Dr Rick

So is there or is there not a morality independent of the Christian god; imo, if he existed, there wouldn't be; what's your belief?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by NonContradiction :

God need not prevent all evil, just more evil than he's preventing now. If God prevented more evil, he'd be a morally better being; but it is incoherent to say there is a morally better being than a morally perfect being.

Tyler Durden

"From Paradise: 'Good and Evil are the prejudices of God' - said the snake."

In other words, either morality comes from God's subjectivity, and whenever God seems to violate his ethics, it's called the "theological suspension of the ethical", or God is beholden to something greater. A clever fella told me once that there is no distinction between the subject and the valuation framework whatsoever.

Xixax

Hypothetical knowledge of pain and suffering could be given to us by an omnipotent, omniscient creator. We would never have to experience it, yet would still know that if it were to occur it would be evil.

Is this not a possible choice for the omnipotent and omniscient god?

NonContradiction

You didn't answer my question. How would you be able to formulate a standard of good and evil independent of God if good and evil didn't exist in the world or in your mind? The answer is you wouldn't be able to. You wouldn't even have hypothetical knowledge of good and evil because the idea of good and evil wouldn't even exist in your mind.

If God prevented evil in the world, and in your mind, how would you know that God was preventing evil without Him telling you that He was doing so?

If God doesn't prevent evil in the world, then He isn't all-good. If God does prevent evil in the world, and in the minds of people, then He would be all-good by a standard of morality dependent upon Himself. As I have said before, all of the atheists I have ever talked to before have asserted that that standard of morality would be arbitrary and meaningless.

Either way, God can't win. This isn't anything more than the character assassination of God.

Dr Rick

So?

Then let Him tell us all about it.

So?

First of all, not all atheists assert what you assert they assert.

Second of all, so what if they did; so morality would be meaningless and arbitrary to them; god would know better, and we still wouldn't be suffering even if our lack of suffering was meaningless to us.

NC, your recent posts aren't addressing the issues; they're strawmen.

So God's character is being assasinated, he can't win, we find his standard of morality arbitrary and meaningless, etc., etc.,...If he is letting us suffer just to avoid these things, he cannot be benevolent. As an omnipotent being, he could prevent all those outcomes and still avoid evil by making us differently, anyways.

haverbob

Evil does exist. In doesn't exist in reality, it exists in our mind. We create it. After we create it, we then apply a standard of good or evil towards God. but in reality God is just God, nothing more, nothing less. He has nothing to do with the silly notions, labels... that we create.

Xixax

I did. I stated that an omnipotent, omniscient god could place knowledge of hypothetical evils into our mind without putting actual evil into the world.

That's a new question, and an impossible one.. You've just excluded our knowledge of it in the same question where you ask how we would have knowledge of it. I can rephrase your question for you to show that.

"How would you [have a standard of good and evil in your mind] independent of God if good and evil didn't exist in the world or [a standard of good and evil didn't exist] in your mind?"

I made the second change to make more sense of the question. However, if you mean literally as you've stated, then it's no longer an impossible question, but the answer is the same as above.

God, being omnipotent and omniscient, could have created us with hypothetical knowledge of evil that did not require actual evil to exist.

Thanks for answering for me, but we disagree.

The "idea" of good and evil is hypothetical knowledge of good and evil.

"You wouldn't have apples because you wouldn't have apples."

Not a convincing argument.


Same answer to the same question.

Correct ( god being omnipotent and omniscient ).

Still haven't proven that assertion.

The place where morality is set being dependent or not dependent on god has nothing to do with whether or not he prevents evil. If it's independent of him, he can judge based on that independent standard and allow it or not allow it. If it's dependent on him, he can still make a judgement as to what is evil and not evil, based on his own personal standard, and allow it or not allow it.

If good and evil just happen to be whatever god says it is then yes, but this doesn't affect that same god's ability to prevent or allow evil in his creation.

I don't agree, reasons stated above.

NonContradiction

How do you know that? I think that you need to define how you are using all-knowing and all-powerful. If something exists, then God has knowledge of it and power over it.

Did God have knowledge of the universe before it existed? Did God have knowledge of good and evil before it existed? How can we have knowledge of something that doesn't exist? If evil didn't exist, then how would you know evil?

Do you have knowledge of unicorns? You have the idea of a unicorn because you know what a horn is and you know what a horse is. However, do you have knowledge of unicorns or do you have knowledge of the idea of unicorns?