Can God be moral?

[Nimos]

I appreciate that! Straightforward is always best!

Taking a straightforward approach to the account, I don’t see where God did it. Satan did.

Have you read the story? Just want to be sure.

Also a clarifying question:

Imagine a room with two small children in it. I have a loaded gun with the safety off and I throw it into the room for them to play with. One of the children gets shot and dies. Would you say that I did something morally wrong or should the children have know better?

 

[McBell]

No. How do you say "Since there is no objective morality"? With what empirical evidence? Since you are an empiricist?

Present one.
An objective moral.

 

[1213]

....

• I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me
• Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
• Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
• Honour thy father and thy mother
• Thou shalt not kill
• Thou shalt not commit adultery
• Thou shalt not steal
• Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods

...

Actually, the commandment is “don’t murder”, killing is in some cases accepted, for example death penalty.

You shall not murder.
Ex. 20:13 (World English Bible)

Also, the second commandment is not to make idols:

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Exodus 20:4-6

First commandment is:

You shall have no other gods before me.
Ex. 20:3

 

[Nimos]

Actually, the commandment is “don’t murder”, killing is in some cases accepted, for example death penalty.

You shall not murder.
Ex. 20:13 (World English Bible)

Also, the second commandment is not to make idols:

"You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Exodus 20:4-6

First commandment is:

You shall have no other gods before me.
Ex. 20:3

From what I can see, it depends on which bible you use, KJV uses "kill" and some "murder". So im fine with murder as well. But thanks for highlighting that.

 

[McBell]

This thread will turn into a Christianity vs Islam debate ultimately. So if you open a new thread, I will contribute.

Actually, the commandment is “don’t murder”, killing is in some cases accepted, for example death penalty.

You shall not murder.
Ex. 20:13 (World English Bible)

Exodus 20:13
(AFV) You shall not murder.
(ASV) Thou shalt not kill.
(BBE) Do not put anyone to death without cause.
(Bishops) Thou shalt not kyll.
(Darby) Thou shalt not kill.
(DRB) Thou shalt not kill.
(ERV) "You must not murder anyone.
(Geneva) Thou shalt not kill.
(GNB) "Do not commit murder.
(ISV) "You are not to murder.
(KJV) Thou shalt not kill.
(KJV+) Thou shalt notH3808 kill.H7523
(KJV-1611) Thou shalt not kill.
(KJVA) Thou shalt not kill.
(KJV-BRG) Thou shalt not kill.
(LEB) "You shall not murder.
(LITV) You shall not murder.
(LSV) You do not murder.
(MKJV) You shall not kill.
(RV) Thou shalt do no murder.
(TLV) Do not murder.
(TS2009) “You do not murder.
(WEB) “You shall not murder.
(WEBA) “You shall not murder.
(Webster) Thou shalt not kill.
(YLT) 'Thou dost not murder.​

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[ecco]

So can God be moral?

Since you are primarily discussing the Christian God, the answer is that He has proven himself to be immoral. Evidence for this can be found by reading the Bible.

 

[Moonjuice]

God is morality

Yawwwwn. Assertions like this are so meaningless. If you are going to make assertions, with zero reasoning, let's all do the same. Snorkel is morality. Coffee table is morality. Socks = morality.

 

[Nimos]

Since you are primarily discussing the Christian God, the answer is that He has proven himself to be immoral. Evidence for this can be found by reading the Bible.

Well I know the Norse gods are immoral at least to some degree, because they lie and cheat, just got to love these human like Gods But also not a lot of people actually buy into them, and also I don't know everything about all religions so have to pick and choose, I tend to stick to Christianity in general, because I read the bible and its the one I at least know a bit about, so its not to exclude anyone, I simply don't know all the gods/religions there is.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

When is God killing people? At the final judgment of the unsaved? Or do you think God kills people on earth?

The Bible certainly thinks so.

 

[KerimF]

This thread will turn into a Christianity vs Islam debate ultimately. So if you open a new thread, I will contribute.

No matter what we say, the today's World's Elite are real smart and won't let any well-known religion to be defeated totally or diminished even partially.
Their modern strategy is to continuously justify every war or bloody conflict (also 'Terror', lately, which was introduced with a great success on 9/11/2001 ) , as being due to conflict among religions and cultures, anytime they create it in a region in order to better control its ordinary peoples (not their ruling system which is controlled already... under the table of course... but this is another topic) and their natural resources.

While I was growing up, I used living with others without knowing if they were Jewish, Christian, Muslim or atheist. Then, I noticed some well-known families leaving for good. I learnt that they were Jewish and they were instructed by their religious/political Elders to move to the New Israel which are created in Palestine. Then I heard in the 80's that the Muslims around me belong to two different sects. It happened that I saw two somehow similar papers. Each informed the Muslims of one sect that the Muslims of the other sect are planning to destroy them. Naturally, this leaded to a bloody conflict among the same people for a few years. Then, the Arab Spring was launched and many countries were destroyed, where I live included, also by the local hands and by the various well-armed mercenaries/terrorists, claimed being Muslims. So what happened in my region, did also happen (or will also happen) in every country in which its people used living and working in total harmony.

Anyway, this is how the world is created. You may like reading my post #53.

 

[KerimF]

The Bible certainly thinks so.

But if Jesus tells me that I can hurt anyone for any reason, I would see him like any of the today's powerful deceivers who drive the ordinary people to hurt, or even kill, each other while they play before their victims and the world... the innocent men... if not the men of peace.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Using our limited capabilities and imagination as human beings

What limitations could we imagine that a being that can do anything, without any restrictions possibly be limited by? Nothing maybe?

Of course... he is limited only by his nature.
He can't lie, for example, because that would be something that went against his nature.

 

[halbhh]

It is often stated by religious people that objective morality comes from God (Biblical), but is it really possible for him to be moral under his own rules?

Simply using the Bible as example, but as far as I know it is the same for Islam in this case.

Im going to use this text as basis for this (If they are wrong, let me know and explain why they are):

The Ten Commandments

Moses received the Ten Commandments directly from God on Mount Sinai, written on two stone tablets. They assert the uniqueness of God, and forbid such things as theft, adultery, murder and lying. The Ten Commandments are equally important in Jewish and Christian traditions and appear in the Old Testament in Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Various Christian and Jewish traditions have different wordings for the Ten Commandments. They can be numbered differently. They appear in various forms in the Bible. This is a Christian version:

• I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me
• Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
• Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
• Honour thy father and thy mother
• Thou shalt not kill
• Thou shalt not commit adultery
• Thou shalt not steal
• Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife
• Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods

The Qur'an does not list the Ten Commandments explicitly, but their substance appears in various places.

God is often referred to as being all good, all knowing etc. and obviously also the author of morality, more specifically objective morality.

Often there is some misunderstandings regarding what is meant by objective morality, so to quickly explain it, it simply means that morality apply regardless of humans being here or not. So when God say that killing is morally wrong, it is wrong regardless of whether not we we were here. Said in another way, in this context it means that God decides what is right and wrong.

My question or issue is whether a person or God in this case can be said to be moral consistent, unless they themself can uphold their own moral rules.

If I tell you that it is morally wrong to steal and I punish you for doing so, but then decide to steal something myself, would you consider me to be morally justified since I made the rule?

Same can be asked about God, "Thou shalt not kill" yet we know that God kills and orders the killing of many people in favour of the Jews. So does God's objective moralities applies to him as well, as they do to me in the above example or not?

Despite him being the creator of everything, objective morality is rules decided by God to be true and therefore arguably part of his nature. But is it possible for someone, God or human to be moral, if they can't uphold their own moral standards?

I want you to take into consideration that, simply because you create or is seen as the caretaker of something, does that mean that you are not morally responsible for said creation? By caretaker I mean, let's imagine you own a dog and it have puppies, and you are morally against killing puppies, are you then not morally obligated to treat all puppies according to your own moral rules, if you want to stay morally coherent, under the concept of objective morality?

If not, God must obviously follow subjective moral ideas and therefore objective morality is likely to be an illusion applied to us by God as if they were, and therefore seen more as divine laws, which God himself apparently doesn't seem a need to uphold himself. Wouldn't that make God immoral, under the general human understanding of morality?

Because I would argue, that a person can't be morally consistent, if they can't uphold their own moral standards. For instant most people will agree that under most circumstances stealing is wrong, yet most people have probably stolen something at some point that they weren't legally entitled to. (Doesn't have to be anything major) But still this would be considered morally inconsistent in my opinion, if we claim that stealing is objectively wrong.

So can God be moral? And if so why?

A question for you, yourself:

What is good?

What is good in a general way, for people generally?

Would rules be 'good' if when followed generally by most of the people well they result in widespread tangible benefits like peace and general good quality of life such as enjoyment of social activities, generally well-functioning economic production enabling sufficient goods to survive, and such?

If there are rules that generally cause/tend to result in such outcomes, I submit they are objectively 'good', in that they objectively lead to 'good' results we want to all have, mutually.

 

[Nimos]

Of course... he is limited only by his nature.
He can't lie, for example, because that would be something that went against his nature.

I would take that into consideration, I would also accept that God can't make a circular square etc. But God is capable of not killing, in fact it's very easy, most people does it everyday

We also know that God can change his "mind", because Moses manage to talk him out of killing all the Jews (Again the Jews really get killed a lot by God, they really **** him off.)

Exodus 32:7-14
7 - And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
8 - They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”
9 - And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
10 - Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
11 - But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 - Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
13 - Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
14 - And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

So clearly God is capable of not killing if he wants

 

[Wildswanderer]

I would take that into consideration, I would also accept that God can't make a circular square etc. But God is capable of not killing, in fact it's very easy, most people does it everyday

We also know that God can change his "mind", because Moses manage to talk him out of killing all the Jews (Again the Jews really get killed a lot by God, they really **** him off.)

Exodus 32:7-14
7 - And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
8 - They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”
9 - And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
10 - Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
11 - But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 - Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
13 - Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”
14 - And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

So clearly God is capable of not killing if he wants

Of course he can show mercy, but again it's ultimately his call. Actually the reason his own people pissed him off so much was because they were his people and they knew better. He spends a lot of the Old Testament complaining about their disobedience. Although he also punished the pagans, for their extreme wickedness.

And he did change his mind and his actions under the New covenant, although I don't know if it was really a change of mind because he had it in mind all along.
He stopped trying to control his people by force, and sent himself to earth to become one of them. What could be more merciful than that? It would be kind of like me deciding to become an ant in order to save them from a coming apocalypse, and then letting them kill me because that was their only way to salvation.
So God stopped focusing so much on Justice and more on Mercy, but of course whoever rejects him still gets Justice in the end. I don't think that's unfair. Do you?

 

[Nimos]

A question for you, yourself:

What is good?

What is good in a general way, for people generally?

Would rules be 'good' if when followed generally by most of the people well they result in widespread tangible benefits like peace and general good quality of life such as enjoyment of social activities, generally well-functioning economic production enabling sufficient goods to survive, and such?

If there are rules that generally cause/tend to result in such outcomes, I submit they are objectively 'good', in that they objectively lead to 'good' results we want to all have, mutually.

To me saying that something is good is completely subjective. But I would say that being happy is in general good, in fact I would argue that it is the best meaning we can currently aim for here in life, and this applies to everyone, regardless of who you are and what religious background you hold.

Now, how one achieve this happiness can be completely different. So what I think will make me happy, could potentially make you miserable.

So to me the words "good" and "bad" is descriptive words for what we consider beneficial and not beneficial. But to argue that something is objectively good, even if it is more beneficial than something else, I don't think make sense.

For instance, murder is bad, in general I would agree, but honestly I think a lot of people would have been happy if someone had manage to murder Hitler. So is murder always objectively wrong?

Good and Bad, depends on what people believe, but that doesn't make it good or bad. We know that human sacrifice was done in earlier cultures. I doubt they would do it, if they didn't believe that it was the right thing or beneficial to do these things. But from our perspective today, we would consider it very bad. And honestly, I don't doubt for a second that people 1000s of years from now, will look at our culture and wonder why on Earth we would do some of the things we do.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

But if Jesus tells me that I can hurt anyone for any reason, I would see him like any of the today's powerful deceivers who drive the ordinary people to hurt, or even kill, each other while they play before their victims and the world... the innocent men... if not the men of peace.

So do you not see Jesus as God?

 

[Nimos]

He stopped trying to control his people by force, and sent himself to earth to become one of them. What could be more merciful than that? It would be kind of like me deciding to become an ant in order to save them from a coming apocalypse, and then letting them kill me because that was their only way to salvation.

Well first of all, he could simply reverse his own mess to begin with. He planted the tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden, then created two people that didn't knew the difference between good (right) and evil (wrong). Didn't warn them about Satan and being all knowing, knew that they would fail. He then decided to punish not only them for his own screw up, but all of humanity.. FOREVER!!!

Then he gets pissed off again, because his incompetent as a creator, have led him to create something that doesn't please him, so instead of taking the blame for it, he just kill everyone, besides Noah and his family.

He then start over, playing the good guy, because it was probably to extreme to kill everyone. So he promise Noah to not do it again... How generous of him

Genesis 9:15
15 - I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

So he journeys around with the Jews for a bit with a lot of "random" killing, until he finally does what he promise and get the Jews to the promise land, obviously he denies Moses, which have done so much for God and the Jews to enter it, because he pissed off God as well. Anyway God promise the Jews that they should take the land and that he will help them slaughter everything there, including animals, except the girls they can marry them. What a dude!!

Anyway time goes on and its time to really show people how much he cares about his own screw up. So he send down his son or himself, whatever you prefer. Both are equally bad, if we assume it is his son, what type of father is he, that he will sacrifice his son, because he can't admit and correct his own mistake? If its God, or his son, doesn't matter, the sacrifice in "God" terms simply mean to have a bad weekend. He rose again and went straight back to heaven as the good guy.

So you ask me, "What could be more merciful than that?" To grow up and take responsibility for screwing things up from start to end and blaming humans for his own incompetence. That would have been the right thing to do, in my opinion

 

[halbhh]

To me saying that something is good is completely subjective. But I would say that being happy is in general good, in fact I would argue that it is the best meaning we can currently aim for here in life, and this applies to everyone, regardless of who you are and what religious background you hold.

Now, how one achieve this happiness can be completely different. So what I think will make me happy, could potentially make you miserable.

So to me the words "good" and "bad" is descriptive words for what we consider beneficial and not beneficial. But to argue that something is objectively good, even if it is more beneficial than something else, I don't think make sense.

For instance, murder is bad, in general I would agree, but honestly I think a lot of people would have been happy if someone had manage to murder Hitler. So is murder always objectively wrong?

Good and Bad, depends on what people believe, but that doesn't make it good or bad. We know that human sacrifice was done in earlier cultures. I doubt they would do it, if they didn't believe that it was the right thing or beneficial to do these things. But from our perspective today, we would consider it very bad. And honestly, I don't doubt for a second that people 1000s of years from now, will look at our culture and wonder why on Earth we would do some of the things we do.

I think in reality, regardless of ideology, you'd not want to live in a world where most people didn't respect and obey the rule:

"Do not murder"

If you think that's not an absolute morality, just a random cultural artifact for this era.... well, I submit you've let your ideas be too untested against their outcomes.

To test an idea like this on a large scale, you could try to pay attention and observe more the practical real world quality of life in areas where "Do not murder" is well-followed vs areas where "Do no murder" isn't widely respected and well followed.

And see whether it matters to quality of life.

 

[Nimos]

I think in reality, regardless of ideology, you'd not want to live in a world where most people didn't respect and obey the rule:

"Do not murder"

If you think that's not an absolute morality, just a random cultural artifact for this era.... well, I submit you've let your ideas be too untested against their outcomes.

I agree, I wouldn't like to live in such world. But assuming that there is only one explanation for why we don't constantly in massive numbers just randomly murder each other, I think is to jump the fence so to speak.

To me and why we don't randomly kill each other is much better explained using natural explanations than to say that a God commanded it.

The final stand that religious people have and what they basically all use as a defence, is free will. You remove that and everything falls apart. Yet accepting the free will excuse, have huge problems for the being of God, especially because it can be argued that we don't really have free will. But that God find free will so important that he accept that humans murder each other, tells quite a lot about the nature of such God and how he view human lifes.

The excuse religious people have, that this is required for free will is absolutely bullocks, if we asked every single person currently living and that is dead. How many % of them do you think have lived a life without murdering anyone while still having the exact same feeling of free will?

Being able to murder, rape and childmolest is not a requirement for free will. It is evidently so!! Its a poor excuse, that religious people use to explain evil and objective morality. It is simply an illusion.

Furthermore there is enough atheists currently living on Earth that we can conclude, that we do not run around and randomly kill anymore than anyone else, in fact you could argue that religious people have far more reasons and justifications for doing so, because this life is only temporarily and **** compared to what is promised.

So as a question to you, how do you explain that God allows murder, rapes, child molestations etc. if free will is not a valid explanation? How would you explain God's lack of intervention?