Morality: Do you agree

[F1fan]

satan is the original tempter ..

And Satan exists because God created him, according to the stories that are not to be taken literally. But there it is in the stories, and why God is accountable for everything Satan did and does.

we can all be devils .. so the question is "why did God create creatures capable of rebellion?"
..and that includes you and I.

It would not be bad itself to create humans capable of rebellion. It is only bad if God did not give humans the cognitive tools to understand their rebellious natures. This is why these religious scenarios always go back and indict God as the bad actor.

Almighty God is not a person .. He is of infinite nature .. immorality is something that affects us, and not God.

At best God is an illusion in human minds. If you didn't have stories in books, would you end up being a believer? Notice Hindus leamed about different gods and none of the Abrahamic versions. When a believer brings up a god there is no fact they are referring to, they are referring to gods on a long list of versions, none of which are known to exist outside of human imagination.

If you disagree then you tell me the God that directed the 9-11 hijackers is the same as the God you follow. One God means one God.

 

[Augustus]

The fact that someone can label it as morality doesn't make it morality. You are mixing up form (name) with content.

Does the damage meter show in game damage?

Where is the 'should' in the design?

In the design

Your conclusion is in your premises. If God created something... then it exists.

How could God create something that doesn't exist?

This is a HUGE problem: You are mixing up jurisdiction with morality. They are completely unrelated concepts.

You seem to be assuming the concept of morality arose organically rather than being purposely created for a reason and therefore

Only because someone said so?
You are not showing the logical necessity.

It's not "someone", it is the all powerful designer of a closed system in which everything was created for a specific reason.

There is no frame of reference outside of this system.

Doing good mean following Gods will. Doing bad means ignoring Gods will. These are the only possible definitions of the term.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It would not be bad itself to create humans capable of rebellion. It is only bad if God did not give humans the cognitive tools to understand their rebellious natures..

..but mankind and/or devils do understand what they are doing. They choose to follow what they follow.
We are weak, and our desires, likes & dislikes often get the better of us.

If you disagree then you tell me the God that directed the 9-11 hijackers is the same as the God you follow. One God means one God.

God does not direct us to be immoral. We choose that.
..sometimes desperate people do desperate things.
Politics is politics, and not religion.
In an ideal world, it should not happen.

 

[Nimos]

And what I am saying is that regardless of whether God exists, a morality created by him is not in any shape or form any more objective than a morality created by us.

And I would ask you to give an example of how God could have subjective morality given the 3 conditions I put forward in a former reply.

 

[Nakosis]

Was watching a debate between a Muslim and an atheist. And the Muslim make the argument that people that believe in subjective morality have no foundation for making moral judgements and are therefore not valid. Whereas people with a foundation in objective morality, meaning God as the moral judge are because this gives them a foundation for their morality.

Do you agree with this, that without God there is no moral foundation for judging right from wrong? And therefore people not believing in objective morality is not allowed or invalid when judging others?

IMO, the truth is our current "secular" morals come from a religious foundation. It's become part of our culture. During childhood we are constantly bombarded with moral ideas like the golden rule and promoting compassion. It gets subconsciously programmed into us.

So folks think it is inherent in our nature. It is not, though there is some small genetic component, mostly we are programmed by a culture which has a religious history. We can't escaped what our culture has programmed into us.

Not to say our morals could not have been completely different if we did not have the religious history that we did. So God, concepts of God, whether "God" exists or not, contributed to to the morals we feel is correct today.

Our morals are an eclectic collection of our past. If our past had been different then our morals would be different. Would they be similar? IDK, it'd all depend on the history we had. They'd be based on whatever historical narrative we created for ourselves.

 

[Koldo]

And I would ask you to give an example of how God could have subjective morality given the 3 conditions I put forward in a former reply.

None of the 3 attributes entail that God must be able to create objective morality.

What does it mean to say that morality is subjective in the first place? It means the truth value of moral statements depends on the speaker.

God being good, according to his perspective of what good is, gives rise to his own subjective morality.

 

[Koldo]

Does the damage meter show in game damage?

Is the damage meter an iron bar with the name 'damage meter' attached it? Is the damage meter a soccer ball? Or is the damage meter what measures the damage dealt/taken? In other words, what makes something a damage meter is the function and what it does or is it the name attached to it?

In the design

Where in the design?

How could God create something that doesn't exist?

That's not it. Your previous line of reasoning involved multiple irrelevant steps. If someone created something, it now exists. That's not up to debate. What's up to debate is whether he created it in the first place.

You seem to be assuming the concept of morality arose organically rather than being purposely created for a reason and therefore

I have no idea how this relates to you mixing up jurisdiction with morality.

It's not "someone", it is the all powerful designer of a closed system in which everything was created for a specific reason.

There is no frame of reference outside of this system.

Doing good mean following Gods will. Doing bad means ignoring Gods will. These are the only possible definitions of the term.

How did you reach the conclusion that doing good is doing God's will? There is a hidden premise here somewhere.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

This might sound funny but in this case, I would say God is siding with the atheists

Same. Jesus spoke of people who said they would do something and didn’t and people who said they wouldn’t but did. I see many theists of Abrahamic persuasion in the former and atheists in the latter.

 

[Nimos]

IMO, the truth is our current "secular" morals come from a religious foundation. It's become part of our culture. During childhood we are constantly bombarded with moral ideas like the golden rule and promoting compassion. It gets subconsciously programmed into us.

You might be right. It's definitely not unthinkable that it could be the case. I think it is a mixture because even without religion I think we would have reached close to the same moral standard as we have today. By mixture, I mean that I think people back then at the very early stages of religion were seeking answers to the world in which they lived, equally to what we are doing now. But given the lack of ability to examine this world, I find it logical that one would assume some greater power would be in control and this eventually led to having to please the gods/spirits and then a moral standard would start to form. But I also think that they would find it somewhat logical that you don't just go around and kill each other as that would severely hurt both your tribe and yourself. Even before the ideas of gods/spirits arose. But I would imagine that when religion took hold that they would wonder and talk a lot about it. What do these spirits/gods want? Why did they punish us, was it because we didn't sacrifice the correct thing or enough? etc. And eventually, this would lead to some more structured moral standard I would think.
But again, I don't think they had no moral understanding before that.

So I think you are correct generally speaking, it is obviously difficult to know what exactly they thought back then, but historically, it seems that most if not all humans around the world have created some sort of religious or spiritual belief.

 

[Nimos]

None of the 3 attributes entail that God must be able to create objective morality.

What does it mean to say that morality is subjective in the first place? It means the truth value of moral statements depends on the speaker.

God being good, according to his perspective of what good is, gives rise to his own subjective morality.

Subjective morality means that it depends on the subject perception or opinion. There is no right or wrong answer, only different opinions.

But in regards to God, it is not according to his perspective in the same way as we would look at it. Because God's very nature/character is all good, it is not something he thinks about and then reaches a conclusion that A is better than B. So no matter what "conclusion" he would reach it would be good, therefore it is objectively so. And as God knows everything, he would also know that his very character is moral, not in the sense that he knows it about himself, he probably does, but also that all things align with his will is good and that which doesn't isn't, both then, now and in the future.

 

[Augustus]

What's up to debate is whether he created it in the first place.

Are you aware we are discussing a hypothetical scenario where God does exist and created the world for a reason and designed everything in it?

why would this be up for debate in such a world?

How did you reach the conclusion that doing good is doing God's will?

see above.

That is the premise we are assuming.

 

[Koldo]

Subjective morality means that it depends on the subject perception or opinion. There is no right or wrong answer, only different opinions.

But in regards to God, it is not according to his perspective in the same way as we would look at it. Because God's very nature/character is all good, it is not something he thinks about and then reaches a conclusion that A is better than B. So no matter what "conclusion" he would reach it would be good, therefore it is objectively so.

What is the hidden premise here?

You have this premise: God is all good.
And this premise: God knows everything.
You have this conclusion: God's conclusions about what is moral are objective.

But your premises are not sufficient to establish your conclusion.

Things that don't exist can't be known to exist. Therefore if objective morality doesn't exist, knowing everything doesn't entail knowing what is objectively moral.

Plus, when you state that God is all good, it could be the case that God is subjectively all good. I guess that what you actually want to state is that God is objectively all good, but this presumes someone can be objectively good.

I don't know if this is your intention, but it looks like the form of your reasoning would be:

1) Let's presume objective morality exists.
2) Let's now presume that God knows what is objectively moral.
3) Let's further presume that God accurately says to humans what is objectively moral.
4) Therefore, God's words provides the proper medium through which we can assert what is objectively moral.

This is fine. The problem though is that we have no reason to accept those premises.

What if I said that I know what is objectively moral? You would reject this statement, wouldn't you?

 

[Koldo]

Are you aware we are discussing a hypothetical scenario where God does exist and created the world for a reason and designed everything in it?

Yes.

why would this be up for debate in such a world?

Because it is not taken for granted that God could create objective morality.

see above.

That is the premise we are assuming.

I accept that in the hypothetical scenario we are discussing God does exist and created the world for a reason and designed everything in it. I reject that this entails that doing good is doing God's will.

 

[F1fan]

..but mankind and/or devils do understand what they are doing. They choose to follow what they follow.

So violent believers know what they are doing by following God's will, and were created by God knowing that these people knew what evil they would do.

We are weak, and our desires, likes & dislikes often get the better of us.

If your Goid made you weak then God wanted you weak. That's bad luck.

God does not direct us to be immoral. We choose that.

How does it make sense that believers will act against the God they believe in?

You could make use of the devil right here and insist that he manipulates some people, but no, you admit that your fellow believers act with full awareness of their immorality. So why did God make these believers to make immoral decisions?

..sometimes desperate people do desperate things.

Despertae people are seldom rational.This goes against your prior claims.

Politics is politics, and not religion.

Did you forget theocracies again?

In an ideal world, it should not happen.

To your fellow Muslims it is God's will. Explain.

 

[Augustus]

Because it is not taken for granted that God could create objective morality.

What do you believe limits a God from doing so?

I accept that in the hypothetical scenario we are discussing God does exist and created the world for a reason and designed everything in it. I reject that this entails that doing good is doing God's will.

How would you define "good" in this context other than by what deems good to mean?

 

[Koldo]

What do you believe limits a God from doing so?

The logical contradictory. I am after all saying that morality's truth value can only exist within minds.

How would you define "good" in this context other than by what deems good to mean?

I don't understand your question. Can you rephrase it?

 

[Pete in Panama]

Which points towards a biological basis as the shared source of morality. Which does not entail objective morality....

Before we go beyond that we need to be sure we understand this carefully.

My take is that this seems to me to be a distinction w/o a distinction. One person can walk up to say, gravity. He can observe it and measure it and make conclusions about it. Later someone else completely separate can do the same. We say that gravity is an objective reality, not an imagined ideal, and we go further to say that gravity evidently has existed since the beginning of the universe.

What I'm seeing is that the understandings of right and wrong act the same way. To me, if gravity is accepted as an objective reality then right/wrong must also have that position. I understand that you are of the minority of the human race that has decided differently, but at the same time you may be right.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If your Goid made you weak then God wanted you weak. That's bad luck..

Almighty God does not "want us weak" .. we just are weak.
We have a tendency to choose evil over good .. we want to satisfy our worldly desires in the short-term, and suffer due to that in the long term.
G-d has showed us HOW to avoid evil, so he does not want us to fail.
Claiming that G-d could have created us "better" is nonsense.
There are good people in the world, and there are bad .. there are strong-willed people in the world, and there are weak-willed.
We have to do the best that we can.

How does it make sense that believers will act against the God they believe in?

Belief is one thing .. our actions are another.
..to complicate matters, we are all capable of evil, and in times of war, we kill each other.
A violent war in one country, can spill over to atrocities in another peaceful one .. but then you know that, and you desire to make it all about belief v disbelief.

To your fellow Muslims it is God's will. Explain.

You want to discuss why people are terrorists .. is that it?

Religion is sometimes used in combination with other factors, and sometimes as the primary motivation. Religious terrorism is intimately connected to current forces of geopolitics.
Religious terrorism - Wikipedia

Oil / wealth, and historical events such as the world wars all play their part.
You just cannot separate religion and politics as you do.
We are all sinners .. believers and disbelievers alike.
G-d punishes whomsoever He wills, and forgives whomsoever He wills. He is aware of our intentions, and whether they are noble or otherwise.

 

[Nimos]

What if I said that I know what is objectively moral? You would reject this statement, wouldn't you?

Yes, I would reject that claim because you are not a supernatural being, but God is said to be.

Plus, when you state that God is all good, it could be the case that God is subjectively all good. I guess that what you actually want to state is that God is objectively all good, but this presumes someone can be objectively good.

I don't know if this is your intention, but it looks like the form of your reasoning would be:

1) Let's presume objective morality exists.
2) Let's now presume that God knows what is objectively moral.
3) Let's further presume that God accurately says to humans what is objectively moral.
4) Therefore, God's words provides the proper medium through which we can assert what is objectively moral.

This is fine. The problem though is that we have no reason to accept those premises.

God wouldn't be subjectively all good, as that would depend on our view of him. But that is not the claim that religion makes, but rather that he is all good, that he can't sin etc. So whatever God does is good, because what is good is part of his very character. However the claim is that God gave us free will, so we are not forced to follow the will of God, but if we don't we will be punished for it. That is sort of the short version of it.

Therefore humans can rebel against the will of God, such as what atheists do and don't accept the will of God. But in this setup, it simply means that we do not recognize God's grace or what to say as believers do. We think we know better than God, but ultimately we are delusional because God wrote it on our hearts. Some believers will say that this is satan's work and that he is the cause and misled humans etc. But ultimately it doesn't change the fact that God is all good, it is merely us that fail or don't see it. Without God, there would be no good or evil.

So put very simple, Everything that God wills is good everything that goes against it is evil.

This is fine. The problem though is that we have no reason to accept those premises.

We purely accept them for the sake of argument in this case. I would reject all of them as well as I don't believe anything comes from God.

 

[Koldo]

Before we go beyond that we need to be sure we understand this carefully.

My take is that this seems to me to be a distinction w/o a distinction. One person can walk up to say, gravity. He can observe it and measure it and make conclusions about it. Later someone else completely separate can do the same. We say that gravity is an objective reality, not an imagined ideal, and we go further to say that gravity evidently has existed since the beginning of the universe.

What I'm seeing is that the understandings of right and wrong act the same way. To me, if gravity is accepted as an objective reality then right/wrong must also have that position. I understand that you are of the minority of the human race that has decided differently, but at the same time you may be right.

I am in the minority that has bothered to read about moral relativism and non-cognitivism. Or maybe the minority that is even aware those concepts exist in the first place.