Black Leaf

Hello all,

As it says in my profile, I am unsure of what I personally believe at this point. Perhaps some of you who are more sure of your positions can help me out.

Assuming that the Christian bible is basically accurate and Satan exists:

What can we say about the Character of God? Can we say anything? Does the fact that he is God negate our ability to question his morals or actions? After all, if he is God, then we cannot put our own morality or judgment above him in order to use it as a tool to judge, because then our morality would itself be a God.

What if we do judge God? Even if we can show that his actions or behavior is immoral by some rational and objective standard, what can we do with that knowledge? If God is all powerful, or at least in the end will win, what do we do? If we stick to our morals and refuse to worship God, we get sent to hell, which will suck so much that it seems no rational person would choose to be that much of a martyr (or at least I wouldn't be able to go that far).

On the other hand, we can be disingenuous and worship God out of fear so that we won't have to be tortured forever. The analogy seems to be of an unjust king. What do we do when a rebellion of any size really has absolutely no chance of success and the king will capture and torture us? Do we therefore submit to his rule no matter how unjust it seems to save our own eternal ass?

Where does this equation leave Satan? Is Satan now only a traitor because he lost, and if he won he would be a patriot? Does the fact that it is impossible for Satan to win because of God's power affect things? Is Satan is the "good" guy because he truly saw God's character and rejected it as evil? What does that mean? Does the fact that Satan will lose change anything?

Then again, perhaps my essential starting premise was wrong and the bible is wrong. But, I have to admit that if hell is a tool merely invented to ensure compliance, it is working, because torture for eternity is not my idea of a good time.

Alright, discuss

Calzaer

Don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I wanted to address one thing really quickly...

There are two options here. Is Good good because God commands it, or does God command that which is Good?

If God commands that which is Good, it means there is an objective standard of Goodness that exists apart from God. In which case, we can easily question God's morals and actions, because the standard is objective relative to him. We can put God up beside the yardstick and see how things work out.

If God's commands are good a priori, that means everything God does is good, by defintion. The Bible also indicates that humans get their moral system from God. But if this is the case, why did God give us a moral system that would lead folks to question the morality of His actions? He instilled in us the notion that genocide is Bad, then goes out and committs genocide - but since he did it, it is Good by definition? Further, we have this idea that deliberately confusing people is Bad, but God did it by giving us this moral system contrary to His Goodness, and since he did it, it's Good?

I do not believe that the latter argument is cohesive or compelling. If the Christian God exists, he is in no way the standard of Good. If he was, the moral system he gave us would not lead us to question his actions.

If Good exists apart from God, and God gave us a moral system consistent with this objective Good, then it's natural that we would question his actions. It doesn't mean his actions AREN'T good (see the Unknown Purpose Defense), but it does mean that the system of morality God gave us and the system of morality God works under are consistant with each other.

In the other case, the system God gave us and the system which God defines come into conflict. Unknown Purpose is weakened, because even if God committing genocide has a good outcome, the moral system of humans still condems genocide as Bad - but since it was God's action, it must be Good in and of itself, purpose or no purpose.

So, in short, we can question the Christian God's character, because for the idea of God to be consistant with the Christian mythos, Good must exist as an objective quality apart from him. Otherwise, God gave us a different definition of "benevolence" than he himself uses (and forgot to let us know)... which starts hedging into the Great Trickster theory.

Things we otherwise know as objectively Bad must be mentally resorted into the Good category because God does them - but if God gave us our morality system, why were these things in our "Bad" category in the first place? Why do we have the same initial sense of moral outrage over genocide, no matter who (man or God) commits it? At the very least, God's version of the same crime shouldn't spark moral outrage in anyone if he did indeed give us a moral system and then proceed to define that morality!

Ellis14

If Good is good simply because God says so, then there seems to be no purpose at all in God giving us a sense of morality.

He might just as well have created humans without any conscience at all, but used himself as the Ultimate Oracle for making ethical and judicial decisions.

However if Good is an objective definition, then we might look at God and day "yes He is good, in fact he is the paragon of goodness". But one must have a moral-determinant, i.e.: ethical criteria for making that judgement. So the notion that we can call God good but dismiss His actions when they aren't good is self-refuting, because if we can't use our own morality to objective judge that God is not good, we cannot use it to say he is good.

If God decides what is good or not, then He could realistically declare murder to be evil one week and good the next. (Which invariable happened in the OT). God might decide universally what is good or bad, but then he is bound by his own rules. If not, and good and bad were to be that shallow and arbitrary, (but were indeed right to be that way, i.e.: if it was the case the God chooses what and when something is good and bad), then this would leave us in the position of simply choosing to obey him or not. Again, if we chose to disobey him EVEN THOUGH He decides what is right or wrong, then it was pointless for God to give us free will. If good and bad are objective descriptions then God (even if he originally invented them) must conform to them, and therefore to our expections of good and bad. Therefore if we indeed have free will we can judge whether God is good or bad for ourselves, and He has no excuse for not measuring up.

Whether we decide to serve him or not as a result, because of the everlasting punishment that undoubtedly awaits us if we don't, would simply be a matter of choice. God might burn us in hell for all eternity, but that wouldn't necessarily make us right or wrong for choosing to obey him or not. Might = right, I don't think so.

Roland

Hell is not really an Old Testament concept.

It comes from the Persian religion Zoroastrianism.

Ellis14

Hell is not really a biblical concept at all. It is a misrepresentation of bible verses. The bible contains many self-contradictory ramblings, and as such one might read the notion of hell all the same. But it was a lie adopted and confabulated by the church to scare people into obediance and subservience; the doctrine of hell cannot be derived logically from the bible. It is a typical example of Christendom's truthless and nonsensical nature.

mike_decock

It looks like this topic is more suited to GRD.

-Mike...

Amos

But even our worship will be like filthy rags before him. There is nothing we can do that is good because all we do in effort to do good will have its own reward when we do the good -- or it would not be called good. Hence, it cannot be the good and therefore must be the bad that can land us in heaven. According to this reasoning the laws were given to Moses so they can convict us of sin and not stop us from sin. I think Romans tells us that the law was given to arouse in us all kinds of evil desire (Romans 7:8) and when sin came alive I died (verse 10).

Hell is a different concept all together. Hell never was God's idea but man's and it belongs to those who want to be 'king' in the hereafter, like MacBeth, who was in hell if anbody ever was.

Queen of Swords

Regarding hell, why didn't God tell Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, etc. about it? I find it strange that he should say, "So there shall be eight boards with their sockets of silver - sixteen sockets" but fail to add, "By the way, there's a place of eternal torment in the afterlife awaiting anyone who doesn't toe my line."

mjbeam

The fact that god is god only speaks of power to me. The god of the bible is pretty powerful. He created the heavens and the earth. That's power. But just because god is powerful doesn't mean he is good. And if he isn't then should he be followed? I believe every person has a responsibility to fight evil wherever they find it and I find that the god as described in the bible is evil. He created satan. He ordered that babies be smashed against the rocks and that virgins be kept as war plunder. He condones slavery. These are all evil in my book.

But fortunately the bible is about as likely to be the inspired word of god as the Wizard of Oz. It's a fairy tail. It's the history if the Jews. God told us to do this, God told us to do that. God said we're special.

So it moves from evil to dangerously silly.


-Mike

Black Leaf

Feel free to pick up the thread and move it then. I made a best guess about the forum it seemed most approprite to. Sorry for any problems.