What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Silver]

God doesn't "know" good. God IS good.

Not according to the bible, or are you selectively reading?

[Randy Carson]

God doesn't "know" good. God IS good.

Not according to the bible, or are you selectively reading?

No, I've read it cover to cover.

[Silver]

Not according to the bible, or are you selectively reading?

No, I've read it cover to cover.

Selective understanding it is, then.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Not according to the bible, or are you selectively reading?

No, I've read it cover to cover.

What are the top three ideas in the Bible?

[Nope]

This is from Leviticus 21:9

9'Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire

. 

Let me get this straight. Christians believe that what is good and evil doesn't change. The verse is a command from the bible god. A girl, probably young, would be burned to death for having sex. So, why don't Christians advocate burning sexually active women now?

Deuteronomy 13

12 “When you begin living in the towns the Lord your God is giving you, you may hear 13 that scoundrels among you are leading their fellow citizens astray by saying, ‘Let us go worship other gods’—gods you have not known before. 14 In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find that the report is true and such a detestable act has been committed among you, 15 you must attack that town and completely destroy[b] all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. 16 Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the open square and burn it. Burn the entire town as a burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. 17 Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a large nation, just as he swore to your ancestors.

1 Samuel 15

Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

We would be shocked today if soldiers went into an enemy city and killed women, children, babies and animals. It is senseless slaughter. The early Hebrews sound shockingly similar to ISIS.  So, do the morals that the Christian god supposedly created remain the same or not?

[The Grand Nudger]

This is kind of a spinoff of the WHY BE GOOD thread.

The question I have for atheists, isn't "why by good." I think it's simplistic and deeply flawed to think that the only reason to "be good" is to avoid Hell. And of course, I believe that anyone can be a good person regardless of beliefs.

The question I have for atheists is how do we know what IS good?

Religious or not, we all somehow know that certain things are intrinsically, universally immoral. Let's use murder as an obvious example. So if murder is wrong, where did this law come from? If this is a universal truth, where did this truth come from and who/what determined it to be what it is?

I know what -is- good the same way that you do, and it has nothing to do with a god (and so very little to do with atheism)...which is why we find ourselves, you and I, in that same camp despite that one glaring difference.   The law against murder comes from whatever jurisdiction you are under that upholds that law...but legality is not morality and what is or is not legal is not synonymous with what is or is not right.  If there were no law (or lawgiver, for that matter), neither you nor I would be murderers. If the law told us to murder, or if a lawgiver told us to murder......neither you nor I, would be murderers.

You probably don't care much more than I do whether or not it is law or a universal truth...or even a command from a god. Right?

-and there you have it, between you and I, murder is wrong, if for no other reason than that we both agree that it is. Maybe we should get everyone who agrees not to murder people under the same roof...call it "humanity" or "civilization" something snappy like that. Whadda ya say?

[Thumpalumpacus]

I believe God, being master of the universe,  is the one who establishes goodness and morality.

Do you agree that slavery is good? Do you believe that genocide is good? Do you believe that pronouncing the death penalty for all humans in history over the applebite is the act of a good god?

My purpose for creating this thread was to hear *your* views and discuss them with you.

So, ya got anything?

I do good because I have empathy for other folks, because it feels good to make people happy, because I have a son and wish him to inherit a better world than I did, and because assholes make enemies. How do I know what good is? I go by empathy and the Golden Rule. Christian doctrine is entirely unnecessary, and indeed, a close reading of the Bible shows that your god's morality has evolved. Your god's conception of goodness has changed over the years.

Indeed, you'd think that the more Christian a country, by your logic, the better the behavior of the people, but that doesn't hold true -- a simple comparison of USA and Japan will reveal that. You'd think that men of God would be more moral, but your own church's recent history shows that Christianity is no guarantee of goodness.

The question is, where does the universal truth "murder is wrong" come from?

Empathy. Do you really need to be told that it's wrong by a god?

[Godscreated]

I determine good by way of how it makes me feel.  
.......................................
If someone does something that hurts me, obviously that is not good.

What if it makes that someone feel good, who's correct. Seems to me both of you can't be correct when one considers it bad and the other considers it good.

GC

[Silver]

Seems to me you have no understanding or distinction between what feels good for the majority as opposed to what feels good to the minority. After all, killing feels good to the minority, but no one is going to base feeling good on that. Killing was considered bad in primitive times when survival was essential. For you to demean goodness by attributing your bigoted bias to it is not only intellectually dishonest but I am certain it would also make Jesus cry.

[SteelCurtain]

Iatia, I struggle with this thinking. Forgive me if I'm wrong but it sounds like you're saying that morality is never universal and always dependent on what a particular society believes. There are plenty of society's who believe horrendous things are "good." Don't you think they are wrong, regardless of what they think?

You're putting the cart before the horse, my dear. You are judging another society's morals from the outside. If morals change over time (which they objectively do) then what makes your morality right now the end game? In 50 years, who knows what new technology or environmental pressure will create new mores and shift the ones we hold up now?

So, if what is moral in my society is not the same as another society, doesn't that make the point that morality is very subjective? If you were born in Afghanistan where women are not to speak unless spoken to, must not show their hair, can be beaten by their husbands, etc, would you know that this was immoral? I would argue no, without the knowledge that you have.