“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”

[Diogenes]

It is a common topic on this forum, variously phrased, that morality not only comes from God, but comes from the god 'I believe in.'
Christopher Hitchens famously challenged people to find a moral statement that could not be sincerely uttered by an atheist.
"No takers," he claimed.
Stated another way, Hitchens wrote, “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens
Conversely, Hitchens and many others can easily find many examples of immoral statements made in the name of God or of religion.

The question for debate is whether either of these statements can be refuted.

[1213]

To me world looks like God is there, because:
1. We have the Bible.
2. Life exists.
3. World works in very fine order.

Now you have to make a case demonstrating that none of those could exist without a god. Something that looks like a potato is not necessarily a potato.

Why? I thought this was just about why it looks so for me.

And the reason why I chose those is:
1. I think people are too evil and ignorant to make Bible on their own.
2. If life could come into existence on its own from nothing, or from non organic material, we could see that happen in nature.
3. In nature everything tends to go to the most easy state. For example iron is oxidized, earth erodes... ...it requires force/will to build up anything. This is why I believe, without God, at the best we would only have vast amount of dust scattered equally around the universe, nothing more, because that is the state to which everything seems to go, if not prevented.

[1213]

...He allows innocent people to be totally destroyed ...

I have no reason to believe innocent people were destroyed.

[1213]

Doesn't the Bible also teach that if there is too much evil, so much that people are forced to be evil just to get along, nobody really has a chance to choose good?

I don't remember Bible saying that.

And didn't God also say he would not flood the world again?

Yes.

The truth is probably that even Hitler thought he was doing right by putting his own first, and that intentional, pure, unabashedly cruel and completely selfish evil - I think JW calls this wickedness - is even rarer than that. I admit that depending on the reasoning involved, there are scenarios where I, as God, would put Hitler in Heaven. I have also met people... who... there is just no way they even thought they were doing good for anyone. They will not change and become righteous. If nobody fights them, they drag others down and make them evil, too.

Evil cannot be won by becoming evil. If everyone becomes evil, evil has won utterly.

[brunumb]

...He allows innocent people to be totally destroyed ...

I have no reason to believe innocent people were destroyed.

I do, but then I read the story with an open mind.

[TRANSPONDER]

To me world looks like God is there, because:
1. We have the Bible.
2. Life exists.
3. World works in very fine order.

Now you have to make a case demonstrating that none of those could exist without a god. Something that looks like a potato is not necessarily a potato.

Why? I thought this was just about why it looks so for me.

And the reason why I chose those is:
1. I think people are too evil and ignorant to make Bible on their own.
2. If life could come into existence on its own from nothing, or from non organic material, we could see that happen in nature.
3. In nature everything tends to go to the most easy state. For example iron is oxidized, earth erodes... ...it requires force/will to build up anything. This is why I believe, without God, at the best we would only have vast amount of dust scattered equally around the universe, nothing more, because that is the state to which everything seems to go, if not prevented.

That's an interesting one. It has all manner of Ramifications, like one of the Star Wars universes actually existing in another dimension, and Mormonism being true in an alternate universe.

But the problem is the old faithbased one as Pascal's wager - assuming that none of the other religions count. If the Bible has to be true and intended by God or it wouldn't exist, then the Bhaghavad Gita has to be true and Hinduism true or it wouldn't exist.

Then one might get the claim the bible is somehow superior to the others. I'd say the Tripitaka is superior to the Bible. Historicity? sure, but not enough to be more than spin, if not invention. At least that's what I'd propose to counter your claim.

I won't even get into, if God put His Will into 'Inspiring' the Bible, it might explain why God told Moses an order of creation that really can't be true. But I'll just stick to - despite your claim or assertion, Books like that can come about through human agency without a god or without being true. Nice try by no Nobel Prize.

[Purple Knight]

Doesn't the Bible also teach that if there is too much evil, so much that people are forced to be evil just to get along, nobody really has a chance to choose good?

I don't remember Bible saying that.

And didn't God also say he would not flood the world again?

Yes.

The truth is probably that even Hitler thought he was doing right by putting his own first, and that intentional, pure, unabashedly cruel and completely selfish evil - I think JW calls this wickedness - is even rarer than that. I admit that depending on the reasoning involved, there are scenarios where I, as God, would put Hitler in Heaven. I have also met people... who... there is just no way they even thought they were doing good for anyone. They will not change and become righteous. If nobody fights them, they drag others down and make them evil, too.

Evil cannot be won by becoming evil. If everyone becomes evil, evil has won utterly.

So God became evil when he flooded the world?

And if God doesn't become evil when, to protect good people, he hurts or kills evil people, why would anyone else become evil for doing the same? Look, using violence for a good reason, is either an evil act, or it's not.

If the only way God stays good, is by his special godly privilege to remain good no matter what he does, nobody has shown mortals how to be good. What has been taught is, destruction is necessary sometimes, but since we can't do it and God is now MIA, we have no guidance. If we're supposed to find a peaceful way through the same dilemmas that occurred in the Bible and were solved with annihilation of the offending forces, then with the future in mind, those dilemmas always should have been solved peacefully, to show us how. Instead of turning Lot's wife into a salt statue, show how, through conversation, you got her to leave behind all of her regret and face forward. Instead of having the Israelites kill the Amalekites, show how they walked up to their enemies, gave them a flower, and nobody killed anybody anymore. That's what I'm expected to do, isn't it? Well, I expect to be shown how. 'Cause I don't know.

If violence is never required, God should never use it. If violence is sometimes required, human beings should not be considered evil for employing it, if they have no other options.

I wonder what course of action God would take if the world reached pre-flood levels of evil again.

I assume, nothing.

[brunumb]

...He allows innocent people to be totally destroyed ...

I have no reason to believe innocent people were destroyed.

In that case Job and his family were not innocent and they deserved everything that happened to them. Yes?

[1213]

...He allows innocent people to be totally destroyed ...

I have no reason to believe innocent people were destroyed.

In that case Job and his family were not innocent and they deserved everything that happened to them. Yes?

I don't think Job was destroyed, so he might have been innocent enough. But, his family may be a different case.

[1213]

So God became evil when he flooded the world?

I don't think so.

[1213]

... If the Bible has to be true and intended by God or it wouldn't exist, then the Bhaghavad Gita has to be true and Hinduism true or it wouldn't exist.

I think you are missing the crucial point, if the book has something that people would not have thought on their own, then it is probably from other source.

Then one might get the claim the bible is somehow superior to the others. I'd say the Tripitaka is superior to the Bible.

Then I would like to hear why you think it is superior.