Shadownought

In other words, might makes right- and God is the mightiest of all.

Arrogancy

Where do you get that idea?

First of all, God destroys more in the NT than he does in the OT.

Secondly, God of the Bible reserves the right to take the life of unrepentant sinners. He is the standard, he sets the rules, so he cannot "murder," by default, since murder is "unlawful killing." Since everyone who is sinning dies, then if the sinners are impeding progress in any sort of way, ie. not moving out of his peoples' way when they were aptly warned, then he can speed up the forfiet of their lives if need be.

Thirdly, supposing God exists for the sake of argument, by whose standards is he unjust? Yours? Who are you and why should your standards be used? Why are your standards any better than any other human, from Ghandi to Hitler, on their own, anyway? You're one of 6 billion on this earth with their own sets of standards, after all - if all humans are equal, nobody's standards are "right," by default.

Arrogancy

Exactly. If we're going by the God of the Bible, that's right. If you're going into other Gods, it varies from god to god.

philechat

Again, may I kindly ask you---if a computer file goes bad, and the computer programmer destroyed it, is the computer file to blame? Or is it the creator that is to blame? Have you grasped that it must then proceed to the point that no moral responsibility on humanity is possible, due to our being "created bad by nature" because God somehow, well, screwed up when he created us?

Shadownought

I'm afraid I don't consider "might makes right" to be a just idea. Pure strength alone does not automatically make a person (or a god) "just" by default.

Arrogancy

The file analogy only existed for the argument of purpose and creator vs. creation. You're going into a new argument which that analogy doesn't apply to - the "free will" argument, in which a parent/child analogy would apply.

And just for clarification of that, a parent can have children and have their best interests at heart and want the best for them. One child may decide to listen to his parents, the other may decide that he "knows better" and wishes to follow his own path.

The only complaint against the parents would be if the child that followed the parents' set path ended in failure. If the child that doesn't listen to the parent fails, you don't blame the parent. That's how free will works. The whole point of the Bible is "what is superior, God's rule or self rule?" - from Genesis to Revelation, that is the running theme. Man/satan/other angels decided that they would be better off ruling themselves, and God allows them to for an undetermined time so that intelligent creation (humans/angels) can see if that was a good choice or not. That is why the "why does bad happen" argument does not work against the Biblical God - it only works against the ideal put forth by certain religious sects.

Arrogancy

But that is how it works anyway, belief in God or not. Morals are dictated by the majority, "strength." You may not agree with something, but if you do not have the "strength" to make it law, then what you think is not "right."

Shadownought

And?

Might makes LAWS. Might is what people use to enforce what they THINK is right- but strength alone DOES NOT make a person's morals correct.

philechat

Sorry...Since the idea of "free will" is so vague, I will first not proceed into the "whether humans have free will or not" argument. Yet the problem remains: All our actions must proceed from our character, which was pre-determined by God. Is it possible that we can resist God when we follow the dictates of our character, which was created by God in the first place? To insist there exists a "free will" independent of our God-created character implies that God do not have foreknowledge of our character--here the parent-child analogy failed since the parents do not "create" us consciously and know our character beforehand, but we are formed "unconsciously" by the natural processes of their body.

Arrogancy

But that doesn't even make sense. What is "correct" is automatically decided by power. In most current societies, the will of the majority decides the law, what is correct. In others, a dictator does it, etc. etc. It's the same with a theoretical Biblical God - he decides right and wrong because he has the power. He "thinks" it is right, and he has the power to back up what he thinks.

For the sake of argument, if God exists and you don't agree, that is your decision, just as if you don't agree that murder or rape is "wrong" in today's society that is your decision as well. That is the choice that many made in the Bible itself, and the point of the whole Bible. But he does have the power, so what YOU think doesn't really matter in the long run. Just as the specifics of what YOU think probably have very little or no bearing on the laws of the land.

Power dictates right and wrong. There is no philisophical "right" and "wrong."