another chance? Or made him his own planet to live on? Why did Lucifer and his people need to suffer annihilation? They were all the closest of family for the longest millennia.
My take is that when the final judgement day comes around, all the participants will fully understand why it has to be the way it has to be. It will have been demonstrated to the holy angels that all contingencies had been addressed. Even the lost, both the angelic, and the humanity, will bow their knee and agree that they cannot have eternal life as part of God's Kingdom.
Just by how I'm eyeballing the heptads, the best for this world is probably past, but we look for a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness will certainly dwell.
Peaceful Sabbath.
MJ Bailey
Member
In response to the OP; IMO not a very hard conundrum to configure. If you honestly think about it isn't the ten commandments pretty much the basis of what a human should be? God is moral, yet I do not expect myself or anyone else to believe they have any sort of right of passage to follow the same rules. Kind of like if you make something for whatever reason and that creation doesn't do what you created it for; most inventers would destroy the invention for not doing its purpose properly.
When you talk about murder, I hope you know the differences between manslaughter, murder, and self preservation. Either way I would hope that human individuals are "preprogrammed" to "follow" the ten commandments. I honestly believe that God is moral and people should realize that not all rules apply to everyone (like a person with diplomatic immunities as opposed to a person who does not).
When you talk about murder, I hope you know the differences between manslaughter, murder, and self preservation. Either way I would hope that human individuals are "preprogrammed" to "follow" the ten commandments. I honestly believe that God is moral and people should realize that not all rules apply to everyone (like a person with diplomatic immunities as opposed to a person who does not).
firedragon
Veteran Member
Again
I don't think it is morally right.
Right. Thats the point.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
I know people say that we are not under the laws anymore. Honestly I don't mind that much whether that is the case or not. I personally think that we are according to Jesus, but that's my opinion.
The reason I say that it doesn't matter that much, is because Christians uses it as an excuse as if everything is then fine. To me, what matters is that God said it to begin with, that they don't apply anymore doesn't change the fact that he commanded it to begin with. Exactly the same as I wouldn't stop blaming Hitler or whoever for doing what they did, even if they said they were sorry or didn't mean it. It changes nothing.
At least these people, have the excuse of being humans. God does not.
In your opinion is rape a necessary thing? or said in another way, could you imagine God could have made a world where raping was not a thing or not allowed? Of all the people I know and have known, none of them have ever raped anyone, at least that I know of. So for me, which also haven't raped anyone, the world is basically as if rape is not an option, exactly as I don't see it as an option for me to torture a cat on purpose.
So I have no problems imagining what life is like without these options. So had God made it so it didn't exist or weren't possible, it wouldn't change anything. But God apparently thought that it was needed and that there should be rules for it, if God doesn't accept rape, why is there then so many rules about it? Why not just say that its not allowed and that he will smite anyone that does it, he have no issues doing this with anything else or as I said simply not make it possible. Here are some more rules for how raping and other sexusal acts should be dealt with, so apparently God thought quite a bit about it. And as you can also see, God have no issue handing out death penalties for all kinds of things, and in a lot of cases, I think he should probably have spend a bit more time thinking about the victims here, but that is just my opinion.
Deuteronomy 22:13-30
13 - “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her
14 - and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’
15 - then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate.
16 - And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her;
17 - and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city.
18 - Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him,
19 - and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.
20 - But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman,
21 - then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
22 - “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23 - “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her,
24 - then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
25 - “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.
26 - But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor,
27 - because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.
28 - “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found,
29 - then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.
30 - “A man shall not take his father's wife, so that he does not uncover his father's nakedness.
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Nimos
Well-Known Member
I think they are fine, if we assume we lived in a perfect world, but reality is that we don't, so I think most of them are wrong.
Is it wrong to steal if you child is starving and you can't get help anywhere else? Would it have been wrong of the Jews in the concentration camps to kill a Nazi guard?
This is the reality and dilemmas we face and not a perfect world.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
The point of what?
Dave Watchman
Active Member
This sounds well worded to me.
The invention doesn't have authority to call the Inventor immoral.
When the "creation doesn't do what you created it for; most inverters would destroy the invention for not doing its purpose properly.
It's not the same thing as when humanity murders humanity.
By the current human metric, slavery is wrong, so tear down the statues of Christopher Columbus.
But by God's standards, slavery is a part of human life, and He supplies rules for it's governance. Many of the Biblical patriarchs were portrayed as the owners of slaves and enslaved those in debt to them, bought their fellow citizens' daughters as concubines, and perpetually enslaved foreign men to work on their fields.
This alone would point to God existing outside the rules of what we are now calling morals.
The google definition of moral:
concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
"the corruption of public morals"
a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
"the corruption of public morals"
Besides murder, God also said not to commit adultery and not to dishonor your father and mother. Can anyone think of God doing these other things?
This also should show that these rules are simply not applicable to the God that created them.
Peaceful Sabbath.
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
When I said the general law "Do no murder" was objectively an absolute good, not subjective, that almost 100% of people want, in any give time, not just lately, you responded:
And so I point out how the laws we have about fair trial are also objectively good -- they have the objective outcome of preserving good order where you are less likely to be lynched suddenly for being in the wrong group.
The laws that are objectively good are so because they have objective outcomes we humans generally value, in any time throughout history.
And that is enough to make that select group of laws that have universally valued outcomes in general laws that are 'absolute' good, in a way that isn't the subjective opinion of an individual.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
What Erin says is lawful because is it is the law of the land. Similarly, what God says is lawful because it is God's law.
God's commands are moral because God commands them and God knows what is moral behavior for humans since God created humans. This is logical.
God commands things because they are good for humans, because they are beneficial for humans, because God created humans out of love and wants what is best for humans. God needs nothing from humans because God is fully self-sufficient and fully self- sustaining.
“Consider the mercy of God and His gifts. He enjoineth upon you that which shall profit you, though He Himself can well dispense with all creatures.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 140
“The one true God, exalted be His glory, hath wished nothing for Himself. The allegiance of mankind profiteth Him not, neither doth its perversity harm Him. The Bird of the Realm of Utterance voiceth continually this call: “All things have I willed for thee, and thee, too, for thine own sake.” Gleanings, p. 260
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
The problem with the Bible is that men wrote it, not God, so there is no reason to believe that these stories that were written by these men ever actually took place. I do not believe that did take place with a God ordering them, but obviously many people so believe that they are true stories.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
True, but the problem is that humans have understood God in the wrong way, and they have ended up believing God is an immoral monster who goes around killing people for no good reason.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
So, let me get this straight. . you want God to just kill all rapists? I would assume then, that you want him to kill all murderers too? So where does it end? Jesus drew that line in the mind. Have you ever lusted? Then you are guilty. You deserve death. I agree. We all do. That's the reason God had to die in our place.
Yes God had people live under lots of rules that seem very strange to us.
Why? This may seem very strange also. . but he did it to prove that it couldn't be done. That we could not save ourselves from sinning.
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Galatians 3:24
Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. 20 A mediator, however, implies more than one party; but God is one.
21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. 22 But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
The law was just a shadow of the promise to come.
The law never saved anyone. It could not be kept perfectly. God never approved of any sin. Allowing sin was necessary in a world with free will however. You can either have possibility of sin or you can have a God who makes robots.
Nimos
Well-Known Member
I think one has to be a be careful here, because I actually think what you are making a case for is subjective morality or at least you could, but I will let you be the judge of that.
When you say that "so I point out how the laws we have about fair trial are also objectively good", let's assume that trials were in fact fair, despite we have examples of people not really being treated fair or even getting trialed for things that they probably shouldn't have been trialed for in the first place, like a person's sexsuality for instance, or if you remember those rape incidents in India, where all the men were found not guilty for raping a girl, or something. I don't remember all the details, as its a lot of years ago, but it got a lot of media attention, at least where im from. But anyway I think you would agree that not all trials are fair, you can probably think of your own.
But lets run with the idea of fair trials, then you have already loaded the topic by using the word fair. But who decided that it is objectively fair? Because the justice system is in constant development, meaning the way black people were trialed in the US, 50 years ago is probably different than it is today.
So if we look at a definition of subjective morality:
The opposite of objective morality is subjective morality. Subjective morality says that our morals are all human-made, and can vary from person to person. While there are strong morals shared by most of humanity, such as killing, many morals are subjective as to whether or not they are correct.
So humans or our society decided how trials should be done, but these varies from country to country, for instance in Denmark, you are not trialed for you sexsuality, because we don't find that to be a crime. But other countries think that it's perfectly fine to do so. So who or what is the authority that decides whether Denmark or one of these other countries are the most moral?
You can say that you believe that Denmark is more moral, because that is your opinion, as stated above "vary from person to person", however others obviously disagree with you. And we could obviously also ask one of the people trialed due to having such sexsuality, what they believe is the most moral thing to do?
Compare that to objective morality:
Objective morality, in the simplest terms, is the belief that morality is universal, meaning that it isn't up for interpretation. ... Religious people will define objective morality according to the commandments of their god(s). Other people may look at some universal laws, such as murder, as inherently bad.
Which means that whether or not trials are fair or not, is not up to interpretation, they are just fair, regardless of whatever you think. So when you write it like you do, you could basically just have said, "so I point out how the laws we have about morally good trials are objectively good" it would basically be the same, because if its already decide beforehand that they are "morally good", then there is not really any discussion to be had, because they are good
So I hope, I at least to some degree demonstrated that trials are not always fair, it completely depends on who you ask, what the trial is about and what society of humans we are talking about.You obviously could make the argument as some religious people do, which is that God is intrinsically good and therefore everything he say is per definition objectively good. Which is obviously what I disagree with, because it conflicts with what I think is morally right, and I don't believe in God or that any morality is objective, but is arrived at and therefore it is subjective, now it is very important to understand, that just because it is arrived at, doesn't mean that it is good or bad. Simply that those that arrived at it, believes it to be one or the other, independent of what others might believe, so there is no final judge (Entity/God/Whatever) with an objectively correct answer to it. But you as a human can judge them and make your own call of whether you agree with them or not.
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Nimos
Well-Known Member
No I don't want God to kill anyone. I wanted him to not make it possible in the first place. Because he is going to kill all of these anyway sooner or later, so it probably wouldn't matter anyway. And im not sure why you would oppose it, because it is apparently possible, if we are to believe Revelation:
Revelation 21:1-8
1 - Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
2 - And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 - And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
4 - He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 - And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 - And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
7 - The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
8 - But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
So basically I would obviously have to die as well, so you could argue, that I should probably support you in not getting rid of the rapists, murderers etc. as the atheists are ending up the same place as they are.
But if God can make a place where there is no death, pain, crying etc. he would obviously have to make it impossible to rape and murder right?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Well said. We are either God's robots or we have free will to make our own choices. There are really no other options. The law never saved anyone but if everyone followed God's Laws there would be no evil in the world. It is something to shoot for.
“God hath in that Book, and by His behest, decreed as lawful whatsoever He hath pleased to decree, and hath, through the power of His sovereign might, forbidden whatsoever He elected to forbid. To this testifieth the text of that Book. Will ye not bear witness? Men, however, have wittingly broken His law. Is such a behavior to be attributed to God, or to their proper selves? Be fair in your judgment. Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves. Will ye not comprehend? This same truth hath been revealed in all the Scriptures, if ye be of them that understand.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 149-150
firedragon
Veteran Member
Nimos
Well-Known Member
I will mainly focus on my view of morality and why I think that it offers a better explanation than objective morality. Regardless of whether you support one view or the other, I think we can both agree that moral conflicts between humans exist, like "is it morally wrong to murder?" some think it is, while other don't, for whatever reason.
First I would like to point out what I believe to be some of the biggest issues with objective morality, both when it comes to a God, but also when no God is involved, which I think a subjective morality solves.
We know that people all around the world holds a lot of different religious views with different ideas of what a God is. Yet it is not uncommon for them to claim that their God is the author of objective morality. Now let's assume we have two different religions with different rules, both of which advocate that people should live in accordance with their Gods rules, because these are what is objectively correct.
The problem occurs since both religions claim a different God to be the author of objective morality, which means that both of them can't be correct. In fact, if one religion is true could mean that the people of the other religion would be kill for breaking certain rules set by this God. Yet both of these religions claim that a God best explain objective morality, but this is only true from their perspective, with the assumption that they chose the correct God. But none of them is capable of proving their God to be more correct than the other, which means that they can't demonstrate that the objective morality that they claim is from God, is in fact from their particular God and therefore also incapable of demonstrating that the objective morals are even true to begin with, there is no valid foundation for making such claim. Which to me means that they end up in much the same problem as atheists does, when they claim that objective morality exists, because they as well can't point or demonstrate who this author should be. The difference between atheists and believers in this case, is that the believers at least vaguely can point to a God, despite it not really offering a valid solution.
As I established above and that we hopefully agree upon, is that people have different opinions on what is considered morally right and wrong. So we could ask our self the following question, "What would we expect to see, if we have a lot of different people with different ideas of what is right and wrong?", a reasonable explanation is that we would see people group together with other people, which best match their own views on what is right and wrong. For example, it would be unlikely that a person holding the belief that "Killing animals is wrong" would prefer to go the group that hold the view that "Killing animals is fine".
Which means that if morality is subjective, it is perfectly explainable why you would have different religious groups with different ideas of what a God is and what rules such God have made. When such group is convinced about the validity of their God, it's not really a huge leap to then also claim that this God is the author of the morality held by this group as being objectively true, after all their God is true and the creator of everything.
So if there is no objective morality, why don't we just run around and kill and rape each other like crazy?
To me this is best explained through instincts and human being social animals, I don't think anyone would deny this, given that we live together packed in "boxes" stacked on top of each other in huge cities, which I don't think we would see, if we didn't like to socialize with each other.
In regards to instincts, we as other lifeforms seem to share a instinctively behaviour of trying to survive, I don't think anyone would expect to see an antelope freely walking into a herd of lions, we might see certain animals such as elephants given their size chase them away etc. So it obviously depend on the type of animal.
Humans have not always been on the top of the food chain, in fact we as a lot of other animals have suffered under the same conditions as them of being killed by these predators. Humans are extremely vulnerable, we are not fast and our natural defence (lack of claws, strength, deadly teeth, poison etc.) is arguable amongst the worse in the animal kingdom for an animal of our size, meaning that if we went head to head with a lion, we would probably lose close to a 100% of the time.
The development of the brain is what give humans an edge, but the brain is extremely slow when it comes to developing, as it takes a long time. But not only that, human pregnancy takes a long time and doesn't exactly improve a female chance of surviving, if she couldn't rely on a group to help her. Even when our children are born, it take years before they are capable of taking care of themselves. So for us to survive we need other humans, the larger the group, the stronger it is, as you have more people to rely on. But living in groups creates conflicts as we don't agree on everything, exactly as we see it in other animals, they fight and kill each other as well. But given the brain of humans we have the ability of complex language which allow us to communicate more effectively, and have evolved over time. So a lot of issues can be solved without fighting.
Also given how vulnerable we are, having trust in each other appears to me to be natural, which obviously lead to what we call morality and ethics. If we couldn't trust each other, no parent would drop off their child to a daycare center, without constantly worrying about whether their child had been killed or hurt, while they were away. But trust is not simply something you decide to go with, it falls on some basic ideas, such as lying is bad, if you tell me that you will take care of my child and then you kill it while im gone, surely there can't be any trust between us and other people knowing that you did it, will probably not trust you as well, since you already demonstrated that you can't be trusted. Which most likely also mean that people are less likely to help you. And since I already pointed out that humans need others to survive, it is in your best interest that others want to help you. And therefore lying to others is not beneficial for you in the long run, and especially not if you are caught doing it.
So whether you chose to lie anyway, is a judgement call you make, because we know people lie, but you might value what the lie brings you more than what potentially getting caught lying might have of consequences.
Therefore a subjective morality having developed over time through natural explanation, seem to account for why we see the differences in moral standards, both in societies, but also between individuals and sub groups within them. And that these are nothing more than agreed upon systems to maximize our chance of survival. Obviously over time as humans have evolved and developed our knowledge of the world in which we live and moved from the middle of the food chain to the top, these moral values and ideas have changed as well. But fundamentally, we are doing the same things as we did back then, rather than the hunter giving his child to his spouse, family or the those staying at the village/cave, we throw them in a daycare center or hand them off to the grandparents, while we go hunt for food at the office desk.
But looking at this process, there is nothing objective about whether you should kill or not kill, if the group you belong to see it as a benefit to steal someone else's ressources to increase your own chance of surviving, while at the same time get rid of some competition, it might be considered the right choice for that group, and they might very well think that they are in their good right to do so. Obviously over time, this have developed as well, as we might prefer to trade with each other instead, to not risk getting killed in a battle ourselves or lose it.
So at least in my opinion, simply looking at human history and how we have done things in the past, where we came from and how we manage to survive, gives a pretty good explanation of how and why morality evolved, and why we disagree with each other. Because there is no objective moral truth, but there is an instinctively idea it seems shared between all lifeforms to want to survive, and we do this is different ways, humans simply have a much more "complicated" way due to our brains than other animals have. If we didn't have the brain capacity we have, we would most likely have gone extinct or at least not have been more expanded on Earth as the other great apes are.
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