God and good

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This may have been covered before, but this thread is for discussion about how good is defined in relation to God, and is essentially a rehashing of Socrates' points along the same lines. Mainly for theists who argue that there is no objective morality without God.

If this is the case, is 'to be good' to act like God says, or to act as God acts?

If an action of God is inherently good because it is God's action, then:
being good = acting as God act.

Therefore, to say God is good is to say:
God acts as God acts - which is meaningless.

Therefore, either there is an objective morality outside of God, or it is meaningless to say 'God is good'.

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The notion that most of what the god of the Bible...to mention just one god...is "good" in any sense of that word...

...is absurd.

Here are a few quotes directly from that god:

"Slaves, male and female, you may indeed possess, provided you BUY them from among the neighboring nations. You may also BUY them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children who are born and reared in your land. Such slaves YOU MAY OWN AS CHATTELS, and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, MAKING THEM PERPETUAL SLAVES. But you shall not lord it harshly over any of the Israelites, your kinsmen." Leviticus 25:44ff

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be
put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their
lives." Leviticus 20:13

"If a man has a stubborn and unruly son who will not listen to
his father or mother, and will not obey them even though they
chastise him, his father and mother shall have him apprehended
and brought out to the elders at the gate of his home city, where
...his fellow citizens shall stone him to death." Deuteronomy 22:18ff

"When you march up to attack a city, first offer terms of peace.
If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you,
all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor.
But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you
battle, lay siege to it, and when the Lord, your God, delivers it
into your hand, put every male in it to the sword, but the women
and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth
plunder you may take as your booty and you may use this plunder
of your enemies which the Lord, your God, has given you." Deuteronomy 20:10

How can any sane human think any of that stuff is "good?"

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Here is a part of the first "commandment" of the god of the Bible:

"I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments
for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate
me, down to the third and fourth generation." Deuteronomy 5:9

That represents "good?"

How?

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Frank Apisa wrote:

Here is a part of the first "commandment" of the god of the Bible:

"I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments
for their fathers' wickedness on the children of those who hate
me, down to the third and fourth generation." Deuteronomy 5:9

That represents "good?"

How?

You mean to tell me that doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

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Frank, I should have specified. I'm not talking about the God of the Bible. Just the general idea of God.

Save the scripture for another thread, Mr!

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Re: God and good

djbt wrote:

This may have been covered before, but this thread is for discussion about how good is defined in relation to God, and is essentially a rehashing of Socrates' points along the same lines. Mainly for theists who argue that there is no objective morality without God.

If this is the case, is 'to be good' to act like God says, or to act as God acts?

If an action of God is inherently good because it is God's action, then:
being good = acting as God act.

Therefore, to say God is good is to say:
God acts as God acts - which is meaningless.

Therefore, either there is an objective morality outside of God, or it is meaningless to say 'God is good'.

Interesting topic...thanks for not letting Frank take us down his favorite rabbit trail.

First what is "objective morality"? I think I know what you mean, but it would help if you clarify.

My first thoughts...I consider "being good" to be only descriptive of humans, and cannot describe God. God embodies good. Therefore, for a human to "be good" means the human acts as God acts (or would have him act). Not sure what it means to say "God is good" because God defines "good". It would be something like saying "man is human" or "violet is purple". The latter term does not describe the former...they are the same.

Where I lose you is how you get from this position to the conclusion that there is an "objective morality" outside God. I guess I would agree that the term "God is good" is inherently duplicative and thus meaningless. But by no means does this imply that "acting as God would" is meaningless for a human...

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slkshock7,

By 'objective morality' I mean some kind of universal, absolution moral system.

It seems to me that we agree on the meaninglessness of the phrase 'God is good' if there is no objective morality outside of God.

I wasn't concluding that the is an objective morality outside of God, only that if there is not (as many theists claim) then God is amoral, and therefore it is a mistake to call Him 'good', 'benevolent', 'kind' or 'loving' - all of which imply choosing to behave in a way that is 'good'.

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If "objective" morality comes from God and God is exclusively good, then anything God says or does is, by definition, good.

There are several problems with this proposition. First, how do we know that God is exclusively good? If there is only one God, there is no logical reason for it to have the attribute of empathy which is the basis of ethics (I do not like pain, other people feel as I do, therefore the things that hurt me, hurt others and I should not do them). If God feels no pain, he could not understand ours. How could he make any distinction between good and evil? God's idea of "good" could include drowning people who displeased him, requiring that virgins be thrown into volcanoes, or inflicting painful and lethal diseases on babies to build character in their parents.

Morality has no meaning outside of the context of society, and presumably God did not evolve in a society. Where, then, did God get his notions of morality? From watching and learning from us?

People who believe that good is whatever God says it is do not learn to think for themselves and are easily manipulated into slaughtering their neighbors, torturing heretics, bombing non-combatants or stoning adulterous women if someone tells them it's God's Will.

Every God seems to have a different definition of morality. How do we know which one to believe?

Fortunately we can come up with an objective morality that does not rely on the whims of gods or priests:

Do not cause unnecessary pain.
Love and educate children.
Do not squander the earth's resources. A thousand generations will despise you for burning up all the oil, sucking aquifers dry, decimating the oceans and leaving them nothing but a barren wasteland.

If there are any gods who are "good" by these standards, I have yet to encounter them.

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Religion seems to rely on our belief in reciprocal altruism. People reason that if they give the gods what they want, the gods will give them what they ask for in return (or at least spare them from the horrible fate they were planning to inflict). Reciprocal altruism evolved because it is a very good strategy for people dealing with others in society, but an omnipotent God does not need to abide by the rules because there one to punish him for cheating.

All the priests had to do was convince people that God really wanted roasted meat and the first fruits and grains they harvested each year (which were actually consumed by the priests and their families) in return for peace and prosperity and they had it made. If God did not deliver, they claimed that the people had offended him in some way and got even more sacrifices in atonement. What a racket! (Modern priests will accept 10% of your money and submission to God's Will in lieu of animal sacrifice, but are not averse to being invited over for Sunday dinner as well.)

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Terry usefully finished of the point I left unfinished there (thanks Terry). To put them together:

djbt wrote:

I wasn't concluding that the is an objective morality outside of God, only that if there is not (as many theists claim) then God is amoral, and therefore it is a mistake to call Him 'good', 'benevolent', 'kind' or 'loving' - all of which imply choosing to behave in a way that is 'good'.

Terry wrote:

If "objective" morality comes from God and God is exclusively good, then anything God says or does is, by definition, good.

...so, really, God doesn't do good, he just, well, does things... God is amoral.

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djdb.
I think you are way off track trying to fit your discourse into the word "God-Good" If your a Christian, you only have one particular "God" and as Pointed out by Frank, he sure aint "good"... and I rather like going down Franks rabbit hole.The same goes for "Others" whatever their conception of a "God" is, it can be construed which ever way you like, making what you are saying pretty pointless perhaps?.

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lightfoot,

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Could you explain it again?

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God must be good. Providing there is a god, He/She/It/They gave humans the gift of choice. So we can choose to follow the writings of a book and stories that are thousands of years old, or we can form our own opinions. I like the way this author desicribes God. Rob Kall talks to god. I found it on someone's blogspot. I love it.

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When I was growing up, my father was an agnostic. My mother was a catholic and raised me to be one.

One day, when I was just a kid, I must've seen a movie about a man and woman who were not married, but were living together.

So I wondered about this. I decided to ask my father.

"Daddy," I said, "when I grow up, if I live with a man and don't marry him, is that a sin?"

And my father -- the agnostic -- answered, "YES!"

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Stray Cat wrote:

When I was growing up, my father was an agnostic. My mother was a catholic and raised me to be one.

One day, when I was just a kid, I must've seen a movie about a man and woman who were not married, but were living together.

So I wondered about this. I decided to ask my father.

"Daddy," I said, "when I grow up, if I live with a man and don't marry him, is that a sin?"

And my father -- the agnostic -- answered, "YES!"

Before getting into a response...I think I should ask:

And your point is????

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Why would we assume that 'god' is seperate from humanity in any way?

We are humans. That's all we got to work with. We can not be nor know God absolutely bc then we would be God! If we were absolutely God then we wouldn't be human.
In a way, we are God, but we are also human.
If God is good, we are good, if we are good, God is good.
Is there any such thing as absolute good?

The whole idea of needing to be redeemed and chasing after that eternal carrot is senseless (literally). We are already 'perfect' bc perfection does not exist! We are 'perfect' by being 'not perfect'.

Laughing

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Re: God and good

djbt wrote:

This may have been covered before, but this thread is for discussion about how good is defined in relation to God, and is essentially a rehashing of Socrates' points along the same lines. Mainly for theists who argue that there is no objective morality without God.

If this is the case, is 'to be good' to act like God says, or to act as God acts?

If an action of God is inherently good because it is God's action, then:
being good = acting as God act.

Therefore, to say God is good is to say:
God acts as God acts - which is meaningless.

Therefore, either there is an objective morality outside of God, or it is meaningless to say 'God is good'.

Sorry I didn't get to reply earlier. Let me take just a moment to posit that what you have presented here may be a false dichotomy. From my understanding of the teachings of the Bible, to be good is to be obedient to God (to act as God says to act).

You seem to leap from this particular position to the conclusion that there is therefore an objective morality outside of God. How do you reach this conclusion? It certainly isn't a logical necessity.

It isn't a logical necessity, because it is logically possible that there is no objective moral standard at all. It is also logically possible that God defines what is right and wrong for humans and what is right and wrong for him, and both of these come from his very nature.

I think it is the latter case that you will find as described in the Bible.

I

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Terry wrote:

If "objective" morality comes from God and God is exclusively good, then anything God says or does is, by definition, good.

There are several problems with this proposition. First, how do we know that God is exclusively good? If there is only one God, there is no logical reason for it to have the attribute of empathy which is the basis of ethics (I do not like pain, other people feel as I do, therefore the things that hurt me, hurt others and I should not do them).

Let's pretend (for the sake of argument) that we are speaking of the God described in the Bible, and that we are going to assume that the entire Bible is true (after all, that's what Christians believe).

With this assumption in place, consider what the Bible says, that good and bad are not judged based on whether someone feels pain. Good and bad are judged upon a standard that God has set up.

Quote:

If God feels no pain, he could not understand ours. How could he make any distinction between good and evil?

God could not have experienced pain in the way we have, but to conclude that this means God could not "understand" our pain is a leap that I don't find support for.

Quote:

God's idea of "good" could include drowning people who displeased him, requiring that virgins be thrown into volcanoes, or inflicting painful and lethal diseases on babies to build character in their parents.

It could, but is that what the Bible says about God? Specifically, does God define good (moral good) as simply drowning people, etc?

Quote:

Morality has no meaning outside of the context of society, and presumably God did not evolve in a society. Where, then, did God get his notions of morality? From watching and learning from us?

Morality has context as long as there is more than one person involved. You may call that society, but that would be a stretch. The Christian conception of God holds that God has eternally existed as a tri-personal being, meaning there has been (from eternity) more than one person involved.

Quote:

People who believe that good is whatever God says it is do not learn to think for themselves and are easily manipulated into slaughtering their neighbors, torturing heretics, bombing non-combatants or stoning adulterous women if someone tells them it's God's Will.

People who simply believe what any person says (including believing what you are saying here, for instance), without reasoning it through, are those who are easily manipulated. Your implication here is that people who believe the Bible are these types of people, but you have not shown this to be so.

Quote:

Every God seems to have a different definition of morality. How do we know which one to believe?

That's a very good question. Let's apply the same question to your upcoming definition. How do we know whether to believe what *you* say?

Quote:

Fortunately we can come up with an objective morality that does not rely on the whims of gods or priests:

So we should rely on your whims instead? And how is it that you feel a moral standard arrived at as the consensus of some (not all) subjective opinions is the same as an objective standard?

Quote:

Do not cause unnecessary pain.
Love and educate children.
Do not squander the earth's resources. A thousand generations will despise you for burning up all the oil, sucking aquifers dry, decimating the oceans and leaving them nothing but a barren wasteland.

If there are any gods who are "good" by these standards, I have yet to encounter them.

Well maybe there are no gods who are good according to your standard. Do you see that as a problem for these gods (that they don't live according to your standard)?

I

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what is good?
is it a quality
is it an action....

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It's obvious non of you know God like I do. Wallow in your own mud and like it. As for me I walk around the mire, and keep my feet clean.

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God and good

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