Christians and Their Homework!

[polymath257]

And that is where I strongly disagree. Even *if* there is a GOd that created the universe, the fact that I am a conscious being in a society of conscious beings gives me and us the power to decide, not God.

For example, suppose that at some point we are able to create artificial intelligence. Would we have the right to dictate what rules an AI society would have for themselves? I'd say no, resoundingly.

If we can use our intellect to arrive at ethical principles that work for us, that is all that is required. Pleasing a deity just because that deity made us is a very poor basis for morality.

I grant God the authority, not only because I was created for the purpose of His glory, but also because He understands morality itself better than I ever could. Like a captain's superior knowledge of sailing and navigation qualifies him to legislate orders for his crew to follow, God's perfect knowledge makes Him better qualified to legislate principles of morality to people. However, God does not take away our freedom to obey or ignore Him. Suppose your hypothetical AI society was grossly ignorant of moral principles and systematically cheated, raped, tortured and killed one another (assuming they are sufficiently advanced to do this). Wouldn't our superior knowledge of morality qualify us to suggest better ways for them to improve their society and give them the freedom to accept or reject them?

Suggest? Sure. Demand? No. Punish if they don't? No. Impose eternal punishment if they don't? Definitely not! That would make us evil.

[rskovride]

---

And that is where I strongly disagree. Even *if* there is a GOd that created the universe, the fact that I am a conscious being in a society of conscious beings gives me and us the power to decide, not God.

For example, suppose that at some point we are able to create artificial intelligence. Would we have the right to dictate what rules an AI society would have for themselves? I'd say no, resoundingly.

If we can use our intellect to arrive at ethical principles that work for us, that is all that is required. Pleasing a deity just because that deity made us is a very poor basis for morality.

---

]

---

I grant God the authority, not only because I was created for the purpose of His glory, but also because He understands morality itself better than I ever could. Like a captain's superior knowledge of sailing and navigation qualifies him to legislate orders for his crew to follow, God's perfect knowledge makes Him better qualified to legislate principles of morality to people. However, God does not take away our freedom to obey or ignore Him. Suppose your hypothetical AI society was grossly ignorant of moral principles and systematically cheated, raped, tortured and killed one another (assuming they are sufficiently advanced to do this). Wouldn't our superior knowledge of morality qualify us to suggest better ways for them to improve their society and give them the freedom to accept or reject them?

---

I grant God the authority, not only because I was created for the purpose of His glory, but also because He understands morality itself better than I ever could. Like a captain's superior knowledge of sailing and navigation qualifies him to legislate orders for his crew to follow, God's perfect knowledge makes Him better qualified to legislate principles of morality to people.

I know believing god understands morality best is dogma for you but, it appears that we as a society have gained a better understanding. For example, we no longer keep slaves or stone homosexuals. 

Suppose your hypothetical AI society was grossly ignorant of moral principles and systematically cheated, raped, tortured and killed one another (assuming they are sufficiently advanced to do this). Wouldn't our superior knowledge of morality qualify us to suggest better ways for them to improve their society and give them the freedom to accept or reject them?

The AI society would operate within the parameters they were given by THEIR CREATORS.  

Also, if the creators of this AI society wanted them to know who they were(Mark 12:30) it would be easy to program them all to know. 

I like the analogy though.

[Minimalist]

I grant God the authority, not only because I was created for the purpose of His glory, but also because He understands morality itself better than I ever could.

Yeah...your fucking god is a real moral paragon.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

 
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Sam. 15, 2-3

What a scumbag.

[stretch3172]

I grant God the authority, not only because I was created for the purpose of His glory, but also because He understands morality itself better than I ever could.

Yeah...your fucking god is a real moral paragon.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

 
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

1 Sam. 15, 2-3

What a scumbag.

Figures you would cite one of the very few passages in the entire biblical text which says something like this. As I said in another post, this command was issued specifically for a single event and not intended to be normative, for which reason later biblical revelation unanimously prohibits murder. The other thing you haven't mentioned is the fact that God is perfectly just. Sin is so evil that it perverts everything it touches. The Amalekites, like many other Canaanite tribes, had practiced all sorts of wickedness over and over again for an extended period before the Israelites even arrived. God used Israel to punish the group as a whole for its sins just as He later used the Babylonians to do the same with the Israelites when they practiced immorality and social injustice for centuries with no repentance. I'm afraid that's the best answer I can give in light of what Scripture teaches.

[Jenny A]

Yeah...your fucking god is a real moral paragon.


What a scumbag.

Figures you would cite one of the very few passages in the entire biblical text which says something like this. As I said in another post, this command was issued specifically for a single event and not intended to be normative, for which reason later biblical revelation unanimously prohibits murder. The other thing you haven't mentioned is the fact that God is perfectly just. Sin is so evil that it perverts everything it touches. The Amalekites, like many other Canaanite tribes, had practiced all sorts of wickedness over and over again for an extended period before the Israelites even arrived. God used Israel to punish the group as a whole for its sins just as He later used the Babylonians to do the same with the Israelites when they practiced immorality and social injustice for centuries with no repentance. I'm afraid that's the best answer I can give in light of what Scripture teaches.

Really? All of Canaanite was so wicked that everyone right down to babies needed execution? And just what was the "wickedness" of the Canaanites? This mass killing of people who committed unspecified crimes is pretty normative Bibically speaking. Everyone but Noah and his family for example. So is killing babies for the crimes of thier parents. Didn't David lose a child due to own adultery? And then there are all of those Egyption first born sons many of whom had to be way too young to enslave anyone. Young people in Sodom and Gamorah too. Doesn't sound remotely just to me. I can't imagine a just genocide.

[JackRussell]

You can't reason with people that think homosexuals are immoral, witches are real and need to die, rape victims should marry their attacker, global floods actually happen or that one collection of books should have a privileged status, just because it says so.

[Crimson Apologist]

There are a couple points that caught my attention in this thread that I wanted to share my thoughts on. If I broke any forum rules, I apologize in advance. Please have mercy on a newbie!

Does lack of evidence for God justify atheism?
It appears to me that many people believe that we need proof to believe in God's existence and that in the absence of such proof, we shouldn't believe that God exists. The thing that puzzles me about this view is that if there are no good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, then I'd think we're left with agnosticism, not atheism. And it seems to me that in a truly neutral intellectual position on the existence of God, choosing to believe in God's existence would be the more pragmatic option given the choice between eternal salvation or damnation. Now, maybe some of you will argue that there are better reasons to think that God doesn't exist than otherwise, in which case, I'd say you're rationally justified in taking the atheist position. I'd argue though, that there are many good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, and thus that the atheist is simply mistaken.

Evidence for God:
I'm simply shocked that some comments in this thread have mentioned there being no "proof" or "evidence" of the supernatural, much less God. It seems to me that there is an abundance of good reasons to think that God exists.
1. The Contingency Argument: If the universe exists contingently, then there must be a necessary first cause. That cause must be extremely powerful, immaterial, spaceless, timeless, self-existent, and in possession of a conscious mind. We call this first cause God.
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument: The universe came into existence from nothing, and we call the transcendent cause of the universe which shares all the above properties God.
3. The Modal Ontological Argument: If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist, then by the nature of His being maximally great, He does exist. We call that being God.
4. The Teleological Argument: The best explanation for the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe of the existence of life is a highly intelligent transcendent being. We call that being God.
5. The Moral Argument: Objective moral values exist and must be grounded in an objective standard. We call this standard God.
6. The Historical Argument: The best explanation of the historical facts surrounding the apostles' claims of Jesus' resurrection, boldness in proclaiming the Gospel, and eventual martyrdom, as well as the rise of early Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus, the best explanation of which is God.
7. Testimony: The vast number of widespread, independent eyewitness testimonies of miracles, answered prayer, transformation of character, and personal experience with God give us good reason to believe that God does exist.

I'm sure none of you are strangers to these classical arguments but I think it's highly unfair to dismiss them as bad arguments. If you were really skeptical, I'd think you'd regard them as contentious at worst, and less plausible than positive arguments for atheism at best, but not entirely dismiss them to say that there's "no evidence" of God's existence!

Grounding morality on human happiness
I don't see how morality can be objectively grounded on human happiness or the prevention of pain. In order for something to be objective, it must remain true regardless of whether anyone agrees with it. Even if every human being on earth agreed that happiness was equivalent to the good, that wouldn't make it any more true than if every human being agreed that 2+2=5. And it seems like it's often the case that people do disagree with whether everyone's happiness matters equally (eg. Hitler), so I find it especially implausible for objective moral values to be grounded in something as fickle and arbitrary as the majority's conception of human happiness. The problem with grounding objective morality in happiness rears its ugly head in the plethora of unintuitive consequences that arise from utilitarianism as a moral theory (eg. condoning sadism and sacrificing some for the benefit of others). Now, if the argument is that morality is subjective and that's ok, then it would seem to me that because there's no objective standard with which to compare moral actions, morality itself would be illusory. Under moral relativism, the Holocaust will share the same moral status as aiding the poor; one action cannot be said to be more right than the other and morality is reduced to mere human taste and preference. If you share my intuition that there's something horribly wrong with this view, then I think you'd agree with me that there are such things as objective moral values.

God as the source of objective morality
So, if objective moral values do exist, then I think in virtue of being the maximally great being, God is the perfect candidate for being the objective source of morality. This doesn't mean that people who don't believe in God can't know or do good, nor does it mean that we don't have a responsibility to think hard about what is right or wrong. Positing God as the source of objective morality is an ontological statement, not an epistemic one. The Bible and God's revelations are certainly ways in which we can discover what these objective moral values are, but they definitely don't preclude reason, emotion, and intuition as tools of discernment.

Euthyphro Dilemma
I would argue that this is a false dilemma and that a third option exists. I don't think objective moral values are abstract concepts that God pays homage to because He recognizes their inherent goodness, nor do I think that something is deemed morally correct merely because God commands it. Rather, I would argue that God's nature IS the good; that is, every moral action, value, and duty is evaluated against God's very nature (just, kind, loving, honest, etc).

Our moral duty to obey God
Thus, because God is the ultimate source of objective morality, we as moral agents have a duty to obey God's commands and aim to act in accordance with His nature. Even if no human being recognizes God's moral law as correct, it wouldn't change the fact that God's nature is the objective standard of morality and that by disobeying Him or acting against His nature, human beings are liable for punishment. In addition, if God is morally perfect (since morality is objectively grounded in His nature) and human beings are not, then it should not come as a surprise to us that we don't understand why God does or commands some of the things He does. With the knowledge that God is the source of objective morality, it seems to me that it's not only morally wrong for human beings to disobey His commands, but also horribly arrogant and unwise.


Slaughter of the Canaanites
Within the framework of objective morality I've discussed earlier, I think the slaughter of the Canaanites can be fully understood as an act of God's judgment. Certainly, as imperfect moral agents, we are normally prohibited from killing one another under God's moral law. However, under this version of Divine Command Theory, when God decrees a specific command to someone, that command takes moral precedence over the written law and it becomes that person's moral duty to obey that command. In the case of the Canaanites, God used Israel as an instrument with which to execute His will to punish the Canaanites for their sinfulness. If you were to ask why God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites instead of doing it Himself, I think God had a number of morally justifiable reasons. First, He was building Israel as God's nation, showing the Israelites a demonstration of His power so that they may revere Him as lord, and giving them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Second, God commanded the total annihilation of the Canaanites because he knew that paganism had to be completely wiped out or else it would have a corrupting influence on Israel. As we later learn, the Israelites disobeyed God and failed to destroy all the pagans, which ultimately led to Israel's fall into idolatry and rebellion against God in Judges. In the same way that He used Israel to bring judgment upon the Canaanites, God later uses the pagan armies of Babylon to bring judgment upon Israel for disobeying Him. Now, one more thing I might add is that God has the right to give and take life as He sees fit. However, God doesn't take life arbitrarily; because He is the morally perfect being, He doesn't do anything without a morally justifiable reason. The Canaanite adults were being reasonably punished for their sin, but what about the children? If you believe, as I do, that young children who die go to heaven, then it seems to me that God did them no wrong by taking their lives early, but actually showed them mercy by preventing them from growing up into a life of sin and allowing them to have an eternity of joy in heaven in exchange for momentary pain.

[brewer]

This one smells like somebody's teacher. 

I don't need Pascals wager, but thanks for trying.  

Arguments do not equal existence. Until someone (preferably god itself) can demonstrate the existence of god (and all of it attributes and guidance) will remain a creation of mans mind.

Edit: Interesting selection of a mythological creature as an avatar.

[chimp3]

Grounding morality on human happiness
I don't see how morality can be objectively grounded on human happiness or the prevention of pain. In order for something to be objective, it must remain true regardless of whether anyone agrees with it. Even if every human being on earth agreed that happiness was equivalent to the good, that wouldn't make it any more true than if every human being agreed that 2+2=5. And it seems like it's often the case that people do disagree with whether everyone's happiness matters equally (eg. Hitler), so I find it especially implausible for objective moral values to be grounded in something as fickle and arbitrary as the majority's conception of human happiness. The problem with grounding objective morality in happiness rears its ugly head in the plethora of unintuitive consequences that arise from utilitarianism as a moral theory (eg. condoning sadism and sacrificing some for the benefit of others). Now, if the argument is that morality is subjective and that's ok, then it would seem to me that because there's no objective standard with which to compare moral actions, morality itself would be illusory. Under moral relativism, the Holocaust will share the same moral status as aiding the poor; one action cannot be said to be more right than the other and morality is reduced to mere human taste and preference. If you share my intuition that there's something horribly wrong with this view, then I think you'd agree with me that there are such things as objective moral values.

God as the source of objective morality
So, if objective moral values do exist, then I think in virtue of being the maximally great being, God is the perfect candidate for being the objective source of morality. This doesn't mean that people who don't believe in God can't know or do good, nor does it mean that we don't have a responsibility to think hard about what is right or wrong. Positing God as the source of objective morality is an ontological statement, not an epistemic one. The Bible and God's revelations are certainly ways in which we can discover what these objective moral values are, but they definitely don't preclude reason, emotion, and intuition as tools of discernment.

All morality is human morality, even the moral teachings attributed to gods imagined by humans. Gods never have knowledge beyond their human creators and never have more ethical integrity.That is why they need humans to make excuses for them.

[polymath257]

Yeah...your fucking god is a real moral paragon.


What a scumbag.

Figures you would cite one of the very few passages in the entire biblical text which says something like this. As I said in another post, this command was issued specifically for a single event and not intended to be normative, for which reason later biblical revelation unanimously prohibits murder. The other thing you haven't mentioned is the fact that God is perfectly just. Sin is so evil that it perverts everything it touches. The Amalekites, like many other Canaanite tribes, had practiced all sorts of wickedness over and over again for an extended period before the Israelites even arrived. God used Israel to punish the group as a whole for its sins just as He later used the Babylonians to do the same with the Israelites when they practiced immorality and social injustice for centuries with no repentance. I'm afraid that's the best answer I can give in light of what Scripture teaches.

And *this* is why faith is evil. Accepting genocide for *any* reason is evil.

Specifically, the infants were not evil and did not deserve punishment. ANY argument otherwise just shows moral corruption.

So, even as a one time thing, this 'event' shows the immorality of that deity.

---

There are a couple points that caught my attention in this thread that I wanted to share my thoughts on. If I broke any forum rules, I apologize in advance. Please have mercy on a newbie!

1. Does lack of evidence for God justify atheism?
It appears to me that many people believe that we need proof to believe in God's existence and that in the absence of such proof, we shouldn't believe that God exists. The thing that puzzles me about this view is that if there are no good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, then I'd think we're left with agnosticism, not atheism. And it seems to me that in a truly neutral intellectual position on the existence of God, choosing to believe in God's existence would be the more pragmatic option given the choice between eternal salvation or damnation. Now, maybe some of you will argue that there are better reasons to think that God doesn't exist than otherwise, in which case, I'd say you're rationally justified in taking the atheist position. I'd argue though, that there are many good reasons to think that God exists and no good reasons to think that He doesn't, and thus that the atheist is simply mistaken.

2. Evidence for God:
I'm simply shocked that some comments in this thread have mentioned there being no "proof" or "evidence" of the supernatural, much less God. It seems to me that there is an abundance of good reasons to think that God exists.
1. The Contingency Argument: If the universe exists contingently, then there must be a necessary first cause. That cause must be extremely powerful, immaterial, spaceless, timeless, self-existent, and in possession of a conscious mind. We call this first cause God.
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument: The universe came into existence from nothing, and we call the transcendent cause of the universe which shares all the above properties God.
3. The Modal Ontological Argument: If it is possible for a maximally great being to exist, then by the nature of His being maximally great, He does exist. We call that being God.
4. The Teleological Argument: The best explanation for the extraordinary fine-tuning of the universe of the existence of life is a highly intelligent transcendent being. We call that being God.
5. The Moral Argument: Objective moral values exist and must be grounded in an objective standard. We call this standard God.
6. The Historical Argument: The best explanation of the historical facts surrounding the apostles' claims of Jesus' resurrection, boldness in proclaiming the Gospel, and eventual martyrdom, as well as the rise of early Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus, the best explanation of which is God.
7. Testimony: The vast number of widespread, independent eyewitness testimonies of miracles, answered prayer, transformation of character, and personal experience with God give us good reason to believe that God does exist.

I'm sure none of you are strangers to these classical arguments but I think it's highly unfair to dismiss them as bad arguments. If you were really skeptical, I'd think you'd regard them as contentious at worst, and less plausible than positive arguments for atheism at best, but not entirely dismiss them to say that there's "no evidence" of God's existence!

3. Grounding morality on human happiness
I don't see how morality can be objectively grounded on human happiness or the prevention of pain. In order for something to be objective, it must remain true regardless of whether anyone agrees with it. Even if every human being on earth agreed that happiness was equivalent to the good, that wouldn't make it any more true than if every human being agreed that 2+2=5. And it seems like it's often the case that people do disagree with whether everyone's happiness matters equally (eg. Hitler), so I find it especially implausible for objective moral values to be grounded in something as fickle and arbitrary as the majority's conception of human happiness. The problem with grounding objective morality in happiness rears its ugly head in the plethora of unintuitive consequences that arise from utilitarianism as a moral theory (eg. condoning sadism and sacrificing some for the benefit of others). Now, if the argument is that morality is subjective and that's ok, then it would seem to me that because there's no objective standard with which to compare moral actions, morality itself would be illusory. Under moral relativism, the Holocaust will share the same moral status as aiding the poor; one action cannot be said to be more right than the other and morality is reduced to mere human taste and preference. If you share my intuition that there's something horribly wrong with this view, then I think you'd agree with me that there are such things as objective moral values.

4. God as the source of objective morality
So, if objective moral values do exist, then I think in virtue of being the maximally great being, God is the perfect candidate for being the objective source of morality. This doesn't mean that people who don't believe in God can't know or do good, nor does it mean that we don't have a responsibility to think hard about what is right or wrong. Positing God as the source of objective morality is an ontological statement, not an epistemic one. The Bible and God's revelations are certainly ways in which we can discover what these objective moral values are, but they definitely don't preclude reason, emotion, and intuition as tools of discernment.

5. Euthyphro Dilemma
I would argue that this is a false dilemma and that a third option exists. I don't think objective moral values are abstract concepts that God pays homage to because He recognizes their inherent goodness, nor do I think that something is deemed morally correct merely because God commands it. Rather, I would argue that God's nature IS the good; that is, every moral action, value, and duty is evaluated against God's very nature (just, kind, loving, honest, etc).

6. Our moral duty to obey God
Thus, because God is the ultimate source of objective morality, we as moral agents have a duty to obey God's commands and aim to act in accordance with His nature. Even if no human being recognizes God's moral law as correct, it wouldn't change the fact that God's nature is the objective standard of morality and that by disobeying Him or acting against His nature, human beings are liable for punishment. In addition, if God is morally perfect (since morality is objectively grounded in His nature) and human beings are not, then it should not come as a surprise to us that we don't understand why God does or commands some of the things He does. With the knowledge that God is the source of objective morality, it seems to me that it's not only morally wrong for human beings to disobey His commands, but also horribly arrogant and unwise.


7. Slaughter of the Canaanites
Within the framework of objective morality I've discussed earlier, I think the slaughter of the Canaanites can be fully understood as an act of God's judgment. Certainly, as imperfect moral agents, we are normally prohibited from killing one another under God's moral law. However, under this version of Divine Command Theory, when God decrees a specific command to someone, that command takes moral precedence over the written law and it becomes that person's moral duty to obey that command. In the case of the Canaanites, God used Israel as an instrument with which to execute His will to punish the Canaanites for their sinfulness. If you were to ask why God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites instead of doing it Himself, I think God had a number of morally justifiable reasons. First, He was building Israel as God's nation, showing the Israelites a demonstration of His power so that they may revere Him as lord, and giving them the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Second, God commanded the total annihilation of the Canaanites because he knew that paganism had to be completely wiped out or else it would have a corrupting influence on Israel. As we later learn, the Israelites disobeyed God and failed to destroy all the pagans, which ultimately led to Israel's fall into idolatry and rebellion against God in Judges. In the same way that He used Israel to bring judgment upon the Canaanites, God later uses the pagan armies of Babylon to bring judgment upon Israel for disobeying Him. Now, one more thing I might add is that God has the right to give and take life as He sees fit. However, God doesn't take life arbitrarily; because He is the morally perfect being, He doesn't do anything without a morally justifiable reason. The Canaanite adults were being reasonably punished for their sin, but what about the children? If you believe, as I do, that young children who die go to heaven, then it seems to me that God did them no wrong by taking their lives early, but actually showed them mercy by preventing them from growing up into a life of sin and allowing them to have an eternity of joy in heaven in exchange for momentary pain.

1. In one sense, you are correct, the lack of evidence only justifies claiming we do not know. But if evidence *should* be there, then we can go further and claim the non-existence. For example, the lack of evidence for an elephant in my room is quite sufficient to show there is no elephant in my room. Given how many people have attempted to demonstrate the existence of God and for how many centuries they have tried, the lack of evidence most definitely points to non-existence. Most atheists would happily change their minds if actually given evidence. Pascal's Wager isn't a good reason to believe, although it might be a good reason to *pretend* to believe. But wouldn't an all knowing God know you are lying?

2. Not only is it fair to call them bad arguments, but they are even worse that than. Most depnd on the non-existence of an infinite regress. That isn't valid logically: an infinite regress is a logical possibility. But the Contingency and Kalam arguments go much father than that little bit of illogic. They claim to show much, much more than what they have the power to show. For example, why must there be only one uncaused cause? That issue is never addressed. Why is the uncaused cause not part of our universe? That is never addressed. And, of course, in fact, we know quantum events are uncaused causes which are common and part of our universe. For the ontological argument, look at exactly the same reasoning to show that a 'greatest unicorn' exists. If it is so great, it must exist, right? This is probably the worst of the classical 'proofs'. The moral argument: Human well being is quite sufficient for morality. Gods are not needed or even helpful As for Testimony and History, people have been deluded for centuries. The myths are not evidence.

3. Well, morality is *all* about how humans relate to other humans. it is human well being, not just happiness, that is the goal. And we get to decide that as humans. In fact, if a God decided that humans needed to be destroyed, that is something that we as humans are bound to fight.

4. God cannot either be the source of morality nor the embodiment of Goodness. Why not? Because people can be good and not 'know God' If goodness was itself God, then any good would be God and a person to knows how to do good would know God. But, in reality, that isn't the case.

5. Discussed above. Pure sophistry.

6. Based on a false premise, so not even worth discussion.

7. And this is where faith and religion show themselves as evil. The idea that it is OK to kill children because they will immediately go to heaven is *pure evil*. Any attempt at justification of this notion shows a complete lack of moral integrity. A moral blindness, if you will. If you can use your faith to justify this, then you faith is evil.