God’s Goodness and Modus Ponens/Tollens

It’s a very key point, and one I use with JWs when they call. It’s highly interesting to watch the little old ladies squirm as they try to defend Yahweh’s genocide at the same time as claiming he’s all good. I ask along the lines of “are you sure that even just one of those kids killed was not evil?”

First, I was pleased to see your salute to Nathan. Second, to me, the most interesting aspect of the question of God’s conduct (which, taken at face value, is horrific) is not what it says about God’s existence but about whether a god like that should be worshipped. Worshipping a cruel and amoral god, or one whose morality was self-defined, merely because that god was powerful, means worshipping power alone. Indirectly, though, this issue does have something to say about the existance of God: it helps strengthen the suspicion that the Bible was made up by people at an early stage of moral development, and not dictacted from above.

Seems to me that Natan’s comment is merely a circular argument.

Christians claim that good and evil are timeless, unchanging concepts created by their alleged God. Therefore, claiming that God is not bound by them is illogical.

As far as the children go, how can a baby or small child commit a sin to henious that they deserve eternal torment in Hell? This is why Catholics came up with the concept of “Limbo.” It’s indefensible.

I definitely agree with Jetson’s last paragraph. Christians and other believers can’t compare their God to humans and then claim human attributes for their God. They need to make up their minds.

For me, this helps illustrate the problem of superlative powers, I.e. omniscience, omnipotence, etc. Those concepts sound great, but they end up locking the user in contradictions and oxymorons.

Barry is also right that it is essentially worshipping power. “I will worship you because if I don’t, you’ll punish/torture/kill me.” Gee, what a loving, merciful God they have…/snark

While it may be a bit off topic, the exchanges above reminded me of something from David Hume that I’ve always enjoyed. When it comes to the topic of apply the rules of logic to the assertions of religion, nobody did it better than Hume:

Current Abrahamic religions rely upon two essential notions for their ‘validity’:

1. There is a personal god who is deeply involved in each individual’s life (as well as the running of the universe)
2. This personal god asserts the existence of true good and true evil as universal constants that we mortals must choose between.

However, as Hume points out, god can not be all-good (benevolent); all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient) if true evil exists in the universe. This basic belief, that all these religions rely upon for their foundation, is false. Here’s why:

1. IF GOD KNOWS OF EVIL AND HAS THE POWER TO STOP EVIL BUT DOES NOT DO SO, THEN HE CAN NOT BE ALL-GOOD.

2. IF GOD IS ALL-GOOD AND KNOWS OF EVIL BUT CAN NOT STOP IT,
THEN HE CAN NOT BE ALL-POWERFUL.

3. IF GOD HAS THE POWER TO STOP EVIL AND IS ALL-GOOD BUT HE IS UNAWARE OF EVIL, THEN HE CAN NOT BE ALL KNOWING.

From a logical perspective, the problem is that we have an evidentiary basis for asserting ~Q in this P>Q, ~Q, therefore ~P. By our definitions as humans, ~Q is definitely true.

(for those not trained in formal logic or those who use different symbol sets, I’m taking ~ to mean “not” and > to mean “implies”)

The theist in this case asserts P with only biblical evidence, but is contradicted by our mundane evidence of ~Q. Oftentimes even the theist recognizes this incongruity between biblical and actual evidence, so instead attempts to escape by arbitrarily redefining terms to taste. “Just and loving”, they claim, doesn’t have the same meaning as it does in our human discourse, or else “innocent” doesn’t. The problem here is that, when we arbitrarily redefine these terms of morality to whatever makes the language of the bible fit the observations of the world, we’ve robbed them of meaning. If “good” has some mysterious cosmic meaning that we’re not aware of, then there’s no reason to use the same word. With one hand, the theist asserts that the human concept of good is given to us by god, and with the other he confounds our discussion of god by disqualifying him from human description.

What it comes down to is that, according to the human understanding of good and evil, if god is omnipotent and omniscient then he’s a total jerk. If he didn’t want us coming to that conclusion, he should have clued us in to the big M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end of the universe that makes it retroactively good to have murdered children.

For those of you with several minutes of a Saturday to waste, I treat the Problem of Evil more thoroughly here [/shamelessselfpromotion]

The excuse I have heard is that the children were God’s creations thus He can do as He pleases with them.

Which sounds awful, but gets round this problem as we are seeing it from a human perspective, but from God’s it’s completely different.

Back when I was a fundie I used to cite Jeremiah 18 as evidence that God could do whatever he wanted with his people. Now that I re-read it, it doesn’t really give much confidence to the idea that God will be faithful, because it makes him sound spiteful and a bit petty. If it does “evil in [his] sight” he’ll destroy Israel? This means that God makes the rules, and if they’re not obeyed, he’ll “[prepare] a disaster for you and [devise] a plan against you”.

Funny how this doesn’t happen anymore…

keddaw says:

The excuse I have heard is that the children were God’s creations thus He can do as He pleases with them.

Following that logic, they should be all for abortion. After all, if I made it, I can destroy it, right? Right?

one other thought:

When Herod slaughtered the Hebrew children it was dubbed “The Slaughter of the Innocents.” When their God slaughters children it’s because they “must” have been guilty.

If the Hebrew children weren’t guilty, why would God have not stayed Herod’s hand or spirited away the children and prevented the slaughter? Q.E.D the Hebrew children must have been guilty, Herod acted correctly.

It’s a tangled web when supernaturalism, apologetics,the religion meme, and rejection of reason act in concert.

The problem with Nathan’s thinking isn’t that it isn’t possible to come up with a rationalization, it’s that you can always come up with one.

I’ll post as Nathan-Simulation to show you how.

Ta da.

God could’ve just made all the Canaanites barren starting 40 to 100 years before the arrival of Joshua, Moses and friends.

He could have convinced the Canaanites to follow him with great signs and wonders like he did with Israel.

He could’ve told Joseph and his brothers to…oh, I don’t know…just stay in Canaan and not even move to Egypt 430 years earlier and then they could’ve outbred (with god’s help) the other Canaanite tribes.

I’m just a mere mortal and I can think of less wasteful, more peaceful ways to go about it. The thing about the Bible god is that he just doesn’t seem that bright. “Mafia boss” may be an undeserved compliment. It’s much more reasonable to disbelieve in him for this and many other non-biblical reasons.

Regardless of god’s rights, ordering a society full of humans with human natures to slaughter women and children would have drastic psychological consequences for the men doing the killing and the society – none of them good. PTSD? But, if he can wipe our minds in heaven, I guess he can wipe their minds on Earth.

The argument I’ve heard is not that the children were guilty, but that God already knew that one day the children will grow up to become evil.

Really? They think the firstborn of every Egyptian family just happened to be future-evil? That’s some coincidence.

Muggle,

Why do you keep calling Nathan a troll?

Muggle, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I’ve always heard the argument from the evangelical community that since God created the children, He can do anything he wants with them (including killing them). I also think that the evangelicals don’t consider parents as the “creator” of children, so parents don’t get to abort their own children. Only God. That is at least the logic I’ve heard.

Hey I know, lets throw this into the equation: God didn’t order the killing of the children, that was an reason to order it, or an excuse for having done it. You seem to assume the bible is 100% accurate. Why?

Seems to me that Natan’s comment is merely a circular argument.

I have debated with Nathan before, and it simply devolved into him wondering why atheists have such a problem with circular reasoning. For theists, it would seem, circular reasoning is A-OK. “I believe the bible’s true, because the bible says the bible is true.” But if you can’t get past that, then you’re never going to get anywhere else.

On the troll subject, I’ve never seen Nathan’s posts to be anything but calm and polite, as Hemant said. He doesn’t seem to be here to stir up controversy or be incendiary, he seems to legitimately want to debate the things he truly believes.

That said, I’ve never liked the practice of labeling someone as a troll and then using the “report abuse” function (or whatever) to ban them from a website. They’re as free as anyone else to visit a site and post whatever they want, even if it is hateful and infantile (provided it is within the bounds of profanity/obscenity upheld by the site itself. I personally love profanity and obscenity). If you ban them, they’re just going to come back under another name anyway, they will find a way.

I say let them post their vitriol. The heartfelt responses are how the good ideas are going to get heard. There will be theists out there who won’t be able to believe the mindset that they are apparently allying themselves with. You never know who’s mind you are going to change.

Claudia,

You’re logic is flawless, but only to those to whom logic and reality hold sway, and who see wholesale infanticide as irreconcilable with goodness.

Your comment is going to do nothing more than invite additional perverse non-scriptural apologetic inventions in defense of the indefensible.

Frankly, his last one bordered on pornographic in its glorification and acceptence of child murder at the hands of bronze age warriors who invoke “god’s will” as justification for genocide.

But I guess from time to time it is good to be reminded of why theists like him disgust me.

Claudia, why are you arguing with Brian Macker pretending to be a simulation of Nathan? Yes, I know Poe’s law and all, but when someone announces that they’re doing a Poe, as they’re doing it, that should probably set off some warning flags. 🙂

Simple, it’s because I don’t pay close enough attention to the comments thread. I totally missed his announcement of his future simulation, and also completely missed that “Nathan’s” surname was simulaiton LMAO. All I saw was “nathan” (who I’ve never interacted with) and a paragraph indistinguishable from others I’ve seen by (theoretically) real theists.

I fell for a self-described Poe, I’ll now go bang my head against the wall, excuse me.

Yeah. I was a bit bemused that I was being attacked when I had yet to open my mouth on this thread.

Thanks Brian.

“God does indeed kill innocent children, but he spirits them away to heaven. Your belief that he is willing to kill even babies serves to keep you on a moral path. Therefore, not only are his acts good by a deities standards but also from a human standard. While it may appear that the babies are suffering, in fact, god has already spirited their souls away, and only an empty shell of a body is writhing in pain (or suffering while drowning).”

That’s certainly not like anything I’ve said. Babies that die certainly suffer. The Bible is mostly silent on the issue of what happens to babies when they die (except to say a) God is merciful and just, and b) Babies are born sinful.

Thanks Jesse for your kind words.

I certainly am not here as a troll – the worst that could be said about me is that I’m here to convince you of the error of your ways in order to save your souls.

Or that I find intelligent discussions like this enjoyable.

Muggle – you keep calling me names and making judgments about my character on the basis of a strawman you’ve erected on the basis of my answer to what I suggested was a purely speculative hypothetical situation.

I suggest you either address the points you are so vehemently opposed to in a civilised way or leave the discussion to people who are actually interested in it as it unfolds.

Standing on the sidelines saying “I can’t believe you’re all discussing this with the troll” is a bit of a cop out. You don’t have to click through to the meta on posts you aren’t interested in.

But feel free to keep calling me names. I’m keeping them (and posting them on my website) as testimonials to my character.

“I have debated with Nathan before, and it simply devolved into him wondering why atheists have such a problem with circular reasoning. For theists, it would seem, circular reasoning is A-OK. “I believe the bible’s true, because the bible says the bible is true.” But if you can’t get past that, then you’re never going to get anywhere else.”

Perhaps rather than seeing the Bible as self referential you should see it as it was originally presented – 66 documents written over thousands of years (in a culture where truths were spoken more often than written) backing up the teachings of thousands of years of people claiming to be witnesses to acts of God.

It only (as you know) became “one book” filled with circular reasoning (and treated the way it is) much later. Someone else did the research that linked them – we modern believers enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Perhaps rather than seeing the Bible as self referential you should see it as it was originally presented – 66 documents written over thousands of years (in a culture where truths were spoken more often than written) backing up the teachings of thousands of years of people claiming to be witnesses to acts of God.

Actually, Nathan, I think most of us here are hoping you’ll see the bible this way, which only emphasizes how unreliable the whole thing is, and how unlikely the supernatural parts of the stories really are. As I’m sure you’ve been told often, there are other books on this planet making just as strong claims of truth, with just as unlikely supernatural elements. It’s just human nature to invent religions, in all cultures all over the world. The universe is as science has described it, and the things we don’t know yet, well, we just don’t know them yet. There’s no good reason to go filling in the gaps with all this contradictory mythology.

Of all the religious claims made which do you think is most feasible?

Assuming that by “feasible” you mean “plausible”, they all seem so incredibly unlikely that I’m unable to meaningfully compare their likelihoods.

I had an atheist friend tell me that he sees no point asking the question “why” with regards to the world. . . I wonder how many of you this is true for?

Interpreting “why” in this context as referring to “purpose,” this is true for me.

I had an atheist friend tell me that he sees no point asking the question “why” with regards to the world.

Without wanting to make this a general principle all atheists adhere to – I wonder how many of you this is true for?

Teleological questions are not inherently uninteresting. You just have to give me some reason to think there’s anything teleological to talk about. Science reveals a natural world in which phenomena can be explained without a prime mover, and in fact become harder to explain on that hypothesis. And even where scientific explanations are still incomplete, the supernatural arguments offered to fill those gaps are demonstrably unsound. And besides that, the Christian god, as variously conceived by Christians from biblical times to the modern day, evidently isn’t even consistent with his own alleged self from era to era or from moment to moment. But perhaps there’s something I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, though, purpose and meaning are only part of the world insofar as our minds determine them.

BTW, Nathan the simulation was not suppose to be reflection your actual positions. It was an example of the ability to make up rationalizations to excuse anything.

The simulation was actually far superior to the real deal. That rationalization was better than your actual rationalizations, which are bizarre. If you are going to posit a magical being you should take advantage of that magic to remove the contradictions, and shocking assumptions.

No rational person who understands the words guilty and rejects would think a baby is guilty for rejecting god.

“By definition an infant cannot be guilty or complicit in acts offensive to a god.”

By whose definition? Most monotheistic religions teach that we are. So this would be a minority view – I’m not arguing that this makes it right or wrong – just suggesting that your definition is assumed rather than proved.

They can not be complicit in acts offensive to the courts – but they most certainly can reject God’s rule. Which is what sin is. Unless you’re arguing that all babies are born Christian?

Babies are born with the potential to develop reasoning, but they haven’t developed it yet, nor had time to do anything that could be weighed in moral terms. Thus, they are innocent by definition. That is the basis on which I conclude that a baby cannot be guilty of or complicit in anything. So it seems to me there are, perhaps, four ways to think about a god’s reported sanctioning of, or participation in, infanticide:

[1] We could say that this god is simply malicious, or at least callous. I don’t think any Christian actually thinks he’s worshiping a god like this.

[2] We could say that this god has a higher goal or purpose that outweighs and justifies the horror of infanticide. This seems extremely unlikely for an omnipotent god. And even in the unlikely event that this were true for an omnipotent god, it seems still more unlikely that a perfectly moral god would not seek to comfort and reassure those who had to endure the tragedy, or to explain it to the multitudes who came later and read about it, or at least leave some unambiguous sign of his love. And even if all of this were true in spite of the compounded improbabilities, one would be left to wonder what reasons this god could possibly have, first to cause the slaughter, then to deny us any understanding of it. Nobody seems able to think of any such reasons, even as wild conjecture. And yet it’s easy to come up with plausible alternatives that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god could and would have chosen instead of infanticide.

[3] We could say that this god is simply inscrutable. There’s no way we could ever understand why he does what he does. Or, similarly, he can’t be judged by our standards. But if we’re merely supposed to accept what he purportedly says and does, then religion is nothing more than obedience to authority, without any pretensions of morality. Our only sources of info on what he says and does are the bible and the church authorities, and for kids, their parents, and whoever else these authorities may happen to recommend to us. Thus, we have no basis for challenging any of these authorities, no matter what they do, since we could never be sure that their actions weren’t consistent with the will of this god. Indeed, on the notion of this god’s inscrutability, why would his followers think they know him at all? Many followers claim to have a personal relationship with him. Yet if he’s utterly inscrutable, everything we think we know about him could be wrong. The bible could be complete fabrication, if it suited his purposes to inflict such a fabrication on us. Perhaps the only route to salvation is atheism, or Buddhism, or tree worship, or stamp collecting, because who knows what this god actually wants? If he can allow infanticide and be inexplicable to us, anything is equally possible. Moreover, if something like infanticide that would be one of the worst evils for us to commit is some kind of good when done by this god, then we just don’t have any definitions for anything. Good is evil, up is down, yes is no, anything is possible. At its core, this approach to theology posits a god that is exactly whatever is needed to conform to any given set of facts, regardless of what that might look like to us. Thus, this theology explains nothing, and has only such content as its adherents put there, and a Christian idea of that content has no more justification than any other.

[4] What’s left? We could say that this god doesn’t exist. I don’t see any reason not to take this position that doesn’t start with a preexisting “faith” inculcated with long habit of construing evidence to fit.

To me, it just comes down to this:

If the character ‘God’ does some things we humans would classify as ‘evil’ and some things we humans would classify as ‘good’, how can such a character be an ‘example-to-look-to’ when it comes to morality at all?

Nathan wrote:

Science does “how” brilliantly, it just doesn’t do “why” – that’s the realm of philosophy and theology.

But just because you feel the need to ask ‘why’ doesn’t mean that it’s a relevant question.

Why do you think that there’s a ‘why’ behind all of this? whatever your answer is, it’s an assumption.

Nathan wrote:

Of course. All null hypothesis are assumptions.

If your entire belief system could be resting on that assumption, how do you justify dismissing reason-based human ‘morality’ in favour of it?

Nathan, could you respond to this question of mine? I’m really interested in what you have to say about it:

If the character ‘God’ does some things we humans would classify as ‘evil’ and some things we humans would classify as ‘good’, how can such a character be an ‘example-we-can-look-to’ when it comes to morality at all?

“What is true however is that there is a definite confrontation between how science and religion seek to define truth. Truth in religion is through revelation and faith, while truth in science is through demonstration and logic. I believe one of those two is vastly superior. “

I think, if I may disagree, that you are taking a characteristic of some religious people and applying it to all “religion”… truth in religion should not feel threatened by demonstration and logic. When I read science and publications of scientific breakthroughs I think “oh, so that’s how God set it up”, I don’t think “oh, how do I cram this into my worldview”… if the science is later improved – which happens – I think “oh, maybe this is how God did it.”

I think coming at science with religious preconceptions is dangerous. You end up burning brilliant minds at the stake. It’s a form of scientific eisegesis. It probably annoys the scientifically minded as much as the approach some within this forum take to parts of the Bible when they remove context from the equation and interpret the passages based on prejudice.

“When religion tries to insist that the world is an age that it demonstrably isn’t, that humans and animals have an origin they demonstrably don’t, or that women are lesser to men when they demonstrably aren’t, then religion is stepping into the sphere of science, by making assertions that can be checked through the scientific method.”

At the risk of committing (or being accused of committing) the no true Scotsman fallacy – I would like to point out that all the examples you’ve given are on the basis of people bringing their own agendas to the text of the Bible.

The issue of what to do with Genesis is complicated for the believer. If you do believe in God then it becomes a feasible option that all the world’s scientists are liars and deceivers – I DON’T PERSONALLY BELIEVE THIS TO BE THE CASE. Capitalised for clarification.

But the issues of gender equality are separate from the issues of gender roles (which the Bible does talk about – Men are to love and serve their wives as Christ loved the church, Wives (not all women) are to “obey” their husbands). This says nothing about the status of either. Both are to live like Jesus.

I’m interested about the origins you don’t think humans have that religious people claim – are you talking about dust? Or about claims like the ones the Mormons make about a thirteenth tribe of Israel? Or both.

Nathan wrote:

While I sympathise with your desire to see no innocents killed (particularly children) – can I point out that all people die.

Dying and ‘being killed’ are different things Nathan.

So the full-time evil of Cthulhu would “probably” compel you to oppose him, but the part-time evil of ordering or single-handedly enacting genocide as described in the Bible is not sufficient, Nathan?

Interesting. Could you tell us more about where you draw this hypothetical dividing line between the two?

Nathan wrote:

When I read science and publications of scientific breakthroughs I think “oh, so that’s how God set it up”, I don’t think “oh, how do I cram this into my worldview”…

Could you explain what the difference is between those 2 statements?

Nathan,

To better understand your stance on the subject of good and evil as applied to both humans and God I’d like to develop the analogy of these topics as applied to lower life forms and humans since that is something we can better understand.

1st, if this analogy is to be applicable, what scale should we consider as being analogous to human-God? yeast-man? ant-man? fish-man? dog-man? chimp-man? “slave race”-“master race”?

2nd, are you saying that there are always separate moral standards between the levels? I.E. the lower life-form will have its own good vs. evil standard. The higher life-form will have a separate and different standard of good vs. evil.

3rd, are you saying that the higher life form has the right to dictate the moral standard to the lower life-form and then that the lower life-form should be held accountable for following that dictated moral standard?

4th, how can the lower life form know that the higher life form is “good” as defined by the moral standard applicable to the higher life form? Isn’t it possible that the higher life form is evil (for the higher life form) and merely dictated instructions that said the higher life form was good? How can the lower life form trust any communication at all from the higher life form if they don’t share a common standard of morality?

5th, I can understand the higher life form killing the lower life form if the lower life form becomes a nuisance (like us killing ants in the kitchen or wiping down the counter with bleach killing bacteria), but I can’t wrap my mind around eternally rewarding or punishing the lower life forms after they die for not following moral dictations from the higher life form (or believing in the dictations). Or is the purpose of Heaven and Hell something only understood by the higher life form in the specific human-God relationship?

Jeff

Urbandictionary.com: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.

Dictionary.com’s slang dictionary: an internet user who sends inflammatory or provocative messages designed to elicit negative responses or start a flame-war

Um, frankly, that’s how I’m seeing Nathan. And, frankly, one worse: he’s crashed here several times now and has been forthright in stating that he mines quotes for his site. Or does anyone think they’re not being taken out of context over there? (No, I can’t be frigging bothered; he’s asshole enough here.) Or hasn’t anyone noticed that he’s extremely prolific with post after post when he slams this board. He breaks up into six answers instead of one and they’re all incredibly long. Whenever he participates, it’s to excess. He’s not merely disagreeing. He’s trying to take over and start in-fighting. Thank you for helping him.

Bottom line: I calls them as I see them.

Your mileage may vary. In any case, Hemant’s board, Hemant’s call. So far, he’s allowing these rants. But I must say, it’s taking the blog down a notch. Strictly my opinion.

@muggle:

he mines quotes for his site

What is his site? I’d be interested to see it, both for its own sake (opposition research?) and to see if I recognize anything from these recent threads. I appreciate your words of warning. Anyone here who does engage someone doing that ought to know about it. And of course, it’s always a good idea to measure one’s words. Thanks…

Nathan,
“When I read science and publications of scientific breakthroughs I think ‘oh, so that’s how God set it up’, …”

Yeah, and some Hindu thinks, “oh, so that’s how Vishnu set it up”, some Viking, “oh, so that’s how Thor set it up”, and some Wiccan, “”oh, so that’s how the earth Goddess set it up.”

God did it fits every conceivable situation and therefore explains nothing.

Also science does give a lot of why answers, and has pushed religion out of many domains. The answer to why the sky is blue is no longer “God did it”.

Some why questions make sense and some to not. All of the why questions that religion claims to answer, that science can’t, should in fact be answered “I don’t know”.

Why is there a universe? I don’t know. Try it.

@muggle, I really don’t see how your attitude towards Nathan is at all called for.

Ditto to this. I disagree with Nathan’s comments, but there’s absolutely no reason to call him a troll. Other people (myself included) are clearly enjoying talking with him. If you’re not, fine, just skip over these threads. Don’t just create completely baseless accusations about how he’s quote mining out of context, or engage in childish name-calling.

Jeff Dale, if you want to see Nathan’s site, you can click on his name (at the heading of any of his comments). This works for any poster who chooses to link to their site.

“My question was basically: how can you invest in an entity that exhibits such fluctuating and/or contradictory ‘morality’?”

I disagree with your fundamental assessment of God. Sure, he punishes – sometimes capitally – but that’s entirely consistent with his character. I suspect we understand God’s actions differently (well, obviously – but when it comes to morality specifically).

“Dying and ‘being killed’ are different things Nathan.”

Well obviously, on one level, all people who are killed die, but not all people who die are “killed”. Well, they’re not all said to be killed by God anyway. But when we hear that someone died our response is often “what killed them?”… all death has cause.

My question was more: why do you care so much about the ones taken in direct actions from God and not the ones from direct inaction?

It seems to be an odd distinction to make. Philosophically once an omnipotent God allows death at all it’s the inevitable outcome of all life. In the scale of eternity what difference does it make to the individual if their death happens at birth or of old age?

This just seems an odd hang up to have with the Christian God. You could go a step further.

Christians struggle to understand how a loving God could allow pain, death and suffering – and how he could inflict those things on people. Ultimately though it’s a question of trust – once you believe in God that is.

Claudia,

The existence of a god has not been demonstrated in the slightest on scientific terms, and yet you believe in it. This means that you apply a different standard for truth in your religion than you do in all other aspects of your life.

This is not true either. There are plenty of other areas of my life that I don’t apply the scientific method – choosing friends, appreciating literature, in fact, any area of subjectivity.

I think, as I may have said elsewhere, that science tells us how things work and helps us to predict how things might work together and in the future – I’m happy to apply “faith” to any accounts of history, to anything my friends tell me about their experiences etc. You can’t test and measure the abstract. You can test elements of the abstract though…

“There are many other places in the Bible where there is evidence that female transgressions are considered worse than male ones and are punished more harshly.”

I disagree. Though the creationist would no doubt blame Eve for that.

Johann,

So the full-time evil of Cthulhu would “probably” compel you to oppose him, but the part-time evil of ordering or single-handedly enacting genocide as described in the Bible is not sufficient, Nathan?

Interesting. Could you tell us more about where you draw this hypothetical dividing line between the two?

The genocides committed were not without purpose, nor were they, by necessity, evil. You can argue that they are – certainly – but I think the fundamental difference is that I believe people are born evil and from God’s perspective marked for death – and you believe they are born innocent and their deaths are a travesty of justice. I believe that their deaths are actually justice being carried out…

Jeff Dale,

Hopefully I’ve addressed some of your queries in the above rationale…

“Or, if we somehow must accept that such a being can do this because he is inscrutable”

That’s not why I think we should accept this. I think God is scrutable. He gives reasons for his actions (assuming again that the Bible is the word of God).

why we should act in any other context as though we have any knowledge of his nature or what he wants of us, when he seems so arbitrary as to be effectively empty of content.

Again, assuming that the Bible is the word of God (a discussion for another thread) we have knowledge of his nature and what he wants of us.

Most of the rest of your comments make perfect sense from your perspective – but are to do with points where we fundamentally disagree on ground we’ve already covered.

Unless you want to argue that our lives have no value except as a way station en route to an eternal life, in which case why would your god not simply have brought us directly to the eternal life without the pointless way station?

That’s not the only argument regarding the “value of our life” – the actual theological argument is that all things happen for God’s glory. This would open God up to charges of narcissistic brutality though – so I’m hesitant to bring it up here. Except to say that I think it’s likely that God is more complex than your reductionistic interpretations of his actions.

In answer to your last question – I don’t know. Ask God. It may be one of Rumsfeld’s known unknowns. I’m happy not to know some things.

The death of an innocent is “regrettable”: thus, it should be avoided.”

Why must we avoid regrettable things? Perhaps some regret is helpful.

“But we’re supposed to believe that an omnipotent and supremely moral being had to cause the slaughter of huge numbers of innocents”

This, as I’ve already argued, is a misrepresentation of what you’re “supposed to believe”. The fundamental starting point (for the Christian) of tackling this issue is that people are not innocent.

“and we’re to be satisfied with no justification? And we’re not even to consider it “evil”? Do our words mean nothing?

That depends if they are our words or God’s words.

“Is there nothing that would shake your certainty of his existence?”

Yes. Find Jesus’ body, or failing that, prove to me that he never existed. Or just provide an adequate social science like explanation of the emergence of Christianity.

AxeGrrl,

When I read science and publications of scientific breakthroughs I think “oh, so that’s how God set it up”, I don’t think “oh, how do I cram this into my worldview”…

Could you explain what the difference is between those 2 statements?

I don’t feel that my faith is threatened by scientific discovery. I don’t think science proves or disproves God’s existence. That’s a non-sequiter popularised by the work of men like Dawkins.

To use an analogy – which I like doing.

Say a child is playing in a sandpit. He sits outside the sandpit and builds a sandcastle using a bucket.

You could take a photo of just the sandpit and study it later. A scientific study of the castle (and the sandpit) would most naturally exclude the child. He or she is not there to be observed.

Because the study excludes the child and focuses on the sand pit it actually says nothing about the child’s existence.

I’m not going to explore the case for a designer when looking at the sandcastle – ultimately it’s just a pile of crushed rock.

But science can tell us what type of sand is involved, it can tell us why the sand clumps together, it can measure the impact of the surrounding environment on the sand castle.

Understanding why the child built the castle in the first place is a matter of speculation and philosophy – and unless he throws a note down into the sandpit (that we capture in our photo) – we can’t know any of his thinking.

Psychologists could speculate based on the jagged edges or the application of careful planning and engineering – this would depend on the complexity of the castle…

Anyway. I’ve gone too far on that analogy. Mostly because I like it. I don’t know if I answered your question. Basically I don’t feel like science is ever likely to contradict my faith. Not because my faith is a movable feast but because I think the Bible is a book of theology not a book of science.

Jeff Dale,

We’re just reading the plain wording of the bible.

The plain wording – yes. But no legitimate textual criticism pays no regard to context (the original audience, the surrounding passages, the intended meaning, the stated purpose of the author)?

The plain wording is usually different to the plain meaning. Let me give you an example.

Jeff Dale said “this god’s existence and morality are unquestionable”

Wow. Thanks Jeff. And you’re an atheist.

Other Jeff,

I love analogies…

1. single cell to man (though probably far greater).

2. Yes. If the man walks around and inevitably kills many cells is it immoral? Is it immoral to slap a mosquito biting his arm – killing the mosquito and many skin cells? What if sometimes he catches the mosquito and puts it in the storage room of the blood bank (where magical synthetic blood has been developed – the stuff Blade drinks)? The mosquito will always think his death at the hands of this God was immoral. It’s in the mosquito’s nature to crave blood.

3. No, but if the higher form of life says “live this way or I will do this” and you live a different way then you’re asking for trouble. Especially if the higher form of life created the lower form of life for a purpose and the lower form of life purposefully deviates from that purpose.

4.

Isn’t it possible that the higher life form is evil (for the higher life form) and merely dictated instructions that said the higher life form was good? How can the lower life form trust any communication at all from the higher life form if they don’t share a common standard of morality?

Yes. Yes. Faith.

5. See 2.

Or is the purpose of Heaven and Hell something only understood by the higher life form in the specific human-God relationship?

Yes. Perhaps.

MonkeyMind,

Yes, you did bring this point up in the other thread – and I responded there.

I brought up Abraham’s appeal to Yahweh (“Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?) not to say anything about the justice or injustice of the destruction of Sodom, but as an example of one place in the bible where a human stood up to Yahweh and dared to imply that there was a standard of “right” by which his actions could be judged.

God said to Abraham – Yes. I will do right. And he allowed Abraham to try to find a righteous person in Sodom. And Abraham couldn’t. And God wiped Sodom out. If you’re going to use a story from the Bible to make your case at least read to the end of the story.

God wiped out two cities and was said to be right (by Abraham’s standards) for doing so – even though it first appeared (by Abraham’s standards) to be unjust.

MikeTheInfidel,

“To say that they’re born rejecting God is to ignore the fact that their brains aren’t even finished yet.”

You are arguing from science. And I agree. I am arguing from theology.

“Don’t you see that an idea that explains everything actually explains nothing? It has no predictive power, only retrodictive.”

Depending on your view of the Bible (and the theology therein) there are demonstrable circumstances where God employs predictive power. They’re called prophecies. The arguments of their merits when applied to Jesus are obviously a matter for another thread – but I find the accounts/prophecies convincing and you clearly don’t. That’s fine. We disagree.

Everyone has their own interpretation of the Bible and applies it to support their position – even you. The Bible doesn’t speak for itself. People have to figure out what it means.

Indeed. And some interpretations are really dumb. And many of them are clearly wrong. I’m sure I’m wrong about certain things. If it was “How to understand God for Dummies” or the “Beginners guide to God” how long would that keep believer’s attention for? Theology would be pointless.

And what does that actually mean to you? Because I never see Christians doing this. The guy told people they’re supposed to sell their possessions and give their money to the poor. Have you done that?

Selling your possessions and giving money to the poor is only part of the picture – the “make disciples in my name” imperative is probably greater.

It means loving my neighbour – which ultimately means trying to keep my neighbours out of Hell – howdy neighbour.

Jeff Dale,

What is his site?

I thought you’d never ask – http://st-eutychus.com and here’s the post where I quoted Muggle. And a couple of others.

Brian,

Meanwhile you in fact are guilty of something. You are guilty of shirking your responsiblity to think for yourself when you assume that your bible and your sect have already figured things out for you. Obviously they haven’t.

And I repent. What are you guilty of?

Herod also killed lots of babies in the Bible, as did Pharoah. Are you angry at them too?

Pharoah’s decision to stop Israel breeding and to kill their young babies would suggest that there’s a type of narrative justice at play with the passover would it not?

God did it fits every conceivable situation and therefore explains nothing.

Also science does give a lot of why answers, and has pushed religion out of many domains. The answer to why the sky is blue is no longer “God did it”.

Why? I know that the scientific answer has to do with the refraction of light – but if that’s the case it doesn’t render “God did it” irrelevant. For the believer it’s “God did it this way”.

Science is not actually capable of pushing religion from any domains unless you hold to truths that are contrary to science. And plenty of religious people do. I know that I’ve just given an example of the point you are trying to make – but I’ve got to wonder why you tried to make the point knowing what my response would be.

Some why questions make sense and some to not. All of the why questions that religion claims to answer, that science can’t, should in fact be answered “I don’t know”.

Why is there a universe? I don’t know. Try it.

It works. I’m free… no wait. I feel so empty and unfulfilled. And I’ve got this nagging feeling that I’m missing something far greater than I could test or imagine.

Sorry, this is a long comment. Sarcasm is starting to creep in.

Claudia,

I’ve been on his site, and on a cursory glance its actually pretty cool

Can I quote you on that…

Nathan, darling: I know my Bible.

You’re missing the point I’m trying to make with Genesis 18:23-33. When I brought it up in the other thread, I said the actual destruction of Sodom had nothing to do with my point.
I brought it us as an example of a human challenging Yahweh to do “right,” and Yahweh does not immediately reject that he can be held to this standard of “right”. He could have said “Whatever I do is right, because I’m the boss,” but he doesn’t. He makes a bargain with Abraham about the fate of Sodom.

The genocides committed were not without purpose, nor were they, by necessity, evil. You can argue that they are – certainly – but I think the fundamental difference is that I believe people are born evil and from God’s perspective marked for death – and you believe they are born innocent and their deaths are a travesty of justice. I believe that their deaths are actually justice being carried out…

The genocides committed were not without purpose, nor were they, by necessity, evil. You can argue that they are – certainly – but I think the fundamental difference is that I believe Tutsis are born evil and from God’s perspective marked for death – and you believe they are born innocent and their deaths are a travesty of justice. I believe that their deaths are actually justice being carried out…

Change just one word, and you have a statement that would be condemned by people around the world, and that you yourself probably would condemn without reservations in the mouth of another.

But changing it back to apply it to all people makes it a statement of incredible, all-encompassing misanthropy – and simultaneously a respectable statement of religious opinion.

Could you clarify this miraculous transsubstantiation for us, Nathan? I can’t quite reconcile these two aspects – it seems to me that there’s only room enough for the first.

“Could you clarify this miraculous transsubstantiation for us, Nathan? I can’t quite reconcile these two aspects – it seems to me that there’s only room enough for the first.”

Or the second.

Certainly if you reject the premise of God there is only room for the first.

You clearly can’t hold to both. You’d be an idiot to try.

“It appears to me that Abraham does not share your view – he feels that there is a standard of “right” external to God.”

Alternatively he expects God’s actions to be consistent with his goodness.

Or the second.

The first or both, if you ask me. Never the second by itself.

Certainly if you reject the premise of God there is only room for the first.

You clearly can’t hold to both. You’d be an idiot to try.

That’s why I’m asking for your perspective. To me, your words and my small alteration are, if not morally equivalent, then very close indeed. And I don’t think believing in any gods changes that.

It seems you do think that such belief makes a difference, and I’m hoping you can explain that in more detail.

From my perspective, this kind of misanthropy and contempt for human achievements, knowledge and even life itself are not any more dignified or respectable because they are rooted in religion than they would be in the mouth of a nonreligious genocidaire. I realize that many, many people would disagree with me on this point. This baffles me, and I’m hoping you can shed some light on the other side of this disagreement for me.

Nathan,

Does you non-responsiveness to my analysis of the morality of torturing innocent babies mean that you haven’t come up with a better rationalization yet. God the baby shaker isn’t really working here.

Seems like your god is objectively immoral in his treatment of babies.

Nathan Simulation came up with a much better magical rationalization, and I could have continued along those lines. I could have claimed that god places demon souls in the babies to animate them as they drowned during the great flood. What better way to torture the guilty parents. They would think their own babies were suffering. All without actually having to torture any babies.

I don’t care about disagreement. I care about people abhorrent enough to actually say they’d kill for “God”. That’s the thing that truly pissed me off. Gee, how unreasonable of me.

Go ahead and reprint that on your page. Incompletely like you did the other one. This is the internet after all and I fully realize that anything I type may be cut and pasted dishonestly and without my permission by any nutjob reading the words.

Frankly, I’m not one of those who crash Christian sites to argue with them where they live. Out of respect. I don’t go to church either.

But, given your lack of intelligence, and your incomplete quotes of us posted above, you are exactly what I thought you were.

Just because others here like you doesn’t mean I have to.

But, yeah, I admit I just can’t be open-minded towards someone who says they’d shoot babies if “God” ask them to. I’m perfectly willing to discuss theism with reasonable theists but you crossed the line for me personally.

To me, it doesn’t matter how polite and civil someone is who says they would kill for God. They are truly fucked up and have a screw or two loose. End of discussion. It frankly amazes me that you’re so popular with people just because they think you’re polite and civil but that’s how they feel and that’s their right. As far as I’m concerned, you’re uncivilized as long as you hold this twisted mindset of being willing to kill for “God”.

Muggle,

“Just because others here like you doesn’t mean I have to.”

Strange deduction.

“It frankly amazes me that you’re so popular with people …”

Very strange deduction.

Just because someone isn’t acting like a troll doesn’t mean they are Mr. Popularity. Not a single commenter here was agreeing with him.

Being intellectually dishonest is not the same thing as being a troll. That’s one thing that’s got you upset.

Being insensitive to the history of a abused minority is also not being the same thing as a troll. Of course he doesn’t understand why you are getting upset. He thinks it’s some impossible hypothetical, forgetting the history of Christianity.

Nathan says:

I don’t know many Christians who would honestly answer that question differently. The moment one stops obeying God one stops being a Christian…

Interestingly, the (American) fundamentalist evangelical Christians that I personally know (and have formally been in bible study with) would take a different perspective on that hypothetical. I’m sure they would say that if they “heard God telling them to kill babies or small children” then it would actually be the devil trying to trick them into doing the evil deed. (The devil posing as God). They would therefore not do it. In this case, their belief in a devil would act to moderate their behavior.

Of course it is an interesting question on how they base their decision of whether the communication came from God or the devil. I would perhaps say they are using secular human moral judgments. They may say it’s the Holy Spirit communicating to their subconscious. They have also been known to ask “if it is scriptural” but that is problematic since the Old Testament has stories about God telling people to do these kinds of things. Perhaps these people from the biblical stories were also tricked by the devil and the stories got included in the bible by mistake. 🙂

If it’s like asking for a squared triangle then that is what the biblical god is. God asks many different characters in the bible to do the immoral. Genocide being one example, and child sacrifice another.