Can God be moral?

[A Vestigial Mote]

I believe some of the Bible, but not all the anthropomorphic stories in the OT.

Well, picking and choosing may have its merits in some circles. Others would look down on such. Not that one need accept all of something in order to cherish some of it. Not at all. But The Bible is a very tricky case - because it's ultimate inspiration is supposedly a God who is capable of no wrong-doing. And yet we read of many kinds of wrong-doing being perpetrated by this "God" character throughout. Blaming and exacting "justice" from successive generations for the mistakes of their forebears. Wiping out all humans and land-based creatures (and plants) because he was expressly disappointed in human behavior alone. Asking people to murder their progeny, even if it was "just a test" - I feel that test should have been failed the moment a knife was picked up. Like it or not these items are also "in The Bible." Maybe if you want to claim God to be "perfect" or "free from wrong-doing" you write a new Bible - one in which he doesn't ever behave like a murderous, vengeful 3-year-old. And, ultimately, if you don't claim that God is "perfect" or "free from wrong-doing," and he is therefore capable, at any time, to revert to some of those behaviors - possibly kill you or your family for example, maybe along with the rest of humankind - then why follow? Why worship? And if you don't do either of those things either, then what's the point in ever defending Him?

 

[McBell]

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.

How can something based upon a purely subjective concept be absolute?

 

[Brian2]

There is no such God, the Bible God is just an anthropomorphism.
Why the real God allowed Himself to be misrepresented that way is anyone's best guess.

The Bible tells us about God in ways that humans can understand.

 

[McBell]

You said "there is no objective morality". So prove that there is none. It was your claim.

You just proved it for me.
For if there was in fact an objective moral, you would have jumped at the chance to present it and end the whole thread.

 

[firedragon]

You just proved it for me.
For if there was in fact an objective moral, you would have jumped at the chance to present it and end the whole thread.

You made a claim but you are not proving it. Moving the burden of proof to another is a logical fallacy. I am sure you understand it.

Nevertheless, thank you for your comment.

 

[Wildswanderer]

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

So, allowing himself to be killed isn't taking responsibility? And humans didn't have to do what they did. They only had one rule to follow for goodness sake. So, what kind of parent doesn't make any rules? An irresponsible one who will raise irresponsible children. Instead, you want a sugar daddy who doesn't have any rules at all, apparently. Santa Clause in the sky who gives you everything while requiring nothing of you.

 

[McBell]

You made a claim but you are not proving it. Moving the burden of proof to another is a logical fallacy. I am sure you understand it.

Nevertheless, thank you for your comment.

So now that your diversion tangent is out of the way, how about you get back to actually addressing the point you went to such lengths to avoid:

One God. God is one. To have subjective morality within God, he has to be at least two. Otherwise it cannot be subjective.

Since there is no objective morality, this means, by way of your argument, god cannot exist, right?

 

[KerimF]

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?

And because He doesn't, I knew that He has indeed the Will (as the Will of my Father in Heaven, being unified by the Divine Spirit of Love, the Holy Spirit, since before Creation) which is behind my existence and of the time/space realm.
You may like reading my post #53 to know why.

 

[firedragon]

So now that your diversion tangent is out of the way, how about you get back to actually addressing the point you went to such lengths to avoid:

​

Prove your statement: "Since there is no objective morality, this means, by way of your argument, god cannot exist, right?"

 

[McBell]

Prove your statement: "Since there is no objective morality, this means, by way of your argument, god cannot exist, right?"

Prove your statement: "One God. God is one. To have subjective morality within God, he has to be at least two. Otherwise it cannot be subjective."

Since you made your statement first, AND we already went down your diversion tangent, it is now on you to prove your statement instead of avoiding your statement like the plague.

 

[firedragon]

Prove your statement: "One God. God is one. To have subjective morality within God, he has to be at least two. Otherwise it cannot be subjective."

Sure. No problem.

Try to answer this, then maybe one could attempt to explain the point which you may not have understood.

Can you explain how one could fall into the subjective theory without a relative measurement?

 

[McBell]

Sure. No problem.

Try to answer this, then maybe one could attempt to explain the point which you may not have understood.

Can you explain how one could fall into the subjective theory without a relative measurement?

Can you explain how to objectively measure it?

 

[firedragon]

Can you explain how to objectively measure it?

I will explain how you can measure it. Simple. By comparison.

 

[rational experiences]

Eternal unconditional love is first. O mass into G the spiral left burst burnt God moment between eternal and first O G moment is spiral recorded.

God recording in space moment is a memory of the memory of unconditional love.

How does a human know?

Parents are not us...we see their image and hear their memories recorded. From the eternal via G spiral into O forming tunnel from eternal into heavens. The tunnel formation G O.

Knowledge is by recording we did not own origin God travel into creations form burning we came across via heavens refilling of a space plane.

To think space is a big pit in memory as it stretched yet it is relative to a thin flat plane in reality.

Recorded memories given to an innocent human baby born only to two human parents.

Why we know it real. Records say so.

At death we see the records of the tunnel.

Parents had sex and babies then died. Why we know we die. We know our life is totally recorded. Proven multi times by human information psychic of the psyche.

The highest wisdom is natural awareness first as a naturally aware human invented the sciences.

Our parents human had sex and one day died. We all know we die too by being informed.

However we were separated from the eternal. Why we still own one living being when we die as it never left. It remained as the eternal only having lost a thin plane from its own body.

Why we know gods origin was moral and not evil.

 

[McBell]

I will explain how you can measure it. Simple. By comparison.

Well then, why haven't you?
Explained it I mean.
Or is it your claim that you can objectively measure it by comparison?

 

[firedragon]

Well then, why haven't you?
Explained it I mean.
Or is it your claim that you can objectively measure it by comparison?

In the subjective theory, one has to have a relativity in comparison to another. Without it you cannot have a subjectivity. So subjective theory rests on a platform of comparison. What ever the moral theory or type of reason you are taking, be it hedonism, Eudaimonism, value fulfilment, whatever it is.

So one person claimed that being "one" you can be within the subjective theory which is a logical impossibility.

 

[KerimF]

Big difference, between God taking vengeance, and His followers doing so on their own. (“ ‘Vengeance is mine,’ saith the Lord”)

You could just as well ask: “Do you mean that, in Judaism, Yahweh / Jehovah doesn't have enemies who deserve being killed if they are threatening the existence of his believers?”
I mean, Yahweh had quite a few enemies — and killed them — to protect His people.

How did Yahweh treat His people? Note what Moses stated that others would say, @ Deuteronomy 4:6-8.

But regarding Jesus, please read 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8. In part, it states “the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus.”
-NWT, revised edition

Thank you for raising this point.
You are totally right in all what you said since you didn't include Jesus message.
The main role of all Jewish prophets before Jesus was simply of John The Baptist, as Jesus point it out clearly:

"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

Therefore, the main goal of what is known as Jewish teachings was to gather certain families in a well defined group and help them know how to be healthy and unified against any offensive intruders. Naturally, God knew in advance that this was a prerequisite for the arrival of Jesus among them. In other words, Judaism is supposed to focus solely on what the human flesh needs (perhaps this explains why a good faithful Jew is usually seen as being very materialist), including its right of self-defense.
Then Jesus came... and brought me with Him all the knowledge I have needed to hear about my deep nature (which is much more important than my mortal living flesh) and the 'real' world in which I have to live temporarily (the world as it runs in reality, far from the great speeches, made around the world, of 'Freedom', 'Democracy' and 'Peace', for a few).

Now, I wish I know from you if there is a Gospel today (unlike mine) in which Jesus, in person, advises his disciple to hurt, if not kill, another person in certain situations/conditions.
Thank you.

By the way, I guess you know now why I didn't present myself as Christian.
In God's plan, the today's formal Christianity had to be made, in many respects, much like Judaism and Islam (besides various Pagan's rituals) since most humans are created to have a human living flesh only to take care of and let it serve the material world, in building it and/or destroying it, before it dies.

 

[Dave Watchman]

So as I mentioned in the OP and the above, when God kills those he doesn't like, despite having made the rules that its morally wrong. He, as God is actually being moral, and kills these people out of love? Would that be correctly understood?

I wouldn't have worded it that way. When God kills, i assume there must be a reason. Nadab and Abihu seemed abrupt. But God has the power of resurrection, i on the other hand, do not.

Would you as a human agree that, this is what you understand by love and being moral, or that we are simply to primitive to understand the concept of killing, love, moral, when God does it, but not when human does it?

If God is love, as the Christians say, He must also have love for the on coming generation. Nadab, Abihu and the Sodomites are all examples of names we remember to this day.

But I honestly don't think that the religious people have a very good case for this either, except if one accept that God is not bound by our understanding of morality.

This is my read on the moral of the story. Morality is for mortals.

Morality is for mortals, not Gods.

God is outside of space and time and human morality.

We murder. But it says God takes no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked.

God said that a people could transgress so strongly that they could exceed a limit where even the land itself would become defiled, and the land would vomit out it's inhabitants. Revelation says a time would come when God must destroy the destroyers of the earth. This is not the same as when a human murders another human.

I know it sounds like a bummer deal to the reprobate minded, but in time they will understand as well. And every knee will bow.

Peaceful Sabbath.

 

[Heyo]

Tell me something. In subjective theory, well-being depends on the person whose well-being it is. Right?

Wrong. In the subjective theory of value (which, by the way, is a theory in economics, so already questionable if it applies here), the value of a commodity (e.g. well-being) depends on the circumstances a person is in.
Applied to morality (with all the caveats of using an economic theory in moral philosophy in mind) that makes it relative.
Relative is the antinomy to absolute.
This is a frequent confusion in discussing morality, exchanging objective for absolute and subjective for relative.
I have posted the definition for objective/subjective somewhere above.

 

[firedragon]

Wrong. In the subjective theory of value (which, by the way, is a theory in economics, so already questionable if it applies here), the value of a commodity (e.g. well-being) depends on the circumstances a person is in.

Subjective theory in moral psychology.