I'm pretty sure almost everyone here would concede the point if God spoke it from the heavens, even most of the atheists.
What exactly is the point in question? I would concede* that God exists and that gay marriage is against his wishes. I would not concede that gay marriage is wrong.
*Setting aside Cartesian perception problems and some other stuff.
Is there any scenario in which God can exist and make moral judgments and yet not be the supreme arbiter of morality?
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Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
What exactly is the point in question? I would concede* that God exists and that gay marriage is against his wishes. I would not concede that gay marriage is wrong.
But if God is omnipotent, isn't he capable of making gay marriage intrinsically wrong?
Omnipotent, and perfect, and created all of us, and the bible suggest he created gay people to be gay, and yet he hates them Also states he doesn't hate any of his children, but must weed out the sinners, it's also stated that "all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of god".
Furthermore, one could consider the story of the Good Samaritan, who stopped his cart, and with no question helped a stranger who belonged to an enemy culture by giving him shelter, food, and healing, and never questioning the man, or telling him his way was wrong.
I believe the point was that the Bible is against homosexuality, something you already agree with anyway.
Anyway, we all know that the "people who wouldn't concede the point even if God himself spoke from heaven" is a standard theist barb alluding to the providence of the Bible. I don't like barbs to pass freely.
But if God is omnipotent, isn't he capable of making gay marriage intrinsically wrong?
I'm sure BS would hear the Man out, but BS is saying he would not concede the point without further reasoning. I'm sure we can all agree God could make a stronger case about it than Paul, and I'm sure BS would listen to it.
What exactly is the point in question? I would concede* that God exists and that gay marriage is against his wishes. I would not concede that gay marriage is wrong.
But if God is omnipotent, isn't he capable of making gay marriage intrinsically wrong?
Omnipotent, and perfect, and created all of us, and the bible suggest he created gay people to be gay, and yet he hates them Also states he doesn't hate any of his children, but must weed out the sinners, it's also stated that "all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of god".
Furthermore, one could consider the story of the Good Samaritan, who stopped his cart, and with no question helped a stranger who belonged to an enemy culture by giving him shelter, food, and healing, and never questioning the man, or telling him his way was wrong.
Just curious, where does it say in the Bible that God created gay people to be gay? Most of the anti-gay Christian people I've come across have said that being gay is a choice.
But if God is omnipotent, isn't he capable of making gay marriage intrinsically wrong?
If he changed the properties of gay marriage such that it fit the definition of "morally wrong", he would have to do something to make it intrinsically harmful (I'm being deliberately vague on the definition of "morally wrong", but most would agree it has something to do with harm). But if he did this, would it really be gay marriage that was wrong, or would it be his act of changing it that was wrong? If you walk into a situation and change it such that something which was hitherto not harmful became harmful, most would say that you bear the responsibility for any harm that arises. If you poison a bunch of baby food and say, "Hah, parents, now it's wrong for you to feed your babies baby food!", aren't you the one who's actually in the wrong?
He can hand out rewards and punishments according to his moral judgments, but so can any human with power over another.
But there's a definitional problem here, because in a Judeo-Christian system there is no such thing as "morality" except "that which God has ordained." Morality is intrinsically dependent on God's judgment, because God is the one who created the possibility for it.
Morality is the rules of the game. If you're playing Monopoly, and you decide to break a rule, it may well make a better game--but it's not Monopoly.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
He can hand out rewards and punishments according to his moral judgments, but so can any human with power over another.
But there's a definitional problem here, because in a Judeo-Christian system there is no such thing as "morality" except "that which God has ordained." Morality is intrinsically dependent on God's judgment, because God is the one who created the possibility for it.
Morality is the rules of the game. If you're playing Monopoly, and you decide to break a rule, it may well make a better game--but it's not Monopoly.
Problems:
First of all, it makes the term "good" entirely arbitrary. If "good" is just "what God commands," then what exactly does it mean when we say something is "good"? What does it mean to say "God's commands are good" or "God is good" or that anything is good? If it's just that God commands it, then it just becomes "God's commands are God's commands." It's a tautology, and like all tautologies, it says nothing at all. Unless we have a reason why God's commands are good, then proclamation that they are good or moral is absolutely meaningless.
Second, it creates the problem where nothing is, in itself, right or wrong, it's all subject to God's commands. For instance, is routing an entire city's population right or wrong? Well, one might say it's wrong, but God specifically commands the Israelites on multiple occasions to go slaughter entire cities. So is that slaughter of people right, or wrong? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and this slaughter isn't? What does that say about slaughter? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and then goes back and makes it not so?
You might argue that God doesn't act in a completely arbitrary, capricious and fickle manner, but that's exactly what you're arguing. You're saying that something being moral or immoral has no basis whatsoever except what God commands. Were this the case, then there is no restriction or basis on what God commands. It's entirely up to God's whims. God could command something unspeakable like "nuke the planet", and that would be good because God commands it. So does that make atrocities good? Doesn't this undermine our ability to say anything is good?
Unless you're going to argue that God would only command things that are good, but that contradicts what you just said.
Third, it doesn't explain why God is the ultimate moral authority. What is it specifically about God that makes him arbiter over good and evil?
But there's a definitional problem here, because in a Judeo-Christian system there is no such thing as "morality" except "that which God has ordained."
Eh, depends on which Judeo-Christian you ask. Leibniz, for example, argues that this would make God's omnibenevolence trivial and pointless. And Aquinas argues that omnibenevolence flows from omniscience: God knows what is good, rather than ordaining what is good.
Anyway, this too is a power possessed by any mortal dictator. Orwell gave us our most famous, if fictional, example. Declaring "morality" to mean "that which God (or the Party) has ordained" is at best trivial and at worst disingenuous. You can also start calling your Subway card a "Ph.D.", but that doesn't mean you've gotten a higher education.
Morality is the rules of the game. If you're playing Monopoly, and you decide to break a rule, it may well make a better game--but it's not Monopoly.
However, you might follow the rules flawlessly and then one day an expert on games comes by and asks you why you are playing Checkers and calling it Monopoly.
Just because you are following a set of rules, does not mean that you are following the correct set of rules. In fact the "person" who invented the rules might be quite puzzled by why you are following a set of rules that does not match what the intended rules are supposed to be.
First of all, it makes the term "good" entirely arbitrary. If "good" is just "what God commands," then what exactly does it mean when we say something is "good"? What does it mean to say "God's commands are good" or "God is good" or that anything is good? If it's just that God commands it, then it just becomes "God's commands are God's commands." It's a tautology, and like all tautologies, it says nothing at all. Unless we have a reason why God's commands are good, then proclamation that they are good or moral is absolutely meaningless.
This problem is inherent in the conception of God as an "infinitely good" being, but I don't think the solution is as distant as you'd suggest. "God is good" is a tautology in this conception because God literally is good; he is the quality of being good, and as such exists outside our conception of morality.
Quote from Highroller »
Second, it creates the problem where nothing is, in itself, right or wrong, it's all subject to God's commands. For instance, is routing an entire city's population right or wrong? Well, one might say it's wrong, but God specifically commands the Israelites on multiple occasions to go slaughter entire cities. So is that slaughter of people right, or wrong? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and this slaughter isn't? What does that say about slaughter? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and then goes back and makes it not so?
Yes, this is true, and while it is potentially troubling, I don't think the possibility that something is troubling is necessarily a good argument against it.
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You might argue that God doesn't act in a completely arbitrary, capricious and fickle manner, but that's exactly what you're arguing. You're saying that something being moral or immoral has no basis whatsoever except what God commands. Were this the case, then there is no restriction or basis on what God commands. It's entirely up to God's whims. God could command something unspeakable like "nuke the planet", and that would be good because God commands it. So does that make atrocities good? Doesn't this undermine our ability to say anything is good?
Yes and no.
You're approaching the question of God as though God were another guy like you and me, just one who was more powerful. But that's fundamentally not what God is; God exists outside of time and the universe. To say that God has "a will" or "makes decisions" is an artifact of our conception of him, where in fact God is an abstract force, Love or Good or what-have-you, which doesn't make decisions so much as create the environment in which decisions are made. God doesn't change his mind, because God doesn't have a "mind" in any sense we'd recognize.
So while yes, it is theoretically possible to conceive of a world in which "nuke the world" is God's Will and is good, that's not the world in which we live, because the conditions of the universe have already been set.
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Unless you're going to argue that God would only command things that are good, but that contradicts what you just said.
Third, it doesn't explain why God is the ultimate moral authority. What is it specifically about God that makes him arbiter over good and evil?
Because "good" and "evil" are inherent to the universe God created, in the same way that the creators of Monopoly! are the arbiters of the rules of Monopoly!.
Eh, depends on which Judeo-Christian you ask. Leibniz, for example, argues that this would make God's omnibenevolence trivial and pointless. And Aquinas argues that omnibenevolence flows from omniscience: God knows what is good, rather than ordaining what is good.
Of course, this is a difficult question. Presumably when God created the Universe in this way, he created it in the way he already knew was good.
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Anyway, this too is a power possessed by any mortal dictator. Orwell gave us our most famous, if fictional, example. Declaring "morality" to mean "that which God (or the Party) has ordained" is at best trivial and at worst disingenuous. You can also start calling your Subway card a "Ph.D.", but that doesn't mean you've gotten a higher education.
But that's not a valid analogy. Certainly Big Brother couldn't ordain what was "right" or "wrong" with any validity, but that isn't really their purview, even if they assumed it. It's quite possible, however, for the Party to determine what's proper in the Party, and that's precisely what's going on.
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But who is God to say that we're playing Monopoly in the first place?
He is the necessary precondition to us asking that question.
However, you might follow the rules flawlessly and then one day an expert on games comes by and asks you why you are playing Checkers and calling it Monopoly.
Just because you are following a set of rules, does not mean that you are following the correct set of rules. In fact the "person" who invented the rules might be quite puzzled by why you are following a set of rules that does not match what the intended rules are supposed to be.
I'm not saying that the particulars of mainstream Christian morality are correct, I'm just speaking to the underlying philosophical premise.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
This problem is inherent in the conception of God as an "infinitely good" being, but I don't think the solution is as distant as you'd suggest. "God is good" is a tautology in this conception because God literally is good; he is the quality of being good, and as such exists outside our conception of morality.
1. That doesn't make sense. How can he exist outside of our conception of morality if we're calling him good? Goodness and virtue are within our conceptions of morality. God cannot be outside our conceptions of morality if we are making moral judgments about him.
2. That doesn't address the problem. To say that "God is good" is meaningless under your definition because it reduces all statements involving the idea of "goodness" to nothing at all. "God is good" becomes "God is God." "God's proclamations are good" becomes "God's proclamations are God's proclamations." The statement "good" becomes invalidated because it's rendered a tautology.
Yes, this is true, and while it is potentially troubling, I don't think the possibility that something is troubling is necessarily a good argument against it.
Why not? I think it's a fantastic argument against it. Are you prepared to say that mass genocide is good?
Yes and no.
You're approaching the question of God as though God were another guy like you and me, just one who was more powerful. But that's fundamentally not what God is; God exists outside of time and the universe.
... I don't see where the part after the semicolon contradicts the part before.
To say that God has "a will" or "makes decisions" is an artifact of our conception of him, where in fact God is an abstract force, Love or Good or what-have-you, which doesn't make decisions so much as create the environment in which decisions are made. God doesn't change his mind, because God doesn't have a "mind" in any sense we'd recognize.
Then God cannot make proclamations or issue commands. You have defeated yourself.
In fact, I'm wondering whether you lost sight of the fact that it is Christianity that's the religion you're trying to defend. The fact that God is an entity with a will who thinks, speaks, issues commands, and can be personified is the whole point.
So while yes, it is theoretically possible to conceive of a world in which "nuke the world" is God's Will and is good, that's not the world in which we live, because the conditions of the universe have already been set.
That doesn't make any sense at all. If, indeed, the only factor in morality is whether or not God commands it, God can command us to nuke the world or commit genocide and it would be just as moral as if God told us to take care of a sick person, because that's the only factor: God commanded it.
Now you probably find that problematic because you don't accept the idea that nuking the world is the same as taking care of a sick person, and you're probably against the idea that God would command us to nuke the world. Therefore, you probably believe that God would command us to cure the sick person but not command us to kill every living thing on this planet, because the former is a good action and the latter a bad one, right?
So in other words, you're saying that God would command us to cure the sick person but not kill everyone on the planet because the former is good and the latter is bad, right?
But if that's the case, then you're saying that God commands things because they are good, which is entirely different from things being good because God commands them.
If there is any other factor involved, such as God only commanding good things, then you have invalidate your previous assertion: that the only thing that matters is whether or not God commands it.
Because "good" and "evil" are inherent to the universe God created, in the same way that the creators of Monopoly! are the arbiters of the rules of Monopoly!.
That doesn't answer the question or even address it. Basically you're saying God created the universe, so God is therefore in charge of good and evil. That doesn't follow.
Essentially, you are saying that God gets to decide what is moral or immoral because God is really powerful. So you're saying might makes right? That the person who is more powerful is automatically more ethical because that person has the power?
But that's not a valid analogy. Certainly Big Brother couldn't ordain what was "right" or "wrong" with any validity, but that isn't really their purview, even if they assumed it. It's quite possible, however, for the Party to determine what's proper in the Party, and that's precisely what's going on.
1. That doesn't make sense. How can he exist outside of our conception of morality if we're calling him good? Goodness and virtue are within our conceptions of morality. God cannot be outside our conceptions of morality if we are making moral judgments about him.
Because he is good itself. "Good" isn't good any more than "bad" is good; they're the standards by which those things are judged.
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2. That doesn't address the problem. To say that "God is good" is meaningless under your definition because it reduces all statements involving the idea of "goodness" to nothing at all. "God is good" becomes "God is God." "God's proclamations are good" becomes "God's proclamations are God's proclamations." The statement "good" becomes invalidated because it's rendered a tautology.
Yes.
But then so does any discussion of "good"; Good is Good, Things We Like are Good, etc..
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Why not? I think it's a fantastic argument against it. Are you prepared to say that mass genocide is good?
It is conceivable to imagine such a situation, though I suggest it is a very unlikely one.
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... I don't see where the part after the semicolon contradicts the part before.
Our conception of identity and will are dependent on our circumstances. What does it mean to "decide" something if you don't exist within time? If there is no time "before" and "after" the decision, in what sense is there a decision?
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Then God cannot make proclamations or issue commands. You have defeated yourself.
In fact, I'm wondering whether you lost sight of the fact that it is Christianity that's the religion you're trying to defend. The fact that God is an entity with a will who thinks, speaks, issues commands, and can be personified is the whole point.
Of course God can issue proclamations and commands, but his is an unchanging will. This is called divine immutability, and is a central part of Christian theology.
Quote from Highroller »
That doesn't make any sense at all. If, indeed, the only factor in morality is whether or not God commands it, God can command us to nuke the world or commit genocide and it would be just as moral as if God told us to take care of a sick person, because that's the only factor: God commanded it.
Now you probably find that problematic because you don't accept the idea that nuking the world is the same as taking care of a sick person, and you're probably against the idea that God would command us to nuke the world. Therefore, you probably believe that God would command us to cure the sick person but not command us to kill every living thing on this planet, because the former is a good action and the latter a bad one, right?
So in other words, you're saying that God would command us to cure the sick person but not kill everyone on the planet because the former is good and the latter is bad, right?
But if that's the case, then you're saying that God commands things because they are good, which is entirely different from things being good because God commands them.
If there is any other factor involved, such as God only commanding good things, then you have invalidate your previous assertion: that the only thing that matters is whether or not God commands it.
I don't actually see the problem here.
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That doesn't answer the question or even address it. Basically you're saying God created the universe, so God is therefore in charge of good and evil. That doesn't follow.
Essentially, you are saying that God gets to decide what is moral or immoral because God is really powerful. So you're saying might makes right? That the person who is more powerful is automatically more ethical because that person has the power?
God by definition exists on a separate plane from temporal power. There is no such thing as "good" or "evil" outside of God's creation of the two; there is no coherent definition of the two in a theistic universe which does not depend on God's will.
So's the guy who introduced my mom to my dad, but I don't feel any need to consult his authority on matters moral.
Those aren't comparable, and you know it. Don't be flippant.
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Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Marriage in the Bible wasn't always one man, multiple women and concubines; but essentially it was the same in that a brideprice among the Israelites and later Judeans was paid. The essence of the brideprice was that a marriage was arranged to be a transfer of property from a male relative to the groom.
We ditched that notion a long time ago. If we wanted to return to the marriage of the Bible, we would need to go back to arranged marriages and kick love out of the picture.
I don't understand why anyone cares about this argument. You can't logically pick and choose what's literal and what's metaphorical in the bible. Since I've never heard of anyone who's dumb enough to think every word in the bible should be taken literally, you're not allowed to take any of it literally. Not logically, at least. It's all equally fallible.
Marriage in the Bible wasn't always one man, multiple women and concubines; but essentially it was the same in that a brideprice among the Israelites and later Judeans was paid. The essence of the brideprice was that a marriage was arranged to be a transfer of property from a male relative to the groom.
We ditched that notion a long time ago. If we wanted to return to the marriage of the Bible, we would need to go back to arranged marriages and kick love out of the picture.
Yeah, and we would have to stone women who divorced their husbands too. And if a woman's husband died and she they didn't produce a child, she would have to marry his brother.
[quote]The thing is, Paul has exactly the same problem that Leviticus does. If you're going to listen to Paul on the issue of homosexuality, you also have to listen to Paul on the points of condemnation of women and the acceptance of the practice of slavery. If you allow your wife to speak in church and/or you support emancipation, than you can't use Paul's argument to condemn homosexuals.
And that's not even the best argument against Paul's supposed condemnation homosexuality. The real point Paul was trying to make wasn't that homosexuality is bad -- the problem is that people read [Romans 1] and then stop, when the entire last 'hellfire and brimstone' passage in [Romans 1] that condemns all manner of sexual misconduct is nothing more than a lead-in to [Romans 2], which goes way out of it's way to say that it's God's job to condemn people for sinning -- not humans'.
No. No you didn't just twist scripture to make the unnatural lust of sodomy/same-sex ok. You also aren't reading in context when it comes to "women should learn in silence." If you read the chapter and the chapters around it, you'll see that it's referring to THOSE women in that church. They could've ask their questions at home with their husbands, but instead were disturbing the service. They also were novices in the learning of the word and were easy targets for confusion. You can't twist scriptures to fit your doctrine yo. Not cool.
[quote]The thing is, Paul has exactly the same problem that Leviticus does. If you're going to listen to Paul on the issue of homosexuality, you also have to listen to Paul on the points of condemnation of women and the acceptance of the practice of slavery. If you allow your wife to speak in church and/or you support emancipation, than you can't use Paul's argument to condemn homosexuals.
And that's not even the best argument against Paul's supposed condemnation homosexuality. The real point Paul was trying to make wasn't that homosexuality is bad -- the problem is that people read [Romans 1] and then stop, when the entire last 'hellfire and brimstone' passage in [Romans 1] that condemns all manner of sexual misconduct is nothing more than a lead-in to [Romans 2], which goes way out of it's way to say that it's God's job to condemn people for sinning -- not humans'.
No. No you didn't just twist scripture to make the unnatural lust of sodomy/same-sex ok. You also aren't reading in context when it comes to "women should learn in silence." If you read the chapter and the chapters around it, you'll see that it's referring to THOSE women in that church. They could've ask their questions at home with their husbands, but instead were disturbing the service. They also were novices in the learning of the word and were easy targets for confusion. You can't twist scriptures to fit your doctrine yo. Not cool.
Maybe Paul was just saying that that particular homosexual was wrong?
Because, I'm sorry, any plain text reading that isn't "Paul was a massive mysoginist, yo" is...well pretty close to impossible. And certainly not the reading people have been making for, oh, 20 centuries.
I mean there is a REASON the catholics continue to refuse to ordain women, and it's pretty much *exactly* that line.
Is there any scenario in which God can exist and make moral judgments and yet not be the supreme arbiter of morality?
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Omnipotent, and perfect, and created all of us, and the bible suggest he created gay people to be gay, and yet he hates them Also states he doesn't hate any of his children, but must weed out the sinners, it's also stated that "all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of god".
Furthermore, one could consider the story of the Good Samaritan, who stopped his cart, and with no question helped a stranger who belonged to an enemy culture by giving him shelter, food, and healing, and never questioning the man, or telling him his way was wrong.
Anyway, we all know that the "people who wouldn't concede the point even if God himself spoke from heaven" is a standard theist barb alluding to the providence of the Bible. I don't like barbs to pass freely.
I'm sure BS would hear the Man out, but BS is saying he would not concede the point without further reasoning. I'm sure we can all agree God could make a stronger case about it than Paul, and I'm sure BS would listen to it.
Yes.
He can hand out rewards and punishments according to his moral judgments, but so can any human with power over another.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
But there's a definitional problem here, because in a Judeo-Christian system there is no such thing as "morality" except "that which God has ordained." Morality is intrinsically dependent on God's judgment, because God is the one who created the possibility for it.
Morality is the rules of the game. If you're playing Monopoly, and you decide to break a rule, it may well make a better game--but it's not Monopoly.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Problems:
First of all, it makes the term "good" entirely arbitrary. If "good" is just "what God commands," then what exactly does it mean when we say something is "good"? What does it mean to say "God's commands are good" or "God is good" or that anything is good? If it's just that God commands it, then it just becomes "God's commands are God's commands." It's a tautology, and like all tautologies, it says nothing at all. Unless we have a reason why God's commands are good, then proclamation that they are good or moral is absolutely meaningless.
Second, it creates the problem where nothing is, in itself, right or wrong, it's all subject to God's commands. For instance, is routing an entire city's population right or wrong? Well, one might say it's wrong, but God specifically commands the Israelites on multiple occasions to go slaughter entire cities. So is that slaughter of people right, or wrong? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and this slaughter isn't? What does that say about slaughter? What if God decides this slaughter is correct and then goes back and makes it not so?
You might argue that God doesn't act in a completely arbitrary, capricious and fickle manner, but that's exactly what you're arguing. You're saying that something being moral or immoral has no basis whatsoever except what God commands. Were this the case, then there is no restriction or basis on what God commands. It's entirely up to God's whims. God could command something unspeakable like "nuke the planet", and that would be good because God commands it. So does that make atrocities good? Doesn't this undermine our ability to say anything is good?
Unless you're going to argue that God would only command things that are good, but that contradicts what you just said.
Third, it doesn't explain why God is the ultimate moral authority. What is it specifically about God that makes him arbiter over good and evil?
Anyway, this too is a power possessed by any mortal dictator. Orwell gave us our most famous, if fictional, example. Declaring "morality" to mean "that which God (or the Party) has ordained" is at best trivial and at worst disingenuous. You can also start calling your Subway card a "Ph.D.", but that doesn't mean you've gotten a higher education.
But who is God to say that we're playing Monopoly in the first place?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
However, you might follow the rules flawlessly and then one day an expert on games comes by and asks you why you are playing Checkers and calling it Monopoly.
Just because you are following a set of rules, does not mean that you are following the correct set of rules. In fact the "person" who invented the rules might be quite puzzled by why you are following a set of rules that does not match what the intended rules are supposed to be.
This problem is inherent in the conception of God as an "infinitely good" being, but I don't think the solution is as distant as you'd suggest. "God is good" is a tautology in this conception because God literally is good; he is the quality of being good, and as such exists outside our conception of morality.
Yes, this is true, and while it is potentially troubling, I don't think the possibility that something is troubling is necessarily a good argument against it.
Yes and no.
You're approaching the question of God as though God were another guy like you and me, just one who was more powerful. But that's fundamentally not what God is; God exists outside of time and the universe. To say that God has "a will" or "makes decisions" is an artifact of our conception of him, where in fact God is an abstract force, Love or Good or what-have-you, which doesn't make decisions so much as create the environment in which decisions are made. God doesn't change his mind, because God doesn't have a "mind" in any sense we'd recognize.
So while yes, it is theoretically possible to conceive of a world in which "nuke the world" is God's Will and is good, that's not the world in which we live, because the conditions of the universe have already been set.
Because "good" and "evil" are inherent to the universe God created, in the same way that the creators of Monopoly! are the arbiters of the rules of Monopoly!.
Of course, this is a difficult question. Presumably when God created the Universe in this way, he created it in the way he already knew was good.
But that's not a valid analogy. Certainly Big Brother couldn't ordain what was "right" or "wrong" with any validity, but that isn't really their purview, even if they assumed it. It's quite possible, however, for the Party to determine what's proper in the Party, and that's precisely what's going on.
He is the necessary precondition to us asking that question.
I'm not saying that the particulars of mainstream Christian morality are correct, I'm just speaking to the underlying philosophical premise.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
[Clan Flamingo]
1. That doesn't make sense. How can he exist outside of our conception of morality if we're calling him good? Goodness and virtue are within our conceptions of morality. God cannot be outside our conceptions of morality if we are making moral judgments about him.
2. That doesn't address the problem. To say that "God is good" is meaningless under your definition because it reduces all statements involving the idea of "goodness" to nothing at all. "God is good" becomes "God is God." "God's proclamations are good" becomes "God's proclamations are God's proclamations." The statement "good" becomes invalidated because it's rendered a tautology.
Why not? I think it's a fantastic argument against it. Are you prepared to say that mass genocide is good?
... I don't see where the part after the semicolon contradicts the part before.
Then God cannot make proclamations or issue commands. You have defeated yourself.
In fact, I'm wondering whether you lost sight of the fact that it is Christianity that's the religion you're trying to defend. The fact that God is an entity with a will who thinks, speaks, issues commands, and can be personified is the whole point.
That doesn't make any sense at all. If, indeed, the only factor in morality is whether or not God commands it, God can command us to nuke the world or commit genocide and it would be just as moral as if God told us to take care of a sick person, because that's the only factor: God commanded it.
Now you probably find that problematic because you don't accept the idea that nuking the world is the same as taking care of a sick person, and you're probably against the idea that God would command us to nuke the world. Therefore, you probably believe that God would command us to cure the sick person but not command us to kill every living thing on this planet, because the former is a good action and the latter a bad one, right?
So in other words, you're saying that God would command us to cure the sick person but not kill everyone on the planet because the former is good and the latter is bad, right?
But if that's the case, then you're saying that God commands things because they are good, which is entirely different from things being good because God commands them.
If there is any other factor involved, such as God only commanding good things, then you have invalidate your previous assertion: that the only thing that matters is whether or not God commands it.
That doesn't answer the question or even address it. Basically you're saying God created the universe, so God is therefore in charge of good and evil. That doesn't follow.
Essentially, you are saying that God gets to decide what is moral or immoral because God is really powerful. So you're saying might makes right? That the person who is more powerful is automatically more ethical because that person has the power?
Pantheism?
So's the guy who introduced my mom to my dad, but I don't feel any need to consult his authority on matters moral.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Because he is good itself. "Good" isn't good any more than "bad" is good; they're the standards by which those things are judged.
Yes.
But then so does any discussion of "good"; Good is Good, Things We Like are Good, etc..
It is conceivable to imagine such a situation, though I suggest it is a very unlikely one.
Our conception of identity and will are dependent on our circumstances. What does it mean to "decide" something if you don't exist within time? If there is no time "before" and "after" the decision, in what sense is there a decision?
Of course God can issue proclamations and commands, but his is an unchanging will. This is called divine immutability, and is a central part of Christian theology.
I don't actually see the problem here.
God by definition exists on a separate plane from temporal power. There is no such thing as "good" or "evil" outside of God's creation of the two; there is no coherent definition of the two in a theistic universe which does not depend on God's will.
Nah.
I don't see how.
Those aren't comparable, and you know it. Don't be flippant.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
ephesians 5:22-33
Matthew 14:9-5
Also read the story of Sodom and Gammorah
We ditched that notion a long time ago. If we wanted to return to the marriage of the Bible, we would need to go back to arranged marriages and kick love out of the picture.
Yeah, and we would have to stone women who divorced their husbands too. And if a woman's husband died and she they didn't produce a child, she would have to marry his brother.
No. No you didn't just twist scripture to make the unnatural lust of sodomy/same-sex ok. You also aren't reading in context when it comes to "women should learn in silence." If you read the chapter and the chapters around it, you'll see that it's referring to THOSE women in that church. They could've ask their questions at home with their husbands, but instead were disturbing the service. They also were novices in the learning of the word and were easy targets for confusion. You can't twist scriptures to fit your doctrine yo. Not cool.
Care to elaborate?
Maybe Paul was just saying that that particular homosexual was wrong?
Because, I'm sorry, any plain text reading that isn't "Paul was a massive mysoginist, yo" is...well pretty close to impossible. And certainly not the reading people have been making for, oh, 20 centuries.
I mean there is a REASON the catholics continue to refuse to ordain women, and it's pretty much *exactly* that line.
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