How far reaching are God's powers?

[HappySkeptic]

And that's why I answered that moral responsibility is maintained, to a degree, for the purpose of instruction. God is merciful and realizes what He is doing to us, so He doesn't punish us according to our sins, but according to our need for instruction.

Your hypothesis contradicts the bible, but that's neither here nor there.  I've heard many preachers say that bad things are God's wake-up-call, or that God wants people to turn to Him in tragedy so that through faith, good can come out of bad.

You have created a hypothesis - that God punishes for instruction.  So, bad things happen for instruction, not because the laws of the universe allow them to happen.  After all, if it is just the laws of the universe playing out, what is instructional about that (well, I guess it is instruction to better understand the universe's laws).

How would you test your hypothesis?  Would you scientifically measure the sin of a group of people and correlate it to the rate of their children getting cancer?  Would you find that adultery causes natural disasters?

It is. I've always known, at least the vast majority of the time, when I was doing something evil. Once the Lord brought me to repentance, that was when things became murky, because my sins became less obvious, as they must, or I wouldn't have really been repentant.

Everyone can feel regret over hurt they have caused others, or mistakes they have made that have harmed themselves.  No gods are needed for that.

Religious faith is always built on emotion.  Sometimes it has a source in a transformative or peak spiritual experience.  That's part of life, but it in no way validates a particular theology.

[Mister Agenda]

This is just a bunch of garbage. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no reason for anything at all to exist without God as an explanation. Nothing has no reason to do anything, can't create anything, can't exist as anything other than nothing. To posit that the universe, which has no will or awareness, could ever exist on its own is patently ridiculous. God makes sense because He is supernatural and truly unbound by physics or math or whatever other form of science you wish to call upon. He is the only rational explanation for the existence of the universe, and anyone who claims otherwise is in denial or totally deluded.

So nothing but unevidenced assertions.

That's a bunch of garbage. The simple fact of the matter is that something has to exist. Nothing has no matter, energy, time, or space. Without time how long can true nothingness last? No time at all. To assert that nothingness could actually 'exist' is a contradiction in terms and patently ridiculous. God doesn't make sense because he is supernatural and unbound by physics or math or any form of science. He is not a rational explanation for the existence of anything, and anyone who claims otherwise is in denial or totally deluded.

In addition, I assert that my assertions trump yours. The problem with argument by assertion is that an equal and opposite assertion can always be made.

[MilesAbbott81]

 Says you, apparently, but while we intuitively understand and it is in no way controversial how a moral agent with a moral choice can be held morally responsible...right or wrong...it remains a complete mystery as to how we can be held morally responsible for what we can't control, when we have no choice, or when we are -not- moral agents.

I never said we shouldn't be held responsible for what we can't control, so don't put words in my mouth.

I did say that God takes our lack of control into account when determining our punishment. It is a factor; God is not unreasonable.

However, whether you can control your actions or not doesn't change the fact that you knowingly commit evil against your conscience. How is this so difficult to understand, that such a thing is wrong and must entail consequences, particularly given the purpose of the experience (for the billionth time - to learn)?

Children touch hot stoves through no fault of their own, yet it still burns them, as it must, in order for them to learn to not touch it. It does not take a genius to understand this. Children also do wicked things that they know are wrong but can't resist because they've not yet been disciplined to resist. One can't blame them, at least not entirely, but one can and must discipline them so that they no longer behave wickedly.

You are seem utterly incapable of understanding this rather simple concept, and I can only chalk it up, once again, to blindness. It's like trying to explain to people that something cannot come from nothing, yet you fools insist that somehow an eternal universe is possible, or that somehow, some way, something actually DID come from nothing. Your brains do not function as they should. You are cursed.

An honest assessment of the moral field doesn't lead me to anything even remotely resembling the idea that people can be morally responsible for what they do not control.  That is, after all, why I keep asking you how that works.  We can be practically responsible, or instrumentally responsible.  I can kick a can that sets into motion a chain of events that leads to the annihilation of all human life.  Instrumental responsibilities, like instrumental goods, are not moral responsibilities, or moral goods.  I can kick that can, and it can lead to complete annihilation (and kicking the can can be good-for annihilation, and annihilation can be good-for producing a human free world), but how am I morally responsible?  By what theory?  By what means?  By what justification?  By what tic or facet or mystery of reality?  I couldn't have known it would do so...and can't even imagine it, physically incapable of imaging how my kicking a can would do that.  I certainly don't intend, in the kicking of a can, to annihilate all human life.  If I also have no choice.....what's left?  What possible avenue of moral responsibility remains?  What hypothetical chain of desert?

Gonna get around to it or not?  I understand moral responsibility in the case of a moral agent with a moral choice.  Help me to understand the moral responsibility of a non moral agent with no moral choice.

You ask questions that I've already answered, but which you ignore because you don't like my answers.

Who says you are a non-moral agent (if I am understanding what you mean by that - one who has a sense of morality)? I made it clear that we have consciences. You may not have the ability to control your moral actions, but that doesn't mean you can't tell right from wrong. Because you have this ability, I say that makes you responsible. Why wouldn't it? If you feel shame, if you feel guilt, then aren't you guilty? Should you have no shame? It's preposterous to argue that if you kill someone, you shouldn't feel guilt just because you can't control your actions. It's similarly preposterous to argue that there should be no consequences for the murder just because the murderer has no control. It's still murder, it's still evil, and since God uses evil to teach, and that teaching requires punishment, then the perpetrator must be held responsible.

When one violates one's conscience, one commits an act of evil. One's ability to control the act does not change the nature of the act, and certainly doesn't nullify the need for justice.

The real problem here is your persistence in attempting to excuse the sinner. You clearly have no interest in taking responsibility for your sins, which is no surprise since you are obviously impenitent. Your argument does not hold water. You're guilty. Deal with it.

[Mister Agenda]

Quite the opposite, actually. Why is it that those who want to be ruled under a dictatorship see nothing but good in it?

That is the flesh speaking. You see God as dictator because you want to rule on His throne. It's YOU who are the true dictator, the tyrant who says "my way or the highway." God allows you to do this for a time, so that you can see your way is the path to hell, that it's wrong and will only bring you misery.

I won't say it isn't true that God is a dictator. He is. But "dictator" on its own doesn't necessarily imply evil. You seem to think it does. God eventually dictates to all that you will follow His ways, but not because He is forcing you to. That isn't the correct way to look at it. You will bend the knee because you will eventually realize that He deserves to be worshiped, and that His ways should always be followed, because He is righteous.

The flesh rails against this, seeing itself as having intrinsic value and deserved authority. It has neither.

You can't be a dictator and a tyrant all by yourself. By definition a dictator or tyrant is someone who rules over others. You don't have to want to be the king to criticize the king. Describing criticism of how God is portrayed as wanting to rule on his throne is overly-dramatic hyperbole at best; more likely a dehumanizing fantasy about how people who disagree with you on this topic think.

[MilesAbbott81]

Your hypothesis contradicts the bible, but that's neither here nor there.

If you're going to contradict the Word of God, then you need to provide Scriptural evidence for your claim.

I've heard many preachers say that bad things are God's wake-up-call, or that God wants people to turn to Him in tragedy so that through faith, good can come out of bad.

Evil things happening to us aren't necessarily wake-up calls. God wakes us up when it's our time. Sometimes we simply need to experience the consequences of our actions. People turning to God in tragedy are probably not going to find Him. People seek God all the time when bad things happen to them, but they're missing the key to finding Him, which is repentance.

You have created a hypothesis - that God punishes for instruction.  So, bad things happen for instruction, not because the laws of the universe allow them to happen.  After all, if it is just the laws of the universe playing out, what is instructional about that (well, I guess it is instruction to better understand the universe's laws).

It's not really a hypothesis. And the laws of the universe are written by God, Who alone determines the where, when, and how of every event. That doesn't mean He is incapable of causing the laws of nature to accomplish His purposes. He is in full control.

How would you test your hypothesis?  Would you scientifically measure the sin of a group of people and correlate it to the rate of their children getting cancer?  Would you find that adultery causes natural disasters?

How silly you are to suggest that I would ever need to, or should ever feel an obligation, to test these things in a lab.

Everyone can feel regret over hurt they have caused others, or mistakes they have made that have harmed themselves.  No gods are needed for that.

Well, one wouldn't even exist, much less feel anything at all, without God's express permission and doing. You couldn't tie your shoes without His allowing you to do so.

Religious faith is always built on emotion.  Sometimes it has a source in a transformative or peak spiritual experience.  That's part of life, but it in no way validates a particular theology.

True religious faith is never built on emotion. It's built upon repentance, which is a gift from God. It's all grace.

---

I think that's where all of our christian friends fail, ultimately.  Atheists aren't questioning gods, we don't believe that there are gods to question.  We're questioning people who tell us about gods.  Those same people tell us that everyone always gets everything wrong.  Meaningfully, and even morally, wrong.

It's hard to work out whether they want us to believe them, or argue against some ephemeral point they're making.  Okay, you're a human so you can't get right.  The evidence of you not getting it right stands all by itself.  Therefore you're...totally right?

I'm obviously missing some step that Miles can explain to me, because he does too possess that explanation, and can too express it.  He's done it many times..and the fact that I can't see it just proves how god cursed I am.   I can't even notice the missing numbers in the responses where he absolutely did explain any of this - which I physically can't see and am emotionally incapable of caring about.

Imagine all of the solid gold brilliance that he's splattered all over the pages that no one can see, on account of heart hardening and eye blinding.  It's a real shame.  Who the fuck did that and how can we lay hands on that asshole?

You know, TGN, you actually make a solid point.

What this ultimately comes down to is I am right and you are wrong, and we'll find out if that is so in the end. There is truly nothing that can be done on this forum to conclude this argument except to accept that.

Which I'm totally fine with. Your salvation, as I've mentioned, is none of my concern. EDIT: That's a little cold-hearted. Obviously I would prefer it if all accepted what I have to say. But it's just not my responsibility.

---

This is just a bunch of garbage. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no reason for anything at all to exist without God as an explanation. Nothing has no reason to do anything, can't create anything, can't exist as anything other than nothing. To posit that the universe, which has no will or awareness, could ever exist on its own is patently ridiculous. God makes sense because He is supernatural and truly unbound by physics or math or whatever other form of science you wish to call upon. He is the only rational explanation for the existence of the universe, and anyone who claims otherwise is in denial or totally deluded.

So nothing but unevidenced assertions.

That's a bunch of garbage. The simple fact of the matter is that something has to exist. Nothing has no matter, energy, time, or space. Without time how long can true nothingness last? No time at all. To assert that nothingness could actually 'exist' is a contradiction in terms and patently ridiculous. God doesn't make sense because he is supernatural and unbound by physics or math or any form of science. He is not a rational explanation for the existence of anything, and anyone who claims otherwise is in denial or totally deluded.

In addition,  I assert that my assertions trump yours. The problem with argument by assertion is that an equal and opposite assertion can always be made.

Of course nothing could exist. What a ridiculous thing to say. It wouldn't have that name, and would have no one to quantify it, and you're right, therefore it wouldn't actually exist, but from our perspective it could exist, because it would be the opposite, or absence, of our existence.

All you've done is vomited out something you think is clever when it's actually incredibly stupid. I am very clearly saying that nothing can't create anything, that the universe did not suddenly emerge from nowhere. Since there is no plausible natural or scientific explanation as to how the universe came about, the only explanation that makes any sense is a supernatural one.

You can start spewing your God particle theories and whatnot, but I have no interest in arguing things that are self-evident, and will merely tell you, on God's authority, that you are wrong to accredit anyone but Him with the creation of the universe. If you can't believe that, not my problem.

[HappySkeptic]

How would you test your hypothesis?  Would you scientifically measure the sin of a group of people and correlate it to the rate of their children getting cancer?  Would you find that adultery causes natural disasters?

How silly you are to suggest that I would ever need to, or should ever feel an obligation, to test these things in a lab.

And this is why you fail to be rational.  Every claim about God should be divided into two categories -- testable and non-testable. 

The non-testable ones are matters of pure belief, faith or theology.  They can have no affect on the real world, because anything non-random that affects the world can be tested.

The testable ones are really important to test.  Claims that God heals, or punishes, or does things for believers are absolutely testable.  No, the God itself isn't testable, but the claim that "if I pray for healing, it will happen more often than if I don't pray" is a testable claim.  The claim that God in any way actively makes changes to the world that disobey laws, can be tested statistically.

Now, if you are saying that God designed the laws of the universe to play out to punish people for moral failing, then I would still say this is testable.  Yes, stupidity has its own punishment, but moral failing is often rewarded by the laws of the universe unless people intervene.  Morals are not given by a god, they are part of being societal creatures.  They change according to society.  Where they have continuity, it is because of our common humanity, not because of gods.

[The Grand Nudger]

I never said we shouldn't be held responsible for what we can't control, so don't put words in my mouth.

Well, you're certainly free to expound upon some theory of moral responsibility for what we don't control - which would finally give an answer to the question that I've repeatedly asked.

Who says you are a non-moral agent (if I am understanding what you mean by that - one who has a sense of morality)? I made it clear that we have consciences. You may not have the ability to control your moral actions, but that doesn't mean you can't tell right from wrong.

Perhaps I'm not cursed and your failures aren't a gods fault, you just didn't understand the terms?

A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong and to be held accountable for his or her own actions. Moral agents have a moral responsibility not to cause unjustified harm. Traditionally, moral agency is assigned only to those who can be held responsible for their actions.

Because you have this ability, I say that makes you responsible. Why wouldn't it? If you feel shame, if you feel guilt, then aren't you guilty?

People commonly feel guilty for things they aren't guilty in any way for, and feeling a particular way about a thing is a poor certifier of the truth of that feelings content.  Feeling guilty and being guilty, clearly two different things.  Just like feeling ugly and being ugly, or feeling smart and being smart. One wonders how much this trouble could be multiplied if our sin nature tilts the scales.

Should you have no shame? It's preposterous to argue that if you kill someone, you shouldn't feel guilt just because you can't control your actions. It's similarly preposterous to argue that there should be no consequences for the murder just because the murderer has no control. It's still murder, it's still evil, and since God uses evil to teach, and that teaching requires punishment, then the perpetrator must be held responsible.

If murder is the case example, then...no, you won't be held accountable if you had no control over the death.  I can kick a can.  Then we have straight up crazy folks, who we don't believe can be held accountable for anything, because they're incompetent.  Then we have children, who we don't believe can be held to full account because they lack relevant knowledge.  

When one violates one's conscience, one commits an act of evil. One's ability to control the act does not change the nature of the act, and certainly doesn't nullify the need for justice.

Maybe, but our conscience may also be in error or...you know...cursed in some way.  Perhaps our sin-natuyre makes it so that our conscience reviles at the sight of objective good and seeks objective evil - all wonderfully and deliciously self decieving, ofc?  

Traditionally, though, we do think that incompetence or a lack of choice or a lack of control changes the moral nature of an act.  Those are all referenced as facts of a matter with moral import. If the facts are different, the conclusion will be different. Pretty straightforward.

The real problem here is your persistence in attempting to excuse the sinner. You clearly have no interest in taking responsibility for your sins, which is no surprise since you are obviously impenitent. Your argument does not hold water. You're guilty. Deal with it.

You manage to get things fantastically wrong in a stuffy old fundy way, lol.  Without some fundamental theory of -how- a person can be held morally responsible, we can't...cogently, declare them morally responsible.  Because I'm a moral realist who does believe in moral responsibility, I can provide a theory of how and why a person becomes morally responsible.  I can explain, for example..why it is john - who was driving the car, and not Steve, who was riding in the car, who is morally responsible for running over a child.  

Can you explain how Steve is responsible?

We could repeat this over again with any combination of variables and a consistent and thorough system of moral desert will yield predictable results.

We can wonder how a child, knowing right from wrong (in some sense) might be morally responsible for the starvation in the world. We could posit their moral responsibility for the things they eat, which compound that misery and starvation. They know right from wrong, they're eating, they don't actually control what they eat (or that people starve on account of it, or that they are physically compelled to eat) - but that shouldn't be a problem for a theory that assigns moral responsibility to actors on the basis of knowledge alone.

So, go ahead, let's see this chain of desert?

Steve can be morally responsible for the kid that John ran over, and the kid can be morally responsible for starvation in the world...and here is how..._______________?

It would have taken you less time and effort to answer the question than it has to fail at the same...even if your answer, as it very much looks to be, was "I have no fucking clue, I just know that they are".

[Mister Agenda]

Today I'm wondering how moral incompetents can be morally responsible.  You have been very insistent that you believe both things to be true.  That we are both incompetent, and responsible.  You must have worked that out in your head some way, and I would very much like to understand how.

He seems to follow Calvinist teaching.  It has always made no sense, but here it is -- people are evil because its their nature, and they deserve punishment for it, because they are evil.  God can choose to enlighten the elect by grace to become moral agents and choose to do good.  Everyone else is done for.

So, the non-elect are not moral agents.  They are bound by evil.  It doesn't matter if it wasn't their choice, their punishment is "just" because of their evil nature.  Only believers can choose to do good (and that belief is a gift from God - also not their choice).

Combined with Oneness theology; as in the United Pentecostal Church, plus a form of Universalism, of which I heartily approve; eternal torture for finite offense is a problem. Not sure that's a good match, at least when I was in the UPC I didn't have to wonder how I could be responsible for my choices if I don't have free will. They were big on everyone having free will.

---

I don't know what Calvinist teaching is, but I believe he believed in eternal damnation, which is an absurd pagan doctrine. I believe in universal salvation.

It seems you've not been reading this thread at all, actually. Only believers can choose to do good? I specifically said no one can do good of their own accord. Sinners can also do good, by the grace of God. Perhaps you should read and attempt to understand before making judgments.

If free will is an illusion, no one can really choose anything.

[MilesAbbott81]

You can't be a dictator and a tyrant all by yourself. By definition a dictator or tyrant is someone who rules over others. You don't have to want to be the king to criticize the king. Describing criticism of how God is portrayed as wanting to rule on his throne is overly-dramatic hyperbole at best; more likely a dehumanizing fantasy about how people who disagree with you on this topic think.

People don't criticize God as though they're doing a film review. People criticize God because they disagree with Him, and they disagree with Him because they believe they should have dominion over what they themselves can or cannot do. That's just how our natures work.

To have dominion over God is to tyrannize Him, to force Him to put up with sin. This He will not do.

[Mister Agenda]

@MilesAbbott81

How about you read this?

About the Holy Bible

I read a few paragraphs, over the course of which I saw not a single valid criticism. I would be happy to point out all of the obviously ignorant statements in it, but the list would take far too long. I suggest you find some better material; I'm sure there's some out there.

From the guy who accused someone of being irrational for not reading their whole rant about them wanting to be a dictator?