Morality of God

[Peregrine]

@Peregrine: I missunderstood your concept. All I saw was: God has appeared before you and given you this 11th commandment. It sounded to me as if you were saying God has appeared to his people and given us the commandment.

 

My argument: IF God gave me this commandment I would follow it. First because of my absolute faith in his divine nature and power. Secondly because I love him and he gave his son to die for us and I would give a child for him. I know that this is hypothetical and a what-if statement and I have presented my argument. This is a side note- I don't have to worry because God will not do this but IF HE DID I would obey it.

 

Well, here it is. My on-topic argument about the what-if 11th commandment.

 

Finally....

 

And just so there's no mistake here. You are not sacrificing one child. You are sacrificing one a week in the most painful way you can imagine.

 

And there is no higher purpose to this. You are making these sacrifices for the single purpose of pleasing God's demand for blood. He wants to hear the screams of suffering in his name.

 

Still say yes?

[hundinman]

I still say yes, because sacrificing to me, is different than murder. It is for God. But, since it won't happen, I say yes, in case it does.

 

Too confusing? sorry.

 

I understand the once a week thing.

 

Next argument, please.

[ThetaOrionis01]

Get what I am saying?

I hope I have made some progress with you on this one. 

Quit patronizing me. It adds nothing to the debate.

 

This thread is getting a little personal for everyone. Calm it down.

Start by ceasing to patronize me, then.

 

 

....do not state something to be true, and then go around and change your views. (I think I just recited the definition of hipocrasy...)

No, I think that's called being open-minded, and having the ability to change one's views based on the availability of new data.

 

 

In NO way am I saying that. What I am saying is that love cannot exist without the existence of hate. This does NOT mean that you must have had an experience with hate before you have an experience with love. Think of it like this...If there were a world in which love is non existent, there would be no possible way for people to know that they hate each other.

 

Prove it, instead of spouting the same mystical clap-trap about 'good' and 'evil', 'love' and 'hate' over and over again. Provide a concise logical argument why one cannot exist without the other. Provide an absolute & universal definition of 'love', and show, how based on that definition, love cannot exist without hatred, providing, of course, an absolute and universal definition of hate as well.

 

Until you can do so, please keep your statement applied to yourself only. For you love without hatred may not be possible. To extrapolate from yourself to others is fallacy - because you cannot know how everyone else experiences love. For me, love can exist without hatred.

 

 

Hear me on this, I am not posing a personal question, but a universal one!

Answer this question please: If there was no hate, what, then, would you consider love?

QUOTE 

Let me give you an example of what I would consider love, for which I cannot see any requirement for hatred: Love was the emotion I felt when I held my newborn child in my arms - a feeling of intense happiness, protectiveness, a wish of future happiness for this child - an intense emotional attachment.

 

 

 

So in other words...

 

"Love (as opposed to hatred) was the emotion I felt when I held my newborn child in my arms - a feeling of intense happiness (as opposed to intense sadness), protectiveness (as opposed to wrecklessness), a wish of future happiness (as opposed to sadness) for this child - an intense emotional attachment. (as opposed to dettachment).

 

That sounds very much like a personal question to me.

 

As above, you do not have to have an experience with or even KNOW about the existence of hate to feel love. But it DOES have to exist in order for love to exist.

As requested above, please provide conclusive proof of that.

 

 

Of course not. The world is a mixture of black and white: known as grey. There are many different forms of grey. There is dark grey, light grey, medium grey, medium-ish grey, dark-ish grey, you get the point. And these "greys" encompass all of the wide spectrum of emotions that you stated.

I believe that was the point I was making. So your initial statement relevant to the above quote was wrong?

 

I am sure that "supply and demand" would cut the cost of a single 1k diamond to a billionth of what it is now.

That has nothing to do with the diamond itself - it does not change the definition of 'diamond'.

 

Non-repentant sinners choose to go to hell.

They don't have a choice. Because they don't have free will.

 

They just haven't been caught.

Prove it. Do not make universal statements like that unless you are prepared to back them up.

 

 

Very wrong of you to say that.

Are you god? No? Then your statement is redundant.

 

Since you do not believe in God, you, then, have free will don't you?

I have free will not because I don't believe in god, but because god does not exist.

 

And if you DO believe in God, then isn't the your FAITH based on the acceptance that God has given you free will, and that He has somehow maintained His knowledge of everything AND His justification of everything?

 

The existence of an all-knowing and all-powerful god is irreconcilable with the existence of free will. You cannot have both - only one or the other. If you believe that such a god exists you accept that free will cannot exist.

 

 

This is probly why you do not believe in God, because you choose to remain skeptical. Skepticism is good, as opposed to dogmatism, but if you are waiting for a definite answer, you'll be waiting for a long time, perhaps, until it is too late for an answer. (For example, when death rolls around the corner, and when it does come around, you'll find that the answer isn't even worth waiting for, and that it would have been wiser to believe rather than remain skeptical, regardless of the answer.)

Don't make assumptions about me.

 

 

Being that I am only human, I cannot explain why we can still have free will, and God can still be all-knowing. But I'm sure He has an answer, and I am sure that's one of the questions I'll ask Him when I am dead.

 

Meanwhile, it has been explained why free will cannot exist when there is an all-knowing god.

[Darnoc]

One thought just occured to me concerning free will, which I do not think was brought up yet.

 

God is allknowing and allpowerful. So, it is possible for him to create a being with a free will, correct? Free will means, there has to be different possibilities from which we can choose, correct?

 

Now what if god created the universe in such a way that those possibilities still exist? Let us assume that we do have a choice. God created all possibilities and we can choose from them. That means all possibilities inside the rules he created for this universe (e.g. we can not choose to break the rules of nature like gravity) are existing at the same time (at least for god, he is somehow outside time and space and he has a more than four-dimensional view of this universe).

 

I've already taken once the tea-example. Let me take it once again. I have a cup of tea and must now choose what to do. I can either put sugar or milk in it, I can drink it as it is, I can smash the cup against the wall etc. etc. Those possibilities do all exist at the same time and I have a choice.

 

OK, normally I would not think about it, I would just put sugar into it and then drink it. But lets now assume that I think about it and then decide. I think for myself:

 

1. I do not like tea without sugar. So the possibility "tea without sugar" ceases to exist.

 

2. I like tea with milk. So the possibility "tea without milk" ceases to exist.

 

3. I have no desire at the moment to smash the cup of tea agains the wall. So the possibility "smash cup of tea against the wall" ceases to exist.

 

etc. etc. etc.

 

This goes on and on until only one possibility is left: I put sugar and milk into my cup of tea and then drink it. Of course in real life I would never really go through all those possibilities and then finally decide what to do. We are used to make quick decisions and I knew from the beginning that I would put sugar and milk into the tea and then drink it.

 

Now god is allknowing. He created all the possibilites, but because he knows everything, he also knows which one will be chosen (he is existing out of time and space, all the possibilities are spread out in front of him). He knows exactly that all the other possibilites will cease to exist, even when they did exist before I made my decision. At last only one possibility will exist, the one I will choose. God knew what this possibility will be. But this knowlegde of his doesn't mean that the other possibilities didn't exist at all. It was my decision which made them cease to exist, not his.

 

So, when this is the case and god really made all the possibilities, we do have free will. Knowlegde of what is going to happen doesn't erase possibilities. They are erased when the subject which chooses from the possibilites erases them by choosing one of all these possibilities. From this point on all the other possibilities cease to exist. But until this point they do exist.

 

Perhaps it is even so that god created multiple universes. In each universe another possibility was chosen. In one I didn't put sugar into my tea, in the other I didn't put milk into my tea and in the third one I smashed the cup of tea against the wall etc. etc.

[Malchik]

I would still love you to answer the question I raised earlier. The thread is about the morlity of god judged by his actions in the bible if the account is taken as completely accurate. So much of the debate has since been about the free will of human beings. I cannot immediately see the connection. But I will go along with it for one post.

 

Whether there were several possibilities in existence before you made your decision, your decision was pre-ordained, therefore these others were illusory possibilities, theoretically possible but not in practice selectable. How can a choice between several possibilities be free choice when it is already preselected? You may think you have a choice and are acting out of free will but you are not. This is a philosophical argument, not an empirical one. However much you believe you are deciding yourself at the time, and however many choices appeared to exist, you would undertake a pre-defined action. As there was no choice, there can be no exercise of free will.

 

So again, given that god has created unbelievers soecifically not to believe, what in your view, is a justifiable judgement on them when they are being weighed in the scales of justice?

[Darnoc]

@Malchik: First, which question do you refer to? Could you please restate it?

 

Whether there were several possibilities in existence before you made your decision, your decision was pre-ordained, therefore these others were illusory possibilities, theoretically possible but not in practice selectable. How can a choice between several possibilities be free choice when it is already preselected? You may think you have a choice and are acting out of free will but you are not. This is a philosophical argument, not an empirical one. However much you believe you are deciding yourself at the time, and however many choices appeared to exist, you would undertake a pre-defined action. As there was no choice, there can be no exercise of free will.

 

Not preordinated or preselected. God did only this: He first creates a universe which has the possibility of functioning alone (because it is based on rules and laws, such as the laws of nature) without his further interference. Keep that in mind, I said could. Then when the bible is true, he didn't leave it alone but interfered at certain points of history.

 

When god really had preselected every decision and made the universe this way that all those decisions he preselected must come true, why then does he still interfere? When the universe would be like this that everything would happen exactly as god it had preselected, there would be no need for his interference. The fact that he does interfere means that we do have a choice and that those choices sometimes interfere with the greater plan god intended for this universe, so that he must sometimes "correct the course" of history, because our decisions do take us away from the path god has selected. This is necessary, because we are not able to understand the great pattern, the greater plan of god. When we would understand it, we would all be living by this plan, because he made this world perfect in the beginning. If the first humans really had understood this greater plan, they never would have chosen the wrong path. The fact that they could choose the wrong path also shows that there is a free will.

 

 

Of course god knew that the possibility existed that we would choose the wrong path. He had a plan for every possibility we could choose. If we would have chosen a different path and made different decision, he would have taken another plan. For god all the possibilities do exist at the same time, he is outside time and space. For him not only this possibility did exist, but all of them. And they still do exist. Even when we can not see them (because we are limited by time and space). So god knows all the possibilities and for him they all exist and he has a plan for all of them. For us, only one possibility exists, the one we have chosen. This is because our limitation, we can not step outside space and time and exist in all possibilities at the same time, as it is possible for god.

[ThetaOrionis01]

When god really had preselected every decision and made the universe this way that all those decisions he preselected must come true, why then does he still interfere?

 

God knows in advance that he will interfere at those points.

 

 

 

Once the outcome of a choice is known, then all other possibilities for that choice no longer exist. It the outcome of the choice is known from the beginning, then there cannot be an alternative.

 

Let's say that god knows in advance that you will throw your tea cup against the wall. Then the only choice you have is to do precisely that. You no longer have the choice to drink your tea, or to empty the cup over your head. The only choice you have is to throw the cup. Because god knows that this will happen it must happen. You cannot choose differently.

 

The same thing about sin - if god knows that you will sin at a certain point, then you cannot do anything else. You cannot change your mind at the last minute, because then god's knowledge would be false. He would no longer be all-knowing.

 

Now, if you had no choice but to sin, and you were punished for this sin even though you could not avoid it, by the very being who left you no choice but to sin - what would you think of this being? I would consider it immoral, to say the least.

[Darnoc]

@Theta Orionis: Not when it is so as I said that every possibility does exist in the view of god. In his "multiverse" all possibilities come true, but in our "universe" only one is chosen, the one we decide to take. God stands outside those possibilities, they are spread out in front of him and do exist for him at the same time, at the same place and they all exist. But not for us, because we are bound to to the limitation of space, time and whatever other dimension may exist we do not know yet. We choose one of these possibilities and make it true in our universe. But still in god's multiverse all possibilities are existing. So in this possible universe we live in, you may have stolen, but in another possible universe not. For god both possibilities do exist, but not for us. We choose one possibility and by doing so define our universe. God created all the possibilities, but we choose which will come true.

 

But now comes one problem: God knows everything. So he also knows what possibilities I/you/everyone else chose, choose and will choose. For him all possibilities do exist, but he knows precisly which possibilities do exist for us. So he created all possibilities, but he knew which one I will choose.

 

There is a difference between preknowlegde and preselection. Preselection means that whatever I want to choose does not matter, it happens precisly the way god meant it to be. Even when I do want to put sugar into the tea, I won't have this possibility because god preselected the possibility that I will smash it against the wall. So he must force my hand to make this movement against my will.

 

But he doesn't preselect, he preknows and that is a huge difference. He knows that I will choose to put sugar into the tea, because I like sugar in the tea. He knows that I will make this decision, because of my feelings (I like sugar in my tea) or my reason. He knows the reasons why I choose something, because he knows all the variables in the universe and therefore knows my reasons, my situation, my circumstances etc. etc. and therefore knows why this will happen. It doesn't matter if someone knows what I am going to do, it is still my decision.

 

The reason why it will happen like god knew it from beginning is not because god decided that it will happen the way it will happen. It is because he knows us, the way we think, we feel, our situation, our circumstances, the place we are in, the time we are in etc. etc. and therefore knows 100% why we will make the decision we are going to make.

 

Let's assume someone is such a genious that he calculates that the USA will be destroyed within the next ten years by a violent biological attack, with a biogenic weapon, which will occur so surprisingly that no one will be able to do anything against it or even notice it. He also knows that he is the reason for this event to happen, he started the chain of events which will lead to this disaster and the inhabitants will cause the last part in the chain of reactions, which will lead to the desaster. He also knows exactly that the government won't listen to him, it is not possible for them to understand his calculations, they are to high advanced. Still he tries, but as he had predicted it, no one in the government really believes him and they don't accept his plan to prevent this desaster. This genious keeps this knowlegde to himself (with the exception of the government people he had told it), but secretly he now makes a plan to save at least some of the population. He has also calculated, that when he wouldn't do this, all the population of the USA will be exterminated by this biogenic weapon. So, he builds a secret research station in order to find an antigen against this biogenic weapon (he has also calculated which biogenic weapon this will be). The antigen has a little problem: It only works when the person taking it believes that it will heal him/her, the antigen needs support from the psyche to be activated in the body. Now the day of the weapon release comes, the biogenic weapon is released into the air and this genious person sends a message on television to the population: "You have been infected by a deadly biogenic weapon which can not be detected by any instruments we posses. I will now release the antigen into the air, it will cover the whole of the USA within three days that is enough time to heal everyone. It has one problem: It only works when you believe in this antigen. So believe in my antigen and you will be saved!" Some do know believe that they are infected and that this antigen will heal them, some just say "It's all nonsense, he is fooling us". Soon those who don't believe die, those who believe live on and are healed.

 

Now this story is very similar to the story which is told in the bible. God creates a perfect world. He knows of an existing disease (sin) and that it's carrier, the devil, has come down on this perfect world he created. He now tells the humans that they will be infected with this disease if they do a certain thing. Despite this warning, they infect themselves (with a little help from the devil) and are know carrying this deadly disease. So god must come up with an antigen: The blood of his son, Jesus. And like the antigen in my little story it only works when you believe in it.

 

Like the genious person in my story, god knew that this would happen. His "calculations" told him so, predicted it. As the man in my story, he started the chain of reactions (by allowing Satan to come to earth and give him the possibility to tempt the first humans) and that the humans he created will make the last step to desaster, they will infect themselves with sin. Still he tries to warn them, even when he knows that his "calculations" are beyond doubt and that the humans won't listen to his warning. As he knew, humans don't listen to the warning. So, he chooses to create this antigene and releases it into the world. And some take the medicine and some don't. Because god has a highly advanced way of "calculating" all the variables, he knows from the beginning which humans will choose to take god's medicine. But of course, he can not force them to take it, he would take away there free will by doing so.

[ThetaOrionis01]

But he doesn't preselect, he preknows and that is a huge difference.

 

No. There isn't. As soon as god knows all your choices are fixed. All your little invented anecdotes won't change that.

 

As soon as the future is known with absolute certainty, it is fixed. Choices ceases to exist. Which means that the alternative universes where the alternative choices were selected also cease to exist for you.

 

Before god knew, all possibilities were possible, and had a probability. However, as soon as god knew which choice would inevitably be made, it acquired 100% probability. The others acquired 0. They are no longer possible.

 

 

-> no free will -> no sin -> god immoral.

[Eltiraaz]

Yes but the idea of there being no such thing as free will is just that, and idea or theory. There is also the idea that God does not know the outcome of every single event in the history of the universe. Leading us down another 5 pages of debate, ultimately getting us nowhere.... but hey.