# Why Do People Get Defensive About God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 15, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142 "2007-12-15T23:27:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/281 "2007-12-19T15:27:30Z")
[QUOTE=MrDibble] So, I guess we know how you’re going to vote in the Pit thread on “liar in GD”, right? [/QUOTE] I already voted. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/282 "2007-12-19T15:49:30Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I never said it doesn’t matter. Please do not alter the points I make to accomodate your presumptions. 🙂 What I’m saying — no more no less — is that the evil is to be found not in the action carried out, but in the dark heart that made the moral decision to carry out the act. A person whose intention to commit mass murder is foiled by some physical obstacle is just as evil as the person who managed to unload his clip. [/QUOTE] But you did seem to be downplaying the evil of purely physical dissolution and suffering. I guess I misunderstood; but I’m still not sure how to interpret your passage quoted above, where you say that the death of the body is not the death of the real person. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/283 "2007-12-19T15:57:09Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] But you did seem to be downplaying the evil of purely physical dissolution and suffering. I guess I misunderstood; but I’m still not sure how to interpret your passage quoted above, where you say that the death of the body is not the death of the real person. [/QUOTE] The real person is a spirit, not a body. Jesus taught that man is born of water (his mother’s womb) and spirit (God’s breath) — that is, man is a dual creature. He is like an elephant in that he is flesh and blood, but he is also like God in that he is eternal and moral. I do not mean to diminish the tragedy of physical suffering. God knows I suffer plenty myself, just with my emphysema and other ailments. I’m not saying it’s not tragic, but it’s not evil. Events are not good or evil; men’s hearts are good or evil. By “heart” I mean “the vital or essential part; core” (American Heritage, 8th def.) ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/284 "2007-12-19T18:08:55Z")
Okay; thanks for the clarification. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/285 "2007-12-19T18:34:22Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] Okay; thanks for the clarification. [/QUOTE] Thank _you_ for the understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/286 "2007-12-19T19:28:00Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Thank _you_ for the understanding. [/QUOTE] Yeah, well, dualism is still false. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/287 "2007-12-19T19:51:41Z")
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion] Yeah, well, dualism is still false. 😛 [/QUOTE] You mean, as opposed to true. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/288 "2007-12-19T20:31:01Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I already voted. [/QUOTE] I can’t tell from your posts whether it was “yea” or “nay” - you said something about agreeing with **elucidator** , but since _his_ vote was “shrug”, I’m still not clear. ---
**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:** [December 19, 2007, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/289 "2007-12-19T20:55:13Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I haven’t said they are blocked from doing good by a universal measure. I’m saying that you cannot even know what another man values, which is why Christians are forbidden to make moral judgments about others. [/quote] Let me rephrase that. The universal measure was meant to apply to the definition of good, not the action. (I shouldn’t post right before bed.) We don’t know what anyone values, but we can get a good idea from actions and testimony. Again, sociopaths seem to not make choices on free will, but rather choices determined in part by genetics and physical eccentricities. I understand where your statement on moral judgments comes from, but that is a rule more honored in the breach, isn’t it? I swear I’ve heard Christian ministers make at least a few. > [@](#): > > I think we can in fact assume that God is more clever than you. And so if you can see the problem in changing the laws of physics to suit one purpose, why would you be surprised that He can see at least as much? Regarding constraints, we are _morally_ unconstrained. The notion of morality cannot be excluded from free will in a theological sense; otherwise, we’re just talking about laws of physics which have nothing to do with God. I know you canna change the laws of physics, Captain, but Mars gets along fine without earthquakes. (Or Marsquakes). Why not set up land masses right the first time, and not have them floating around running into each other? God must be a pretty poor builder if this is his best. > [@](#): > > Yes, we are. We may not be physically free, but that’s beside the point. In other words, maybe we are restrained in jail and therefore cannot harm people on Elm Street. Nevertheless, our moral freedom remains. We are free to hate those people just because they’re black or Jewish or Indian. Punctuating that hatred with a fist or club is just a physical thing. What is ugly (or beautiful) is in the heart. I’m obviously not talking about physical freedom. Do you not believe in psychology at all? Does someone lacking empathy able to make the same moral computations as someone with it? Our moral choices don’t come from a big book of what to do when. When we’re children, and say something mean that makes someone else sad, we pick up on it and try not to do it again. If we can’t recognize that we affected someone else, how can we learn? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/290 "2007-12-19T21:09:55Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] The real person is a spirit, not a body. Jesus taught that man is born of water (his mother’s womb) and spirit (God’s breath) — that is, man is a dual creature. He is like an elephant in that he is flesh and blood, but he is also like God in that he is eternal and moral. [/quote] An assertion that contradicts all the evidence we have. Pure delusion. There is no rational reason to believe in “spirits”, and every rational reason not to. [QUOTE=Liberal] I do not mean to diminish the tragedy of physical suffering. [/quote] You do every time you promote your fantasy that we have immortal spirits, and even worse that they are more important than our real selves. Your beliefs lead directly to a sociopathic worldview and behavior, if taken seriously. As I’ve said, building a worthwhile morality **requires** that your viewpoint be rejected or ignored. [QUOTE=Liberal] I’m not saying it’s not tragic, but it’s not evil. Events are not good or evil; men’s hearts are good or evil. By “heart” I mean “the vital or essential part; core” (American Heritage, 8th def.) [/QUOTE] In other words, the real part of us. Our body and our brain-based mind, not some self indulgent fantasy about spirits. Murder and rape and torture are evil because they hurt real flesh and blood and thinking people, not because of some imaginary spirit. People are evil because of what they do in the real world, and a worthwhile morality is based on actions and consequences in the real world, not actions and consequences involving some imaginary spirit. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/291 "2007-12-19T21:11:04Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Let me rephrase that. The universal measure was meant to apply to the definition of good, not the action. (I shouldn’t post right before bed.) We don’t know what anyone values, but we can get a good idea from actions and testimony. Again, sociopaths seem to not make choices on free will, but rather choices determined in part by genetics and physical eccentricities. I understand where your statement on moral judgments comes from, but that is a rule more honored in the breach, isn’t it? I swear I’ve heard Christian ministers make at least a few. [/quote] Sadly, they have indeed. Nevertheless, Jesus made it plain: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3) There are all sorts of things that can interfere with the sorts of ethical judgments most of us make from day to day, including sociopathy, autism, and just plain brain damage, like after a car wreck. But remember that I define goodness as an aesthetic, not an ethic. A person’s morality cannot be judged by his actions, as in the counterexample I gave before. > [@](#): > > I know you canna change the laws of physics, Captain, but Mars gets along fine without earthquakes. (Or Marsquakes). Why not set up land masses right the first time, and not have them floating around running into each other? God must be a pretty poor builder if this is his best. Sorry, but that sounds random. Mars isn’t even habitable and can’t hold a decent atmosphere. It seems to me that earth is just right, whether God created it or not. Obviously, I’m not a Biblical literalist, and so I believe the earth emerged from stardust just like all the other planets in the known universe, but there’s no reason God couldn’t have created it in exactly that manner, maybe even waiting through trillions of universes until the earth emerged, who knows. His eternity makes the length of time or number of tries it might have taken moot anyway. In any case, I’m not sure what you’re getting at about earthquakes and such. These are amoral as far as I can tell, even under ethics models of morality. > [@](#): > > I’m obviously not talking about physical freedom. Do you not believe in psychology at all? Does someone lacking empathy able to make the same moral computations as someone with it? Our moral choices don’t come from a big book of what to do when. When we’re children, and say something mean that makes someone else sad, we pick up on it and try not to do it again. If we can’t recognize that we affected someone else, how can we learn? I believe that our moral choices are not made by our brains, but by our spirits — which, as Jesus teaches, are our real and essential selves. Our bodies are just meat and bones, like an elephant. What makes us God-like is our spirit, as I explained to \*\*Sophistry and Illusion \*\* above. We merely _inhabit_ bodies in a temporal frame. A damaged brain that cannot obey the will of a spirit is no measure of a person’s morality (i.e., what they value). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/292 "2007-12-19T21:13:36Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Murder and rape and torture are evil because they hurt real flesh and blood and thinking people, not because of some imaginary spirit. [/QUOTE] Really? So the racist who hates niggers and burns crosses without drawing blood is a good guy? ---
**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:** [December 19, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/293 "2007-12-19T21:16:17Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I never said it doesn’t matter. Please do not alter the points I make to accomodate your presumptions. 🙂 What I’m saying — no more no less — is that the evil is to be found not in the action carried out, but in the dark heart that made the moral decision to carry out the act. A person whose intention to commit mass murder is foiled by some physical obstacle is just as evil as the person who managed to unload his clip. [/QUOTE] This I agree with. But you are making assumptions about the heart as much as we are. Just as you can’t tell that a heart is pure because someone is acting in a way that looks moral, you can’t tell that a heart is impure by someone acting evilly. Since we can’t tell for sure about real people, let’s go to art. Do you think Lenny in “Of Mice and Men” had an evil heart? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/294 "2007-12-19T21:15:51Z")
Incidentally, **Voyager** , I don’t think you’d want to remove the earth’s liquid core and plates. Without our magnetic field, we might be just another dead Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/295 "2007-12-19T21:22:01Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Really? So the racist who hates niggers and burns crosses without drawing blood is a good guy? [/QUOTE] As much as I dislike defending him, **Der Trihs** said they were flesh and blood people, not that they needed to be hurt in flesh and blood. I imagine a burning cross would do considerable mental harm. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/296 "2007-12-19T21:23:00Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] This I agree with. But you are making assumptions about the heart as much as we are. Just as you can’t tell that a heart is pure because someone is acting in a way that looks moral, you can’t tell that a heart is impure by someone acting evilly. Since we can’t tell for sure about real people, let’s go to art. Do you think Lenny in “Of Mice and Men” had an evil heart? [/QUOTE] No, no. I agree with you completely. I can’t tell whether it’s pure or impure. Regarding your example, I’m not an avid reader of fiction and am not familiar with it other than by name. I will say that in the movie _Sling Blade_, my opinion is that Karl Childers is not evil and that Doyle Hargraves is. But my opinion, if they were real characters, would be completely worthless in a moral sense. Now, before this gets even more tangential, let me say that I differentiate between a moral judgment and an ethical judgment. I do understand the need to make ethical judgments for the sake of a civil society. People who commit unethical acts need to be dealt with. Libertarianism is itself basically a philosophy of ethics. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/297 "2007-12-19T21:25:37Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] As much as I dislike defending him, **Der Trihs** said they were flesh and blood people, not that they needed to be hurt in flesh and blood. I imagine a burning cross would do considerable mental harm. [/QUOTE] Fine, then. He doesn’t burn crosses. He just watches negroes through tiny slits in his curtain and curses them in quiet mumbles as they pass by, hating them with a fierce but silent intensity. Is he a good man? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/298 "2007-12-19T21:32:24Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Fine, then. He doesn’t burn crosses. He just watches negroes through tiny slits in his curtain and curses them in quiet mumbles as they pass by, hating them with a fierce but silent intensity. Is he a good man? [/QUOTE] Why shouldn’t he be? I would say he’s wrong to have that much hate, of course. But he hasn’t done anything bad. In fact, despite his impressive hatred, which would give him good reason (for him) to do something, he does not. I would have to imagine that either his hatred is not enough to commit a bad act, or that it would be but he does not wish to cause harm for whatever reason. He isn’t necessarily good, but I wouldn’t say thoughts alone made him a bad person, simply a wrong one. We’d need to look at his actual acts to know whether he’s good or not. I don’t know what \*\*Der Trihs \*\* would say, though. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/299 "2007-12-19T21:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Really? So the racist who hates niggers and burns crosses without drawing blood is a good guy? [/QUOTE] And are black people real and made of flesh and blood, with minds just like everyone else ? And does racism have effects that affect those real flesh and blood people that go far beyond cross burning ? Yes it does. Hate is not evil. It’s only it’s effects upon real things which may or may not be evil. And spirits aren’t real. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142/300 "2007-12-19T21:39:24Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Why shouldn’t he be? [/QUOTE] You’re asking the wrong guy. I’ve said that moral judgments are unsound. All of them. It was \*\*DT \*\* who said that evil is defined by physical harm to flesh and blood. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-get-defensive-about-god/430142.md?page=16)