Christians, Prove Your God Is Good

[Esquilax]

Is it being argued that people commit genocide, or is the point of discussion whether or not genocide is moral?

As far as I've been able to determine, Drich's position seems to be little more than "genocide has happened, therefore you can't say genocide is immoral while living in a society where it happened, therefore god is justified in committing genocide."

It's basically one huge tu coque wrapped in an equivocation.

[FatAndFaithless]

Yeah, he's demonstrated a distressing lack of ability to distinguish between what is currently the situation and the siutation to which we should be striving as well. Like when his defense of slavery is saying that slavery still happens today.

[veoli]

Artificial selection has nothing to do with natural selection, that said, neither has a thing to do with evolution, why because evolution is a thing made-up and put into books to fool people so those with giant ego problems can walk around saying look at me.

GC

Both have everything to do with evolution - and there is a mountain of supported evidence in many different fields of science that corroborate the theory of evolution - fossilized remains for one.

[Ignorant]

I must have missed it. Did you answer my questions, Ignorant? Also, you have been given several explanations of what is good.

Unless you are a Calvinist, the Christian god is supposed to be all good so it should be easy for a Christian to define good. Don't worry, we will probably have some basic agreement.

I did indeed answer your questions, see page 9, post #85 LINKED HERE

There has been a small back and forth to follow it as well.

I am definitely not a Calvinist. I believe my religious views show "Catholic". I described my understanding of goodness in my post linked above.

Can you point me to a post(s) in which someone else has described what they mean by the word "good"?

[The Reality Salesman01]

It's interesting that the original sin was to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Supposedly we have the knowledge of good and evil, but we can't define those terms. That makes me suspicious that we have been framed for a crime we didn't commit.

If they didn't know right from wrong, what would compel them to comply with God's instruction to not eat the apple? Before my son was toilet trained, would it have been reasonable to expect him to comply with an instruction to not shit in his pants? And when he inevitably shit his pants, using the rationale of the bible, I should feel justifiably disappointed, and then as a punishment, I should make him self conscious of the importance of shitting in private for the rest of his days and then sentence him to a lifetime of wearing underpants as a reminder of his first mistake! This doesn't make sense. He was gonna wear underpants anyway, and there's a good chance that he'd eventually learn to shit in private too, barring any other detrimental negative impact my irrational reactions may have had on his psychological development. This story doesn't even serve any purpose as a metaphor. It's 100% absurd.

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Is it being argued that people commit genocide, or is the point of discussion whether or not genocide is moral?

As far as I've been able to determine, Drich's position seems to be little more than "genocide has happened, therefore you can't say genocide is immoral while living in a society where it happened, therefore god is justified in committing genocide."

It's basically one huge tu coque wrapped in an equivocation.

That's what I was trying to figure out. I thought Drich was supposed to be justifying God as the highest form of morality rather than using less credible human examples to justify God's behavior. I'm confused.

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Yeah, he's demonstrated a distressing lack of ability to distinguish between what is currently the situation and the siutation to which we should be striving as well. Like when his defense of slavery is saying that slavery still happens today.

Im not sure I've ever seen an Ought/Is distinction made quite in this way. I'm familiar with the distinction being used in support of Moral Relativism. As in-what we ought to do is relative to what a society deems as acceptable. I don't necessariliy agree with it, but I'm familiar. So far, it sounds to me like he's saying that if humans do it, and God did it, then we ought to keep doing it since God alone is the highest example of morality? I think there's some work left to be done on this moral theory.

[Esquilax]

That's what I was trying to figure out. I thought Drich was supposed to be justifying God as the highest form of reality rather than using less credible human examples to justify God's behavior. I'm confused.

That's because Drich's arguments are confusing, and don't follow the standard "positive evidence and argument for a proposition" formula. Instead, he's trying to argue for his position by asserting that everyone else is just as bad, in the most post hoc way possible.

It's okay to be confused by desperate scrabbling rationalizations.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I meant "highest form of morality" not "reality". Ugh...ever since they blocked forums from my computer at work, I've had to result to using my phone for these visits. I've been Fat-Fingering left and right, and auto-correct will make you look like a complete doofus if you're not vigilant!

Anyway, I thought that the direction of this conversation had taken a turn for the worst. Maybe he'll make an effort to right the ship with a retraction or two.

[Nope]

I must have missed it. Did you answer my questions, Ignorant? Also, you have been given several explanations of what is good.

Unless you are a Calvinist, the Christian god is supposed to be all good so it should be easy for a Christian to define good. Don't worry, we will probably have some basic agreement.

I did indeed answer your questions, see page 9, post #85 LINKED HERE

There has been a small back and forth to follow it as well.

I am definitely not a Calvinist. I believe my religious views show "Catholic". I described my understanding of goodness in my post linked above.

Can you point me to a post(s) in which someone else has described what they mean by the word "good"?

Thank you for answering.

Parker Tan gave an answer to what he considered good.

My own basic definition of good is to do the least amount of harm. I also believe good is actively trying to make other's lives better even if only in small way. When I was younger, I often had friends tell me that they didn't give anyone respect until it was earned. I have the opposite view. Respect people until they do something to destroy my respect.

[watchamadoodle]

It's interesting that the original sin was to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Supposedly we have the knowledge of good and evil, but we can't define those terms. That makes me suspicious that we have been framed for a crime we didn't commit.

If they didn't know right from wrong, what would compel them to comply with God's instruction to not eat the apple?

You're right. I didn't even think of that problem with the story.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can you point me to a post(s) in which someone else has described what they mean by the word "good"?

From page 2:

My conception of goodness is pretty simple -- treat others the way I'd like to be treated, add to the general weal, and leave the world a better place than I find it.