Theists, some questions

[Cyberman]

Common sense makes sense to me.

In my experience, there's no such thing as common sense.

Indeed. Whatever it is that gets branded as common sense is definitely not common and rarely sensible.

[GodsRevolt]

God says, "Do not lie," or I introspectively assess a situation and decide on my now that I should not lie. Both are moral.

The fallacy still holds.

Then your morality is external from god, and he's just a messenger. Therefore, "Almighty makes right," as you stated earlier, isn't correct: right makes right, and the almighty might, just possibly, share some of those attributes.

Authority is important when it comes to morals. Someone needs to take the objective stance and maintain consistency.

But how is it an objective standard if you proceed to run these objective edicts through your own morality, and decide whether they're right or wrong yourself? I'm not saying you're wrong for doing that, I'm saying that the very idea of an objective moral authority is undermined by the nature of morality as shown in the Euthyphro Dilemma. Especially since we know god commands some things that are morally wrong.

I'm curious what the independent set of morals you are talking about are. This is no longer "subjective" like you mentioned before.

They're based on the fact that we live in a reality, and can reliably predict our response to certain stimuli. For example, one independent moral would be that harming people is bad; we can say this, because in every sense our pain reaction is a negative one. There are exceptions- the shot you give your kids may hurt them temporarily, but they'll be immunized for the future- but as a general rule, "don't cause pain," holds up pretty well.

The first two parts:

Remember, we are talking about a being that is not a person. I often see the euphemism used of a ruler or a "tyrannical" dictator. But these are limiting because God is not a person. We are talking about a being who "speaks" and things come into existence. Does this mean that God actually says, "Light" and that is what creates it? No. To begin to think that we can understand the very substance of God is to immediately bring Him down a level. We have only a shadow of understanding in the power of God's words in our ability to reason - to follow logic and communicate it. We speak and we prove things to be false or true. This is a shadow of God "speaking" and it actually "becoming true."

With that being said, when I said "Almighty makes right" I mean that in every sense of the phrase. God "breathes" and life is created. Does this mean that God actually inhales and exhales? No. Does this mean that there was no life before he "Breathed" it? No. The idea is that He has made a creature in His "likeness" and given this creature a piece of his essence (you might call it) to animate the creature. And thus there are humans.

Now, we humans desire good. Its just in us. We want it, for others, but especially for ourselves. But we are limited in our understanding. We desire short term happiness over long-term. We desire respite from pain (as you mentioned) though we cannot avoid it to better ourselves (exercise, growing pains, medicine - again, as you mentioned). Sometimes we desire evil with the idea that it is good, or what's best for us (power, greed, lust . . .).

If we could get our desires to be fueled by a pure understanding of what is truly good, would we still choose evil? Would we still avoid the proper pains (as mentioned above) to achieve those desires? No, we would see the choice of evil and baulk at it. We would work towards our pure desire with understanding that it is only this single desire that creates true happiness until we achieved actual contentment. This is the function of morality, to lead to contentment.

God is that contentment. God is the end of the desire that understands what is good and what is not.

Morality leads to God because morality is God's will for us, His "essence" leading us to contentment. God does not love us because we are pious or not pious or follow His will or do not follow His will. God loves us because we are His. He "informs" our desires and we, through our nature, choose either true good or something less than that (usually something less than that).

But you might ask, "Why, then, doesn't God just tell us everything we need to know?" But He does. We know all we need to know. We know that we should share our food with the hungry, abandon needless material goods, be kind to everyone especially those different from us (Catholics should be kind to atheists, right?) We know this! I don't need a smart phone with games on it or a five dollar latte from wherever! I do not need this stuff. And you know it, too. If everyone could get together and stop being selfish little brats about everything, the world could be a completely different place. The place we all get mad at it for NOT being.

And some might say that we just need one person to step out and start living the way we all know we SHOULD be living. But that's just it. God did THAT too. He made Himself human with meager resources, only those you truly need, told everyone "This is how you do it" and then actually did it. And then we killed Him for it.

And you don't need Jesus to come to this conclusion because we already know it. Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." The thing is, Ghandi was not perfect. He didn't get it ALL right, though I think he came close. Jesus did.

Regarding God's free will:
God has the ability to be immoral, but the understanding that immorality is a false option. He has the understanding that evil does not make any sense. H

I can look at what the Church lays out as moral and judge it against what I figured on my own to be moral and see that they come together. In fact, I found the Church to be much more moral than I could figure on my own.

[anonymous108]

If god commanded you to kill someone (for all intents and purposes let's assume we both agree that it is in fact god itself/himself/herself who did indeed tell you to do so), is following god's orders and killing them a moral action? Why or why not?

hey! god will never command me to kill anyone. even in Bible it is said: "do not kill".
though I know what you are talking about. there are some special cases.
personally i am disturbed when I read site like harekrsna.org and find out from it that some people could have poisoned Prabhupada, ISKCON (International society for Krishna consciousness) founder. that could be some man called Candra-Swami (swami can be translated even as saint or priest)...
see - nonsense! how can saint poison or kill to death some spiritual leader.
it is also said - "my devotee never perishes" - Krishna says to Arjuna that "would can never die - soul is eternal"...
so this is different. soul can't be killed, and thus when it's said : "noone can kill anyone" it is said from spiritual point of view, and not material.
spiritual point of view mean "i am soul, and not this temporary material body"...
yes i am also disturbed when I read that some disciples (are they really?) whom Prabhupada initiated - they killed each other in New Vrindavan...

one case is very special. Sulocana das was initiated by Prabhupada.
and he didn;t like many gurus or preachers in ISKCON. so was running all around New Vrindavan with a gun trying to kill )probably) Kirtan ananda Swami (Sulocana called him asura)...
So it is said that Radhanatha Swami (disciple of Prabhupada) "was pushing like crazy for this to happen",and this happened - Sulocana was killed by some people who protected Kirtan ananda and Radhanatha.
Kirtan ananda was jailed. Radhanatha is free and preaching.
i saw him personally. I don't know what this person is.
he is said to meet Dalai Lama, St Teresa, also he was preaching in Apple, Ford, also in Parliament of GB, also talked to Obama president...
I don't know who is he. Radhanatha is described as man who also carried a gun in his hands... so I don't know what is that all ...

so you want to ask about killing.
First. we should be very careful about such things like "god told you this or that"... and especially if you say -= "god told you to kill someone"...

when I was talking to one big atheist - we argued, still I said - "Krishna also killed demons" like you, atheist.
Atheist said just before that: "someone like you must be killed"...

so it is strange. but I showed that atheist a picture of Krishna, and after some half year this atheist died... yes, on my birthday ;-0)
this is I think - a gift for me from Krishna =-)
yes, actually I was scared a lot a that time of what atheist said. though I didn't think of killing any atheist or anynone.
so, even if I think that someone is asura or demon, I usually am joking.
though some people do not understand this.
when I say that someone like Bill Gates should go to eternal hell for trillions of lifetimes - it is also kind of joke. though, there is some truth in it.

and you ask what is moral and not- which killing is moral and which is not?

I have an answer.
one other atheist - he was on second world war - he was atheist, and so he said - "believers in God - they didn't want to fight. we had to do that for them, to defeat enemies..."
so thus he tried to show himself as very good man, as moral atheist, and us - believers as immoral - that we didn't wanted to fight or kill enemies - be they Germans of Hitler, or some atheists etc...
we do not want to kill anyone, including ourselves...

yes, Vishnu and avatars, and Krishna Himself, they killed some asuras.
but now we are in other age. it is Lord Caitanya age - we do not kill anyone.
rather - we convert atheists into devotees of Krsihna-Caitanya.
Our only weapon is - Hari Nama sankirtana - we preach holy names, sing and dance Hare Krishna mahamantra-song ...
that is our weapon.
though it is said to be strong...
why?
it is said that sankirtana destroys fire of repeated birth and death...
so if you atheists who are cursed to trillions of lifetimes in eternal hells -
find yourlseves in that hells - just chant Hare Krishna mantra
and you'll slowly get out of hells...

this will kill you as atheists, and you'll resurrect as devotees of Krishna...

[Whateverist]

So, for you, life is just one big action packed fantasy comic book I guess. I'm not sure there is enough in common to have a conversation but please, do say why someone like yourself who calls himself a "devotee" of a god would want to interact on an atheist forums. Don't get me wrong, it's open to all. But what are you looking for?

[Tonus]

That was a heck of a lot of effort just to avoid answering the question, I must say.

[Angrboda]

hey! god will never command me to kill anyone. even in Bible it is said: "do not kill".

This is absurdly wrong. Krsna explicitly instructs Arjuna to do his duty in battle and kill his relatives.

What kind of a fucking Krsna are you that you don't know this?

The particular yuga does not excuse you from your specific dharma, even if it instructs you to kill.

I'm ksatriya. It's my duty to do what is necessary. What kind of a moron krsna says things like this?

Considering also your duty as a warrior, you should not waver. Because there is nothing more auspicious for a warrior than a righteous war. Only the fortunate warriors, O Arjun, get such an opportunity for an unsought war that is like an open door to heaven. If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin.

— Krsna, instructing Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita

[houseofcantor]

Motherfuckers do not understand faith. Faith is a dangerous thing. It is also intrinsic. Ya got a bunch of homo sapiens sapiens, ya got an evolutionary mandate to simulate future. To possess identity, and ego. Faith is merely moral certainty, and if my faith tells me you gotta go, why you still standing there? You should be runnin'.

Theists generally approximate faith, without real conception of what it is to hold the stone. To feel the cold, dead certainty of what is wrong, and what must be done.

DARE YOU, FUCKING THEIST, TO PICK UP THE STONE. TO CONDEMN ME TO DEATH BY YOUR HAND.

(postin' and drinkin' ftw. prophet's a real job. )

[Angrboda]

DARE YOU, FUCKING THEIST, TO PICK UP THE STONE. TO CONDEMN ME TO DEATH BY YOUR HAND.

(postin' and drinkin' ftw. prophet's a real job. )

Thou art stoned.

Quod erat demonstrandum

[Tripwire]

No. You don't get it. If you were certain that it was indeed the god that told you to kill someone, would it be ok?

I'd have to know specifically who I was killing and why like you yourself would.

Sad, 2014 and psychotic people are allowed to say this stuff.