Morality vs. deity

[Tuddrussell]

If God, or a god you happen to worship/respect came to you and ordered you to do something against your nature (like say: kill, rape, torture etc...) or face eternal damnation/the wrath of the gods, would you hold firm to your beliefs and defy a direct order from a god, or would you harden your heart, and draw your blade/unzip your pants?

I am just curious, I don't mean to offend anybody. I personally would never do anything that went against my code of honour, though it would hurt deeply to defy my god, or goddess... I would do so in a heartbeat. As such I pray that day shall never come. Blessed be.

[Raptor_Jesus]

This is an extremely different difficult question for most people, especially those that have firm beliefs in their God and such.
Also a clever way to look at this props.

[Sir Rhetor]

How would you know that the entity which asked you to do the horrible act was really God?

[cnorman18]

Perhaps I have an unfair advantage. Since my religion teaches that the best and perhaps the only way to serve God is to use and trust my own rational thought and moral judgment to the best of my ability - and, not incidentally, specifically to distrust miraculous voices and apparitions - this situation is not possible.

Before you ask; if it were possible, one trusts one's own judgment and not that of a deity with, apparently, less moral sense than oneself. Cf. Abraham's bargaining, some would say arguing, with God over the fate of Sodom in Genesis. In the Jewish religion, NOTHING excuses one from applying one's own moral judgment. "I vas chust followink orders" doesn't work for us, even if the orders come from God.

[Raptor_Jesus]

How would you know that the entity which asked you to do the horrible act was really God?

How would you know anything is coming from God?
How do we know the Bible is Gods word?
:P

[Sir Rhetor]

How would you know that the entity which asked you to do the horrible act was really God?

How would you know anything is coming from God?
How do we know the Bible is Gods word?

That was my point. We want proof for religion's "axioms"; the things that religion assumes to be true, like the existence of a god in the first place.

[cnorman18]

How would you know that the entity which asked you to do the horrible act was really God?

How would you know anything is coming from God?
How do we know the Bible is Gods word?

That was my point. We want proof for religion's "axioms"; the things that religion assumes to be true, like the existence of a god in the first place.

And yet another promising debate is flushed down the "prove God exists" toilet.

If every debate and discussion we have here always goes back to that, why would a person who isn't concerned with that question bother to post here? Is there nothing else to talk about? Is proof required of either position before we can talk about anything else?

What if there is neither proof nor disproof of God available - which certainly seems to be the case? What if neither proof nor disproof is even possible?

What if IT DOESN'T FINALLY MATTER if you believe in God or not? What if RIGHT BEHAVIOR is the proper point of religion, as opposed to emotional devotion or correct doctrinal beliefs?

Don't hypothetical questions, like the one in the OP, imply that proof isn't the issue?

Let me rephrase this question:

Assume there is a God. Assume that this God, to the best of your knowledge and understanding, has commanded you to, say, murder an innocent infant.

One possible answer is to assume the whole thing was a hallucination; but let's assume that this God somehow proves to you that He is really God and that this experience is real.

What do you do?

I have given my answer. In the Jewish religion, NOTHING excuses you from exercising your own moral judgment. God Himself cannot command you to do evil and expect that His command will be followed without question; He has taught us otherwise.

Now, argue about proving God's existence elsewhere. That's a different question, and it's not like we've never talked about it here.

[McCulloch]

And yet another promising debate is flushed down the "prove God exists" toilet.

Not quite. No one is asking that you prove God exist in this thread. What they are asking is how do you determine whether any particular instruction is from God or some other source. This question should be particularly difficult for those who believe that they really do have a direct communication from the god. There are contexts where a writer of the Bible instructs God's followers to kill. Homosexual offenders, worshipers of other gods, people who occupy a city you wish to live in. Thankfully, most Christians have found a framework within which to interpret such passages as to render them ineffective.

[cnorman18]

And yet another promising debate is flushed down the "prove God exists" toilet.

Not quite. No one is asking that you prove God exist in this thread. What they are asking is how do you determine whether any particular instruction is from God or some other source.

I beg to differ:

"We want proof for religion's "axioms"; the things that religion assumes to be true, like the existence of a god in the first place."

This question should be particularly difficult for those who believe that they really do have a direct communication from the god. There are contexts where a writer of the Bible instructs God's followers to kill. Homosexual offenders, worshipers of other gods, people who occupy a city you wish to live in. Thankfully, most Christians have found a framework within which to interpret such passages as to render them ineffective.

Nah. Jews did that first. We were SUPPOSED to.

My point remains: as noted above, proof of the existence of God was demanded before discussion of whether or not any communication could actually be from God could be undertaken.

NEITHER of those were, in my opinion, the point of the OP. I tried to make that clear too.

[MagusYanam]

Okay, looks like I'm the first to put 'deity' over 'morality', and it looks like I'll be facing some stiff opposition, but that's fine.

Perhaps I have an unfair advantage. Since my religion teaches that the best and perhaps the only way to serve God is to use and trust my own rational thought and moral judgment to the best of my ability - and, not incidentally, specifically to distrust miraculous voices and apparitions - this situation is not possible.

Before you ask; if it were possible, one trusts one's own judgment and not that of a deity with, apparently, less moral sense than oneself. Cf. Abraham's bargaining, some would say arguing, with God over the fate of Sodom in Genesis. In the Jewish religion, NOTHING excuses one from applying one's own moral judgment. "I vas chust followink orders" doesn't work for us, even if the orders come from God.

Well, let's look at a more problematic story, though. Nothing was being demanded of Abraham in the Sodom and Gomorrah story more than 'hear me out', and nothing more of Lot than 'pack up and leave'. What about when God instructs Abraham to take his son Isaac to Moria to be sacrificed as a burnt offering? Abraham does it - everything but actually killing and burning the poor kid (who is spared at the last minute)! From the moralistic point of view you present, we must condemn Abraham as a murderer and his action as infanticide! He had no way of knowing that that sheep would appear. At the very least, we must deem him insane.

But we can never actually know the will of God. If I were presented with something that I could not reconcile as a hallucination, as a command directly from God, I hope I would do it, even if it went against the entirety of my moral being, even if it meant sacrificing myself. And I realise this must seem like lunacy, but from the outside faith always looks like lunacy. It isn't rational.

McCulloch, TuddRussell and probably you would likely have to condemn me as a madman. As ethical as you are, I would expect nothing less. I would do so for myself if I were placed in such a situation.

But that's the burden of creating your own values, and then holding them up to the power that created you in the hope that they will be accepted. But it's a hope that exists in fear and trembling, since - as you remarked in the other thread - we cannot know God, never fully.