Morality of God

[Tinduriel]

"we can and we should question Gods morality."

 

To question = to mistrust? Still there is no point in that debate either. You restrict the debate when you state how we should interprete the bible.

 

Example:

We stand in a crossroads, there are four possible directions to travel east, west, north and south. Now lets debate about in which direction we are going if we are only allowed to take the road to west. Stupid isn't it?

 

Im not saying you should stop debating or anything like that. I haven't got any authority to do that and even if I had I wouldn't stop you. Because I believe that from every debate or conversation you can learn something new. And it may even be fun sometimes (really it can :bleh: ).

 

The main point was that why restrict the debate, but I believe you have already answered that.

 

Just got to have the last saying

:stupid:

[Peregrine]

Please, would you at least read my posts before you criticize them?

 

The debate is far from decided by my restrictions. I have stated that every event in the bible is absolute truth, nothing more, nothing less. I have stated that we are able to question God. The question we are debating is "Are God's actions morally correct?" I have made exactly zero restrictions on what answer you give to this question.

 

Example:

We stand in a crossroads, there are four possible directions to travel east, west, north and south. Now lets debate about in which direction we are going if we are only allowed to take the road to west. Stupid isn't it?

 

Then you clearly didn't read my posts before you started arguing. By your example, my only restrictions are that there is a 4 way crossroads, and that we can choose a direction.

 

The main point was that why restrict the debate, but I believe you have already answered that.

 

Because otherwise the debate isn't about the morality of God's actions. The people who believe he is morally good will claim that the bible is inaccurate whenever it describes him doing evil things. The people that believe he is evil can simply claim that he didn't create the world, and destroy that pro-God argument. Get the point?

[Tinduriel]

I got the point about 4 posts ago. But to me you are restricting the debate about "Are God's actions morally correct" when you choose the way how I must interpret the bible. Because if I interprete the bible as you said to I will inevitably come to same conclusion as you. I have read the thread and have seen good points for the argument that God's actions aren't morally correct. And the only way to go around these arguments that I can come up with is to iterprete the bible differently. But I can't because it is restricted to do that for the sake of the debate.

It may be also that I'm too stupid to come up with any good arguments against you when interpreting the bible as you said to. Maybe I'll just stop now and settle for lurking this thread from now on.

[Peregrine]

*Points to Darnoc and Hundinman having no trouble arguing God's actions are morally correct*

 

Maybe staying out of the debate is a good idea....

[Darnoc]

OK, OK, when you look at it that way, Peregrin, then you are right. But now I just looked some things up in the bible and found out that we both were wrong. It is a whole new attempt to look at the situation. Here is, what I just found. I will use a lot of medical terms to describe what I want to tell you, but don't take them literally, they are symbolic:

 

"Sin" is not the actions you take, but a spiritual disease. Sometimes it is even personifized (Genesis 4, 7). Sin existed since the first being chose to act against the law of god (Satan). When god created earth, the "virus" sin and evil was already on this planet, the carrier was Satan. Now god warned the first humans not to eat from this fruit and told them "that you will surely die". Death wasn't a punishment, but a consequence of sin (like when you are affected by a deadly virus, you will die). With death is not only meant the physical death, but also a spiritual death, we were cut off by this disease from god. God warned them not to infect them with this spiritual disease, but humans did it. From now on they were passing on this disease to their descendants, we are all infected with this illness called "evil" or "sin" (Rom 5, 12).

 

Now god had to make a "diagnosise" so that we could learn that we possess this deadly disease. This is god's law. Because no human being is able to furfill the law until the last point, humans learned that they had sinned and were infected by this illness (Rom 3, 20).

Now after we learned that we had an illness, god could cure us with his "antigene". This is the blood of Jesus, his son.

 

Now the remaining problem is: When god knew that we would infect ourselves and that he had to cure us with the blood of his own son, why didn't he prevent it? Why didn't he just exterminate this disease? Why didn't he just make evil unexisting? He could have done it, because he is god. So if he knew that this would happen and that millions of people will fall victim to this disease, why didn't he do something against it, so that it wouldn't happen at all?

There are several reasons, which I could state for this. First, we wouldn't be able to really know what is good, when we didn't experience evil first. And we couldn't understand god's love when he wouldn't have had the possibility to save us from this disease called evil.

But acctually, I don't really understand it myself, I have to admit. And now, when I take your point of view, Peregrin, I could really think that god is evil that he didn't prevent it from happening, even when he could. It really depends on the point of view I have from the beginning. If I from the beginning have the oppinion that god is evil (as it is your oppinion, Peregrin) then there is nothing that could disprove me. Same it is the other way around. If I believe that god is good from the beginning, I can't be disproven. So we could be debating about this for an eternety without getting any results at all. And a discussion which isn't constructive and doesn't come to an end isn't worth the time (even when it can be fun for some time :D ). A discussion is only worth the time when really a solution acceptable and reasonable to all can be found. But we end where we all started. Everyone still believes what he did at the beginning, so nothing really changed. So it is senseless to discuss this further.

[hundinman]

No, God is not CONSIDERING destroying us and not doing it, he has the power to do it and is not doing it. That makes him just in my opinion. God would not be destroying man if Adam and Eve had not eaten from the Tree of Good and Evil in the first place!

 

Of course God doesn't even think about it. That's why he did it once and had to specifically promise not to do it again. Concession accepted, thank you for debating.

 

God does not strike man dead with a method unclassifiable. He uses

diseases and plagues that man brought the wrath of upon us by eating from that tree. HE does not just cause a person to fall over dead for no reaon known to man. He uses methods that kill millions pf people anyway. He just causes that plague/ disease/ catastrophe on them.

 

Murder is just as wrong no matter what weapon you use to do it. If I kill you with my bare hands am I less evil than if I shoot you? No, and God is no different.

 

By what standards and beliefs are you calling God evil for usinf his superiority to kill man. That is simply a humans persective and we know not what Gods motive is at all. Go ahead and put a gun to my head and kill me (if you can find me) I will be in heaven and you will be judged. I will be honored to die for my beliefs rather than by some gang related drive by shooting.

 

Fine, if you insist on adding that extra condition to my example... I give you a counter condition. I am threatening to kill you for some random reason... perhaps I want your money, perhaps I just feel like killing someone. Would you still accept death just as willingly? And who says you'd go to heaven anyway? With God's twisted sense of justice, you're probably guilty of a million crimes you don't even know about, and are doomed to Hell.

 

How can you know a universe will work without a God?

This has not happened and can't be proved.

 

I won't repeat my full arguments since this is a different thread. Go read the other religion threads if you want the full explanation. So, in summary:

Science has explained nearly everything in our observable world. The few things that it hasn't explained are beyond our ability to observe them (what came before our universe, etc). And for those things, God is no better an explanation than an inanimate force. Therefore the most reasonable explanation is that there is no God, or if there is, that he exists entirely separately from our world and has no effect on it.

 

Tell me when God has EVER punished an inocent person because he felt like it.

I would like to see some cases where this has happened.

 

Not innocent by the unjust laws of God, innocent by the laws of any civilized society.

 

EGO problem? That is just a stupid word made by man to describe people who think of themselves as superior when they aren't. GOD IS!

 

And to describe Gods who think of themselves as superior when they are not. God considers himself morally superior when he is not, refuses to concede any flaw, demands absolute worship. These same characteristics in a human would be called an ego problem. They are no different when God has them.

 

When has God killed anyone for a minor crime not worthy of death?

PROOF on this please.

 

Failure to worship properly is only a crime by God's barbaric system of "justice." Countless people have been killed for this crime alone. And that's ignoring the fact that God's genocidal "justice" inevitably killed innocent people guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

=====================================

 

God will not have us sacrifice 1 child a week and any child anytime for that matter. When has he requested this? I know of one story where Gos asked a man named Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to show his true love and devotion to God.

Right before Abraham burned his son, God sent an angel of the Lord to stop him. God then supplied a ra/sheep for the burnt offering.

 

Read the question. This is not a valid answer. God's will in this case is unquestionable, he has proved/explained to you by whatever method you will accept that this is what he wants. Now make your choice.

 

I will get into this discussion of sacrifices no more.

 

Because you know you have argued your way into a trap from which there is no escape. Concession accepted.

How can you believe that God is no different than you? You have no right to call yourself equal to God which is what I infer from your statement, ".....and God is no different".

 

 

God has forgiven me of all sin and unrighteousness and I know for sure that I am going to Heaven because I have faith and I trust God. I sin everyday, everyone does. But God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

 

 

You are almost supporting my opinion in your first statement, " Scientists have explained NEARLY everything in our OBSERVABLE universe" My point exactly. Faith is believing without seeing. I have a tremendous amount of faith in my God and obviously you have firm faith in your beliefs (which I trust to be Atheism, am I correct?) We can't see God now, but people have. God revealed himself to many people back in the days during the Bible times. He sent his son down to earth as a normal human. He was born in a stable for cryin' out loud! No one expected him to be a king. But he was even more than a king, he died for every wretch and sinner including me, you, and the worst people who ever lived (Josepf Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Etc.)

 

your proof of people being punished by God for no reason is unacceptable, please provide examples if you provide an explanation.

 

 

Yes, these problems would be called EGO in a human. Is God human? NO! He sent his son as a human but he was here as a servant to all and not as a king to be served by anyone.

 

 

hmmmmmm, back to the sacrifice debate. gotten myself into a trap have I? watch me get out!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

your theory of God having us sacrifice children is completely hypothetical and is just a theory that can, by no means, be compared to anything. Also, why would my answer be unacceptable. How is God implying that he wants us to sacrifice children because he tested Abraham by it? If it was his will, he would have let Abe kill his son. that is obvious. He only stopped him because that is not his will and he wanted Isaac to live.

[hundinman]

I got the point about 4 posts ago. But to me you are restricting the debate about "Are God's actions morally correct" when you choose the way how I must interpret the bible. Because if I interprete the bible as you said to I will inevitably come to same conclusion as you. I have read the thread and have seen good points for the argument that God's actions aren't morally correct. And the only way to go around these arguments that I can come up with is to iterprete the bible differently. But I can't because it is restricted to do that for the sake of the debate.

It may be also that I'm too stupid to come up with any good arguments against you when interpreting the bible as you said to. Maybe I'll just stop now and settle for lurking this thread from now on.

I pitty the fool who gives up his rights to stand up for his beliefs so quickly and easily.

 

Peregrine: 1 down, 2 to go. (Darnoc/Hundinman)

Sad to say I don't give up so easily. I have un unbeatable force on my side, believe it or not. I can't and won't force my beliefs upon you and I will not stop until you get too old to post these forums and that will happen sooner than I get too old. Beware, you have met your match. I say it again: Force my beliefs upon you I will not, pursuade you to believe what I believe is exactly what I intend to do. My goal is possible under one condition, you are not the antichrist. I do not think you are him, but behold the end times are near.

[Tinduriel]

I pitty the fool who gives up his rights to stand up for his beliefs so quickly and easily.

First of all, I never gave up my right to stand up for my believes I chose not to.

 

Second of all, I do not appreciate you or anyone else calling me a fool.

 

Third of all, I do not need your nor anyones pity.

 

If you read my posts you may find out that I do not see any sense in the debate. Now if I fail to see any sense in the debate why in the Gods name should I participate in the debate? Isn't that illogical, I could call YOU a fool now but I don't have any intensions to flame you.

[punkfiveo]

One point that was brought to my mind as I was reading this thread was the reason why God must destroy all who do not accept His forgiveness...

 

God is defined by a set of characteristics. (For example: loving, caring, compassionate, perfect) Without these characteristics God would not exist (at least in the human mind) because these are the only things in which humans can define and understand him. But for these charactersitics to even exist, there has to be some kind of counter-acting, "bad" characteristic to define the characteristic he created. (For example, Love is defined and counter-acted by hate, care by carelessness, compassion by vengeance, perfection by imperfection) If God included two counter-acting qualities in the definition of himself, (e.g. per say God would want to define himself as compassionate AND vengeful) , He would not be able to be defined, because His characteristics are counter-acting and cannot co-exist in one entity. (e.g. God cannot be compassionate and vengeful at the same time because one defines and counter-acts the other. If he was, then He would be contradictory to himself, and a god that contradicts himself cannot possibly be a god, because He would be against himself.)

 

Therefore, whatever he creates (e.g. Our universe) must include each and every one of the characteristics, good and bad, in order for his creations (e.g. Humans) to choose what to define themselves as. (For, as we all know, in order for God to be loving, he must have something to love, and He must create something that is of it's own mind for him to love it. Since loving something that is controlled by Himself is, inevitably, loving himself. (And loving love is somewhat of a paradox.)) So He created humans, so that he could love us, and we defined ourselves as we saw fit. Some did not reciprocate love to our creator, but we still had the choice, and He still loved us unconditionally, because He is defined by love.

 

Those who do not want to define themselves as He has defined Himself, and are not willing to change, cannot be accepted into the Kingdom he has set up for us after death, because he cannot accept characteristics which oppose or counter-act what defines His divinity, lest He contradict the characteristics He has chosen to define Himself as, and, in turn, contradict His whole being. (For example, he cannot accept a hateful person into His presence, because he is defined by love, and for Him to accept hate is to allow only conditional, or no love. (And furthermore, in the absence of hate, there is only unconditional love. And, as we all know, God loves unconditionally.)

 

Therefore, no matter what it takes, (be it banishing people who have defined themselves with "bad" characteristics in eternal hell), NOTHING can come between God and what defines Him, lest ALL be lost.

 

Also, In now knowing this, we can now safely say that no one is worthy of His presence. And this is why Jesus died on the cross. He died to forgive our sins, and, if we are repentant, and accept His forgiveness, we may safely enter the Kingdom of God, and be in His presence.

 

I hope this also solves many other questions you had given you meditate on this topic a little more.

 

God Bless.

[ThetaOrionis01]

@ hundinman:

 

I say it again: Force my beliefs upon you I will not,

I sin everyday, everyone does.

 

That is forcing your beliefs upon everyone.

everyone does

.

Please do not ever include me in your superstitions :angry:

 

 

Sad to say I don't give up so easily. I have un unbeatable force on my side, believe it or not. I can't and won't force my beliefs upon you and I will not stop until you get too old to post these forums and that will happen sooner than I get too old. Beware, you have met your match. I say it again: Force my beliefs upon you I will not, pursuade you to believe what I believe is exactly what I intend to do. My goal is possible under one condition, you are not the antichrist. I do not think you are him, but behold the end times are near

 

I'm sorry to say, but to me that makes you sound precisely like the kind of fanatic with whom no debate is possible. In my eyes, you are doing your cause a disservice as it confirms my opinion (not flattering) of fundamentalists.

If the above quote was meant as a joke, then you should perhaps have used a smilie to indicate this.

 

 

your theory of God having us sacrifice children is completely hypothetical

 

Precisely. If I read Peregrine's post correctly, he was asking you how you would react to a hypothetical situation. You still have not answered the question. I hope Peregrine doesn't mind that I have replied to a post which seems to by directed at him (I apologize if you do mind, Peregrine) - but this is a debate on a public forum, not a contest between you and Peregrine. I shall not even comment on this... :blink:

Peregrine: 1 down, 2 to go. (Darnoc/Hundinman)

 

On to punkfiveo's post which is actually relevant to this debate:

 

You are defining god in human terms. While this may be necessary for humans to understand god, you must acknowledge that this definition is not the entire definition of god - we cannot define god himself in human terms, or he would not be god.

 

But for these charactersitics to even exist, there has to be some kind of counter-acting, "bad" characteristic to define the characteristic he created

 

Only for humans to understand them, perhaps. Are you sure that god himself requires these characteristics? How can you be sure that an all-powerful, all-knowing god cannot recognize love without hatred?

 

If God included two counter-acting qualities in the definition of himself, (e.g. per say God would want to define himself as compassionate AND vengeful) , He would not be able to be defined, because His characteristics are counter-acting and cannot co-exist in one entity. (e.g. God cannot be compassionate and vengeful at the same time because one defines and counter-acts the other. If he was, then He would be contradictory to himself, and a god that contradicts himself cannot possibly be a god, because He would be against himself.)

 

That is an assumption. You, as a mere human, cannot know first of all how god defines himself, only how humans define him, and secondly you are denying your all-powerful, all-knowing god the ability to be whatever he wishes. God is all-powerful - of course he can be both compassionate and vengeful at the same time! To deny him this ability is to deny his divinity. You are applying the limits of human perception and understanding to god - and so you make him less than he is. God's understanding is so much vaster than that of humans, so all-encompassing that god could easily reconcile contradictory traits within himself. So IMO your argument is flawed because you extrapolate from human behaviour to god's behaviour.

 

Therefore, whatever he creates (e.g. Our universe) must include each and every one of the characteristics, good and bad, in order for his creations (e.g. Humans) to choose what to define themselves as.

 

God creates humans - he defines their characteristics.

 

(For, as we all know, in order for God to be loving, he must have something to love,

 

Again you are applying a human trait to god. Why does god need someone to love in order to be loving? God is all-knowing - he is not restricted by human limits of understanding.

 

Those who do not want to define themselves as He has defined Himself, and are not willing to change, cannot be accepted into the Kingdom he has set up for us after death, because he cannot accept characteristics which oppose or counter-act what defines His divinity, lest He contradict the characteristics He has chosen to define Himself as, and, in turn, contradict His whole being. (For example, he cannot accept a hateful person into His presence, because he is defined by love, and for Him to accept hate is to allow only conditional, or no love. (And furthermore, in the absence of hate, there is only unconditional love. And, as we all know, God loves unconditionally.)

 

Again you make assumptions about god himself, and you severely limit god's nature. How do you know he cannot accept a hateful person into his presence? God is all-powerful, he can easily change that person's hatred to love. God can accept anyone into his kingdom - he is god, he can do anything. If he denies some of them he does so not because he cannot accept them, but because he doesn't want to. God is all-powerful, there is nothing he cannot do. So he denies some of his creation - whom he created precisely the way they are! - which is immoral. He created them with all their flaws, after all.

 

Therefore, no matter what it takes, (be it banishing people who have defined themselves with "bad" characteristics in eternal hell), NOTHING can come between God and what defines Him, lest ALL be lost.

 

Again, this sets limits on god's power. Yet by definition, god's power must be limitless, or he is not god. If you accept god as being possessed of limitless power (all-powerful) and wisdom/knowledge/understanding (all-knowing) then your argument falls flat, because all the reasons you have invented as to why god has to distance himself from those he created displeasing to him (I repeat - he created them!) do not apply to an all-powerful, all-knowing being. By your argument therefore you deny god his divinity.

 

Which leaves the alternative that god punishes those displeasing to him because he wants to. Since he created them for the very purpose of being displeasing to him in the first place, this punishment is highly immoral.