Exalting God's Morality

[No*s]

If God can not be judged by standards of morality, then his commandments become the orders of a parent who says "Do as I say, not as do". I wish not to be treated as a child.

You can take my comments in two ways. One, that I am negative and/or hostile about faith or, two, that it is the evidence I have accepted for not beleiving in God. The second is what I wish you to understand.

I didn't take it as being hostile to my faith. I took it as the latter, though I had added "how I understand it" as a clause . I don't take offense easily, and you haven't crossed that line in our dialogues.

With reference to the "Do as I say, not as I do," parents must do that. A parent working with electricity is perfectly within his or her rights to command their child not to do what they do. To do otherwise would be immoral.

I even go further, though. God isn't human. We may interpret His commands in that way, but that's just one more metaphor. I may look at it in the exact same fashion I look at creation. After all, God also ordained basic laws of nature, and we obey them, and we have little choice in the matter. I see no reason not to extend this further.

As a last bit, this assumes that God is subject to the rules He makes for us. How would He be? These rules and regulations are created for humans. God is no more human than a snail or rattlesnake. The parental argument you used is still trying to apply human morality to God (this time that parents doing and commanding not to do is wrong), but it is still a part of our existence, and it doesn't neccessarily apply to Him.

 

[robtex]

While the story in the post is fiction I did pull out an idea in it that I think T.C. may have been trying to get across with the posting of it. Namely that man holds one another to a higher level of morality than one does God.

When man helps his fellow man it comes with a cost. That cost can be measured in :

1) time
2) money
3) other resources

If God was to help man it would not cost him
1) time
2) money
3) or resources

So in effect when man helps man it comes at a greater cost than if God helps man. The price ticket is larger to man. If this were true, and I realize you can't prove this with a hypothical analogy, and one believed that God was theisically inclined it would put pressure on the tangent theories of

1) universal morality
2) a benevolant diety

The first one because for morality to be universal and divinly inspired God's morality would have to be at a higher standard's than's man's. The second option because apathy is not a benevolant character trait.

In the fictional story God was in the best position to help those in the story but choose not too letting man handle it with the limited resources they had. All things being equal the story contended that man showed the higher level of humanism and morality.

 

[Majikthise]

This is ,after all ,a fictional story that presopposes god would act this way.If he turns out tobe real and acts this way (and i hope he wouldn't) then oblivion is where i'm headed.When i did believed in god i didn't imagine a guy on a throne ,god was in my toe nail,and in a pencil,and in an elephant.You know what i mean?So god's morallity was a moot point to me.God's morality was played out in nature.Somewhere along the line I just dropped the whole god thing all together.too many religions to consider.I am happy and my life is good.Empathy should be god.

 

[Majikthise]

With reference to the "Do as I say, not as I do," parents must do that. A parent working with electricity is perfectly within his or her rights to command their child not to do what they do. To do otherwise would be immoral.

Good parental instinct.couldn't resist.I'll back off now.

 

[No*s]

Good parental instinct.couldn't resist.I'll back off now.

Hard-wired into the race .

 

[lilithu]

When man helps his fellow man it comes with a cost. That cost can be measured in :

1) time
2) money
3) other resources

If God was to help man it would not cost him
1) time
2) money
3) or resources

So in effect when man helps man it comes at a greater cost than if God helps man.

Robtex, I see two problems with your analysis.

First, the idea that the identical action is more moral if it costs the subject more to do it. At one level, I agree with this. In Jesus' parable, the woman who gave her last few coins to charity indeed sacrificed more than the wealthy people who gave much larger amounts. But if you try to extrapolate this sentiment to it's extreme, it becomes absurd, imo. Let's compare me and Bill Gates. If we both give $20 to charity, obviously it costs me more than him, and some might say that I am somehow "better." If we both give $2,000, that would be a heavy burden to me at the moment, but nothing to Bill Gates, and many might say that I am somehow "better." If we both give $200,000, that's something that I'm not even physically capable of doing at the moment; yet it would still be a barely noticeable loss to him. By your argument, he still hasn't done enough. Now imagine someone who is infinitely rich. No matter how much that person gives - even if he spends every second of every day giving - it would still be less by your argument than me giving 20 bucks. It would logically be impossible for this infinite being to ever live up to this standard of morality. Now, is it fair of us, a priori, to create a standard of morality by which it is logically impossible for one party to ever be judged as measuring up and then subject that party to our standard?

Second, and much more importantly for me personally, your argument (and my first rebuttal) assumes that God is nothing more than a superhuman - infinitely bigger and infinitely more powerful - but still separate from man and acting on man as an external agent. I don't see God that way. For me, God is the basis of reality. One cannot ask why God does not give more to us because God already gives everything to us - our very existence. I don't just mean that we "owe" God because God created the world and set things into motion. I mean that God continues to create, to sustain, the universe at every given moment. If God were to cease to exist, the universe would cease to exist. Not because God is vindictive and wouldn't want us to exist without God, but because existence is continually and integrally dependant upon God. God is the "source." When man helps man, that is God helping man, to me. When man doesn't help man, God is still "helping" man.

I don't expect you to "agree" with me, but I do hope I am getting my view across. And I hope that you can see how, given this view, the whole story and your argument doesn't make sense to me.

 

[lilithu]

This is ,after all ,a fictional story that presopposes god would act this way.If he turns out tobe real and acts this way (and i hope he wouldn't) then oblivion is where i'm headed.

If its does turn out to be this way, then there will be a lot of theists joining you in hell, including myself. happily.

 

[jewscout]

As for the rest of you, very well -- if the characteristics of your God do not match the characteristics of the God in the story (at least, those characteristics relevant to the conclusion drawn), then consider yourself off the hook. Of course, it would be helpful to the discussion if you presented why you think the conclusion drawn by the above excerpt doesn't apply to your God -- you may have noticed that I posted this thread in a debate forum.

That was intentional.

Your description is of a G-d that is venegful and will hurl people into eternal damnation at the drop of a hat. My G-d, though he punishes man when he messes up, is forgiving in the end.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Your description is of a G-d that is venegful and will hurl people into eternal damnation at the drop of a hat. My G-d, though he punishes man when he messes up, is forgiving in the end.

But in your case, jewscout, trendy has a point. You get to define God(s) however you wish, but you shouldn't pretend that you're referring to the God of the Torah, a God that was clearly backward, petty, jealous, vindictive, and prone to overkill. It's simply inappropriate to assert, based solely on wishful thinking, that when God threatened to 'kill them all', He really meant 'let's give them a time out and we'll reappraise the whole thing later'' or that when he purportedly did 'kill them all', he did so only because every last one of them (including the first born child of the innocent maidservant) deserved it.

 

[HelpMe]

How can you ascribe to an entity a characteristic you know nothing about?

how can you or the writer of this story?

 

[TheTrendyCynic]

Yes, and with all due respect to your objectivist epistemology, 'Godly Morality' is no more a "meaningless conglomeration" than is the term "electron spin".

You are right and you are wrong as words have no meaning aosypayp97yapiwdh....
Discuss objectivist epistemology with me here, if you wish.

God is the cause of everything. Everything comes from Him, and this includes morality. Since I believe He teaches morality, that it has its source in Him, and that He has acted redemptively in the world, I apply the term to Him. He is "moral."

You're navigating through a fog of hazy definitions; I'm not saying that your logic is faulty, just that the means you chose to express your point were confusing. Saying 'God is moral' is not the same as saying 'God is the source of morality'; you have equated those two, in that you agree with the latter and, thus, believe it logically supports the former. A fountain, for example, is a source of water -- that does not mean it is water.

I believe it is this semantic inversion that is the source of our disagreement. Allow me to attempt to phrase your position using my own understanding of the terminology:

Morality represents a constraint on the evaluation of a given action(s) as 'good' or 'evil.' If morality applies to an entity, then any evaluation of the actions of that entity are constrained by that concept of morality. To be 'moral' is to accept the application of morality; to accept the necessary constraints of that morality (and, further, to be evaluated as 'good'). God is the source of morality, in that he created it, but he is not constrained by it -- the evaluation of his actions are not to be constrained by the moral code he created. In other words, God is not moral (this is not a condemnation, merely a neutral statement that explicitly states the inapplicability of moral evaluations to the actions of God); God is no more 'good' or 'evil' than he is 'good' or 'long' -- none of those terms apply. There is still only one morality -- the distinction of 'human morality' is still unnecessary and arbitrary -- but God, while the source of it, is not constrained by it.

Note the consequence of this, though: God is not good. God is not evil. Morality is as relevant to the evaluation of God as it is to the evaluation of a pencil.

Your description is of a G-d that is venegful and will hurl people into eternal damnation at the drop of a hat. My G-d, though he punishes man when he messes up, is forgiving in the end.

Thank you for following up as I requested; were I not so bogged down with the other material in this thread, I would have a more detailed response for you. As it stands, I think this is a tangential discussion on the nature of an ultimately forgiving God, which itself has the potential for its own logical inconsistencies (some of which were pointed out by Deut. 32.8), depending on the nature of your belief -- I'll bring this up at a later date, in a new thread, when I'm not spread so thin.

 

[No*s]

You're navigating through a fog of hazy definitions; I'm not saying that your logic is faulty, just that the means you chose to express your point were confusing. Saying 'God is moral' is not the same as saying 'God is the source of morality'; you have equated those two, in that you agree with the latter and, thus, believe it logically supports the former. A fountain, for example, is a source of water -- that does not mean it is water.

I believe it is this semantic inversion that is the source of our disagreement. Allow me to attempt to phrase your position using my own understanding of the terminology:

Morality represents a constraint on the evaluation of a given action(s) as 'good' or 'evil.' If morality applies to an entity, then any evaluation of the actions of that entity are constrained by that concept of morality. To be 'moral' is to accept the application of morality; to accept the necessary constraints of that morality (and, further, to be evaluated as 'good'). God is the source of morality, in that he created it, but he is not constrained by it -- the evaluation of his actions are not to be constrained by the moral code he created. In other words, God is not moral (this is not a condemnation, merely a neutral statement that explicitly states the inapplicability of moral evaluations to the actions of God); God is no more 'good' or 'evil' than he is 'good' or 'long' -- none of those terms apply. There is still only one morality -- the distinction of 'human morality' is still unnecessary and arbitrary -- but God, while the source of it, is not constrained by it.

A "fog of hazy definitions" is rather unavoidable when discussing God .

Yes, you pretty much have what I'm saying down. The only modification is that I believe God acts and reveals Himself, so we may use metaphors and analogies to express how we perceive those actions, and since I believe in Revelation, we may receive the same things. Other than that, that's very similar to what I'm saying.

 

[jewscout]

But in your case, jewscout, trendy has a point. You get to define God(s) however you wish, but you shouldn't pretend that you're referring to the God of the Torah, a God that was clearly backward, petty, jealous, vindictive, and prone to overkill. It's simply inappropriate to assert, based solely on wishful thinking, that when God threatened to 'kill them all', He really meant 'let's give them a time out and we'll reappraise the whole thing later'' or that when he purportedly did 'kill them all', he did so only because every last one of them (including the first born child of the innocent maidservant) deserved it.

and you can't pretend that you are making your own interpretation of the content of the Torah, like any person would interpret any work of the written word. You look at it and see G-d as that where others would inerpret the writings in the Torah to be wholey different. But we still are stuck with trying to describe the infinite w/ our finite vocabulary and minds and acting like we can place labels such as good or bad on that which is wholey unlike anything else in existance. G-d simply IS.

p.s. would you say that the concept of eternal damnation is originally a Jewish concept...

 

[robtex]

Robtex, I see two problems with your analysis.

First, the idea that the identical action is more moral if it costs the subject more to do it. At one level, I agree with this. In Jesus' parable, the woman who gave her last few coins to charity indeed sacrificed more than the wealthy people who gave much larger amounts. But if you try to extrapolate this sentiment to it's extreme, it becomes absurd, imo. Let's compare me and Bill Gates. If we both give $20 to charity, obviously it costs me more than him, and some might say that I am somehow "better." If we both give $2,000, that would be a heavy burden to me at the moment, but nothing to Bill Gates, and many might say that I am somehow "better." If we both give $200,000, that's something that I'm not even physically capable of doing at the moment; yet it would still be a barely noticeable loss to him. By your argument, he still hasn't done enough. Now imagine someone who is infinitely rich. No matter how much that person gives - even if he spends every second of every day giving - it would still be less by your argument than me giving 20 bucks. It would logically be impossible for this infinite being to ever live up to this standard of morality. Now, is it fair of us, a priori, to create a standard of morality by which it is logically impossible for one party to ever be judged as measuring up and then subject that party to our standard?

Second, and much more importantly for me personally, your argument (and my first rebuttal) assumes that God is nothing more than a superhuman - infinitely bigger and infinitely more powerful - but still separate from man and acting on man as an external agent. I don't see God that way. For me, God is the basis of reality. One cannot ask why God does not give more to us because God already gives everything to us - our very existence. I don't just mean that we "owe" God because God created the world and set things into motion. I mean that God continues to create, to sustain, the universe at every given moment. If God were to cease to exist, the universe would cease to exist. Not because God is vindictive and wouldn't want us to exist without God, but because existence is continually and integrally dependant upon God. God is the "source." When man helps man, that is God helping man, to me. When man doesn't help man, God is still "helping" man.

I don't expect you to "agree" with me, but I do hope I am getting my view across. And I hope that you can see how, given this view, the whole story and your argument doesn't make sense to me.

wow that post was a strong appeal to deism to me. You changed the constant and the variable from the story to your example. In the story the constant was the ill woman who needed help or she would die. The doctors did what they could and came up short but God didn't do anything. It wasn't a matter of degrees but an all or nothing. Later the other constant was the Chrisitan on judgement day who was destoryed. You turned the example into a variable by giving it degrees in your first paragraph. degrees it didn't have in the story. But the point is good so let me rephrase that the idea still stands that even in a dimishing quality a person with more avaliablity with time and money is expected in general by society to have a larger moral obligation, while not proportionally at least in a dimishing degree. Say a person needing a ride at work and person (a) lives 2 miles from him in the same direction and person (b) lives 25 miles in the opposite direction. It would cost person (a) less to preform the good act but even if person (b) did it. Over time if person (a) had many senerios (besides driving) where he refused to step in despite being in a better position to do so we would question it. Not on a proportional level neccessarily but at least on a diminishing scale. Many if not most theists do not hold God to those standards. It is instead chalked up to vague ideas like:

1) it was God's will
2) It is part of God's grand plan
3) God works in mysterious ways
4) who are we to question the mind of God
5) No one can know God.
ect ect


When I was reading this post I was thinking of an ex-gf I had many years ago. She has a rare bone diese that makes her bones rot and thin at a very slow pace. She has a dull pain in her legs all the time and acute pain at least 2-3 times a week (at that time) and it was getting worse over time so now she may have it much more than than. The acute pain would last for hours and she took morphin for it the pain. The strongest the doctor could safely prescribe to her. I use to set next to her and cry and hold her hand when she had the pain I couldn't go to work at times or when I did I felt tremendous guilt. I could not put into words how much pain it brought me.

We were all shocked and disgusted on this website with the torture of prisoners in Iraq and stated so. I would say that pretty much everyone on here or at least the great majority held it to a standard of immorality despite the circumstances of war. God, in his omnipotent proposed existance, tortures Christine like that every week by putting her through acute pain spells but theists don't hold him to the same moral standards as the torturers in Iraq.

 

[cardero]

Or maybe God isn't a person, and He isn't subject to human morality.

This is TRUE.

 

[painted wolf]

Trendy- the only problem with your analogy is it doesn't cover all religions. There are faiths out there with no heaven/hell concept and no 'judgement day'.
'god' in my faith is not a score keeper or a judge.

wa:do

 

[robtex]

Trendy- the only problem with your analogy is it doesn't cover all religions. There are faiths out there with no heaven/hell concept and no 'judgement day'.
'god' in my faith is not a score keeper or a judge.

wa:do

PWolf the story was taken from a website set up for deconverted Christians. It was about the Christian God not Gods in general.

 

[painted wolf]

it seemed to me that Trendy is expanding it to cover religion in general IMHO
Thus I felt I should point out that not all god concepts are quite the same and wanted to add that to the debate with another POV.
If this is just about the Abrahamic god then I'll toddle on off

wa:do

 

[lilithu]

wow that post was a strong appeal to deism to me.

That's odd, since I am not a Deist. At least not as I understand Deism to be. I am kinda the opposite of a Deist.

You changed the constant and the variable from the story to your example. In the story the constant was the ill woman who needed help or she would die. The doctors did what they could and came up short but God didn't do anything. It wasn't a matter of degrees but an all or nothing. Later the other constant was the Chrisitan on judgement day who was destoryed. You turned the example into a variable by giving it degrees in your first paragraph. degrees it didn't have in the story.

We are talking across each other here, I think, and not connecting. I don't understand where the ill woman comes into the picture. I even went and read (skimmed) TC's cumbering story twice looking for reference to this woman. You will have to explain to me again, which is the constant and which is the variable that you refer to.

As for God not doing anything for the woman, God gave her life. God gave her the doctors who were trying to save her. And if she died, well... we all die. Are you saying that death is proof that God doesn't do enough? As for the Christian who was destroyed on Judgement Day, c'mon Robtex, you're talking about a story written by someone who wants to condemn God. The author has written God to be as capricious and cruel as possible. How am I supposed to respond to that seriously? I could easily write a counter story where God tries to bend over backwards to please a bunch of ingrateful houseguests who are never satisfied no matter how much He gives them. I could, but I won't, because it would have no more authority than the OP's story. You'll notice that I did not debate TC on the basis of that story. I chose to respond to you because I respect you and because you were presenting a logical argument, albeit one that I think is flawed. But perhaps I misunderstood you. What do you see as the constant and the variable?

But the point is good so let me rephrase that the idea still stands that even in a dimishing quality a person with more avaliablity with time and money is expected in general by society to have a larger moral obligation, while not proportionally at least in a dimishing degree. Say a person needing a ride at work and person (a) lives 2 miles from him in the same direction and person (b) lives 25 miles in the opposite direction. It would cost person (a) less to preform the good act but even if person (b) did it. Over time if person (a) had many senerios (besides driving) where he refused to step in despite being in a better position to do so we would question it. Not on a proportional level neccessarily but at least on a diminishing scale. Many if not most theists do not hold God to those standards. It is instead chalked up to vague ideas like:

1) it was God's will
2) It is part of God's grand plan
3) God works in mysterious ways
4) who are we to question the mind of God
5) No one can know God.
ect ect

Even on a diminishing scale, one cannot compare the infinite to the finite and judge them on the same basis. The infinite will always be seen as coming up short if held to the same standard because the infinite could always do more. Not just more, but infinitely more. No matter how much is done, it will always look like God is not making much effort at all. Again, if you know beforehand that your standard of judgment will make it so that one side will never be able to measure up, no matter what, how can it possibly be fair to use that standard of judgement against them? By your agument, under what conditions could an infinite God possibly meet these standards? Given that there is no way to fairly hold God to the same standards as we hold ourselves, people can say whatever they want about God's will, God's plan, etc... If that makes them feel better, why take that away from them?

When I was reading this post I was thinking of an ex-gf I had many years ago. She has a rare bone diese that makes her bones rot and thin at a very slow pace. She has a dull pain in her legs all the time and acute pain at least 2-3 times a week (at that time) and it was getting worse over time so now she may have it much more than than. The acute pain would last for hours and she took morphin for it the pain. The strongest the doctor could safely prescribe to her. I use to set next to her and cry and hold her hand when she had the pain I couldn't go to work at times or when I did I felt tremendous guilt. I could not put into words how much pain it brought me.

We were all shocked and disgusted on this website with the torture of prisoners in Iraq and stated so. I would say that pretty much everyone on here or at least the great majority held it to a standard of immorality despite the circumstances of war. God, in his omnipotent proposed existance, tortures Christine like that every week by putting her through acute pain spells but theists don't hold him to the same moral standards as the torturers in Iraq.

Robtex, I'm going to say the same thing that I said to TC, and it's not meant to be an argument against you. I'm saying this as a friend - please try to take it as such - because I sense from your words that you are still angry about what you and your girlfriend went thru. (and if I'm mistaken, I apologize) If you don't believe in God, then there is no one out there to judge or to be angry at. Are you mad at this thing that doesn't exist? Or are you mad at the people who still believe in this thing that doesn't exist? Why not just call us silly and leave it at that. People tortured the prisoners in Iraq. They should be held accountable. No one tortured Christine. It was the consequences of a very unfortunate disease. And I am very sorry for the pain that she went thru, and the pain that it caused you. -lilith

 

[Christopher Krajewski]

Is a rascist .

God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-holy, perfect in FORM, but there is something in BEAUTY and JUSTICE (kind of inseparably for the perfect human corporeality, bla, bla) ATTITUDE which conditions on the SIN of even, let us say, porgress in what we are even dreaming up here .

In fact is it that rascism even overcomes the question of progress and evolution (kind of inseparably):sarcastic ?