My views on objective morality

[Tiberius]

Actually, I never really considered CL as having that position. The problem was with what she said, and she did repeat it so that that there could be no mistaking it, page after page after page. She and other Xtians just don't understand the very insensitive implications of what they say when they say that, and that's what I was trying to help point out to her! The problem is supporting a god who has all the power which is possible and impossible, but chooses to do nothing about a crime which he sits by and watches, in that very alley where the crime is happening, and probably beats off to it. When a human does that it's called being an accessory to the crime.

If God prevented all rapes, then we'd never know the evil that was rape. This argument would then be "why does God allow murder?". So then, God prevents all murders, and we never know the evil that was murder. Then the argument would be "why does God allow theft?". So then, God prevents all thefts, and we never know the evil that was theft.

So eventually you get to a point where God is preventing all evil, and humans are incapable of doing evil, which means we are perfect. There are multiple problems with this in terms of Christian doctrine:

1) If we're incapable of doing evil, then you could argue that we don't have free will, but rather limited will. That goes directly against God's plan for us, because he created us to specifically have free will.

2) Accordingly to Christian doctrine, there was a time when there was no murder / rape / theft. It was in the garden of Eden, and humans basically fucked that one up by eating the fruit, and thus losing their innocence and creating our abilities to murder / rape / steal.

3) If God is preventing all evil, then there would be no point in worshiping God, no point in heaven (because we'd practically already be there), etc. The point of life according to the Christian doctrine is that we suffer through it, and if you please God, you get rewarded. Again, this is based on the fact that God wanted us to have free will so we wouldn't be mindless drones, but because we abused our free will to create evil in the world, he came up with this redemption plan.

God isn't just another human, and that's the whole point of the issue - he's supposed to be much, much better - therefore, why shouldn't we hold him to a much higher standard? Really!

Right, and my issue is that God isn't the one doing any raping. Sure, he's not preventing rape, but see my argument above for why him preventing rape would be ultimately pointless. God never wanted us to be mindless drones; he wanted creatures with free will that could make decisions for themselves. Presumably he knew that this would mean that some of them would make evil decisions, but the promise of eternal life was supposed to allow humans to make a choice of whether to do good or bad things.

Just saying "God gave us free will" is about as useful as saying "the man gave me a lollipop after killing my parents". If you can't explain why free will excludes God from responsibility, then it's worthless.

See my argument above.