I’d say not only are you woefully unqualified to make that determination the facts also do not support you. Since humans came on the scene on this planet they have thrived and grown despite wars, disease, floods and everything else out to get us. Indeed, it may be argued a somewhat adverse environment is good overall for a species. Those that learn to adapt survive (survival of the fittest and all that jazz). Those that are coddled go the way of the Dodo the first time life throws a curve ball at them.
Why are you avoiding the question? I said I knew you didn’t believe in the Flood - what I was asking was whether a god who did cause the flood wouls be moral.
Well, god hasn’t done diddly, not existing and all. But I’m not omniscient. Even then, if I built a house with bannisters that would break off at the slightest pressure, so that I could reasonably expected to know that someone would get hurt, I’d liable. If God built a universe knowing people would get hurt, he either doesn’t care or is liable also.
I’m qualified to make that judgement by virtue of being human. Assuming God exists, I’m one of the people who has to put up with the poorly made human body and a hostile universe that he made.
Which kind of proves my point about how poorly made the world and humans themselves are made, doesn’t it ?
God the Social Darwinist ?
I’m buying my ticket early to get front row seats.
Whatever makes you happy and gets you through this life, sweetie.
I’m not avoiding it…I didn’t gather that this is what you were asking.
The God of the Old Testament was a wrathful sort. I do not find that God’s actions particularly noble or moral. But then I think the Bible was written by humans and the Old Testament god was the first step past a pantheon of gods who were responsible for all sorts of mischief (e.g Zeus and company). That particular definition of God I do not buy. It makes no sense…this is God who can do anything and the best he can do to rectify a situation is to flood the world? Why not just snap Godly fingers and make all the bad people disappear?
So your suggestion is that a just and moral god must make a Garden of Eden planet for us to live on where we just run around naked eating fruit all day, forever young and healthy where no one can so much as get a splinter and just gaze at the clouds in blissful ignorance?
You are allowed an opinion as a human no matter how wrongheaded. It seems to me to be able to make a qualified value judgement on how a Universe ought to be run you would need experience with putting one together yourself to understand all the factors that go into it.
No…or I am missing what you are getting at.
Why not? The whole planet operates roughly along the lines of evolution from one thing to a better thing and survival of the fittest. If God created the world then this was clearly part of that plan. The alternative is a stagnant world…never changing, never growing.
Huh?
Hokay. Now I’m not sure if you think a god who flooded the world was evil or just inefficient.
No, just no unnecessary dangers. If you got a mountain, some clown will fall off. If you got an ocean, someone will drown. But guy drowning in his own house - not so much.
I was merely pointing out the absurdity of the punishments meted out by god in the Old Testament. Dunno about you but they smack a lot more of story telling around the campfire than anything I would expect a God to actually do in those situations. And yes…I think efficiency would likely be a trait God would exhibit. Presumably God can do anything with a mere thought…why muck about?
As for was it evil I am not sure why you are trying to pin me on this.
IF the God I am suggesting exists and IF that God deemed it necessary to flood the earth and kill everything then I would say it is probably not evil as presumably God had some good reason for doing it that justified such an extreme act. Yes, it looks pretty awful to me too but if God were truly evil then I expect things would be a lot worse for us. If got was random or capricious then we should see a heck of alot more random weirdness (not the usual acts of nature…parting of the seas, flooding the world sorts of things) as God fucks around.
In the end however I think humans are quite incapable of judging a supreme being (and I am not counting Zeus as a Supreme Being or our wrathful Old Testament god). Yes you can have your opinion on the matter but it is worse than a two year old passing judgment on your actions. They are simply incapable of grasping all of the pieces that may go into a given decision to form a useful opinion of it. The difference between humans and a supreme being would be vastly larger in this respect.
It was nothing personal. I believe in live and let live so I was just supporting your decision as long as it’s not hurting anyone.
That would be great!! Don’t forget mind blowing orgasms any time.
My view is if we didn’t know what this world was about we wouldn’t miss it.
First of all, I’m not implying that the alternative to a purely good god is a purely evil one. God can easily be amoral.
Let me rephrase the argument to get it away from the flood level. Consider God G performing act F. Act F is an act so horrible (like genocide) that it is supportable by all ethically supportable human moral systems, no matter the justification.
The first question is whether god can commit this act. if he cannot, it must be because he either
a) Is subject to human morals - certainly not the case
or
b) Subject to some universal moral code greater than god. Then he is not omnipotent, and is not god.
c) Unable to perform it due to his omnibenevolence. In another thread we have already shown that omnipotences, omniscience and omnibenevolence cannot all be true. Thus this case is impossible.
So, we’ve shown a god can perform F. Is F moral?
a) It is by definition, since God performed it. This must imply that it would also be moral if a person performed it. Yet F is universally acknowledged as immoral. Since God can do anything, and anything he can do is moral, then anything we can do is moral, and thus morality does not exist for humans. This is not a paradox, but is certainly not a conclusion I suspect you would like to draw.
b) It is moral because there is a good, though unknown, reason for it. From our point of view, we can’t tell if this is any different from case a), since God can’t or won’t tell us his reasons, so we must believe that action F is justified on faith. The real moral dilemma of this case is that it opens any action, however wrong, to justification. This justification does not say the action is right because God did it, but it is right because we trust god had a reason we don’t know. Why should we not use the same justification for performing seemingly immoral acts here? A despot can easily claim he is in possession of information he cannot share justifying act F.
In this case we don’t assume god is always moral (or else choice a would apply) so we cannot assume the action is justified. Thus, you assume it is moral, just as in a.
Now, you may think this not matter, since we have no control over what god does. But for those who think god can involve himself in earthly affairs, it is a real problem, since someone talking to a being who claims he is god has no filter to help decide whether the acts the being is requesting are moral or not. If God’s morality matched human morality, one could be sure an entity asking you to massacre a tribe is not god, but the devil or an evil alien or something like that. In your system, you have the choice of refusing, and thus disobeying god, a sin, or agreeing, and possibly being tricked into doing evil. So, it’s a real problem.
I think the logic of this is missing something.
There is a difference between being able to do a thing and actually choosing to do a thing.
Is God able to commit an immoral act? Sure else as you said God loses his omnipotence.
Would God ever commit an immoral act (as defined by God and not us)? Assuming an omnibenevolent God then no.
Let’s bring it a bit closer to home with an example I think we can all understand. I could walk out of my house and go randomly kill someone. That said I will NEVER do such a thing as it goes against the grain of who I am in a big, big way.
So I think you can have an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God. God can be capable of evil without ever actually doing evil as a matter of choice.
Well…if we knew God was omnibenevolent and we knew that it was, in fact, God telling us to do something then I do not think you need a filter to do God’s bidding and had best get with the program and do whatever it is that is being asked of you.
That said there is NO way we can know either of those things and frankly anyone on this planet having personal conversations with God had best be committed. Indeed I would be highly suspicious of any “God” telling me to do something seemingly immoral on his behalf. I mean this is God…why would God need me to be the instrument of his will when presumably God could blink whatever needs doing into being done? A “test of my faith” is bullshit too…if God is omniscient God has a better handle on the depth of my faith than I probably do.
So, as a practical matter I agree that the “God told me to do it” bit is rife with problems. History shows many, many people who do real evil have fallen back on this not to mention a great many of those were legitimately insane.