God’s derivation of morals

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God’s derivation of morals

Post #1

Post by Willum »

This is actually an ancient dilemma, that seems to be glossed over, sometimes bloodily, throughout history.

If the modern god, named God (as contrasted against Osiris and other deities), is the source of morality, then how can morality be other than an inappropriate opinion for wee humans, who are not omnipotent or omniscient, etc.?

If morals are not this god’s opinion, then where does this absolute morality come from?

If you claim God has the monopoly on morality because it created life, then you fail in several ways.
Men create things without dictating their morality. With no capacity to dictate morality.
Men create children with different opinions then their parents.
Further, parents should be able to, under the same constraints of this God perform morally. Such things as drown their children should they be ruled “wicked in the eyes of God.”
Finally, the ultimate absolute of: if God created morality, how is there morality, and not status quo? Is God incompetent?

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #41

Post by nobspeople »

Willum wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:03 am
Eloi wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:50 pm
Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:47 pm [Replying to Eloi in post #34]

Second line in the OP.
But if you wish to ignore the parts of the topic that make you uncomfortable, by all means, talk about the whether, or other things you don't understand.
???

Are you serious? Moral is not based on opinions. Anybody can know that.
Not yourself apparently.
Where do God's moral come from?
That's assuming god has morals, which it doesn't - at least not human morals. Human morals are all the morals humans have access to in which to compare.
If god is real, and it has morals, it has its own morals, which humans don't have access to and can't understand, unless humans are equal to god.
If god has its own morals, it likely created them 'just 'cause' at the very least. It could say drowning humanity and animals because it allowed them to become evil when it knew this was going to happen is fine and moral, so who are humans to say 'not that's not moral!'? And even if humans said that, so what? It's not going to hurt god's 'feelings' one bit.
Trying to understand 'where morals came from' is one thing. Trying to understand where god's morals came from is something else entirely IMO.
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #42

Post by Goat »

1213 wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 8:58 am
Willum wrote: Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:19 am ...
Therefore morals must be his own opinion, an alien one at that, and so now we need to know why this god’s opinion on morality is better than anyone else’s’.
I think that would be in any case just a subjective opinion. I agree with God, because I think His will is righteous and good. For example the idea to love others and treat others as I want to be treated. I think it is just the most reasonable and logical moral principle. If I don't want to be murdered, I don't murder others, because if I would murder, I would give the same right to others, I could not say that others can't do what I myself do without being hypocrite. I believe it is the only perfect and objective and reasonable moral principle and that is why I believe it is also promoted by God. If you think some other principle is better, I would like to hear what it is.
Assuming the God exists, how do you know you agree with God?
“What do you think science is? There is nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. So which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?�

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #43

Post by 1213 »

Goat wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:07 am
1213 wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 8:58 am
Willum wrote: Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:19 am ...
Therefore morals must be his own opinion, an alien one at that, and so now we need to know why this god’s opinion on morality is better than anyone else’s’.
I think that would be in any case just a subjective opinion. I agree with God, because I think His will is righteous and good. For example the idea to love others and treat others as I want to be treated. I think it is just the most reasonable and logical moral principle. If I don't want to be murdered, I don't murder others, because if I would murder, I would give the same right to others, I could not say that others can't do what I myself do without being hypocrite. I believe it is the only perfect and objective and reasonable moral principle and that is why I believe it is also promoted by God. If you think some other principle is better, I would like to hear what it is.
Assuming the God exists, how do you know you agree with God?
By that His will is said in the Bible and I think it is right and good.

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #44

Post by Eloi »

If we consider the conditions in which God created humans and the environment he created for them on this planet, we conclude that as our Creator, he is the best Father there can be, so He would not leave his children without a guide. It is reasonable to believe that somehow He must have shown his intelligent terrestrial creation what could bring bad consequences in his life.

Three ways come to mind: a rationalism intrinsic to human conscience, a universe to study and learn from, and a book with specific instructions.

The Bible shows that God is very kind when it comes to his children. For example, according to the Bible, Jesus was completed as High Priest only when he lived as a human. In this way, his judgment and his tasks regarding humanity in the future will take into account aspects that he experienced firsthand (Heb. 2:10; 4:15). We Witnesses have learned that the kings who are going to live in heaven, with Jesus as the main king, are human beings chosen from among humanity, not creatures that have come out of some other kind of life, such as angels. This is so because in the future, what humanity itself suffers and lives in its own flesh (due to the previous experience of those kings and Jesus himself) will be taken into account ... That is a lot of experiences that will serve to rule with "human" justice directly from heaven and the subdits of that Kingdom will be perfect humans here on earth.

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #45

Post by Purple Knight »

Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 5:45 pm [Replying to Purple Knight in post #15]
I can provide a consistent theorem of math where 2 + 2 = 3, or with triangles with greater than 180 degrees.

So that concept is flawed.
When I say one plus one will always equal two, what I mean is that the relationship will stay. You can redefine numbers, for example, but whatever you redefine 1 as, it plus itself will always equal 2 (or whatever you've now said 2 is). Even if you go into circular numerations, relationships stay consistent within them, even though, for example, a mod 4 circular numeration has our numbers, but no number greater than 4, and 4 + 2 = 1. However, circular numerations don't describe the universe as well.

We live in a logical universe, or at least, there are some areas where logic does work. If I have one cat, and get another cat, I will not suddenly have three cats. You can redefine 2 to 3 - you can call the number two, indicated by this many dots • • a three - but that is completely aside from my point.

You can indeed say that morality works like math. And perhaps there are many consistent moralities.
Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 5:45 pmAs to there being a original creator, that means Ford owns all Ford-made cars.
If Ford owned the people who made them, he would own the cars they made. We don't go for this, however, because we consider slavery barbaric. There's a serious question of why we consider it barbaric and giving the religiosos some credit of charity, perhaps it is because then, we'd all be double-booked.
Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 5:45 pmOn your third point, you are consistent with the other two, in that you completely ignored the topic, maybe hoping no one would notice.
I don't think I ignored the topic. I think my answer, that if morality comes from God there really is just the status quo and morality is not some higher thing as we think it is, but how we use the word moral merely describes how well we obey our master, is perfectly on-point.
Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 5:45 pmIs god the source of morality? In which case, why should we care about his opinion?
We should on the level that it's good for us and nothing more. Do good, go to heaven. Do evil, get punished. However, I'm no more satisfied with that than you are. As you say, that's not morality, that's just the status quo. That's no higher anything, that's just asking who happens to be the biggest dog in the yard, and thus who's in charge. But if there is no such thing as morality, and there is this very powerful thing "god" then we can either appease it or suffer, though if it's a nasty tyrant we should overthrow it... if we can.

How can I say we should do anything if there's no morality? Simple. It's about what's good for us. If there's some tyrant hurting many for the benefit of just himself, or just a few, then it's simply logical to bonk him off.
Willum wrote: Thu Apr 28, 2022 5:45 pmDid god get morality elsewhere, and if so, where?
The same place it got logic. If morality doesn't come from the same place logic does, if it's not inherent in the universe, if it stops functioning because some big dog wills it, then it's just the status quo and there's no such thing as morality.

There's no morality that would satisfy me anyway, and I suspect, not you either.

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #46

Post by Willum »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #45]

So you defend your flawed reasoning."
That's fine, experience has shown that if I demonstrate it is wrong, you'll* double down, and if I do it again, you* will deny.

So that being said, reality may be too difficult for yourself, and it is perhaps safer for you to continue to believe as you believe.


* = Folks like yourself.

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #47

Post by Purple Knight »

nobspeople wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:47 amThat's assuming god has morals, which it doesn't - at least not human morals. Human morals are all the morals humans have access to in which to compare.
If god is real, and it has morals, it has its own morals, which humans don't have access to and can't understand, unless humans are equal to god.
That's why I think that if this being exists - I mean, especially if it really exists - it's of limited use to us humans when it comes to understanding morality.

So why are we worshiping it then?

If it's for a practical benefit then that's a dirty, mortal thing, no different than if I were to provide you some benefit in exchange for your worship. You wouldn't do, and you oughtn't. Mostly people accept this. Worship is special.

If I were to actually put my intellect to use and made you immortal, perhaps created nanobots to delete your cells' aging signals, make them stop going into senescence, restored telomeres, then put my hands to use and planted you a garden and called it paradise, would you worship me for that? You ought not to do so. And the reason you ought not to do so is that I can still be a bad person even if I'm more powerful than you and happen to be nice to you. It's just dirty then, as dirty as my hands would be, and you well see that.
Willum wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:54 pm [Replying to Purple Knight in post #45]

So you defend your flawed reasoning."
That's fine, experience has shown that if I demonstrate it is wrong, you'll* double down, and if I do it again, you* will deny.

So that being said, reality may be too difficult for yourself, and it is perhaps safer for you to continue to believe as you believe.


* = Folks like yourself.
I don't think it's flawed. I can provide you examples where I've changed my opinion based on reason. And I can call on JW, AgnosticBoy, TCG, 1213, among others who will almost surely attest that you might be wrong about me engaging in this sort of dishonesty.

What do you think I believe anyway?

I admit that on this topic, I don't know. I don't know whether morality comes from god or whether it comes from somewhere else, whether it's inherent in the universe, or whether there's just no such thing.

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #48

Post by otseng »

Willum wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:54 pm [Replying to Purple Knight in post #45]
That's fine, experience has shown that if I demonstrate it is wrong, you'll* double down, and if I do it again, you* will deny.

So that being said, reality may be too difficult for yourself, and it is perhaps safer for you to continue to believe as you believe.

* = Folks like yourself.
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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #49

Post by Willum »

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #47]

That wasn't a personal attack, but well annotated to generalize.
But I think you've been looking for an excuse to remove me from your site.

The only thing lost are the tears of theists who can't face reality.

Sound good to you?

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Re: God’s derivation of morals

Post #50

Post by Purple Knight »

Willum wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:54 pm [Replying to Purple Knight in post #47]

That wasn't a personal attack, but well annotated to generalize.
I get that, and I wouldn't have reported it even if it was. I don't believe ad hominem is a fallacy. If you can show that I'm dishonest, you have every reason to distrust me, and I should have to defend against that. In this case I can, however. I would do that by calling character witnesses.
Willum wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 11:54 pmBut I think you've been looking for an excuse to remove me from your site.

The only thing lost are the tears of theists who can't face reality.

Sound good to you?
It's not my site, and I'm an atheist. I do try to give the other side every benefit, though. It would be pointless to be here if I didn't do that.

You might not believe it, but I've been down the exact same road you're going on in this thread. Where does morality come from?

I agree with you that if it's just the will of some most powerful being, that it's just the status quo and not morality, as in, something higher than just, do what the biggest dog says.

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