How to easily defeat any argument for God

[Acrobat]

Yes, I said good and god are the same, what i didn’t say is that Good is whatever god says is good, because the statement implies that Good and God are not the same thing, but rather some rules that some god arbitrarily said or commanded

If there was such a god as you implied that said that the holocaust wasn’t wrong, he would be wrong as well.

I did say "just in a flowery language".

Your god is "good itself", and that good substantiates the "moralness" of the Holocaust act, determining/revealing it to be wrong through the good itself. I can do flowery language as well!

No, what you stated and what I stated are not the same thing. My view rejects a common conception of God, at least among atheists , where morality is some set of arbitrary rules from God, it rejects the sort of idea of god, that makes things such as the Euthyphro dilemma possible, in favor of a conception of God that falls in line with Plato’s conception of the Good.

In addition I don’t see the relationship between good and bad, like the relationship between north and south, but the relationship between north and not north. We recognize something is bad, by the recognition of the absence of the good in it, like light and dark, where darkness is a recognition of the absence of light.

[The Grand Nudger]

You only think that your concept of god is uncommon or capable of evading moral issues.

In reality, it’s neither.

-but hey, since you prefer non natural realism as an argument, and think it’s compelling, then you shouldn’t have any trouble understanding how an atheist can account for their moral system. Same way you do. Frankly, atheists are the ones with options in this equation, lol.

[Belacqua]

My view rejects a common conception of God, at least among atheists , where morality is some set of arbitrary rules from God, it rejects the sort of idea of god, that makes things such as the  Euthyphro dilemma possible,  in favor of a conception of God that falls in line with Plato’s conception of the Good.

There seems to be a disconnect here, that is very difficult to get past.

The God that most anti-religion people argue against is very anthropomorphic. It is a reacting, changing guy who lays down laws. What Blake called "Nobodaddy." 

I'm not sure how we can impress on people that for Christian philosophers, this has never been the case. What you are stating here is a widely-held view that, while maybe not known at the church on the corner, is nonetheless deeply embedded in Christian theology.

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Maybe it would help to define the word "good."

I'll posit that a good thing is one that satisfies human desires, and brings happiness.

It is subjective, in that individuals (subjects) interpret whether the thing will make them happy or not. It is also objective, in that the object may or may not actually satisfy desires.

[The Grand Nudger]

That god isn’t required for the criticism you’re attempting to deflect with its invocation.

The trouble of moral value being derived from god expresses itself regardless of whether a god says anything or not. Refer to the possible worlds example.

That trouble, like that god, is deeply embedded in Christian theology , even if the people in the church on the corner don’t know it.

If “the good” is synonymous with a gods nature, no matter how nebulous and impersonal we make the god, a change in its nature is s change in what is good. If a gods nature were what we recognize as evil, then evil would be good, as good is synonymous with god.

Good is therefore arbitrary in this account. Thankfully or luckily we rolled the good god, rather than the bastard god. This is all that stands between us and the holocaust being a moral imperative of a “good” god.

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The “absence of good” semantics fail for this same reason, as we can posit a possible world in which the character or nature of the god is what we would recognize as a complete and utter “absence of good”, with god and good still being synonymous.

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If, otoh, we accept that realism can only be asserted in reference to a god by positing that a god is good insomuch as it conforms to a standard of goodness apart from itself and objectively true, we realize that even in a possible world -with- a god, who happens to be good, it’s knowledge of the standard to which this god is subject that allows us to state or infer moral facts which would be true in all possible worlds no matter what changes we make to gods nature.

[Acrobat]

Maybe it would help to define the word "good."

That’s no easy task, i don’t think anything we can say could full capture the meaning of Good. Our recognition of it is less a matter of hearing or saying, but seeing.

Like a 3 month old who sees something good about the person who helps another, rather than the one who hinders another persons, absent of any language to articulate it.

Perhaps our best attempts to articulate it are expressed in art, like in the words of Cormac McCarthy:

“At the deep bottom of the mine where the gold is at there aint none of that. There’s just the pure ore. That forever thing. That you dont think is there ....That thing that makes it possible to ladle out benediction upon the heads of strangers instead of curses. It’s all the same thing. And it aint but one thing. Just one.”

I'll posit that a good thing is one that satisfies human desires, and brings happiness.

I’m weary of happiness as an aim, because happiness is fleeting. If you were happy all the time, there’s probably something wrong with you.

I’d replace happiness with meaning. Because meaning transcends both happiness and unhappiness, both suffering and the lack of it. The Good is what satisfies the human longing for meaning. While not perfect, I’d prefer it to your suggestion.

The people I most admire are not necessarily happy, and the period in which I’ve admired them the most are in times of tragedy and suffering in their lives, when they’re not necessarily happy, but times in which they seem to exist with some sort profound sense of meaning, that transcends both their suffering and sadness.

[The Grand Nudger]

- and allll of this, is why god-as-good is a non starter for realist moral systems.....even if it’s really true. Even if morality is as described and god is synonymous with good.

Now we have another line of trouble. If the good is what satisfies the human desire for meaning....well, that’s deeply subjective, and god doesn't satisfy my human desire for meaning.

In fact, it provides no meaning whatsoever. It may provide you with meaning, but....like it’s goodness in your formulation, that’s an accidental property .

[Belacqua]

That’s no easy task, i don’t think anything we can say could full capture the meaning of Good. Our recognition of it is less a matter of hearing or saying, but seeing.

Like a 3 month old who sees something good about the person who helps another, rather than the one who hinders another persons, absent of any language to articulate it.

Perhaps our best attempts to articulate it are expressed in art

Yes, I agree that as limited humans there is no statement or definition we could give to describe the fullness of the Good. In fact I think this is one of the reasons people say God -- as a kind of placeholder for this unsayable thing.

And I have sympathy for the apophatic theologians, who warn that a sentence like "God is the Good" is misleading and therefore dangerous. Because it implies that we know what the Good is, and therefore can give a limited definition to an infinite thing. Or ascribe an attribute to God, who doesn't have attributes. 

And I agree that art -- or other things in the world which strike us with their beauty or other types of appeal -- are the best handles we have to approach understanding. This is why Dante is saved by Beatrice, and not a book of theology.

I’m weary of happiness as an aim, because happiness is fleeting. If you were happy all the time, there’s probably something wrong with you.

I’d replace happiness with meaning. Because meaning transcends both happiness and unhappiness, both suffering and the lack of it. The Good is what satisfies the human longing for meaning. While not perfect, I’d prefer it to your suggestion.

The people I most admire are not necessarily happy, and the period in which I’ve admired them the most are in times of tragedy and suffering in their lives, when they’re not necessarily happy, but times in which they seem to exist with some sort profound sense of meaning, that transcends both their suffering and sadness.

Granted, happiness is problematic. (But it served to get the ball rolling here.) Clearly we'd want to distinguish between happiness and pleasure. There are other words which might be better -- maybe fulfillment, or the actualization of our full humanness. Something like that. 

But look at it this way: to me, having meaning may well point to some further goal. I want meaning (as in, the inscribed messages of the world) so that I can understand the world, and I want to understand the world so... something -- a further goal. Or, for a different sense of meaning (more like purpose) I want meaning so that I feel my life is well-lived, with a good purpose. And I want my life to be well-lived so that.... something. 

So we could remove the word happiness, and replace it with something more philosophical like "that goal in life beyond which there is no further goal." "That thing which, if attained, is a complete fulfillment of one's life." It sounds happy to me, though not in a dance-dance Coca-Cola commercial sense of happiness. And I'd say that this is what theologians call God.

[The Grand Nudger]

The thing which, attained, is a complete fulfillment of one’s life is a necessarily subjective fact. There are as many true answers for that as there are people to give them.

That thing, is a fact of a person.

I’ll stress here again, that this may be the nature of good or of god. We can imagine such a world. However, if it is, then the nature of god or goodness is subjective and arbitrary. Accidental. It is whatever it happens to be, there’s no underlying logic or constraint, and no further reduction of value.

It would be “objective” in that case, only in the sense that it was how god or goodness really is. Not in the sense required for metaphysical objectivity. Realism. Which is a position on how things are, not throwing our hands in the air saying “however things really are is realism”.

It’s that latter statement that leads to people, powerfully convinced in the accuracy of their view of reality, to assert that theirs is realism. That the other guys must be other-than.

[downbeatplumb]

How exactly does "morals come from god " work?
What is the mechanism and the evidence for the workings of this mechanism because it seems that the more religious people are the LESS moral they tend to be. Look at the USA and the middle East to see what I mean.

Morals don't come from God. 

There's just a part of knowledge of God.

What?

[GrandizerII]

We can use possible worlds semantics to show how vacuous the notion is.

Take two possible worlds.

World A is as Acro asserts this world is.  Where god and good are synonymous and the holocaust is not compatible or typifying of the god/good.  

World B is as Acro asserts this world is.  Where god and good are synonymous, but the holocaust -is- compatible with god/good.

As we can see, if god and good are synonymous, the character of the god determines the moral designation.  These sorts of rationalizations always trip over the bastard god possibility.

Well, yes, it doesn't really resolve the Euthyphro dilemma. It's still a variation of the simpler "God says so", albeit in a highly sophisticated sounding manner.

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I did say "just in a flowery language".

Your god is "good itself", and that good substantiates the "moralness" of the Holocaust act, determining/revealing it to be wrong through the good itself. I can do flowery language as well!

No, what you stated and what I stated are not the same thing. My view rejects a common conception of God, at least among atheists , where morality is some set of arbitrary rules from God, it rejects the sort of idea of god, that makes things such as the  Euthyphro dilemma possible,  in favor of a conception of God that falls in line with Plato’s conception of the Good.

In addition I don’t see the relationship between good and bad, like the relationship between north and south, but the relationship between north and not north. We recognize something is bad, by the recognition of the absence of the good in it, like light and dark, where darkness is a recognition of the absence of light.

More flowery language. If you break this all down, it's still saying the Good/God is the standard for what's right and wrong. The Holocaust is wrong because of something to do with the Good/God.

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And I have sympathy for the apophatic theologians, who warn that a sentence like "God is the Good" is misleading and therefore dangerous. Because it implies that we know what the Good is, and therefore can give a limited definition to an infinite thing. Or ascribe an attribute to God, who doesn't have attributes.

This is the sort of thing I find really baffling about theology is that in trying to make their presupposed God out to be so vastly different from anything else in existence, it ends up being so impossible to the point that some theologians are careful not to assign attributes to it while nevertheless describing it in some way, and some even wondering if it makes sense to say God exists while presupposing God is!