How to beat a presupp at their own game

[R00tKiT]

To what end, you've already indicated that you are well aware of the existence of other people's opinions about the contents of your magic book and the character of the god it describes.  

You insisted that we could rule out religions with unjust gods.  If so, we can rule your religion out, by your rule.   I appreciate that you only intended to use this a cudgel against other peoples unjust gods  - and I'll point out again that I think you've asserted a comically inept non-rule.  

Simply put.... if you believe that this is a valid way to rule a religion in or out, then this is a standard that anyone can equally apply to your own.

I am afraid you misunderstood my rule. The Qur'an says, verbatim, that Allah is just, regardless of what anyone thinks about this assertion, therefore this rule doesn't apply. If some other religion asserts otherwise, then the rule applies and the religion can be dismissed because it doesn't make sense to worship an unjust god, who may decide to punish everyone including people who sincerely worshipped him. What you're missing is that this is not a discussion about whether the assertion -Allah being just- is actually true.

BTW I asked for a verse that says Allah is not just and you didn't provide any. Therefore my assertion stands, Islams says of itself that Allah is just and there is no reason to rule it out based on that.

The level of the offense doesn’t alter the abrogation of justice. Justice may be thought of as getting what you deserve. If an offender deserves punishment X and is awarded X-n, it is merciful and - in many cases - the right thing to do. But it is not justice.

Of course, a judge (either divine or mortal) CAN be both just and merciful, but not at the same time. Allah has the prerogative, in any particular judgement, to dispense either justice or mercy, but it isn’t coherent to claim that he is always just and always merciful.

This point might be more clear to you if you’d read up on the concepts involved.

Of course it cannot be simultaneously true that a god is infinitely just AND infinitely merciful in one instance. But who is claiming that? No one. It's always good to keep in mind that God cannot do what is logically impossible -like squaring the circle. And that it is not a problem

[The Grand Nudger]

Magic book says alot of things, and when the god in magic book says unjust things and promises unjust things, and when magic book insists these unjust things, it's hard to take that as anything other than the magic book and it's god being explicitly unjust.

Your rule, applied, rules your religion out. I don't think that it's a rule at all, personally...and I know that you didn't rule any religions on on account of that non-rule to begin with - so it all seems so pointless. But..go ahead, double down.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

To what end, you've already indicated that you are well aware of the existence of other people's opinions about the contents of your magic book and the character of the god it describes.  

You insisted that we could rule out religions with unjust gods.  If so, we can rule your religion out, by your rule.   I appreciate that you only intended to use this a cudgel against other peoples unjust gods  - and I'll point out again that I think you've asserted a comically inept non-rule.  

Simply put.... if you believe that this is a valid way to rule a religion in or out, then this is a standard that anyone can equally apply to your own.

I am afraid you misunderstood my rule. The Qur'an says, verbatim, that Allah is just, regardless of what anyone thinks about this assertion, therefore this rule doesn't apply. If some other religion asserts otherwise, then the rule applies and the religion can be dismissed because it doesn't make sense to worship an unjust god, who may decide to punish everyone including people who sincerely worshipped him. What you're missing is that this is not a discussion about whether the assertion -Allah being just- is actually true.

BTW I asked for a verse that says Allah is not just and you didn't provide any. Therefore my assertion stands, Islams says of itself that Allah is just and there is no reason to rule it out based on that.

The level of the offense doesn’t alter the abrogation of justice. Justice may be thought of as getting what you deserve. If an offender deserves punishment X and is awarded X-n, it is merciful and - in many cases - the right thing to do. But it is not justice.

Of course, a judge (either divine or mortal) CAN be both just and merciful, but not at the same time. Allah has the prerogative, in any particular judgement, to dispense either justice or mercy, but it isn’t coherent to claim that he is always just and always merciful.

This point might be more clear to you if you’d read up on the concepts involved.

Of course it cannot be simultaneously true that a god is infinitely just AND infinitely merciful in one instance. But who is claiming that? No one. It's always good to keep in mind that God cannot do what is logically impossible -like squaring the circle. And that it is not a problem

Then, in every instance in which God dispenses mercy, he is being unjust. Therefore, either you worship an unjust, or the Quran is mistaken (read ‘wrong’) when it refers to God as ‘the most merciful’.

Glad you’re finally getting it.

Boru

[Angrboda]

I didn't specify why I thought your god was unjust, so you're just trying to attribute reasons to me that haven't been said.  The fact is that is not the reason I think your god is an unjust god, and while I disagree that a god should be judged upon how a religion describes their god, as false and contradictory attributes are not uncommonly applied to people's god, I think your god is unjust by the religion's own criteria.  Tell me, according to whom is your god just?  And before you answer, let me point out that Hitler probably thought himself moral and just according to his own standards.  So, according to whom is your god just?  What standard apart from Allah does your god align with?

Your question doesn't make much sense. God is the ultimate moral authority in any religion or theology, the mere existence of some superior standard to god contradicts his godness. You can say you don't accept arguments for God's existence. But if you concede the latter, then you also concede his status as the source of morality.

You apparently didn't heed my warning. If God is just and moral because he meets his own standard, then Hitler by the same logic was just and moral as he met his own standard. As a general matter, people's ideas about what is right and wrong align with the things that they want to do or not do, and there's no reason to think that Allah is any different. As you correctly note, he's accountable to no one. And that's the problem.

Let me run a hypothetical past you. Let's suppose that in an alternate reality which only exists in our minds, all that is true about our reality is true about that reality, including Allah. There's just one difference. In that reality, raping babies is moral and just. Now I'm sure you're tempted to say that that would be different, that the Allah in that reality isn't truly Allah, but look at the surrounding facts. In that reality, just as in this one, those who believe in him do not doubt the morality or justness of any of his proclamations. They too would argue that anything their god proclaims, even baby raping, must be moral because all morality and laws descend from him. In short, the Muslims in bizarro world would say all the same things that you say about Allah and they would likewise be true. As far as a believer is concerned, both you as a Muslim in this world would be justified by Allah in thinking that baby raping is wrong, while they, using all the same justifications as you do, conclude that baby raping is fine and dandy. If the justification you use can lead you to diametrically opposed conclusions, regardless of what the god in question advocates, then how can you be sure that the Allah in this world isn't giving a pass to something as awful as baby raping? You can't. And the reason you can't is because regardless of what your god pronounces, it is judged moral. This is because the standard you have adopted, and Allah's choice of moral truths, is wholly arbitrary. If Allah is the standard of morality, he can do no wrong, not because what he does isn't problematic, but because you as a Muslim have given him carte blanche to do whatever he pleases. If Allah's morals are arbitrary as I suggest, then there is nothing moral about them because if anything, morality isn't arbitrary.

Chew on this for a minute. Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral, that like baby raping, it's horribly wrong. Given that you rubber stamp anything Allah says, how would you ever discover that this is the case, that Allah has okay'ed something that is immoral? If you can't determine that your god is immoral, you can't determine that he is moral either. This is a variant of the principle of falsification. If you can't detect when you're wrong, saying that you're right is hollow and without meaning or substance. Note also the similarities to Divine Command Theory. If what's good is whatever Allah says is good, there are no checks on what Allah proclaims to be good. And the Euthyphro Dilemma is just a stone's throw away.

[Belacqua]

Then, in every instance in which God dispenses mercy, he is being unjust. Therefore, either you worship an unjust, or the Quran is mistaken (read ‘wrong’) when it refers to God as ‘the most merciful’.

Glad you’re finally getting it.

Boru

One of the traditional descriptions of God is as the Coincidentia oppositorum. Whereas human beings have to do one or the other, God knows how to do both.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Your question doesn't make much sense. God is the ultimate moral authority in any religion or theology, the mere existence of some superior standard to god contradicts his godness. You can say you don't accept arguments for God's existence. But if you concede the latter, then you also concede his status as the source of morality.

You apparently didn't heed my warning.  If God is just and moral because he meets his own standard, then Hitler by the same logic was just and moral as he met his own standard.  As a general matter, people's ideas about what is right and wrong align with the things that they want to do or not do, and there's no reason to think that Allah is any different.  As you correctly note, he's accountable to no one.  And that's the problem.  

Let me run a hypothetical past you.  Let's suppose that in an alternate reality which only exists in our minds, all that is true about our reality is true about that reality, including Allah.  There's just one difference.  In that reality, raping babies is moral and just.  Now I'm sure you're tempted to say that that would be different, that the Allah in that reality isn't truly Allah, but look at the surrounding facts.  In that reality, just as in this one, those who believe in him do not doubt the morality or justness of any of his proclamations.  They too would argue that anything their god proclaims, even baby raping, must be moral because all morality and laws descend from him.  In short, the Muslims in bizarro world would say all the same things that you say about Allah and they would likewise be true.  As far as a believer is concerned, both you as a Muslim in this world would be justified by Allah in thinking that baby raping is wrong, while they, using all the same justifications as you do, conclude that baby raping is fine and dandy.  If the justification you use can lead you to diametrically opposed conclusions, regardless of what the god in question advocates, then how can you be sure that the Allah in this world isn't giving a pass to something as awful as baby raping?  You can't.  And the reason you can't is because regardless of what your god pronounces, it is judged moral.  This is because the standard you have adopted, and Allah's choice of moral truths, is wholly arbitrary.  If Allah is the standard of morality, he can do no wrong, not because what he does isn't problematic, but because you as a Muslim have given him carte blanche to do whatever he pleases.  If Allah's morals are arbitrary as I suggest, then there is nothing moral about them because if anything, morality isn't arbitrary.  

Chew on this for a minute.  Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral, that like baby raping, it's horribly wrong.  Given that you rubber stamp anything Allah says, how would you ever discover that this is the case, that Allah has okay'ed something that is immoral?  If you can't determine that your god is immoral, you can't determine that he is moral either.  This is a variant of the principle of falsification.  If you can't detect when you're wrong, saying that you're right is hollow and without meaning or substance.  Note also the similarities to Divine Command Theory.  If what's good is whatever Allah says is good, there are no checks on what Allah proclaims to be good.  And the Euthyphro Dilemma is just a stone's throw away.

Ah trying the old " he's good because he's god " as if that answers the question

[R00tKiT]

Magic book says alot of things, and when the god in magic book says unjust things and promises unjust things, 

That's irrelevant to our discussion. The word unjust as you use it here is your own moral assessment of the Qur'an's assertions, which doesn't have any bearing on how the Qur'an describes God.
To make matters simpler: let's say that some religion A presents the God A as a "perfectly just deity which will condemn all its creatures to eternal hellfire". 
Now my rule doesn't apply to religion A, even if the actions of the deity strongly provoke our inner moral sense. 

On a side note, a well-known authentic hadith actually declares that no one, including the prophet, will go to heaven if God decides to be maximally just with his creatures:

quote: "I heard Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) saying, "The good deeds of any person will not make him enter Paradise." (i.e., None can enter Paradise through his good deeds.) They (the Prophet's companions) said, 'Not even you, O Allah's Messenger (ﷺ)?' He said, "Not even myself, unless Allah bestows His favor and mercy on me."

https://sunnah.com/bukhari:5673

You read that right: infinite justness minutiously applied means that everyone goes to hell, prophets of god included. 

..and I know that you didn't rule any religions on on account of that non-rule to begin with - so it all seems so pointless.  But..go ahead, double down.

Yes, you're right. I didn't rule out christianity for example based on this rule. But you're forgetting something here, is it necessary to look for other religions when you are presented with very compelling evidence for a particular religion? Obviously not. We have to pursue some direction, after all. We can at least rest assured that no just deity will punish us for choosing the wrong belief despite our best efforts.

Then, in every instance in which God dispenses mercy, he is being unjust. Therefore, either you worship an unjust, or the Quran is mistaken (read ‘wrong’) when it refers to God as ‘the most merciful’.

Glad you’re finally getting it.

Boru

Your conclusion is simply a non sequitur. You didn't prove that mercy logically contradicts justness. If God is a maximally great being, what would maximize greatness : displaying mercy at some (well-deserved) instances without contradicting justness, or stone cold rigorous justness and no mercy property ?

If you want to insist on this contradiction, then you are asked to carefully define mercy, because I suspect it's not completely distinct from justness, people who get mercy get it for a reason, after all, for example : some good deed, or the absence of sufficiently bad deeds. If mercy and justice can intersect, even in one instance, then they cannot logically contradict each other.

---

You apparently didn't heed my warning.  If God is just and moral because he meets his own standard, then Hitler by the same logic was just and moral as he met his own standard.  As a general matter, people's ideas about what is right and wrong align with the things that they want to do or not do, and there's no reason to think that Allah is any different.  As you correctly note, he's accountable to no one.  And that's the problem.  

Let me run a hypothetical past you.  Let's suppose that in an alternate reality which only exists in our minds, all that is true about our reality is true about that reality, including Allah.  There's just one difference.  In that reality, raping babies is moral and just.  Now I'm sure you're tempted to say that that would be different, that the Allah in that reality isn't truly Allah, but look at the surrounding facts.  In that reality, just as in this one, those who believe in him do not doubt the morality or justness of any of his proclamations.  They too would argue that anything their god proclaims, even baby raping, must be moral because all morality and laws descend from him.  In short, the Muslims in bizarro world would say all the same things that you say about Allah and they would likewise be true.  As far as a believer is concerned, both you as a Muslim in this world would be justified by Allah in thinking that baby raping is wrong, while they, using all the same justifications as you do, conclude that baby raping is fine and dandy.  If the justification you use can lead you to diametrically opposed conclusions, regardless of what the god in question advocates, then how can you be sure that the Allah in this world isn't giving a pass to something as awful as baby raping?  You can't.  And the reason you can't is because regardless of what your god pronounces, it is judged moral.  This is because the standard you have adopted, and Allah's choice of moral truths, is wholly arbitrary.  If Allah is the standard of morality, he can do no wrong, not because what he does isn't problematic, but because you as a Muslim have given him carte blanche to do whatever he pleases.  If Allah's morals are arbitrary as I suggest, then there is nothing moral about them because if anything, morality isn't arbitrary.  

Chew on this for a minute.  Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral, that like baby raping, it's horribly wrong.  Given that you rubber stamp anything Allah says, how would you ever discover that this is the case, that Allah has okay'ed something that is immoral?  If you can't determine that your god is immoral, you can't determine that he is moral either.  This is a variant of the principle of falsification.  If you can't detect when you're wrong, saying that you're right is hollow and without meaning or substance.  Note also the similarities to Divine Command Theory.  If what's good is whatever Allah says is good, there are no checks on what Allah proclaims to be good.  And the Euthyphro Dilemma is just a stone's throw away.

You are making a strawman here. It's clear that a maximally great deity won't sanction raping babies. You say : " Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral" , isn't moral according to whom, again? what's more probable, that your own moral assessment is wrong, or that an all knowing deity made a moral mistake...........?

It's better to think of it in a bottom-up fashion. We establish God's existence first, as a maximally great being, then we follow God's moral recommendations. What you're doing here is the exact opposite : you think moral recommendations are arbitrary because you're not convinced that any maximally great being exists in the first place, and I don't blame you, actually, you cannot accept the conclusion (God is absolute morality) because you don't accept the simplest premise of it (God exists as a maximally great being).... well, duh..

[Angrboda]

How is infinite justness different from just plain, old, run-of-the-mill justness?

[Rahn127]

Any god is nothing more than a fictional character. The properties of this fictional character are not observed, but rather placed upon it, the same as you would the background of Darth Vader or the abilities of Superman.

Until any god is shown to exist at all, it's power to do anything is zero. It's intelligence is zero. It's value in existence is zero.

If I presuppose that the largest black hole in existence is where the sun currently is, I would be observationally and factually wrong.

I can still do it, but every conclusion I come to will be wrong.

Presupposing a god is like that only much much worse

[Angrboda]

You apparently didn't heed my warning.  If God is just and moral because he meets his own standard, then Hitler by the same logic was just and moral as he met his own standard.  As a general matter, people's ideas about what is right and wrong align with the things that they want to do or not do, and there's no reason to think that Allah is any different.  As you correctly note, he's accountable to no one.  And that's the problem.  

Let me run a hypothetical past you.  Let's suppose that in an alternate reality which only exists in our minds, all that is true about our reality is true about that reality, including Allah.  There's just one difference.  In that reality, raping babies is moral and just.  Now I'm sure you're tempted to say that that would be different, that the Allah in that reality isn't truly Allah, but look at the surrounding facts.  In that reality, just as in this one, those who believe in him do not doubt the morality or justness of any of his proclamations.  They too would argue that anything their god proclaims, even baby raping, must be moral because all morality and laws descend from him.  In short, the Muslims in bizarro world would say all the same things that you say about Allah and they would likewise be true.  As far as a believer is concerned, both you as a Muslim in this world would be justified by Allah in thinking that baby raping is wrong, while they, using all the same justifications as you do, conclude that baby raping is fine and dandy.  If the justification you use can lead you to diametrically opposed conclusions, regardless of what the god in question advocates, then how can you be sure that the Allah in this world isn't giving a pass to something as awful as baby raping?  You can't.  And the reason you can't is because regardless of what your god pronounces, it is judged moral.  This is because the standard you have adopted, and Allah's choice of moral truths, is wholly arbitrary.  If Allah is the standard of morality, he can do no wrong, not because what he does isn't problematic, but because you as a Muslim have given him carte blanche to do whatever he pleases.  If Allah's morals are arbitrary as I suggest, then there is nothing moral about them because if anything, morality isn't arbitrary.  

Chew on this for a minute.  Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral, that like baby raping, it's horribly wrong.  Given that you rubber stamp anything Allah says, how would you ever discover that this is the case, that Allah has okay'ed something that is immoral?  If you can't determine that your god is immoral, you can't determine that he is moral either.  This is a variant of the principle of falsification.  If you can't detect when you're wrong, saying that you're right is hollow and without meaning or substance.  Note also the similarities to Divine Command Theory.  If what's good is whatever Allah says is good, there are no checks on what Allah proclaims to be good.  And the Euthyphro Dilemma is just a stone's throw away.

You are making a strawman here. It's clear that a maximally great deity won't sanction raping babies. You say : " Let's presume that something that you've accepted as moral actually isn't moral" , isn't moral according to whom, again? what's more probable, that your own moral assessment is wrong, or that an all knowing deity made a moral mistake...........?

It's better to think of it in a bottom-up fashion. We establish God's existence first, as a maximally great being, then we follow God's moral recommendations. What you're doing here is the exact opposite : you think moral recommendations are arbitrary because you're not convinced that any maximally great being exists in the first place, and I don't blame you, actually, you cannot accept the conclusion (God is absolute morality) because you don't accept the simplest premise of it (God exists as a maximally great being).... well, duh..

No, that's not correct and it's not a strawman. You say it's clear that any maximally great deity wouldn't sanction baby-raping, yet you don't actually show how you would determine that your god was sanctioning something similarly immoral. You skipped the question which asked that very thing. Until you can show how you would determine that your god's morals are wrong, you can't conclude that they are right. The question of who it's immoral to is irrelevant as long as there is objective morality. If morals are an objective real feature of reality, it doesn't need a who. And no, my conclusions about your god's morality have nothing to do with my not thinking he exists. They are based upon what your religion tells us about Allah, namely that he answers to no one and anything he says goes. If that's your justification, that same justification can be used to declare ANY god moral, including the baby-raping god. The people in that alternate reality are saying all the same things about their god that you are saying about your god, so obviously the things you are saying don't in any sense pick out a moral god from a pantheon of possible other gods with different morals. Here, let's make it plain. Let's say that I am a traveler from that alternate universe, and I've told you how shameful I think it is that your god forbids baby raping. How would you go about convincing me that I was the one who was worshipping an immoral god? You've already said that it's clear that he is, to which, as a believer in the baby raping god I reply, "Nonsense. It's clear that baby-raping is moral and that your god is immoral for not allowing it. It's obvious! All laws and morality come from my god and my god has a morally perfect nature and so he couldn't sanction baby-raping if it were immoral. So, obviously, baby-raping is moral!" What's your response?

Btw, there's a serious problem with your counter-argument. You can't determine that something is maximally great without examining all its properties for maximal greatness. Since maximal greatness morally isn't a product of any other property or attribute, you can't determine it from some other characteristic, so you have to evaluate Allah's morality on its own terms just as we have been doing regardless of anything else you can determine. You can't conclude that Allah is maximally great without first concluding that he is maximally moral. You've got the cart before the horse. This is probably because you've never actually determined that Allah is maximally great, you've just swallowed the assertion whole as just another piece of dogma that you accept uncritically. But feel free to show that Allah is maximally great without showing that he is maximally moral.


"There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and remembers Allah often."
Surah 33:21

Mohammed says, "Grab 'em by the pussy while they're still young!"