Re: Is Existentialism an obsolete philosophy? ...Similarity to religion?

Great Debates
161

You’ve said you are a Jew, and that you believe in a deity. Which one? And do you think it is a good deity? Your posts lead me to think you believe the Jewish God would ask us to commit murder. Is that the case? Do you think that is wrong? I do.

I said modify, not completely rewrite. None of these are about human sacrifice. Completely different questions. I don’t feel any compulsion to deal with them now. I’m going to start anyway, but, I’m going to run out of time for today before dealing with them fully.

I am not the nation of Israel. The same requirements are not asked of me.

  1. is he monogamous? The nation of Israel was required to do many things to keep themselves holy, and the purpose of many of them was actually public health. Prohibitions against pork and seafood, as one example. monogamous gay men aren’t a significant threat to public health. But, as recently as the 1980’s it was shown that a culture of promiscuous gay men frequenting clubs and bath houses can spread significant disease and panic the world. And gay men happen to be the most promiscuous group you can name. Most men would be, if they could, but they don’t have the same option of going home with someone new every night.

But, either way. I am not the judge of this. The nation of Israel was asked this for specific reasons.

Sorry. Out of time, gotta go. Will try to post tomorrow.

162

No. I am not implying anything about what the God of Abraham wants.

You claim that morality is defined exclusively by God. So if he tells you to kill your son, that’s the right thing to do, is it not?

You might answer “Oh, but the God of Abraham would never ask me to do such a thing?” Why not? It’s not like he’s asking you to do anything evil or wrong. If God is the sole arbiter of morality then commanding you to kill your son is no different than commanding you to light candles on the sabbath.

163

How do you know?

How do you know He hasn’t changed His mind in the millennia since? How do you know He wasn’t lying back when – er, if He had specified that He never wants the sacrifice of an innocent human, which, IIRC, He’s never actually quoted as saying?

The God of Abraham. I’m particularly impressed by Abraham’s response when God tells him of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; there’s a reason why “Israel” means “One Who Wrestles With God”.

I’m not saying they are. I’m merely asking whether, if God Himself appeared to you and tells you to kill your son – for any of the above reasons, or that crucial fourth one you didn’t copy-and-paste – you would do so. (Or, if you prefer, whether you would intend to do so.) Whether such commands would be right or wrong depending solely on whether God gave them, or whether (like those who reason from a secular perspective) you can evaluate the moral worth of such commands regardless of whether they come from God.

(That said, I’m not entirely sure the last hypothetical you copy-and-pasted up there applies to the nation rather than to individuals even if we were for some reason limiting ourselves to a sort of strict textualism when assuming that God would only ever demand in person what already got spelled out in scripture; Deuteronomy is quite straightforward in addressing its “thou shalt surely kill him” command to a father as distinct from the nation, if that mattered, which, AFAICT, it doesn’t.)

164

The God of Abraham. I’m particularly impressed by Abraham’s response when God tells him of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; there’s a reason why “Israel” means “One Who Wrestles With God”.
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You really are the best person I’ve been debating with in this thread. Really, the best in a long time in any thread… Once again, you’ve anticipated where I was going, so we can skip right to the end.

Abraham, Israel, and Moses all argued/debated/wrestled with God. (I believe David spoke of such things in the psalms as well, and Peter from the New Testament also spoke back to God.)
First comes obedience, then comes understanding, and then you get to the real purpose of a command and may be able to fulfill it in a different way… But, God encourages argument and debate from those with a close personal relationship with him. That’s where I was going. I would not intend to kill my child; I would debate the purpose of this instruction. A child will follow the letter of what a parent tells them and deliberately disobey the intent of the instruction because they want to do it anyway. A more mature person may disobey the letter of the instruction with the desire to better fulfill the intent. But, you have to know the purpose of the instruction first.

[QUOTE=The Other Waldo Pepper]
I’m not saying they are. I’m merely asking whether, if God Himself appeared to you and tells you to kill your son – for any of the above reasons, or that crucial fourth one you didn’t copy-and-paste – you would do so. (Or, if you prefer, whether you would intend to do so.) Whether such commands would be right or wrong depending solely on whether God gave them, or whether (like those who reason from a secular perspective) you can evaluate the moral worth of such commands regardless of whether they come from God.

(That said, I’m not entirely sure the last hypothetical you copy-and-pasted up there applies to the nation rather than to individuals even if we were for some reason limiting ourselves to a sort of strict textualism when assuming that God would only ever demand in person what already got spelled out in scripture; Deuteronomy is quite straightforward in addressing its “thou shalt surely kill him” command to a father as distinct from the nation, if that mattered, which, AFAICT, it doesn’t.)
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Sorry, I missed pasting that last question. Merely an oversight. However, I’m dealing with them all at once, rather than answering them all individually.
All of those commands even the ones to individual fathers were to members of the nation. And the intent of the command is very important. The intent of all of these requirements was to keep the nation holy. Set apart from the nations around it as an example. So, it does still matter that these were commands to ancient israelites. And with Israel having ceased to exist for over a thousand years before being brought back, I’m positive that phase of the example is over and now God is working with individuals; calling them to be holy and examples. And the battle against sin is not with those around me and other members of my nation, but with the members of my own body, bringing myself into submission. I am not strict with the people around me, whipping, beating or killing them until they comply. I am strict with myself… Not being condoning of the behaviour around me, though, either. I speak out, and present a living example of a better way to live. As I have been shown love and mercy, I show love and mercy to others… Or I try to. Being human, I don’t always succeed.

But, now, getting back to a point I was making early in the thread. The philosophy I espouse is not mine. I don’t live up to it. I aspire to, but I often fall short. My own philosophy is those things I actually do. But I aspire to something better.

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As I was saying to Waldo, the intent of an instruction is important. I am positive God would never ask me to kill an innocent. I only left the possibility open for the remote chance that this instruction would be given with another purpose in mind, and I would debate and try to find the purpose. The purpose of asking Abraham to kill Isaac was not to have the child killed. The purpose of saying “rise, Peter, kill and eat,” from all the unclean animals was not to have Peter chow down on pig flesh, but to show him that God was calling gentiles as well as Jews. And those God called friend debated his instructions, but always with the purpose of obeying the intent.

Why wouldn’t he ask such a thing? Same thing I told Waldo, I’m setting a personal example of eliminating sin from my body, not a national example, except as I try to encourage others to set the same example.

166

Why not? After all, there’s nothing wrong with killing an innocent if God commands it. The act in and of itself has no moral significance.

167

How old were you when you had a good grasp of your human father’s morality? i.e. what he would and wouldn’t do? When he would and wouldn’t kill? When did you decide he was either a good man, an evil man, or somewhere in between… and looking back now can still say you had it right?

When you’re really little, most people alternate between idolizing their parents and saying they’re going to be murdered for minor infractions. But after many years of close interaction, you get a pretty good idea of what kind of people they are. When do most children realize that, “he’s going to kill me,” is just a metaphor?

I’m certain, because of years of close study, that that instruction would not suit his purposes today.

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errm, maybe in your house. I can honestly say I never once feared my father would kill me, no matter what I did.

169

Ha…Trihs…I hope you see the paradox here.

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There’s no paradox. The point I was making is that even IF there was a “God”, there’s no way of knowing it, much less of knowing what this “God” wants.

171

…In which case if there was a God that we didn’t know about, us not knowing about him wouldn’t nullify his existence. When you say “First, there is no God,” that leads me to think that you know there is no God…after having admitted that there very well could be a God.

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I know there is no God the way I know there are no invisible pink teleporting fairies; the laws of physics and logic forbid both of them. My point is that even accepting the standard “but physics and logic don’t apply to God” nonsense, you still have no knowledge about the supposed God or what it wants.

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I can honestly say I never did either. But, unfortunately, some do. And for some it’s true that they might be killed… But, I never really got the terror I saw in some kids my age when they talked about what their dad was going to do to them. I never felt that.

But, then, what you’re saying is that you knew very early on what your dad was likely to do in a given situation, right? That was my point, by the way.

174

Trihs ol pal, the paradox of which you keep on running into is saying that you know there is no God due to physics and logic, and yet keep openly admitting that their could very well be a God–albeit, one that you don’t know about–but a God none the less.

In which case you would then have to argue that this God of whom we don’t know about is all-powerful, and yet lacks the ability to make his presence known to that which he has created. Such a God that could exist doesn’t sound like to much of a God, more like a…idk, overseerer. Now if you want to claim theres a God we don’t know about, then ok, or if you want to claim their is no God period, then ok, but you can’t really reconcilliate atheism and a detached deism.

175

All of this can be dismissed with one simple statement: God made it this way. Unless, of course, you want to retract your statements about God being omnipotent and instead claim that he is bound by certain univeral truths (such as, “something gained without effort is quickly neglected”). But I’m going to assume that you do believe God to be omnipotent and ask why God simply didn’t make it so that things gained without effort do provide a sense of accomplishment. To be fair, you seem to have answered that already (but perhaps you want to expand upon it):

If I’m understanding you correctly, God created a reality that allows for unpleasantness simply because it was less “boring” than the alternative. First of all, if he’s truly omnipotent, then by definition he can create a universe where his creations are blissfully happy all the time and he is thoroughly entertained or fulfilled or whatever. A god that is able to create such a universe and chooses not to is simply an asshole in my opinion, and I want nothing to do with him.

I realize that this thread was not started so we could debate the problem of evil, but since you used a flawed analogy (comparing God to a human parent), I can’t help jumping in here.

Also, given your penchant for using nit-picky excuses not to answer fairly straightforward questions (though I admit that I got a bit of a laugh out of the “I don’t have a son” excuse, as that was indeed worthy of any “evil lawyer”), I’ll put this in terms as clear as I possibly can. 1) Do you believe that God is not omnipotent and is instead limited by certain universal realities? 2) If you do believe that God is omnipotent, then how do you explain why he didn’t create a universe that is both entertaining/fulfilling to him and free of unpleasantness for us?

And to return to the question of whether or not you’d kill your son, allow me to rephrase: Let’s pretend that you have a son. Let’s also pretend that God has changed his mind about human sacrifice, and he would find it entertaining or “good” or whatever for you to kill your son. God communicates this desire to you and also tells you that he has no purpose other than his own entertainment. Would you kill your son? I know this requires imagination, but please try. Perhaps I can inspire you with my own example: when people ask me what I would do with the money if I won the lottery, I don’t dismiss it by saying, “I don’t play the lottery, so I couldn’t possibly win” or “I don’t believe I ever will win, so I won’t answer.” I instead use my imagination and give them an answer about how I would use the money. Challenge yourself; you might find that you get a sense of accomplishment from it!

I’m also very interested in hearing your answer to the question that is at the root of the previous one: Is something right because God says it is, or does God say it’s right because it is? (This last possibility is obviously similar to my earlier question about whether or not there are limitations on God, which is why I’m keen to see your response.)

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No, I didn’t. But “not predictable” =/= “must be feared”. If* that’s *your point, then fine, but it’s a non sequitur. I know my father was not to be feared because of the way he lived the rest of his life - an open book, all emotions and thoughts out in the open. That’s not an argument to be made for any version of God I’ve encountered.

177

I think we’ve been on the verge of creating a culture that gets a sense of accomplishment without any effort. Everyone needs to be praised for doing nothing, or given marks for getting the answer wrong… But, even if there is a sense of accomplishment, there would be no personal growth; you wouldn’t learn anything from it.

If by universal realities, you mean the ones of the universe we know, no, I don’t believe He’s bound by them. If by universal realities, you mean there are limits to the reality that He lives in as well, then yes, I would assume so. I just don’t know what they are, but don’t believe they would be as limiting as ours.

God is not capricious. He is not given to doing things on a whim, as has been suggested by those asking this question. So, I have been ignoring it because it’s ludicrous. The one thing I think would be inherently evil is a god governed by whim. Tell me how you would win the lottery in a universe where it is impossible to play in the first place.

If you create a ceramic tea set for the purpose of target practice, that is its intended use. No one, not even you, can now go back and say, “well, that isn’t what it was created for.” Even saying that good is determined by the intent of god doesn’t suggest that he is going to change that intent with every change of the wind. Having created this universe for our benefit, it would be evil then to decide to toy with it for his own pleasure, even for a god.

I can’t even comment because you gave no reason why this is supposedly flawed. Although all analogies break down at some point, this one is pretty solid. The Christian God is consistantly described as being a father who is developing us into something more mature than simply human.

(out of time.)

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I did, but you ignored it. So let’s try again, shall we?

Human parents did not create the world that they and their children have to live in. They’re forced to adapt to it and help their children learn to adapt as well. If God is omnipotent, he’s not forced to adapt to anything. He can control every single aspect of the world he’s placed us in, and he could create one where we live exclusively in bliss and yet manage to also grow personally (or better yet, not have to “grow” because we’re already “more mature than simply human,” whatever you mean by that). That’s a huge difference between God and human parents and makes your analogy (and the Bible’s) flawed.

Unless you are God, you couldn’t possibly know for sure that he isn’t capricious. You take it on faith because a book tells you so or you believe God has spoken to you or you just really really want it to be the case. However, I choose to look at the evidence in trying to determine what sort of God he is (if he indeed exists). And even a single instance of human pain proves that God is either incompetent or evil. Even if I grant that God intended for the universe to benefit us, that’s pretty clearly not how it’s turned out. So either he’s not omnipotent and he really screwed up somewhere (in which case, why should I put any trust in the idiot whatsoever), or he changed his mind somewhere along the way, which even you admit would make him evil.

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Still dodging the question, I see.

Would you kill your son if God asked you to?

Your current answer seems to be “Well … God wouldn’t ask me to do that.”

But how do you justify that belief? It’s not like He’s asking you to do anything WRONG or BAD. Since God is the only arbiter of morality, whatever He asks you to do must automatically be good and moral.

So he might speak to you and say “ch4rl3s, go down to the soup kitchen and feed the poor.”

Or he might say “ch4rl3s, go get a pistol and put a bullet in that baby’s head.”

Both things would be good, moral things for you to do. And if God asks you to do a good, moral thing, why wouldn’t you do it?

180

You cannot know the mind of God…but I can.