Lets discuss God.

[Aesir]

This is a thread that asks a simple question but in order to ask it we have to make a few assumptions.

Imagine a theoretical existence where no one denies the existence of god, the three Abraham Religions are all different paths to God. Every human being accepts and knows god exists, mostly like from scientific evidence or what have you.

Now with this assumption the question I ask is; Should you follow him? Ultimately it's a morality question. If god says something is good does it necessarily make it so?

 

[ballin4life]

The answer to "Should you follow him?" is it depends. I'll follow him if I think it will make me better off.

The answer to "if god says something is good does it necessarily make it so?" is no. Just because you created something that does not mean that you are the ultimate arbiter of morality. Also see underdogs on the Is-Ought problem.

 

[Savon]

Depends on the nature of this god. Is the god cruel? Merciful? Vain? Greedy?

All of these questions and many more must be answered before one can decide whether or not they want to follow this god.

 

[Aesir]

The personality of the Abrahamic god is mostly the same in all 3 religions that follow him. (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) So think of that when wondering what type of god this is.

The answer to "Should you follow him?" is it depends. I'll follow him if I think it will make me better off.

Just you? What about others? If God wants his followers to murder innocent people for defying him, would you support it? Would you help?

The answer to "if god says something is good does it necessarily make it so?" is no. Just because you created something that does not mean that you are the ultimate arbiter of morality. Also see underdogs on the Is-Ought problem.

Then where you we get morality from? If god makes a law we find immoral, can one really say that god is the source of morality?

 

[ballin4life]

paging Budget Player Cadet ... BPC to the thread please.

I get morality from my own opinions. My own opinions say that murdering innocent people is wrong, so I wouldn't support that.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

This is a thread that asks a simple question but in order to ask it we have to make a few assumptions.

Imagine a theoretical existence where no one denies the existence of god, the three Abraham Religions are all different paths to God. Every human being accepts and knows god exists, mostly like from scientific evidence or what have you.

Now with this assumption the question I ask is; Should you follow him? Ultimately it's a morality question. If god says something is good does it necessarily make it so?

Define "good".

It all depends on the definition. If you mean morally good in the traditional ethical sense, then no. In fact, I made a video on the topic. However, the question of if god gets to redefine "good" is open, so... Kind of a hard question to answer, really.

 

[Aesir]

Define "good".

It all depends on the definition. If you mean morally good in the traditional ethical sense, then no. In fact, I made a video on the topic. However, the question of if god gets to redefine "good" is open, so... Kind of a hard question to answer, really.

I understand the ambiguous sense of the word good, as it can be quite subjective. But we'll stick to basic notions of what good means.


But what I'm asking is, if god is a source of morality for his followers, and there's nothing stopping god from changing morality as he sees fit, wheres the moral absolution? Doesn't Morality become relative at that point?

 

[Ganonsburg]

I think it's worth noting that when God is mentioned in each of the Abrahamic religions, he has slightly different traits. ie, in Christianity, there's the Trinity. But the way the discussion is headed now, those differences don't matter so I won't bother continuing that point.

One of God's basic characteristics is that he's constant. He doesn't change with time. His characteristics are what provide the basis for both logic and morality. As such, logic and morality remain constant (not to mention, universal). He created the universe, and as such, his (never-changing) sense of logic and morals are the logic and morals that govern the universe.

So yes, just because God says it, that makes it so. If you desire to follow the rules of logic and morality, then yes, you should follow him. If not, then no, you don't have to.

 

[ballin4life]

He created the universe, and as such, his (never-changing) sense of logic and morals are the logic and morals that govern the universe.

So yes, just because God says it, that makes it so. If you desire to follow the rules of logic and morality, then yes, you should follow him. If not, then no, you don't have to.

Uh, how did God create logic?

In what possible universe would this syllogism ever be false?

Men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore Socrates is mortal


This suggests logic is universal regardless of the properties of God.


As for morality, exactly why does God's opinion on stuff matter?


And according to this:

his (never-changing) sense of logic and morals are the logic and morals that govern the universe.

then anything that happens is already acceptable according to God's logic and morals (otherwise it wouldn't have happened).

 

[Aesir]

I think it's worth noting that when God is mentioned in each of the Abrahamic religions, he has slightly different traits. ie, in Christianity, there's the Trinity. But the way the discussion is headed now, those differences don't matter so I won't bother continuing that point.

Catholics are the only denomination which believes the trinity. The traits are all the same, outside of the trinity and a few stories. Generally speaking he is the same in all three religions.

One of God's basic characteristics is that he's constant. He doesn't change with time. His characteristics are what provide the basis for both logic and morality. As such, logic and morality remain constant (not to mention, universal). He created the universe, and as such, his (never-changing) sense of logic and morals are the logic and morals that govern the universe.

Going on what ballin said, logic can be independent of god, a reality where god doesn't exist could still produce logic. Furthermore a reality where god doesn't exist could still produce morality. So why is god considered the basis of morality? Especially considering god can and has on more than a few occasions changed what is morally right/wrong.

Why must god be the arbitrary decider of morality. Why can't I be the decider of morality? Just because you create something, and create the rules in which that some exist does that mean you have sole authority over it?

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

video on the topic.

*Posted Youtube Comments in response to video*

Originally Posted by NGCDragoonFighter
While I do agree with most of the video, I would like to point out that having an organization set a uniform and conformity in behavior is a redeeming quality, it organizes the chaos of our world. Now this does not apply to today of course, because we no longer live in Dark Ages. However, it did at one time serve a some what noble purpose, keeping its own people organized. (Although can not say the same for the victims of the crusade, but you get my point right?)

Originally Posted by NGCDragoonFighter
In short religion is not all bad it does have its purpose, its uses today are not so useful anymore, but out right hate dislike for religion is unnecessary and is about as useful as productive religion itself.

^ Wish youtube had editing, that last part was really poor word choice in my opinion. I would gotten rid of it and just leave the first part, but there is no editing function on youtube so... oh well.

 

[Reaver197]

Only if this question can be answered.

Does god have a wang?

 

[Nicholas1024]

Catholics are the only denomination which believes the trinity. The traits are all the same, outside of the trinity and a few stories. Generally speaking he is the same in all three religions.

That's not entirely correct, Christianity teaches the doctrine of the trinity, not just Catholics. I'm not entirely sure where Jews/Muslims stand on the issue though.

Going on what ballin said, logic can be independent of god, a reality where god doesn't exist could still produce logic. Furthermore a reality where god doesn't exist could still produce morality. So why is god considered the basis of morality? Especially considering god can and has on more than a few occasions changed what is morally right/wrong.

Please specify how God has changed what is morally right/wrong.

Why must god be the arbitrary decider of morality. Why can't I be the decider of morality? Just because you create something, and create the rules in which that some exist does that mean you have sole authority over it?

Suppose you went and created a programming language like C or C++, for everyone else to use. Now, said programming language would have rules, and if a program doesn't follow those rules, it would be punished (usually by errors and inability to run). How would you react to another programmer whining about your language "I don't wanna follow those rules, what gives you the right to make the rules?" Do you see my analogy?

@Ballin
It comes down to free will. Just because God lets something happen doesn't mean he approves of it.

Have you ever seen a parent let their child struggle through some problem instead of just stepping in and solving it for them? Do you think this is because the parent approves of the short-term negative effects of the problem, or because in the long run it will benefit the child to solve the problem himself instead of relying on his parents for everything?

 

[ballin4life]

Suppose you went and created a programming language like C or C++, for everyone else to use. Now, said programming language would have rules, and if a program doesn't follow those rules, it would be punished (usually by errors and inability to run). How would you react to another programmer whining about your language "I don't wanna follow those rules, what gives you the right to make the rules?" Do you see my analogy?

I see how it's not analogous at all ... and in such a case I am certainly not going to send someone to hell for complaining about my programming language lol.

It's much more like me making a programming language and then getting mad when you use it for some purpose that I don't agree with.

@Ballin
It comes down to free will. Just because God lets something happen doesn't mean he approves of it.

Have you ever seen a parent let their child struggle through some problem instead of just stepping in and solving it for them? Do you think this is because the parent approves of the short-term negative effects of the problem, or because in the long run it will benefit the child to solve the problem himself instead of relying on his parents for everything?

I agree but this is not what Ganonsburg said.

 

[Ganonsburg]

I see how it's not analogous at all ... and in such a case I am certainly not going to send someone to hell for complaining about my programming language lol.

It's much more like me making a programming language and then getting mad when you use it for some purpose that I don't agree with.

No, in a general sense hell is the absence of God. People go to hell because they choose not to be with God. In this case, it would be like choosing not to use C++ and you saying "Okay," although you may really want that person to use C++ and will advertise it to them so that they can see how cool it is.

Also, as for your statement about logic being an inherent property of everything, how would you know that logic applies outside of the universe? There is no reason to think that it does, just like the rules of C++ don't apply to our everyday lives.

I agree but this is not what Ganonsburg said.

Uh...it kind of is. Your parents make the rules of the house, and oftentimes they are moral rules (obviously not logic rules, haha). You can still break those rules and your parents will still obviously love you, but the moral rules that govern the house are still set by your parents. Whether or not you disagree with your parents or that you disobey them doesn't mean that you decide the moral rules for the house.

Anyway, my point was that you would never run into the problem of God changing his mind about morals, which was something mentioned earlier. God is constant, and so are his properties and the properties he imposed on the universe.

 

[ballin4life]

No, in a general sense hell is the absence of God. People go to hell because they choose not to be with God. In this case, it would be like choosing not to use C++ and you saying "Okay," although you may really want that person to use C++ and will advertise it to them so that they can see how cool it is.

Also, as for your statement about logic being an inherent property of everything, how would you know that logic applies outside of the universe? There is no reason to think that it does, just like the rules of C++ don't apply to our everyday lives.

Logic appears to be independent of the universe. I can imagine myself as a consciousness with no connection to the outside universe (say, by closing my eyes in a dark, quiet room) and still deduce logical truths. This suggests to me that logic is independent of the universe.

Uh...it kind of is. Your parents make the rules of the house, and oftentimes they are moral rules (obviously not logic rules, haha). You can still break those rules and your parents will still obviously love you, but the moral rules that govern the house are still set by your parents. Whether or not you disagree with your parents or that you disobey them doesn't mean that you decide the moral rules for the house.

Anyway, my point was that you would never run into the problem of God changing his mind about morals, which was something mentioned earlier. God is constant, and so are his properties and the properties he imposed on the universe.

I don't think my parents can determine morality, and certainly they don't determine objective moral rules. It is perfectly legitimate for me to say "screw your rules, I am living by my own". Now, it is unlikely that I will be able to do this and continue living in their house, but that is their property.

I don't think God has ownership over all of the universe just because he created it (if you want to get all technical, I would point to "abandonment criteria" to say that God has given up any ownership). Even if he did have ownership, that might mean he could set rules, but it STILL wouldn't be clear that these are objective moral rules.

Basically, just because my parents or God tell me to kill someone, that doesn't mean that it becomes right, because what is right TO ME still comes down to my subjective opinion.

 

[Nicholas1024]

@ballin
But if you take that line of reasoning, doesn't it lead to concluding there are no absolute moral truths at all? After all, if what is right to you comes down to your subjective opinion, wouldn't that hold for anyone? Including people like Hitler? So, for any moral truth that might be proposed, all you'd need would be one person who disagreed for a contradiction.

And here's my problem with that conclusion. The statement "There are no absolute moral truths" is either false... or an absolute moral truth.

 

[ballin4life]

@ballin
But if you take that line of reasoning, doesn't it lead to concluding there are no absolute moral truths at all? After all, if what is right to you comes down to your subjective opinion, wouldn't that hold for anyone? Including people like Hitler? So, for any moral truth that might be proposed, all you'd need would be one person who disagreed for a contradiction.

And here's my problem with that conclusion. The statement "There are no absolute moral truths" is either false... or an absolute moral truth.

I agree that there are no absolute moral truths.

I also don't think that statement in itself is a moral truth, since moral truths are prescriptive (tell you what you SHOULD do) whereas that statement does not tell you what you should do.

But even if you considered it to be such, I would change my position to "there are no absolute moral truths besides this statement" or whatever else.

Note also that I don't believe the statement "there are no absolute moral truths" is PROVEN or anything, it's just the default position until someone can prove that there are absolute moral truths (which I don't think is possible). It's similar to how the default position is "there are no Vulcans" - until someone shows me a Vulcan I will believe this statement.



Now, while I don't think there are absolute moral truths, I think that there are moral beliefs that most people agree with, and I think there is a generally correct morality that can be formed on the basis of a few axiom statements.

A1 (Axiom of equality): Humans have equal moral weight.
A2 (Axiom of difference): Humans have different moral preferences

From these two axioms, I can deduce that humans have different preferences, but at the moment each of these sets of preferences is equally good.

If the preferences never come in conflict, there is no problem. However, when there is a conflict of preferences, we have to look back to A1 to see that neither person MUST be right. Since they have equal moral weight, it would be wrong for one person to impose his moral preferences on another.

So whoever is imposing on another is in the wrong. This leads me to the Non-Aggression Principle:

NAP: It is wrong for a human to initiate force against another human (or his possessions).

Violating NAP is violating A1, the concession that your preferences are no better than anyone else's.

NAP is the main principle behind my morality. It says that violence, theft, and many other "obvious" things are wrong, yet it allows for people to make their own choices so long as they don't harm anyone else.

Now, this was just a super brief explanation and there are a whole bunch of other subjects to go into (like how do we determine who is initiating force, the role of property, and what is justified when someone breaks the rules, etc)

 

[Dre89]

The problem with saying there are no moral truths, or that we can't know anything is that it entails an objective truth, which undermines the initial premise of the argument.

When you concede the objective truth that there are no truths, the problem is that it is more logical to accept multiple truths rather than just one. Saying there are none entails a rejection of logic, but such a rejection is itself dependant on logic.

I don't think I explained that well but I don't have time to fix it now.

 

[ballin4life]

Saying that there are objective moral truths doesn't make sense.

Also on self contradiction: Saying "All knowledge is empirical" does create a contradiction because if the statement is true then it is also unknowable.

But for morality it's not really a self contradiction since "There are no objective moral truths" is NOT a moral truth itself. A moral truth is a statement about what people OUGHT to do. Saying that none of these statements are objective is not itself a statement about what people ought to do.

 

[Dre89]

Amoralism is a moral truth, because it is exclusive. It's a moral truth because you can't be amoralist and moralist at the same time. Similar to how theism and atheism are both metaphysical positions, as they are conflicting.

 

[ballin4life]

What does that have to do with anything?

My statement that there is no objective morality is NOT a statement of what people should do. Therefore it is not a moral statement.

 

[Dre89]

It's a moral truth because because it depicts the nature of morality, ie. saying there is nothing you ought to do.

 

[ballin4life]

Right. What's the contradiction again?

 

[Dre89]

So now you're conceding that it's s moral truth.

The problem is that the initial rejection of objective morality entails a rejection of what is logical, but that rejection itself entails logical validity.

If you're going to concede that there is a moral truth, it makes far more sense to acknowledge that there are multiple objective moral truths/values. The rejection only works if there ends up being no moral truth, but inevitably there will always be at least one.

 

[ballin4life]

So now you're conceding that it's s moral truth.

The problem is that the initial rejection of objective morality entails a rejection of what is logical, but that rejection itself entails logical validity.

If you're going to concede that there is a moral truth, it makes far more sense to acknowledge that there are multiple objective moral truths/values. The rejection only works if there ends up being no moral truth, but inevitably there will always be at least one.

No, there is still no contradiction.

You actually phrased this well, so let's use your phrasing:

"there is nothing you ought to do"

Using the words in this statement, please explain where the contradiction is.


It's a moral truth in the sense that it's a truth about morality, but it's NOT a moral (a statement of what you ought to do) itself. The statement is effectively saying that there are no objective morals, ie there is nothing that you ought to do. So I still don't see the contradiction.

Also I still don't see why it makes more sense to assume multiple morals rather than just one anyway. But whatever, I'd rather have you explain precisely where the contradiction is. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I don't see it.

 

[Aesir]

That's not entirely correct, Christianity teaches the doctrine of the trinity, not just Catholics. I'm not entirely sure where Jews/Muslims stand on the issue though.

It's mostly Catholicism that teaches about the Trinity, most other denominations ignore it.

Please specify how God has changed what is morally right/wrong.

I can't remember specific instances off the top of my head, and I can't find my bible either atm. So until I find it, I'll mostly likely drop this point to say. "He can change his mind." Or something to that effect. Though the Transition from Old Testament to New Testament, is god revising himself. Furthermore, god has asked mortals to do things he's claimed to be morally wrong. IE: Killing ect.. But ultimately just because god says to do something doesn't make it morally right, (IE are morally good acts, morally good? or are they morally good because god wills it.)

 

[Ganonsburg]

It's mostly Catholicism that teaches about the Trinity, most other denominations ignore it.

This is interesting, because almost every denomination I can think of finds the Trinity to be a subject that the Bible teaches. Yeah.

I can't remember specific instances off the top of my head, and I can't find my bible either atm. So until I find it, I'll mostly likely drop this point to say. "He can change his mind." Or something to that effect. Though the Transition from Old Testament to New Testament, is god revising himself. Furthermore, god has asked mortals to do things he's claimed to be morally wrong. IE: Killing ect.. But ultimately just because god says to do something doesn't make it morally right, (IE are morally good acts, morally good? or are they morally good because god wills it.)

Actually, not much changed from the OT to the NT in a sense. This explains more, and the second paragraph especially explains why the two aren't too different. This also covers the same topic.

 

[Aesir]

This is interesting, because almost every denomination I can think of finds the Trinity to be a subject that the Bible teaches. Yeah.

I stand corrected on that, I tend to clump most demonstrations together.

Actually, not much changed from the OT to the NT in a sense. This explains more, and the second paragraph especially explains why the two aren't too different. This also covers the same topic.

Look if you want to debate the inner workings of Christianity then go for it. In another thread, this thread specifically is about morality. If following the word of good is morally good because they're good, or if it's good because it's divinely inspired.

As for the link, I have one question; God couldn't get it right the first time?

 

[Ganonsburg]

Look if you want to debate the inner workings of Christianity then go for it. In another thread, this thread specifically is about morality. If following the word of good is morally good because they're good, or if it's good because it's divinely inspired.

As for the link, I have one question; God couldn't get it right the first time?

I'm not trying to debate the inner workings of Christianity; I'm just pointing out that one of God's characteristics is that he doesn't change who he is, and as such the morals and logic created by him don't change.

As for your question, that would be debating the inner workings of Christianity. =P Okay, I jest. I'll be back with an answer later; I have 3 exams in the next 24 hours I need to study for.