[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[Bucky Ball]

It's hard to read whether statements like that natural consequences bit are just mistakes or a threat.  Do they think that believing in gods does something, or that if we don't..god is going to do something to us?  Sounds pleasant either way.

I guess I could try explaining how this works, but I'm not going to. It would be like trying to teach Spanish to a cat.

LMAO. Like anyone here actually thinks you could explain shit.

[Bucky Ball]

Well it kind of is, and it kind of isn't. A person makes up his or her mind about God early on in life, and this is usually what they stick with for their whole life. However, it is possible to change course.

I think you're right, but I don't want to suggest that this is a conscious, deliberate choice. 

It's not like people write a list of pros and cons on a piece of paper and then do the sums. 

People choose, most likely, based on all kinds of emotional and social causes. And then if they feel like they have to defend themselves they figure out the justifications afterwards. They'll come up with ex post facto reasons that sound good in argument. Whether all of these reasons are good ones or not is a separate question.

As the man said: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."

https://sites.pitt.edu/~mthompso/reading...encing.pdf

So no free will then. Faith is due to being a slave of passions.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sounds like a hostage situation to my catbrain.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Sounds like a hostage situation to my catbrain.

Precisely why I mentioned Stockholm Syndrome upthread.

[SimpleCaveman]

Hi Fake Messiah,

When Christians came to power the world did not become suddenly more moral. There was still slavery, child abandonment, and wars.

Of course, but that doesn’t contradict what I said. Remember three things.

A) We’re talking about a 1300 or 1400 yr. period. Not overnight.
B) We’re talking about a worldview. Just because the worldview has a certain set of mores does not mean everyone is going to follow that.
C) In Roman and Greek culture, those things were not considered bad. In Christian culture they were, even if not all followed.

[SimpleCaveman]

Hi Boru,

Sorry for the delay. Thanks for playing along and thinking this through.

But if our values come from Christian history (they don’t, but I’ll play along), then it absolutely doesn’t matter if God exists, from a moral/ethical standpoint.

Interesting point.

(First a small flight of fancy. It makes me think of a time travel paradox situation. (Bodies didn’t address theirs. Travelers did.) If our values come from Christian history, then it doesn’t matter if God exists or not. We have those values regardless. But would we have Christian history if God didn’t exist? Dammit Boru! I’m a statistician, not a philosopher. :-)

I am contending that it is our Christian history that gives us our values. And, obviously to my thinking, we have that history because God exists.

You’re point is that if we have the Christian virtues, then we don’t need God to exist anymore, assuming that he ever did. And I would say yes. Yes we do.

Consider, in the last 100 to 200 years, and the last 60 in particular, we have moved from a Christian society to a post-christian society. The 19th-century poet Matthew Arnold once spoke of the “long, withdrawing roar” of the “Sea of Faith,” leaving us with “neither joy, nor love, nor light.”

Those values have still been with us but, as I see it, are going away, getting replaced by greater selfishness, antagonism, etc. The world is not getting better without that Christian worldview.

If God didn’t exist, then even though, somehow, the Christian worldview lasted that long anyway, it will soon die out. Without the Christian worldview, what is there to get us back on track? And not only without that worldview, but replaced by many, many worldviews, almost to the point where everyone has their own unique worldview. It seems to me that it will be impossible to keep those virtues. Who will define what is inhumane, when everyone has a different idea of what humane is? How will we have compassion for victims when everyone is a victim? How can we have community and brotherhood, when our culture fights for radical individualism? I don’t know.

On the other hand, if God does exist, then (try not to do a spit-take here) His plan of salvation is constantly at work. He is letting us wallow in our own sinfulness, like He did with the Israelites in the OT. We Christians have to recognize that we have lost our moral vision. You all say this all the time: When you see how Christians act, why would you want to be Christian?

If Christians can stop being buttheads (can I say that here?) and start being Christ-like, then we can again be a light to the world. Now back to the point, we could not do that on our own. On our own, we will always be buttheads, where eventually, we’ll be going to hell in a bucket, and not even enjoying the ride. As evidence of this I show you the last 200, 100, 60 years.

But because God exists, He can guide us back to those virtues, (and I say He is).

For today, no, it may not matter whether God exists as long as the people around you have that worldview. But tomorrow they may not, and then it matters.

[SimpleCaveman]

Hi Grand Nudger,

I know I’m a day late and a dollar short so ignore me if you want.

TL;DR: (Though I hope you do read it) God wants and commands what is best for us. It is good for us because it fits with how He made us. He can’t command something that violates His reason because His intellect is perfect.

I don't get it, for me this is super softball.  OFC "devil stuff" wouldn't be worthwhile, perfect, or true just because it came out of a gods wherever - but that does mean that coming out of gods wherever is not the worthwhile/perfect/truth-making property.  Hell, if it was "devil stuff" coming out of gods wherever, not only would you reject the consequences of your rule...you wouldn't even call it a god anymore.  You seem to realize that something is askance.  What's stopping us from stepping back and correcting a statement about what we -actually- believe, since it's not really what we just said we believed?

Confused-by-christianity is doing a good job here, but the Euthyphro dilemma is hard. I would like to support him by adding to the discussion.

The Grand Nudger’s question is trying to get at why something is good? Let’s be honest and say that while Plato may have honestly asked the question, I’d be very surprised if the Grand Nudger is doing it for any other reason than as a trap. But no worries, it’s a good question. Interesting to think about.

Following theologian and apologist, Karlo Broussard, I think we can summarize what the Big Nudge :-) is trying to say with three premises.

First, he says, “Are these things worthy because they shine out of gods wherever, or do they shine out of gods wherever because they are worthy?” The word “worthy” here is being used as a substitute for the word “good.” The statement is usually stated as “Is an action good because God commands it, or does God command an action because it’s already good?” Thus I would state the first premise as

1) Either an action is good because God commands it, or God commands an action because it’s already good.

Then he plays the gotcha and says “if badness, hate, falsity, ugliness, vacuity, and cowardice were what was shining out of gods wherever.. those things would be the set of the worthwhile.” He wants us to say, "well, I guess they would be worthwhile." It’s a gotcha because it makes the goodness of God into an arbitrary thing. To a theist it’s a logical contradiction, which is what Confused-by-christianity was pointing out. Let’s say the second premise as

2) If an action is good because God commands it, then God could arbitrarily command any evil act (like “curbstomping infants”), and that act would be good, which is absurd.

He also “wins” if we say that it’s not worthwhile just because God commands it. That means (at the surface) that there is a criteria for goodness independent of God, which a theist would not hold. Let’s say the third premise as

3) If God commands an action because it’s already good, then there is a standard of goodness independent of God, in which case God is not necessary for morality.

Conclusion: Since a theist can hold neither option, it follows that a theist’s claim that God is necessary for morality is undermined.

[Grand Nudger, if I have stated these wrong, please correct. Don’t rant yet, though. Give me time to update my logic.]

Since this post is long, we’ll only look at the third premise. If someone wants to consider the second, let me know.

I do not have any problem affirming that God commands an action because it’s good. The fallacy here is in the way of thinking what good is.

Because what is good and bad for human beings is determined by the ends set for us by nature. Any behavior that facilitates the achievement of our natural ends is considered good. If it frustrates those ends, then it is considered bad. For example, the way we were created/evolved says that drinking water is a good because it preserves our life. Procreation and rearing kittens are good for cats because they preserve the species.

And so, yes! God commands all actions that facilitate the achievement of our natural ends. Those actions he is commanding are good. He prohibits actions that frustrate those ends, “bad things, man.”

In summary, for premise 3, since human nature determines what is good and bad for us, and since God is the author of our nature, affirming that God commands something because it is good does not imply a standard of goodness independent of God.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hi Boru,

Sorry for the delay. Thanks for playing along and thinking this through.

But if our values come from Christian history (they don’t, but I’ll play along), then it absolutely doesn’t matter if God exists, from a moral/ethical standpoint.

Interesting point.

(First a small flight of fancy. It makes me think of a time travel paradox situation. (Bodies didn’t address theirs. Travelers did.) If our values come from Christian history, then it doesn’t matter if God exists or not. We have those values regardless. But would we have Christian history if God didn’t exist? Dammit Boru! I’m a statistician, not a philosopher. :-)

I am contending that it is our Christian history that gives us our values. And, obviously to my thinking, we have that history because God exists.

You’re point is that if we have the Christian virtues, then we don’t need God to exist anymore, assuming that he ever did. And I would say yes. Yes we do.

Consider, in the last 100 to 200 years, and the last 60 in particular, we have moved from a Christian society to a post-christian society. The 19th-century poet Matthew Arnold once spoke of the “long, withdrawing roar” of the “Sea of Faith,” leaving us with “neither joy, nor love, nor light.”

Those values have still been with us but, as I see it, are going away, getting replaced by greater selfishness, antagonism, etc. The world is not getting better without that Christian worldview.

If God didn’t exist, then even though, somehow, the Christian worldview lasted that long anyway, it will soon die out. Without the Christian worldview, what is there to get us back on track? And not only without that worldview, but replaced by many, many worldviews, almost to the point where everyone has their own unique worldview. It seems to me that it will be impossible to keep those virtues. Who will define what is inhumane, when everyone has a different idea of what humane is? How will we have compassion for victims when everyone is a victim? How can we have community and brotherhood, when our culture fights for radical individualism? I don’t know.

On the other hand, if God does exist, then (try not to do a spit-take here) His plan of salvation is constantly at work. He is letting us wallow in our own sinfulness, like He did with the Israelites in the OT. We Christians have to recognize that we have lost our moral vision. You all say this all the time: When you see how Christians act, why would you want to be Christian?

If Christians can stop being buttheads (can I say that here?) and start being Christ-like, then we can again be a light to the world. Now back to the point, we could not do that on our own. On our own, we will always be buttheads, where eventually, we’ll be going to hell in a bucket, and not even enjoying the ride. As evidence of this I show you the last 200, 100, 60 years.

But because God exists, He can guide us back to those virtues, (and I say He is).

For today, no, it may not matter whether God exists as long as the people around you have that worldview. But tomorrow they may not, and then it matters.

Of course you’d have Christian history if God didn’t exist - that’s blatantly obvious. The history of a religion - any religion - isn’t dependent on whether the god(s) of that religion exist. Simply because we have Aztec history is no reason to believe that Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli exists. 

You’ve take a very silly, very indefensible position.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's hard to read whether statements like that natural consequences bit are just mistakes or a threat.  Do they think that believing in gods does something, or that if we don't..god is going to do something to us?  Sounds pleasant either way.

I guess I could try explaining how this works, but I'm not going to. It would be like trying to teach Spanish to a cat.

El Gato Encantato. Ever hang out there?

[Angrboda]

It's also worth noting that Christian values would not be our values had they not been adopted by Rome, which operated in Europe. Europe had natural advantages over China and India, for example, and were the situations reversed, we'd be owing our values to Buddha or Vishnu or Laozi or Confucius. So having the values we have owes as much to the choices of Rome and the accident of its geographical location as it does to any specifically Christian merits.