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What is God's Relationship to Morality?

ygolo

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I don't think the literal biblical God requires, is required for, or created the morality we sense with our consciences (though I leave open the possibility that God, even a biblical God created our consciences). By your definitions that would make me someone who subscribes to "objective morality", but I don't believe it is necessarily objective either (though it could be).

We have consciences, whatever combination of nature or nurture imbues this in us. I see this as a faculty, like our reason or vision. I believe we use these faculties to judge morality. We can makes mistakes, we can do things that go against our consciences. But using our consciences is not the same as "doing whatever we feel like".

We also know that vengeance, and selfishness would not be seen as good by many who make use of conscience (Evil, in fact, by many people of conscience).

I heard a good question a while back: "Why do piranhas not eat each other during a feeding frenzy?" What moral code are they following? What makes wild, seemingly ferocious, animals take care of their young, and cooperate to find food? Are they referring to a holy book or authority to be able to do this?
 

UniqueMixture

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@ blank perhaps God is not dependent upon, but intertwined with, much like biological life is intertwined with metabolism.

Also, it is interesting to view the world from a right brained perspective of perception without intertwined relationship meanings.
 

sprinkles

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There's other options.

First of all, there's a difference between subjective and relative (though a thing can be both subjective and relative)
For example, goodness might be combinatorially relative - i.e. it depends on all the factors involved, in a literal sense.

One obvious mechanical example of how something can be relative is the boiling point of water. It is different in different scenarios - not just arbitrarily different, but actually different. Water will boil at a lower temp when it is high in a mountain as opposed to sea level.

So, hypothetically if good does exist literally, it doesn't necessarily have to be binary or dichotomist. It can possibly have a spectrum where one thing is good given one situation, but later on may not be good given a different situation, which is how goodness can appear to be not absolute yet still exist.
 

dobages

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Omegle convo i found a while back.

Stranger: hello
Stranger2: HEY HEY HEY HEY
Stranger2: F 19
Stranger2: YOU GO
Stranger: M 89
Stranger2: OLD SOB
Stranger: thousand
Stranger: million
Stranger2: PPL DONT USSUALLY GET PASSED THE FIRST 100 WTF IS UP WITH THAT?
Stranger: i was blessed
Stranger: praise the lord
Stranger2: BY WHOM MAY I ASK
Stranger2: GOD DOES NOT EXIST
Stranger2: :D
Stranger: im christian
Stranger2: YOURE THAT OLD AND YOU DONT KNOW THAT!?
Stranger2: WISDOM DOESNT COME WITH AGE I GUESS
Stranger: theres no evidence that he doesnt exist
Stranger2: There is no evidence that he does either.
Stranger: wrong
Stranger2: do explain
Stranger: the cloth they found in a buriel site look just like jesus
Stranger: it had his body fluids all over it
Stranger2: How the hell would they compare a cloth to jesus if they dont know what jesus looks like to begin with?
Stranger2: dont tell me hes a brown haired, bearded fella.
Stranger: everyone knows what jesus looks like, dont act stupid
Stranger2: any browned haired bearded fella could have left his cloth at some cave after whiping himself with it.
Stranger: do you want me to give you a link? you seem awfully stubborn
Stranger2: 1 more thing
Stranger: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...Christs-crucifixion-caves-near-Jerusalem.html
Stranger2: even if the identidy of jesus was confirmed with that evidence, there is no evidence saying that he was gods son, had special powers and such except for the bible
Stranger: and Christians believe in the bible
Stranger: theres is no reason for me to change my thoughts because some dude on omegle said so
Stranger2: And the bible is the last thing you could call historical evidence because of its constant contradictions.
Stranger: you type so slow
Stranger2: The sooner you realise that that is all bullcrap and start living your life rationally, the sooner you'll be independant of some facticious moral code that prohibits you from realising your full potencial.
Stranger2: Moral nihilism is where its at!!:p
Stranger2: The bible instills in its beleivers some morals that are in most cases contradictory and makes you develop a paranoid conscience that limits you
Stranger: the sooner you realize that my religion doesnt take up 100% of my life, the sooner youl understand that christians aren't idiots
Stranger2: MAny say they are just christians but havent got a clue what it means
Stranger: the bible even says people will try and make you stray from the path of righteousness, so.... thats all i really need to say
Stranger2: They havent got a clue how flawd and ridiculous thre holy book is
Stranger: i dont care what you say
Stranger2: Use your head, your rational thinking. With experience youll see
Stranger: bla bla bla
Stranger2: Be rightious ,get stepped on, where will god be? looking at you ?
Stranger2: how old are you brah?
Stranger: if i die i go to heaven, so it doesent really matter
Stranger2: does that mean you would sacrifice your happiness here for something like that
Stranger: im not saying id kill myself, then id go to hell
Stranger2: im not saying that either
Stranger: well it doesent really matter what your saying anyways
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
 

Mole

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Child Rearing Practices and Morality

As our child rearing has improved, so our morality has improved.

Our first form of child rearing was child sacrifice, and this created the paranoid personality among the siblings remaining.

Then we improved on child sacrifice with the abusive form of child rearing, where, instead of child sacrifice, we blamed the child instead. And at least the child survived but with a guilty personality.

Then we improved on the abusive form with the authoritarian form of child rearing. Where instead of abusing the child, we controlled the child. And created the controlling personality.

And then we improved on the authoritarian with the helping form of child rearing, where the parents help the child achieve their life goals, and so creating an empathic and creative personality.

So morality is dependent upon child rearing practices rather than God.
 

Blank

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There's other options.

First of all, there's a difference between subjective and relative (though a thing can be both subjective and relative)
For example, goodness might be combinatorially relative - i.e. it depends on all the factors involved, in a literal sense.

One obvious mechanical example of how something can be relative is the boiling point of water. It is different in different scenarios - not just arbitrarily different, but actually different. Water will boil at a lower temp when it is high in a mountain as opposed to sea level.

So, hypothetically if good does exist literally, it doesn't necessarily have to be binary or dichotomist. It can possibly have a spectrum where one thing is good given one situation, but later on may not be good given a different situation, which is how goodness can appear to be not absolute yet still exist.

That's a fair enough assessment of the concept of goodness, and I'm sure many people would agree with its sensibilities; however, one important thing to take note of is how we as humans must then interact and interpret goodness. From my basic understanding of the matter, our interpretation of what's good must come directly from God through the Ten Commandments and the Bible. As for morally grey areas, like stealing from a rich person to save a starving person, there doesn't seem to be a good way of interpreting how morally good a person is being and what the consequences of their actions should be. Does an act of greater goodness reduce the punishment of a lesser evil or should a person's hand be cut off regardless of reason?

Even if we think killing someone in self-defense is justifiable, the Bible still says Thou Shalt Not Kill.
 

Thursday

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Good and evil are rather base concerns. Divinity is about transcending these base concerns. Not to say that you are immune to them, but that you have mastered their ambassadors inside of yourself so that you have "bigger fish to fry" and that all that you do renders a fruitful and benign result.
 

Mole

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Good and evil are rather base concerns. Divinity is about transcending these base concerns. Not to say that you are immune to them, but that you have mastered their ambassadors inside of yourself so that you have "bigger fish to fry" and that all that you do renders a fruitful and benign result.

The most dangerous are those who believe they are beyond good and evil.
 

Blank

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Good and evil are rather base concerns.

lol. Aren't you too sophisticated to be posting in this thread? I'm sure me, Plato, and everyone else who has philosophized about the topic of good and evil are much too low-brow for you.
 

Thursday

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@ Blank God's role in morality is to remind that its not a you-versus-you mentality that we should childishly obligate ourselves with, but a harmonious one that involves both parties towards a common goal. Petty arguments and the like would be moot if we but put our ego aside and listen to what people were really saying and communicate something higher and harder to achieve than "good and evil" : Love.
 

xisnotx

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are good things good because god says they are?
or are good things good because they are in fact good, and god naturally aligns himself with what is good, and therefore that's what he says?

good, without context, is meaningless. without bad, there is no good.

so;
are bad things bad because the devil thinks they are bad?
or are bad things bad because they are in fact bad, and the devil just naturally aligns himself with what is bad?

if you answer these questions in the context of one another, you'll get a convincing answer for yourself.

here is my attempt. since i'm human, obviously i'll take the extremes of goodness and badness in the attempt to form a human thought useful to who i am. this, i guess, gets ugly, and it's hard for me to type it out...because i put myself in cognitive places i rather not be.

the devil doesn't say what's bad. he can't just claim "behavior x is bad, because it is bad". why? if god said "behavior x is good", then it wouldn't matter what the devil had said, for we know that the devil is supposed to go against god. so the word of god trumps that of the devil, especially when they are in opposition.

so, the devil naturally aligns himself with what is bad. which suggests then, that the value of the goodness or badness lies within the thing itself.

things are good because they are good. why is this a bad belief? god, being the embodiment of good, would never not be aligned with what is good anyway, and really, isn't it god's purpose not to provide a sense of what is good or bad, but rather to allow you to provide that sense for yourself? or choose not to? that is, you either succumb to the temptation of the fruit, or you don't? and either way, since we are human after all, (in that we all must die), he knows some will and some won't? and his purpose is to love and guide rather than to not? and he would rather us do good rather than seek good anyway? for surely doing good is above seeking good...seeking good is selfish...it aims at pleasing nothing but you. doing good, however, is more inline with what is Godly. (Capitalization emphasized this time..) he knows what is good, and he knows what isn't, that doesn't mean he dictates what is good and what is bad to you, just that he's aware of knowledge that you aren't...but it isn't his purpose to tell you what is good, rather, it's his purpose to guide you to what is good.

so, is something good because God says it's good? my answer: when God says something is good, it's good.

is a thing good because it is good? my answer: when God says something is good, it's good.

i feel shameful...weird feeling.
 

Blank

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[MENTION=11238]xisnotx[/MENTION] I think you skip over some points, and seem to draw the conclusion that everything has to be good or bad. You skip over that which either has no moral value. Beyond that, we still don't know why something is good, other than because God says so. Is there no other reason for it? Is there not a rationality behind goodness that man can follow? If there isn't, then I defer to Mill's argument that it would make man unable to do good for the sake of doing good, and he would merely act out of prudence to either gain God's favor or avoid punishment.

Beyond that, I have one fundamental question and a series of questions which follow it: If God is inseparable from goodness, would he do something bad? (I think it's important to note the difference between would and could in this sentence. God could feasibly do anything, but if he's perfectly good, then he would choose not to.)

If sins are bad, then would God, a perfectly good being, create a flawed being that would do bad? I would think not, otherwise I would begin to question whether or not God is "perfectly good."
 
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