Can You Be Good Without God?

[TTM]

Allowing the existence of God, the fundamental conundrum is mentioned in the video: "is something Good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is Good?"

The first question allows God as the arbitor of morality, and was generally accepted historically, but leads to some fairly "uncomfortable" conclusions and "dubious" acts. The second demonstrates that morality exists outside of God.  

The video tries to sidestep the question by stating "God wills it because he is Good" I.e the "have my cake and eat it response".  This is a meaningless tautology that does not remove the conundrum.  God willed the children dead, and it was Good because he is Good

[betsy]

14 hours ago, TTM said:

Allowing the existence of God, the fundamental conundrum is mentioned in the video: "is something Good because God wills it, or does God will something because it is Good?"

The first question allows God as the arbitor of morality, and was generally accepted historically, but leads to some fairly "uncomfortable" conclusions and "dubious" acts. The second demonstrates that morality exists outside of God.  

The video tries to sidestep the question by stating "God wills it because he is Good" I.e the "have my cake and eat it response".  This is a meaningless tautology that does not remove the conundrum.  God willed the children dead, and it was Good because he is Good

You're saying God cannot be moral because He killed innocent children.  That's the standard response from atheists.....which is quite an extreme irony.

 

Without God, where would objective morality come from?  Naturalists?

Charles Darwin understood well the consequences for naturalistic evolution:  no life after death exists.  no ultimate foundations for ethics exists. no ultimate meaning in life exists.

If there is no God, and we're simply a product of naturalistic evolution - then, only our instincts and impulses dictate to us! 

If it's all about impulses and instincts, and there's no objective moral standard.....then, any attempt to accuse someone of "immoral" behaviour is nothing more than not liking what that person does - depending on our individual, subjective, human whims.

 

Quote

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust...? Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist—in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless—I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality—namely my idea of justice—was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple (Lewis, 1952, pp. 45-46, italics in orig.).

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by betsy

[betsy]

14 hours ago, TTM said:

The video tries to sidestep the question by stating "God wills it because he is Good" I.e the "have my cake and eat it response".  This is a meaningless tautology that does not remove the conundrum.  God willed the children dead, and it was Good because he is Good

 

Of course, when an atheist is forced to agree that people who commit crimes should be punished -  that's a way to sidestep being qualified by justice and punishment.  So the atheist argument brings up  innocence.....

When that killing of innocent  is brought up, the atheist is saying that modern-atheism would never approve of that, therefore, the atheist's morality is superior to the morality of the Biblical God.  However, we know that modern-day atheism has no qualms about killing innocent children.  Just look how they regard the embryo, or fetuses.

 

A very significant difference from the Biblical and the Atheistic position, is what's at stake with the loss of a physical  life. 

To an atheist, this is the one and only life  to live.  This physical existence is the sum total of an organism's existence. 

 

In other words, atheists who advocate for the killing of unborn children sets themselves up as the supreme, sovereign tribunal that has the right to take away the unborn's entire existence - a life, which atheists believe to be everything a human has.

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by betsy

[TTM]

21 hours ago, betsy said:

You're saying God cannot be moral because He killed innocent children.  That's the standard response from atheists.....which is quite an extreme irony.

That's not what I said at all.  Please reread my post.  It is a pretty classic thought experiment about religion and morality. 

Basically if you believe that morality stems from God, and God tells you to (your words) "kill innocent children", then killing children must be morally "Good"

My view is that it is self evident that something is not "Good" simply because God says it is.

Edited June 1, 2017 by TTM

[TTM]

 

21 hours ago, betsy said:

If there is no God, and we're simply a product of naturalistic evolution - then, only our instincts and impulses dictate to us! 

Do only use your instincts and impulses guide you?  I also tend to also use reason and logic, along with cultural rules, laws, and norms.

Evolution left us with a fairly well developed sense of morality because we are social animals, and acting morally in a social group tends to be beneficial. 
 

Edited June 1, 2017 by TTM

[betsy]

6 hours ago, TTM said:

That's not what I said at all.  Please reread my post.  It is a pretty classic thought experiment about religion and morality. 

Basically if you believe that morality stems from God, and God tells you to (your words) "kill innocent children", then killing children must be morally "Good"

 

 

But God will not command us to kill innocent children, unless He has good reasons to.  

Furthermore, if ever you get a missive,  how do you know it's really God who's telling you to kill innocent children?   For all you know, it's Satan....or you're crazy.

It's not like we're living in the times of the Old Testament, when God was establishing to His chosen people that he is God.  We have a new cnvenant with God in the New Testament.  God will not direct us to do something evil.

 

Quote

My view is that it is self evident that something is not "Good" simply because God says it is.

That is your view - from a very limited  human perspective.  Unlike Him, we don't know everything.

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by betsy

[TTM]

1 hour ago, betsy said:

But God will not command us to kill innocent children, unless He has good reasons to.  

So he might?  It's situational? What are these moral absolutes again?

1 hour ago, betsy said:

Furthermore, if ever you get a missive,  how do you know it's really God who's telling you to kill innocent children?   For all you know, it's Satan....or you're crazy.

A missive? Like the bible? Maybe the devil commanded "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." 

1 hour ago, betsy said:

We have a new cnvenant with God in the New Testament.  God will not direct us to do something evil.

So God did direct us to do evil in the Old Testament?  Doesn't that contradict the notion that God is Good?

[betsy]

2 hours ago, TTM said:

So he might?  It's situational? What are these moral absolutes again?

 

I can't say for sure that He might.  I'm speculating that if He ever did.....there would be a good reason for it.

We've seen it in movies.  If your son is going to be horribly tortured and killed, wouldn't you opt to save the last bullet for him?  Would you say mercy killing is good in his case?

 

Quote

A missive? Like the bible? Maybe the devil commanded "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." 

So God did direct us to do evil in the Old Testament?  Doesn't that contradict the notion that God is Good?

 No. Not evil.  

Because,  unlike Him.....you don't know everything!  You don't know the future.  You don't know what he knows.

His thoughts and His ways are not the same as ours.  We cannot fully comprehend, we don't have the capacity to.

 

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by betsy

[TTM]

3 hours ago, betsy said:

I can't say for sure that He might.  I'm speculating that if He ever did.....there would be a good reason for it.

We've seen it in movies.  If your son is going to be horribly tortured and killed, wouldn't you opt to save the last bullet for him?  Would you say mercy killing is good in his case?

If you can't answer either of these questions definitively, then you don't believe in absolute morality.  By definition, absolute morality does not care about context.

 

4 hours ago, betsy said:

His thoughts and His ways are not the same as ours.  We cannot fully comprehend, we don't have the capacity to.

So God's absolute morality is beyond our understanding. Doesnt that make the situation for us the same as if absolute morality doesn't exist? Either way we have no way of knowing for certain what the moral action is.

If God (or his representatives on earth) tell me to "murder innocent children" I should just go along because even though I can't understand, it must be Good?