sourdough

since I never seen god ,I tend to agree

if God is good then bible must have been writen by some very evil people!
and is not a gods word as you claim
www.evilbible.com/

www.thewaronfaith.com/bible_quotes.htm

jdlongmire

yeah, I've seen the Strawman...and remain skeptical...

Crucifiction

How is that A Strawman? That isn't a Strawman. God himself proclaimed in the Bible that he "creates evil".

ZooMom

ten to the eleventh, I'm sorry for not coming back sooner. Please forgive me.


I don't think I am equipped to debate with you on the level that you seem to desire. I am not a philosopher, I have not studied Plato, or Aristotle. I don't know that I would understand it if I had. I'm sorry. Perhaps this forum is not the place for me after all, not because you all haven't been welcoming, you have...but I realize that I may not be qualified to debate here. I know that this looks like a cop-out on my part, and for those who wish to see it that way, so be it. But it's really that I only wish sincerely not to waste your time or misrepresent my faith through my own ineptitude.



Peace be with you.

Sandy

ten to the eleventh

What are you talking about? There are certainly no minimum qualifications for posting here, and even if there were, your posts are heads and shoulders above the posts of many others that I commonly see here. This particular topic is not that complicated, and I'm sure you could understand very easily summaries of the ideas of Greek philosophers. Geez, don't go away!

JDlongmire seems to think well of your posts, and he has hundreds of posts here. And look at his posts in this thread; they have mostly been one-liners. And not particularly witty one-liners, at that. You should hang out, and practice explaining your ideas, not only for the practice of composition, but for the clarity and structure you can bring to your own mind, if not to the minds of others. You may even be winning converts silently!

Gizmo

Please don't go.

There are others of us who also find that many (most in my case) things go clean over their heads. I have seen many here who might be able rip apart every argument put to them on one thread then meekly roll over on another.

Qualified to debate? Well unless a couple of engineering qualications somehow mean I'm an expert on religous or moral philosophy, I'd better join you - where are we off to?

Giz.

Gizmo

Hey, ten to the eleventh - your an engineer too! Where the hell did you learn all that Philosophical bullshit?

Giz.

ZooMom

Thank you, that was very kind. I truly have been enjoying our discussion. Your last post just made my head spin a bit. Ok, I will keep trying, if you like. And I have no illusions about winning converts, I just hope to not appear foolish.


One step at a time then.



No, again, I cannot divorce my reason from my faith. I don't know anyone who can. We are not machines, but people. Our intellectual observations will always be colored by our spiritual ones, and vice versa. Even an atheist, who claims no faith, indeed has faith in that claim, and bases his intellectual observations on the spiritual certainty that there is no God.



Hmm. Ok, I most assuredly think that reason, my intellect, reinforces and enhances my faith in God's goodness. Bear with me a moment. I cannot remember *not* believing in God. I certainly went through a period that while I didn't have less of a belief in God's existance, I assuredly cared less about it. I was what some might charitably call 'lapsed'. It was my intellect, my reason, that pushed me to question, argue, study, and eventually realize a much stronger faith than I had ever had. Now perhaps you will say that that is flawed, since I claim to have never actually stopped believing in God. *shrug* Perhaps. I cannot say.


Ok, wait. This needs to be made clearer. God, as the source of morality, cannot by definition BE immoral. Anything He directly engages in, causes, or orders to be, must be moral because He is the one who determines morality. Now that may not translate directly to 'cozy fuzzy bunny feelings', but it will be moral and just. Without that premise, 'goodness' and 'morality' become relative. I don't think that I am selective in my observations, I see bad as well as good. Both are attributable to man, and not only to men of faith. But what I view as solely God's goodness, (earth, water, air, life, love, faith) which has only God as it's cause, has no comparable counterparts that can be viewed in any aspect as "God's badness".


From this Plato sounds like a scary guy. I can only reiterate my belief that reason cannot be divorced from faith. They complement and complete each other.


If that were true, then there should exist somewhere on this planet a completely amoral society. Or at least a society where those who are completely amoral are not considered sociopaths. Can you explain, solely with logic, why murder is 'bad'? We all have this natural morality. I call it the Law of God written in our hearts. People of other faiths call it other things, but I don't believe you can argue that it isn't there, and that only reason determines the nature of morality. For instance, we both obviously approach this subject from different perspectives, but I bet we both believe that murder is wrong, that rape is wrong, that honesty is a more attractive trait than dishonesty, etc...Is our morality a product of conditioning only or is it something that is inherent that is either nurtured or neglected?




Peace be with you!

Sandy

ZooMom

Thanks. I thought we'd find a nice pub and lift a pint or two. :angel:

ten to the eleventh

Well, I can't agree with you on your claim about (all) atheists. I don't believe that I have a "spiritual certainty" that there is no God. Rather, I have a rational certainty (which, unlike "spiritual certainty", is always up for reasoned debate) that I do not have the evidence required for a rational belief in God. This is quite different from claiming to know that no god(s) exist. "Spiritual" evidence or knowledge are notoriously fickle constructs, with one's "knowledge" contradicting anothers, and no way to discern the right. As rational thought begins with axioms, the correctness of claims based on reason can be evaluated. "Spiritual" claims cannot be evaluated, only claimed, and believed or disbelieved. Therefore, I put no stock in them, as I put no stock in claims that cannot be evaluated critically.

This, of course, applies to universal truths. If you tell me that you love pistachio ice cream, an individual preference, I will tend to believe that you indeed love pistachio ice cream. This does not mean that I feel the same about your favorite frozen confection, or that I should. If you tell me that you have a spiritual knowledge of God's existence, and His absolute perfection and goodness, a universal concept, I may believe you are convicted thus, but I will not find reason in your conviction to believe the same.


I don't doubt that you think that. Reason, since the enlightenment, and especially because of the easily demonstrable success of reason's favorite child, science, has regained its former vaunted status, and no one would want to make a claim today without an appeal to it. But that hasn't always been so with Christianity. From its outset, Christianity, which was strongly influenced by Greek thought, was shaped by the ideas of Plato. Reason was derided, and spiritual authority was unquestionable. See the comments of Augustine, or Paul for that matter, on the subject. Even Martin Luther referred to reason as the "devil's whore."

Reasoning can be proper or improper. The beauty of it is that it is subject to real evaluation, unlike spiritual insights, so that all may consider its conclusions fairly. Reason may reinforce your conviction of God's goodness, but it may not be proper reasoning. To determine that, one must evaluate it without the condition that it is necessarily right, which would prevent real evaluation. If you begin from the perspective that God must always act morally, then you will only allow reasoning that yields God's goodness, and you will disallow any reasoning that questions it.

I am not suggesting that we are evaluating whether or not God is essentially immoral. What I am suggesting for evaluation is that some of His actions might be immoral. You say that God is the source of morality. I would suggest that morality, then, is a creation of God's, and it exists as objective truth, in the same sense as earth, air, life, faith, etc. Morality is a measure of the goodness of actions, no? Then, we should be able to use the yardstick of this objective morality to measure any particular action of God's. 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?

One cannot claim that the morality of God's actions can be judged, but pre-determine the conclusion of any such judgement. That is not reasoning, that is adherence to dogma, or spiritual authority.

On the other hand, if the rules of morality do not apply to God, then we cannot say that God is a moral being. We cannot say that He is good any more than we can say that He is bad. He just IS, and He does what He wants, and His actions are not subject to moral review. See?


Yes, I can, given axioms. Here is a super-simplified version. Try to use your imagination for a better explanation:

Axiom: People want to live comfortably; comfort is good.
Axiom: People live more comfortably when they co-operate.

Reasoning: Murder impedes social co-operation, thereby impeding the good of comfort. That which impedes the good is bad. Murder is bad.


This natural morality could easily be an evolutionary development. Consider that our primary evolutionary advantage is our relatively large brain. Our brains allow us to cooperate in ways that increase our survivability (and subsequent reproductive success). We form social groups that, through the cooperation of specialists within the group, and through force of numbers, operate to increase our individual and group survivability. Even wolves have social rules that are strictly observed, and that increase their survivability as individuals and as groups.

Many of the moral rules that are taken for granted as basic in one society are disregarded in others, just ask an anthropologist. But the basic rules that create an environment of cooperation remain. Any group that was without these rules would be like an elephant without a trunk, and would die out rather quickly.

These morals are at least partly socially derived and reinforced, that much is certain. But it could also be that these morals may be "stamped" into our DNA. Humans, with their huge brains, are very perceptive, and tend not to trust those without empathy, the socio-paths, as you call them. As it is a lot easier to have the appearance of empathy if one actually feels it, rather than simply fakes it, a capacity for empathy would be selected for, evolutionarily. Such a capacity would be accomodated by our big brains.

Basically, and "amoral" social group could never form, much less sustain itself, and the most successful groups would be those with the highest levels of reciprocal trust, and thus the greatest capacity for cooperation. Think of the ol' prisoners dilemma.

Consider your claim here:

While rape, murder, and lying, have been universally prohibited (well, not always rape) within a social group, they have certainly not been prohibited as actions against members outside the social group. It is hard to argue that these prohibitions are stamped on our souls as universal absolutes, then, but it is easy to view them as tendencies within groups that are cooperating. Even God commanded the Israelites to slaughter an enemy entirely, even the women and children. Today, we (some of us, anyway) call it murder when an army kills non-combatants. 'Twas not always so.

The social rules/prohibitions in the books of the law were written primarily with Israelite to Israelite interaction in mind. The rules were written to establish, reinforce, and advance that particular social group. Killing outside of that group, as is so often pointed out, was not viewed as murder (the real prohibition in the commandments, as most Christians agree). The natural distaste for killing, which you would say has been imprinted on our souls, is much stronger when that killing is within our own group, and is often completely absent when it comes to killing (or raping, or lying to) those outside our group (as history overwhelmingly demonstrates). It is hard to argue, then, that such rules are universally imprinted as moral absolutes.

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