# Is the moral objection to the existence of God valid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 2, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842 "2011-02-02T00:25:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![EristicKallistic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/85e7bf/32.png) [@EristicKallistic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EristicKallistic)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/81 "2011-02-03T01:11:05Z")
I’m a bit of a hippopotamus. I mean, if I’m honest. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/82 "2011-02-03T01:11:51Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > You (in the aggregate shared commonality sense of “you”, not you as **Left Hand of Dorkness** , the individual person) are a serial killer, you are a rock and a hippopotamus and many other things. You are god being all of these things as a creative and entertaining activity. > > I will reiterate: Well, Valentine Michael Smith, how do you propose to distinguish us all being God from no one being God, him not existing? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/83 "2011-02-03T01:14:34Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Thing is, I’m really not in any sense a serial killer. This kind of philosophy has more than a dab of blaming-the-victim involved in it, IMO, and I really don’t like it. No one said that any entity named **Left Hand of Dorkness** was in a position of saying "_ **I** _ am a serial killer. The word “you” is a pronoun poorly chosen. I should have said “We”. It’s not like I’m outside of the process myself. But if I were to say “we”, it would be my intention that you understand yourself to be included, by me, in that aggregate sense of identity. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/84 "2011-02-03T01:19:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Well, Valentine Michael Smith, how do you propose to distinguish us all being God from no one being God, him not existing? In the first case there is a shared identity-in-common, and in the second case there is not. You’re perfectly entitled to say that the second case more accurately describes reality as far as you’re concerned. I was positing the first case as a response to the OP, specifically this: > [@](#): > > the idea that if God existed, evils such as the Holocaust, the civil war in Rwanda, the earthquake in Haiti, et cetera – …{snip}…All those things certainly weigh against a benovelent, New-Testatment-type creator existing ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/85 "2011-02-03T01:41:43Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > In the first case there is a shared identity-in-common, and in the second case there is not. Sure there is. We’re all human beings. What do we specifically have in common if we’re “gods,” that we don’t have in common if we’re all just human beings? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/86 "2011-02-03T04:44:56Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Sure there is. We’re all human beings. What do we specifically have in common if we’re “gods,” that we don’t have in common if we’re all just human beings? If you experience it as a valid sense of self (and not just a recognized cartesian set), there may not be any difference aside from nomenclature. Do you, unlike **Left Hand of Dorkness** , find that you are at ease with answering the question “who are you” in a plural form that includes Michael Valentine Smith? How about hippopotamusses (hippopotami?)? Rocks? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/87 "2011-02-03T05:08:38Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > If you experience it as a valid sense of self (and not just a recognized cartesian set), there may not be any difference aside from nomenclature. Do you, unlike **Left Hand of Dorkness** , find that you are at ease with answering the question “who are you” in a plural form that includes Michael Valentine Smith? How about hippopotamusses (hippopotami?)? Rocks? It depends on what your definition of “you” is. I’ve been through the whole “one with the universe” trip multiple times in personal experiences involving various mystic techniques (achieving the “universal religious exprience” was an obsession of mine for a few years). While I’m familiar with the emotional highs and philosophical insights that go along with that experience, I still wouldn’t apply the word “god” to it any meaningful way, nor do I think that my individual consciousness is in any way contiguous with other conscious things. Physically, we are a continuum, but when it comes to consciousness we are closed systems. I believe the sensation to the contrary experienced in “religious” states (and I’ve been there with delusions that I could read other people’s minds or predict the future) are illusory. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/88 "2011-02-03T07:02:49Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > In the first case there is a shared identity-in-common, and in the second case there is not. > > You’re perfectly entitled to say that the second case more accurately describes reality as far as you’re concerned. Are you just positing the first case, or proposing it? If you are throwing out random possibilities, there is not much to say. But I’d hypothesize that in the second case all commonality among people can be explained by culture and genetics, and that thee will be outliers. In the first case, I’d expect to see a greater connection. If we are all hooked into God, how do we explain sociopaths? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/89 "2011-02-03T13:54:37Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Are you just positing the first case, or proposing it? If you are throwing out random possibilities, there is not much to say. Whether I actually believe it or not should be immaterial to its value as a hypothetical construct. I popped in with this in response to the question of whether or not it was possible to reconcile a benevolent omni god with the “evils of the world”. Had I been about the business of asserting my perspective so as to actually argue in favor of it, I probably would have done so in a less flip manner, so let’s just posit it as a hypothetical for purposes of this discussion. Such a god seems “omni” enough and yet reconciles nicely with the existence of evil and whatnot, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/90 "2011-02-03T17:42:34Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Whether I actually believe it or not should be immaterial to its value as a hypothetical construct. > > I popped in with this in response to the question of whether or not it was possible to reconcile a benevolent omni god with the “evils of the world”. Had I been about the business of asserting my perspective so as to actually argue in favor of it, I probably would have done so in a less flip manner, so let’s just posit it as a hypothetical for purposes of this discussion. > > Such a god seems “omni” enough and yet reconciles nicely with the existence of evil and whatnot, doesn’t it? If you propose it and defend it, it hardly matters if you believe it. Any former debater knows that. I think we’ve already shown that you can’t reconcile a tri-omni God with evil, since not all evil is from free will. Now, if we are all part of God’s dream, then it gets more interesting. I think the omniscient vs omnipotent problem remains, but does evil done to the figments of your imagination count as real evil? I’d say yes, because we can think, but maybe we just think we think. What I was really getting at though was a way of determining supporting evidence for the we are all part of God theory. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/91 "2011-02-03T20:02:11Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Whether I actually believe it or not should be immaterial to its value as a hypothetical construct. > > I popped in with this in response to the question of whether or not it was possible to reconcile a benevolent omni god with the “evils of the world”. Had I been about the business of asserting my perspective so as to actually argue in favor of it, I probably would have done so in a less flip manner, so let’s just posit it as a hypothetical for purposes of this discussion. > > Such a god seems “omni” enough and yet reconciles nicely with the existence of evil and whatnot, doesn’t it? I certainly don’t see how this “we are all god” idea posits a benevolent god. If we’re all God, then Adolf Hitler was god–and I’m not sure how you reconcile a benevolent God with part of that God’s implementing the Holocaust. At best, the “we are all god” business seems to suggest a twisted, schizophrenic, twisting-in-agonized-coils deity that’s forever snapping at its own flanks and gnawing off great hunks of flesh. At worst, we’re a being that likes a good game, as you suggest, and doesn’t mind causing tremendous suffering on purpose if it’s entertaining: we’re therefore the worst kind of sadist. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/92 "2011-02-03T20:14:52Z")
And masochist. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2011, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/93 "2011-02-03T22:45:51Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Anyhow, here is what I am thinking. There are many reasons not to believe in God: the dearth of evidence for such a being, the logical contradictions inherent in an omnimax\* being, and so on. But the moral objection-- the idea that if God existed, evils such as the Holocaust, the civil war in Rwanda, the earthquake in Haiti, et cetera – strikes me as flawed. All those things certainly weigh against a benovelent, New-Testatment-type creator existing, but not against ANY creator. > > Cann anyway argue that the contrary? If so, I’d be pleased to hear it. It’s only an argument against the _existence_ of omnimax gods, true, but but it’s also an argument that we have no obligation to worship asshole gods (like most of the Greek/Roman ones), or even have a moral duty to oppose them. And in that sense it does apply to the Christian god too, because no matter how much Christians like to assert that their god is something approaching omnimax, those claims are fairly obviously contradicting both current reality as we understand it and the bible; reasonable moral objections to the Abrahamic god as he’s written are not difficult to find. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/94 "2011-02-04T16:21:13Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If you propose it and defend it [my description of a pantheistic omni god], it hardly matters if you believe it. Any former debater knows that. I think we’ve already shown that you can’t reconcile a tri-omni God with evil, since not all evil is from free will. Now, if we are all part of God’s dream, then it gets more interesting. I think the omniscient vs omnipotent problem remains, but does evil done to the figments of your imagination count as real evil? I’d say yes, because we can think, but maybe we just think we think. That’s sort of where I was going with it. I would not use “figments of your imagination”, though, but rather “parts of yourself”. If, under the hood, so to speak, the answer to the question “who are you” is “god”, then all these individual people that you are being (for your own pleasure and entertainment), which may experience evil when you think of them as individual people, are actually you (god) experiencing those experiences along with all other experiences across all of time; to you, as god, the individual life is NOT everything and the evils that you go through in the course of one of your infinitely many consecutive & parallel lives may not be an issue to you in the same way. That is, even though unpleasant, it would be of brief duration and would be without that same “this is all that your life has come to and now you die” centrality. > [@](#): > > What I was really getting at though was a way of determining supporting evidence for the we are all part of God theory. Can’t help you there, but if you find any, be sure to let us know. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/95 "2011-02-04T16:33:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I certainly don’t see how this “we are all god” idea posits a benevolent god. If we’re all God, then Adolf Hitler was god–and I’m not sure how you reconcile a benevolent God with part of that God’s implementing the Holocaust. Just growing pains. Part of the emergent process of changing the norms from agrarian civ to postagrarian civ, there was a lot of that kind of thing actually in the last couple thousand years preceding the acceleration of the tech curve. Bit of a late hit, this one, hence worsened by the impact of the technology itself, but yeah they’d been doing that kind of thing. Learning experiences. The species moves towards social forms more egalitarian, less controlling, with better communication and far less emphasis on control, but goes through fits and starts. > [@](#): > > At best, the “we are all god” business seems to suggest a twisted, schizophrenic, twisting-in-agonized-coils deity that’s forever snapping at its own flanks and gnawing off great hunks of flesh. At worst, we’re a being that likes a good game, as you suggest, and doesn’t mind causing tremendous suffering on purpose if it’s entertaining: we’re therefore the worst kind of sadist. And we (as god, not as individuals) do it to ourselves, on that level, by opting to engage in the game. On the other hand we (as individuals) in our determination to make sense of these horrors and to make things better because of our outrage at people’s suffering are the mechanism by which we (as god) do things about it, outgrow it, fix it. One central part of understanding god as a collective sense of self is that the answer to “well if there’s a god why doesn’t ‘He’ do something about blahblah” is “oh, excellent, we take volunteers, taking responsibility is a wonderful thing, here’s your ‘I am That Which Is’ coffee cup and you can choose a seat and get started any time you like”. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/96 "2011-02-05T03:00:30Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > And we (as god, not as individuals) do it to ourselves, on that level, by opting to engage in the game. On the other hand we (as individuals) in our determination to make sense of these horrors and to make things better because of our outrage at people’s suffering are the mechanism by which we (as god) do things about it, outgrow it, fix it. One central part of understanding god as a collective sense of self is that the answer to “well if there’s a god why doesn’t ‘He’ do something about blahblah” is “oh, excellent, we take volunteers, taking responsibility is a wonderful thing, here’s your ‘I am That Which Is’ coffee cup and you can choose a seat and get started any time you like”. This whole “engaging in the game” still comes across as blaming the victim. Oh, you take volunteers, do you? Excellent–and how exactly does that kid dying of cholera volunteer? Contrariwise, how exactly do I volunteer to prevent earthquakes? Calling it “growing pains” is an absolutely unsatisfying explanation. Certainly you don’t think that this collective god of yours is omnibenevolent, if in its growing pains it’s causing such horrendous suffering? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/97 "2011-02-05T14:06:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > This whole “engaging in the game” still comes across as blaming the victim. Oh, you take volunteers, do you? Excellent–and how exactly does that kid dying of cholera volunteer? Contrariwise, how exactly do I volunteer to prevent earthquakes? > > Calling it “growing pains” is an absolutely unsatisfying explanation. Certainly you don’t think that this collective god of yours is omnibenevolent, if in its growing pains it’s causing such horrendous suffering? Best I can do at the moment. Sorry 'about that! ---
**Author:** ![BrrGrrDelux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@BrrGrrDelux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrrGrrDelux)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/98 "2011-02-14T12:33:04Z")
You guys just gave me Alzheimer’s. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842/99 "2011-02-16T00:12:10Z")
> [@BrrGrrDelux](#): > > You guys just gave me Alzheimer’s. Sorry about that. I was trying for a tsunami in Borogravia, but this whole “we’re all gods” thing seems to be rather like a Ouija board when it comes to fine control… yesterday we were trying to get Mr. Fluffy out of a tree and came terrifyingly close to dropping a meteor on the entire US east coast. :eek: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-moral-objection-to-the-existence-of-god-valid/569842.md?page=4)