Ab_Normal

Soma, question: why doesn't human morality match god's morality?

Soma

Man's power is limited. Our personal convictions on what morality should be do not affect the nature of morality.

God's power is infinite. He can redefine morality however He wishes. Furthermore, God is perfect and infallible. Whatever morals He establishes are likewise perfect, and thus best for us to adhere to.

What if men disregard God and do what they think is right? We get people such as Stalin and Mao. What do we get when people decide to follow God? Mother Theresa.

Mageth

A fallacious analogy. God literally creates and defines morality, we limited, finite beings cannot.

And the prison warden literally creates and defines the rules of the prison. The analogy stands.

To say that moral objectivism can exist without God is erroneous; it cannot exist on its own accord. It is only God that can permit the existence of moral absolutes.

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

Once again, I don't claim that moral objectivism can exist at all - with or without god. What you describe is not an objective moral system - it's arbitrary, and subjective. There are no moral absolutes in the system you described.

Soma

This is the last time I will explain this to you: God is infinitely powerful, man is not. God can create morals which are objective in nature. Accept it and move one.

Again, God can create morality which is objective in nature. Indeed, such morality is only possible by God's power.

If God declares a moral edict, it is absolute. His power ensures it.

Simple reasoning. I hope you eventually come to understand it.

Mageth

What if men disregard God and do what they think is right? We get people such as Stalin and Mao. What do we get when people decide to follow God? Mother Theresa.

Don't forget Torquemada, Jim Jones, a whole series of Borgia and Medici Popes, that guy that kidapped Elizabeth Smart, Osama Bin Laden, Cortez, child molesting priests,...; the list goes on and on.

Soma

Stalin and Mao, two atheists, have caused more deaths in a few short decades than all of theism has caused in the entire existence of man.

That is damning proof that atheism is inherently destructive.

Checkmate!

Mageth

This is the last time I will explain this to you: God is infinitely powerful, man is not. God can create morals which are objective in nature. Accept it and move one.

In the context of the prison, the warden is "infinitely" powerful, and creates rules. Neither the warden nor your version of god creates "objective" morals. They create and enforce subjective rules. Accept it and move on.

Again, God can create morality which is objective in nature. Indeed, such morality is only possible by God's power.

Why? Since when does "might make right" in a moral sense? (I know that this may be true in a practical sense; if god is infinitely powerful, then, yes, he can subject us to whatever set of arbitrary rules he wishes, but that does not make such a system derived from power "moral").

If God declares a moral edict, it is absolute. His power ensures it.

It's an edict enforced by power; it's not moral. It's a rule, or law, and an arbitrary one; there's nothing "moral" about it.

Simple reasoning. I hope you eventually come to understand it.

Not with my understanding of morals, which you by the way seem to have little grasp of:

moral (adj): relating to the standards of good or bad behaviour, fairness, honesty, etc. which each person believes in, rather than to laws.

A bully subjecting his will by force on his less-powerful companions is not establishing a moral system within the group. A warden subjecting his rules by force on a group of inmates is not establishing a moral system in the prison. A government subjecting its laws by force on its citizens is not establishing a moral system in the country. A god subjecting its rules or laws on a world by force is not establishing a moral ssytem on the world.

Mageth

Stalin and Mao, two atheists, have caused more deaths in a few short decades than all of theism has caused in the entire existence of man.

That is damning proof that atheism is inherently destructive.

Checkmate!

Not checkmate, I've seen this opening many times before, and it's not that difficult to counter.

Do you have the actual statistics to back this up, or do you always make unsubstantiated claims?

The most such a comparison could show is that both atheism and theism can be destructive in the wrong hands, so instead of checkmate, we've bost lost our queen. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for theism.

And finally, communism was the system that Stalin and Mao used to justify themselves, and which is more blame for the deaths than their atheism (note it's possible to be communistic and theistic.)

When I call myself an "atheist", I am saying, merely, that I lack belief in god(s). Others may define their atheism differently. But whatever else I believe, or that Staliin, Mao, or any other atheist believes, is external to my atheism. Atheism, in an of itself, cannot be held directly responsible for any murder in history that I know of.

Now queen my pawn.

Tabula_rasa

I posted
Although similar arguments have been given by other christians, it is my belief that such a position is logically inconsistent and is flawed beyond belief. I will give you the benefit of a doubt on your psychological status and will therefore conclude that you are in fact a troll.

*plonk*

Tabula_rasa

You responded
I will take your ad hominem attack as indicative of you being philosophically inept and incapable of logical reasoning.

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Well, this isn't the first time that I've had the term inept applied to me. I'm sure it won't be the last. One tends to get used to it as one gets older and less cocksure of one's self.

However, perhaps you could have put your obviously superior reasoning powers to use by enlightening me as to where my logic was flawed in concluding that yours was a logically untenable position. Would that not have been the enlightened way versus responding with your own ad hominem?

Until next week...

Tabula_rasa

Philosoft

I found a computer, so...

"Perfect" is a standard of something, an adjective's adjective, if you will. It means nothing to say God is "perfect." In any case, it's a judgement on your part. "Infinitely powerful" does not necessarily entail "perfect." I can conceive, in the sense that it's not a logical contradiction, of a infinitely powerful being that is playing self-serving games with us. This being might tell us its rules are "best for us to adhere to" when they are actually not.