Does the god who supposedly created this world deserve to be worshipped?

Actually no, I believe (correct me if I am wrong) that his point is that if we are to use the bible as a legitimate source of information about God, then God has numerous positions which are of dubious moral standards by almost any modern understanding of ethics. Thus I believe he was suggesting that using God and god's rules as a standard by which to measure morality; in particular with the idea of a static, absolute morality, given the moral inconsistencies (even within Gods own actions due to different standards being endorsed or accepted at different times) seems flawed.

God is not subject to the laws he dictates for man, because god is so superior to man that those rules are meaningless to him. If this is the case why is it that I have lived my life far better than the descriptions of god's behaviour in the books. I've never killed anybody for instance, can't say the same for a superior god to whom rules don't apply. Oh wait his rules don't apply to me either, well, well I guess I am the superior after all.

If it is 'superior' to men, then that infers moral superiority as well, which means that it complies with those laws as well - because otherwise it is a being that is using a double standard of 'do as I say not as I do', which infers moral inferiority

Quagmire said:

Ok, last time man: stop talking to me.

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:biglaugh:
:ko:
:takeabow:

JMorris said:

:biglaugh:
:ko:
:takeabow:

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sad.

bribrius said:

I understand that a few percent of the world is atheist, the bible calls atheists fools.

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Trust me, buddy. We have some words for you too.

Im still having problems with understanding atheists and moral relativity as well. If there is no absolute......

:birthday:

i figure if there is no absolute you can celebrate your birthday every day.

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Okay, let me give you an example of moral relativity.

Is it okay for me to slaughter your children with an axe, completely unprovoked? (The answer should be "no")

Is it okay, if I am trying to beat you to death, to kill me in self-defence? (Not as black-and-white, but most people would say "yes")

So if a moral absolute like "Thou shalt not kill" is correct, then if I'm trying to bludgeon you to death with a sledgehammer, it is immoral for you to try to kill me to save yourself.

Let's try another example.

Let's say that you're in court under oath. You are the witness to a crime your friend committed. Should you lie to make sure he goes free? (Most people would say "no")

Let's say that you were going to throw me a surprise birthday party. I catch wind that you are going to do this and I straight up ask you if you are. Is it okay for you to lie to me about something like that? (Most people would say "yes").

If all lies were immoral, then you would have to ruin my pleasant surprise by telling me the truth.

Quagmire said:

sad.

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indeed, now stop talking to me. you'd think a mod would know better than to behave this way,:tsk:

Vile Atheist said:

Trust me, buddy. We have some words for you too.



Okay, let me give you an example of moral relativity.

Is it okay for me to slaughter your children with an axe, completely unprovoked? (The answer should be "no")

Is it okay, if I am trying to beat you to death, to kill me in self-defence? (Not as black-and-white, but most people would say "yes")

So if a moral absolute like "Thou shalt not kill" is correct, then if I'm trying to bludgeon you to death with a sledgehammer, it is immoral for you to try to kill me to save yourself.

Let's try another example.

Let's say that you're in court under oath. You are the witness to a crime your friend committed. Should you lie to make sure he goes free? (Most people would say "no")

Let's say that you were going to throw me a surprise birthday party. I catch wind that you are going to do this and I straight up ask you if you are. Is it okay for you to lie to me about something like that? (Most people would say "yes").

If all lies were immoral, then you would have to ruin my pleasant surprise by telling me the truth.

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How dare you insert reality into this argument.
Uncalled for I say, uncalled for.
Shame. :biglaugh:

JMorris said:

indeed, now stop talking to me. you'd think a mod would know better than to behave this way,:tsk:

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If you think I've done anything out-of-line, report me.

Let's keep things on-topic and non-personal, gentlemen.

JMorris said:

oh my! is that some kind of insinuation that rules dont apply to mods? id find that very hard to believe sir, and id remind you of Rules 1 through 3. id hate to see you censored simply because of a lapse in judgment.

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That's an insinuation that I haven't actually done anything even close to outside of the rules here.

So have at it.

But how about sparing everybody else in this thread from having to watch this crap?

JMorris said:

oh my! is that some kind of insinuation that rules dont apply to mods? id find that very hard to believe sir, and id remind you of Rules 1 through 3. id hate to see you censored simply because of a lapse in judgment.

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Given that he is referring you to a dispute resolution mechanism, that would suggest that he is stating that rules DO apply to him (and by extension we can assume other mods); really now, I am sure you realised as much, you aren't arguing for the sake of it are you? *whips out a harisen in either hand*



But on the mater of objective morality I think there are a couple threads on the issue, so in so far as it relates to this thread, if there IS an objective morality and if we knew what it was, if we knew what god had (not) done and were we able to apply such a standard to god, would such an entity measure up? Well that is arguable, however regardless, we do not know what that objective morality IS, we have attempted to encode it in documents such as universal human rights, however different peoplehave come up with different standards on the issue, such as Immanual Kant's categorical imperatives.

If there is such disagreement on what objective morality is, that indicates that at least our PERCEPTION of objective morality is subjective. Thus we should instead focus our efforts on subjective morality.

So how does God's actions compare to your subjective perception of morality? Personally, I have always found the Abrahamic God to have demonstrated numerous ethical failures (many of which have been mentioned in this thread earlier so do not need to be mentioned again), but have never found the argument that God should be treated as a unique case (thus excluding his actions from being considered immoral) to have any logical basis. But the Abrahamic god is far from the only one, so to suggest 'God' is immoral or moral to me would need to refer to particular concepts of god; the OP refers to the creator God, however there are many such creator gods. For me therefore, I examine the act of creation separate to the rest of the actions of such a god, in which case, does creation ensure an entitlement to 'worship' from the created?

For me, no - gratitude yes, worship no.