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How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 6:33 pm
If everything that happens is god's will, then the only measure of right or wrong is success or failure. If it wasn't god's will for me to punch you in the face, then it wouldn't have happened. If I don't punch you in the face it's not because I'm a good person who doesn't do things like that, but because god doesn't want you to be punched in the face today by me.
Appealing to god's will allows people to sleep at night. It wipes the slate of history clean.
This is why empathy is a better foundation for moral behavior, because you have to get rid of the idea of god's will to even recognize that some things are good and some things are evil.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 6:35 pm
Humans need to be absolved of their wrong doings. The almighty is the perfect scapegoat.
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 6:50 pm
Or it’s Gods will that you be a moral agent with free will, and you are culpable for your choices. You also have the difference between God’s will, in what he desires and in what he permits.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:07 pm
(This post was last modified: October 10, 2018 at 7:12 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Then afflicted believers should change their idea of whatever happens being the will of god...and dial it back a few billion notches to "whatever god permits". Which, apparently, is an awful lot of terrible shit he doesn't will.
I've always wondered how we explain the (non)response when a god walks into some room and two of his children..his favorite creations, made in his likeness, are fucking eating each other.
Godometer says...permissible. Moral cripple that god is, he sits back..doesn't want to get involved, free will and all that. Free will, lol..the one thing that an omnipotent god can just -never- find a workaround for, even if we can. Not that it matters, since you don't have one. You're a fallen creature. Sin touches every part of your being. You can't possess free will, you can only be sinful.
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:13 pm
(October 10, 2018 at 6:50 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Or it’s Gods will that you be a moral agent with free will, and you are culpable for your choices. You also have the difference between God’s will, in what he desires and in what he permits.
Yes, people who believe in god always know his will. Then they depend on him to do damage control getting them out of the trouble they got into doing what they thought he told them to do in the first place. Very efficient system of moral decision making.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:18 pm
(October 10, 2018 at 6:50 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Or it’s Gods will that you be a moral agent with free will, and you are culpable for your choices. You also have the difference between God’s will, in what he desires and in what he permits.
But if God if God created the universe, then he also created my choices, actions and consequences. There can be no free will in the framework of a God as described in the Bible.
Boru
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:18 pm
(October 10, 2018 at 7:13 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: (October 10, 2018 at 6:50 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Or it’s Gods will that you be a moral agent with free will, and you are culpable for your choices. You also have the difference between God’s will, in what he desires and in what he permits.
Yes, people who believe in god always know his will. Then they depend on him to do damage control getting them out of the trouble they got into doing what they thought he told them to do in the first place. Very efficient system of moral decision making.
I think you should get to know more Christians. This seems like an odd and bad view to me.
But I am curious what this has to do with the context of the thread? Seems more like prooftexting to me.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:24 pm
Yeah, it's remarkable just how much the almighty views coincide with yours.
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:24 pm
(October 10, 2018 at 7:18 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: (October 10, 2018 at 6:50 pm)RoadRunner79 Wrote: Or it’s Gods will that you be a moral agent with free will, and you are culpable for your choices. You also have the difference between God’s will, in what he desires and in what he permits.
But if God if God created the universe, then he also created my choices, actions and consequences. There can be no free will in the framework of a God as described in the Bible.
Boru
What I see in the Bible is that God is soverign, and that man is responsible for the actions and choices he makes. I think you and I have free will; we make rational and moral choices. This is taught throughout the Bible. It seems to me, the materialist position where you don’t have these.
It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. - Alexander Vilenkin
If I am shown my error, I will be the first to throw my books into the fire. - Martin Luther
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RE: How Can We Have Moral Direction If God Controls Everything?
October 10, 2018 at 7:49 pm
(October 10, 2018 at 7:24 pm)no one Wrote: Yeah, it's remarkable just how much the almighty views coincide with yours.
Poor almighty, can't speak to us in an audible voice that we can clearly distinguish from our own thoughts and feelings and desires. This is spiritual forgery, forging god's name onto our own agenda or the agenda of a church or denomination. It has the moral fiber of anarchy.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.
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