Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ZooMom · 10-04-2004, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ten to the eleventh

I'm not saying it is necessarily a fear response. What I am saying is that you have disallowed such reasoning already, as you show very clearly here:

I am not saying that there must be found instances in which God can be found to have done wrong, but that for us to claim that we have rationally evaluated the goodness of a particular action, we must allow our capacity to rationally evaluate badness. We must not, therefore, assume that any reasoning that concludes that God has done wrong must be flawed.

Note, I did not say "immoral," I said "amoral." But I'm confused here. How is it that God cannot violate a rule He created for us? The rules were created for us, and not for him, right? I don't follow that just because God wrote the rules, he must therefore always be found to have abided by those rules. If God is defined as purely good, then it is not through reason that God is found good. Again, my question: If God creates rule 1, an inviolable objective measure, but then proceeds to violate rule 1, then can we not say that God has acted immorally?

Here is the problem that I am having. If Blue is the source of all blueness, how then can it be pink? Saying that hypothetically blue could be pink, is all well and good, but how can blue ever REALLY be pink? :banghead:

I'm sorry, I think I'm getting a bit dizzy.

Quote:

Your answer before:

only serves to establish that the morality of God's (or Mom's) actions are not open for consideration. And again, we have that it is a matter of dogma, or what you might call "spiritual truth," that God is good. God's goodness was entirely determined prior to and independently of reason. Reason in this matter is wholly irrelevant, under the condition given. One may claim that it is highly improbable that God would act immorally, but the possibility must be allowed before the judgment that He never has can be made.

Ok. That makes sense to me. At least it sounds reasonable.

Quote:

That is not why I feel it to be bad. I feel it to be bad because it sucks, if you know what I mean. You asked if I could deduce the badness of murder logically, and I showed that it could be done independently of supernatural notions. My logic is also a formalization of the evolutionary (both social and physical) logic behind our conviction that murder is bad.

Well, "accident," is not an accurate term, but that's another topic. The point is that there are sound explanations for the existence of morality that do not require God.

I said

you said:

What I am saying is that while the really basic premises that allow social cooperation may be intrinsically held, they have only been more innately applicable to intra-group interactions, and have not applied universally or absolutely.

And I think that the fact that they are intrinsically held makes them universal, not whether they are applied with equal repercussions across the board.

Quote:

Take caveman group 1, all getting along fine and cooperating productively. Ugh, from group 1, whacks Googa, also in group 1, over the head and takes his food. The other group members proceed to run him off. Now, Googa, recovering from a severe headache, wanders by caveman group 2 in the next valley over. He sneaks in, pounces on poor Trog, thwaks him good, and takes off with his food. Proudly, he walks back into the camp of caveman group 1 and tells of his bravery and adventure, and all the cave folk in caveman group 1 pat Googa on the back and tell him what a good job he has done, as everybody chows down on the spoils.

I'm sorry! Got a flash of the movie Caveman with Ringo Starr.

Quote:

Actions such as killing, lying, stealing, raping have generally always been viewed as morally repugnant within groups, but not across groups. This fact is consistent with the evolutionary development of a moral sense, but not so much with a God-stamp on each of us, which would, I would think, make it as emotionally repugnant to kill Habib in Iraq, or Mr. Nuygen in Vietnam, as it would to kill Joe Smith next door. But it seemed to me that a lot of good Christian (and non-Christian) folks have screamed for the blood of caveman group 2 over in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Yes, and I understand the point you are making.

Quote:

When people have argued that we shouldn't treat others outside our groups differently, they have had to do so using reason. Their reasoning may have used biblical commands as premises, but reasoning was required to persuade because people do not feel the same sort of empathy for "the other" as they do for their familiars. Often, such reasoning has simple rational pragmatism as its base: "Hey, Googa, if you keep stealing their food, they are going to come over here and beat the crap out of us. As a matter of fact, you will be punished if you do it again."

Yep.

Quote:

You asked about the moral difference between murder and killing:

Yes, they often did. The Israelites reasoned that because they were God's chosen people, and that God had promised them a patch of land, that anyone on that patch of land was in defiance of God's will, and to kill them was not murder, but righteousness in action. That is reasoning. We are smart monkeys, and we often recognize apparent contradiction. Reasoning, especially highly motivated reasoning, can often overcome apparent contradictions. If we know that to refrain from something that we usually consider wrong will be to our material disadvantage, we often use reason to find a way that what we want to do is not the same as what we consider to be wrong.

I don't disagree with that.

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As a mother, I'm sure you are intimately familiar with that concept.

You have no idea.

Quote:

edit: Even better for the Israelites, they got to write up their preferred version of their history, and that version has been successfully promoted as unquestionable truth ever since.

:angel:

Peace be with you.

Sandy

ZooMom · 10-04-2004, 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newton Joseph

I am so happy that you know God's mind

I would never be so arrogant as to presume to know that. But I will say that I have a limited understanding of God's nature, as He has revealed Himself through the Scriptures and the natural order. I'm sorry to spoil your happiness.

Peace be with you.

Sandy

ZooMom · 10-04-2004, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ten to the eleventh

So, if in this history of the Israelites, written by them, under the presumption that they were God's chosen people, and without any critical editing by any neutral party, we can find a depiction of God's action, or inaction that appears, at least to ethics we hold, to be morally questionable, are we capable of rationally evaluating it? If, to this general question, you answer that first we must assume that whatever God has done is morally perfect, then we really can't have a fair analysis, can we? Our finding, given that condition, cannot be meaningful, can it? A finding of "not-guilty" cannot be said to reinforce the a priori assumption that makes such a finding necessary, can it?

I don't know. I can't make any promises, except that if you want to take an example and work through it, I will do my best to be objective.

After all, if I am confident of the outcome, what do I have to lose?

jdlongmire · 10-04-2004, 05:10 PM

can I join in some, maybe? :jump:

Rational BAC · 10-04-2004, 05:25 PM

Back to the original question in the OP---

Can God do wrong?

Of course He can do wrong. God can do any damned thing he well pleases to do--or He could not be God.

Rebuttals?

It has always struck me as so very amazing that both the intransigent Christian fundies and the intransigent atheists so much agree on so many things.

Why do you all so limit your minds?

God is God. And can do any damned thing He pleases. Like it or not.

And it is very obvious that atheists do not like it and therefore condemn it. And fundies do not like the reality of Biblical scripture and so go around the barn to defend it--------where in so many places it is so indefensible.

Hey and listen up here-------the Bible was written and inspired by MAN. That is it and that is all she wrote on the subject. That fact should be very obvious to anyone who has ever really read the Bible. Most of it is a bunch of claptrap.

The fact that Christianity is in no way inspired by God through the Bible means in no way that Jesus did not exist as the son of God and the Saviour of mankind. And that He had some things very important to teach us.

I have always maintained and will always believe that both atheists and Christian fundies share exactly the same and very narrow mind set.

Enjoy sleeping together---as that is what you do so well.

But you are both wrong.

ZooMom · 10-04-2004, 05:37 PM

RBAC, of course God can do anything. But when we are speaking of the inherent morality of God, the question becomes, will He do anything? I don't believe He will.

Peace be with you.

Sandy

ten to the eleventh · 10-04-2004, 05:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newton Joseph

I am so happy that you know God's mind

Let's play nice.

ZooMom · 10-04-2004, 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdlongmire

can I join in some, maybe? :jump:

I don't see why not.

You can't do any worse than me. :angel:

Peace be with you!

Sandy

ten to the eleventh · 10-04-2004, 06:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZooMom

Here is the problem that I am having. If Blue is the source of all blueness, how then can it be pink? Saying that hypothetically blue could be pink, is all well and good, but how can blue ever REALLY be pink? :banghead:

I'm sorry, I think I'm getting a bit dizzy.

Sandy

Yeah, there's some theological weirdness in there somewhere. If you say that God is good, the noun, as the perfect "form" of goodness, or somesuch, then no bad, I suppose, could come of God, or Good. Now the word sounds weird. Anyway, we run into all kinds of definition problems with this. If I say that something is good, am I saying that it is God? Or am I suggesting that it approximates God, or somehow is a piece of God? If God is purely good, and He was ALL that was before creation, and everything that is came from God, then we must say that bad can come from God. To claim that it came about indirectly, through man, does not challenge the fact that it came from God, because man created God with the capacity to do evil. Unless we can take a few parts "good," and combine them in such a way that "bad" results, but that kind of destroys the notion that bad cannot come from good, doesn't it?

All this, again, is Platonic thought, wherein "good" is reified, treated as a real object, as opposed to being a matter of judgement, a perceived quality. We wouldn't say that "beautiful" exists, although there may be very beautiful things. You wouldn't say that there is a source of "beauty," from which only beautiful things come, would you? Plato would.

Of your example, I could easily say that blue is part of the spectrum of visible (to us) light, and that light some light sources produce the entire spectrum of visible light, red included (pink would be a combination). As God has produced the entire spectrum of existence that we perceive, then he has produced objects of every perceived quality.

ten to the eleventh · 10-04-2004, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZooMom

I don't know. I can't make any promises, except that if you want to take an example and work through it, I will do my best to be objective.

After all, if I am confident of the outcome, what do I have to lose?

I don't have a problem with confidence. It's unwavering, unquestionable certainty that bothers me.

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10-04-2004, 05:10 PM	#114
jdlongmire Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: American by birth, Southern by the grace of God! Posts: 2,657	can I join in some, maybe? :jump:

10-04-2004, 05:25 PM	#115
Rational BAC Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Tampa Bay area Posts: 3,471	Back to the original question in the OP--- Can God do wrong? Of course He can do wrong. God can do any damned thing he well pleases to do--or He could not be God. Rebuttals? It has always struck me as so very amazing that both the intransigent Christian fundies and the intransigent atheists so much agree on so many things. Why do you all so limit your minds? God is God. And can do any damned thing He pleases. Like it or not. And it is very obvious that atheists do not like it and therefore condemn it. And fundies do not like the reality of Biblical scripture and so go around the barn to defend it--------where in so many places it is so indefensible. Hey and listen up here-------the Bible was written and inspired by MAN. That is it and that is all she wrote on the subject. That fact should be very obvious to anyone who has ever really read the Bible. Most of it is a bunch of claptrap. The fact that Christianity is in no way inspired by God through the Bible means in no way that Jesus did not exist as the son of God and the Saviour of mankind. And that He had some things very important to teach us. I have always maintained and will always believe that both atheists and Christian fundies share exactly the same and very narrow mind set. Enjoy sleeping together---as that is what you do so well. But you are both wrong.

10-04-2004, 05:37 PM	#116
ZooMom Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: North Carolina Posts: 1,331	RBAC, of course God can do anything. But when we are speaking of the inherent morality of God, the question becomes, will He do anything? I don't believe He will. Peace be with you. Sandy

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