Exactly, His4ever. God is sovereign.
RELIGION and the BIBLE is not. They’re not God. They’re merely ways to reach him.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Super Gnat *
**Well, obviously you yourself have freely chosen to reject God, so I’m not really sure what you’re arguing here. Are you saying that your own choice somehow doesn’t count?
[quote]
I din’t freely choose to reject god, and plainly don’t believe in him. And I’ve no particular reason to do so. I’m arguing against the stance that god can’t be “loving” and condemn people to an eternity of suffering for totally arbitrary reasons : you believe in that : eternal bliss. You believe in any of the 392 465 others equally believable stories : eternal suffering. That is the description of a cruel and capricious god.
Exactly. And apparently, I’ve been born only to be tortured eternally, according to some posters. That’s the whole point of my life, apparently.
Exactly my point. There no way to avoid displeasing this cruel god. He created us this way. Except by accepting some arbitrary statement that I should believe at face value because a stranger say so. Why don’t you recognize that there’s no god but God and that Mohammad is his prophet? I’m sure you heard about him. The likehood to make the good choice are the same. Given the enormous number of religions, it means that your chances to be right are extremely low, and…actually essentially random. And on that random basis, people will be tortured forever or not…
I would add that the serial killer accepting Jesus while in the death row will enjoy eternal bliss. His little say, Jewish, victim will burn forever for not having done the same. Really, I like your brand of god…
And your point is? That if person X (let’s call him Adam) choose to buy a gun and kill people, person Y who opened an orphanage should be executed? What exactly is uncorrect in my analogy?
More exactly, as you wrote yourself above, to accept Jesus, etc… And what exactly was the point in torturing forever those people who choose not to serve him? Fine analogy…Either you serve me, either I’m going to do very, very, bad things to you…that’s all the meaning of your life… I would call that…not sure…slavery? sadism?
Fine. So god decided to torture people…well…because it wanted so. And he can do as he pleases. In other words he’s a cruel tyrant of the worst specie…The more I post in this thread, the more your god looks like what you call the devil, you know?
Nope…it isn’t . It’s the choice between tasting an apple or not, or knowing the difference between wrong and right or not, in this case. A meaningful choice doesn’t need to have dreadful consequences attached to it. “Do as you please” offers a choice. “Do what I tell you or else, I’ll kill you” isn’t a real choice.
If they can’t look at god in his face without being obliterated, that’s because god wants it to be so. Once again he’s all powerful and nothing like that could happen if he didn’t want it. And as we noted before, men can’t avoid sinning. Once again necessarily because this all-powerful god decided to make them this way.
And as I wrote, his “come in”, according to some posters , is actually “come in or else I’m going to shoot you” (actually much worse than that)
Fine…So you’re aknowledging that he has every right to make people suffer horribly if they don’t accept his unclear “come in”. By your own admission, he’s a cruel tyrant. And my whole point “on what basis exactly can you state such things and still pretend that he’s a loving god?”
Nope. I just don’t believe in god, in heaven or whatever. I’m just stating that the concept of hell and eternal suffering is totally contradictory with the concept of a loving god.
And yes, a loving and all-powerful god, assuming that he would want to create people (why? I’m wondering), would offer them happiness without strings, or even worse threats attached.
This god presented in this thread is a cruel, tyrannic, capricious, jealous, domineering, arbitrary, sadistic, petty, being. In other words, he once again fits perfectly the definition of Satan (with the “all-powerful” part added)
Ahhh, Lekatt. Wrong on both counts. I do feel God’s love and acceptance and fear isn’t all I know. I know God’s great love through His sacrifice for me. I’ve accepted and trusted in that and know His love.
Everytime you say God doesn’t punish anyone for anything I will refute you, if I happen to catch your post. In light of what the Scriptures say, this statement that you keep parroting over and over is ludicrous in my humble opinion. Nothing personal against you.
For any lurkers reading these conversations, this statement that God will never punish anyone for anything can be challenged by God’s word. Read it for yourself. All of it, for a whole picture; not the one sided view many have. Anyone can go to crosswalk.com and use the Bible tool helps to look up the word punish, judgment, wrath, etc. and see what comes up. They’ll come up in both the old and new testaments.
smiling bandit
[Moderator Hat ON]
smiling bandit, I VERY strongly suggest you NEVER use that phrase in here again. And Latro, don’t call your fellow posters “disgusting”. Cool it, you two.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
That was the answer I expected. So, you’re agreeing that actually we have not the ability not to sin. Hence that god choose to punish us for something we were unable to do. Like punishing a boy in a wheelchair because he can’t run.
So, similarily, if I point a gun to your face and tell you “say that clairobscur is the greatest being on earth or I kill you” and you don’t, you can’t blame me for having kiled you. That’s all your fault, right? Same thing if I vaguely mention that I like the color blue and I kill you the following day because you don’t wear blue?
Nope. I don’t blame god because I don’t believe he exists (but I would sure blame him for everything wrong if I believed he existed and were all-powerful).
Actually, I blame you for worshipping a being despite the obvious cruelty he displays…
And indeed, the chances you’re going to change my mind are extremely low. Even changing my mind toward the worship of an actually benevolent god (like the christian god some other people on this board believe in) would be an extremely unlikely event.
And I doubt I will change your mind, either. But I couldn’t let pass without reacting your comments about this “loving torturer” of yours.
And possibly some people who read this thread and have less opposite and definite position on this issue will find this exchange interesting, and it will help them make up their mind. Hopefully not by joining your version of the christian religion. Very honnestly, I can’t find any sensible reason why someone would worship the being you’re describing except out of fear.
That was the answer I expected. So, you’re agreeing that actually we have not the ability not to sin. Hence that god choose to punish us for something we were unable to do. Like punishing a boy in a wheelchair because he can’t run.
So, similarily, if I point a gun to your face and tell you “say that clairobscur is the greatest being on earth or I kill you” and you don’t, you can’t blame me for having kiled you. That’s all your fault, right? Same thing if I vaguely mention that I like the color blue and I kill you the following day because you don’t wear blue?
Nope. I don’t blame god because I don’t believe he exists (but I would sure blame him for everything wrong if I believed he existed and were all-powerful).
Actually, I blame you for worshipping a being despite the obvious cruelty he displays…
And indeed, the chances you’re going to change my mind are extremely low. Even changing my mind toward the worship of an actually benevolent god (like the christian god some other people on this board believe in) would be an extremely unlikely event.
And I doubt I will change your mind, either. But I couldn’t let pass without reacting your comments about this “loving torturer” of yours.
And possibly some people who read this thread and have less opposite and definite position on this issue will find this exchange interesting, and it will help them make up their mind. Hopefully not by joining your version of the christian religion. Very honnestly, I can’t find any sensible reason why someone would worship the being you’re describing except out of fear.
I tried posting and it didn’t go through. If I wind up with a double post, sorry.
clairobsur, you’ve made your decision about God evidently. You think He’s satan. Immediately this Scripture comes to my mind:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20
Guinastasia, you’re right God is sovereign. I also believe the Bible is His word to us and thus is the authority on what is the truth. You’re right about religion. God has nothing to do with religion, which is man’s feeble attempts to be good enough to please God. Relgion saves no one, Jesus saves.
That was the answer I expected. So, you’re agreeing that actually we have not the ability not to sin. Hence that god choose to punish us for something we were unable to do. Like punishing a boy in a wheelchair because he can’t run.
So, similarily, if I point a gun to your face and tell you “say that clairobscur is the greatest being on earth or I kill you” and you don’t, you can’t blame me for having kiled you. That’s all your fault, right? Same thing if I vaguely mention that I like the color blue and I kill you the following day because you don’t wear blue?
Nope. I don’t blame god because I don’t believe he exists (but I would sure blame him for everything wrong if I believed he existed and were all-powerful).
Actually, I blame you for worshipping a being despite the obvious cruelty he displays…
And indeed, the chances you’re going to change my mind are extremely low. Even changing my mind toward the worship of an actually benevolent god (like the christian god some other people on this board believe in) would be an extremely unlikely event.
And I doubt I will change your mind, either. But I couldn’t let pass without reacting your comments about this “loving torturer” of yours.
And possibly some people who read this thread and have less opposite and definite position on this issue will find this exchange interesting, and it will help them make up their mind. Hopefully not by joining your version of the christian religion. Very honnestly, I can’t find any sensible reason why someone would worship the being you’re describing except out of fear.
I’m not going to argue with you anymore on this, you’ve made up your mind and it’s clear you don’t understand anything I’ve tried to say. I don’t need to hear any more diatribes about boys in wheelchairs, etc. These make believe situations you’re coming up with do not represent God in any way but it’s unlikely that you’ll ever understand that. I’ve tried to explain to you about God, sin, salvation, etc. but you don’t undertand it and just continue your hateful rantings against God. Why are you ranting against someone you don’t even believe exists?
I’m sorry you don’t understand, clairobscur. God loves you very much and I’ll pray for you. (And no, I’m not being condescending or patronizing for anyone who wants to accuse me of that). I’m truy puzzled and concerned.
Have you been reading? The point is for you to choose where you’re going to go. Don’t you want a choice?
Okay, let’s assume for a moment that this is true (I don’t think it is… but we’re performing a thought experiment here). If people were randomly chosen by God to be Christians, and everyone else were to be tortured… then that’s just the way things would be. And you would have the choice not to worship such a God, just as you now choose not to worship the God of the Bible. What do you want me to say, that God’s not fair? He’s the reference point for truth. He created the universe, and everything and everyone in it. In Him all things live and move and have their being… He is the one who determines fairness. We are fortunate that instead of just forgetting about us, or automatically banishing everyone to eternal torment, He loved us enough to send His son to die for us so that if we desire we can choose to accept Him and go to heaven.
So are you saying that true repentence (by which I mean turning away from sin) should not be granted? Are you saying that the victim automatically should go to heaven because they happened to be killed? Are you saying that a non-Christian would enjoy eternity with a Christian God? There is no one who cannot be saved, serial killers included.
I… think we’re misunderstanding each other. I was trying to say that all of our choices, good and bad, have an impact on other people. Person X and person Y were not supposed to be connected in any way.
I don’t know what the point of the torture is. I’m sorry I can’t give you an answer to that. And why are you comparing this to slavery? As you yourself so aptly demonstrate, people can and do reject the Gospel. In doing so, they reject God and they reject heaven. Why would God treat unbelievers as if they had accepted Him when really they had rejected Him? I ask again, would you want to go to the heaven of a Christian God?
Well, there’s also the fact that we deserve it. We’re all sinners. Me, you, every human being that’s walked this earth with the exception of Jesus. I know you don’t believe me, as is your right, but we deserve to be tortured and kept away from God forever as punishment for our sins. God is a just God (one of His attributes), so He will give us what we deserve. However, God is also a merciful God. He saw that we could not help but sin, so He provided a way for us to come to Him if we so choose. By choosing to reject Him, you’re not losing anything. But by choosing to accept Him, you’re gaining everything.
Tasting an apple or not has some implications (though admittedly mild) in your digestive system. Some might interpret Adam and Eve’s choice as a choice between knowing the difference between right and wrong or not. Although a choice does not need to be awesomely important, a meaningful choice (by my definition) is something that is very important. So deciding whether or not to smell a flower is a choice, but deciding whether or not to go to college is a meaningful choice. And once again, if it isn’t a real choice, then why do so many people choose to say no?
God says “Do not eat from that tree or you’ll die”. Adam and Eve eat from the tree. Should God have disregarded their choice? Should He have said “I will override your wills in this matter and force you to live forever”? It seems as if you are saying that you’d rather not have a choice. Btw, the reason we can’t look at God is because of our sin.
More like, come in or else leave the premises. Look, you’ve got a choice between eternal life with God or eternal death without God. Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer, but believe it or not some people (such as yourself) decide to go for the eternal death option. So obviously there is a real choice here.
See above about us deserving it. As I said there, you probably don’t agree with me. But there’s no way to prove it until we die or until you believe the Bible (totally other issue that I don’t have the knowledge to debate), so there we stand.
Yes, but He is also a just God.
Which is what you would do if you were an all-powerful God. Has no bearing on this debate.
Au contraire, the God being presented (hopefully) is one who is just yet merciful and who values our free will. As I said, the choice is between eternal life with GOd or eternal death without God. If you hate Him so much, then fine. That’s your choice.
Also, in case it wasn’t made clear before, people are not sent to Hell for not accepting Christ. People are sent to hell for their sins. Jesus came down and said Hey, I’ll pay for 'em. All you have to do is cash the check, as it were.
That’s interesting, because a common theist claim is that without some “ultimate moral authority”, the morality of atheists simply winds up being arbitrary choices–there’s no ultimate standard to differentiate between the atheist who chooses to be a mass murderer and the atheist who chooses not to be. If the atheists who choose to not be mass murderers force the atheists who do choose to be mass murderers to stop (by locking them up for the rest of their lives, for example), they’re not upholding some fundamental moral constant, they’re just using their greater firepower to compel the other group to accept their ultimately arbitrary value of “respect for human life”.
But what this statement shows is that theist morality is ultimately just as arbitrary. God is bigger than we are and stronger than we are, so if he decides that the color yellow is sinful and everyone who wears yellow or drives a yellow car or has a yellow notepad on his desk must be put to death by the faithful in some lingering public spectacle, and then burn in the Lake of Fire forever in the afterlife, well, like I said, he’s bigger than we are and stronger than we are. Fundamentally, it’s no different than if the President for Life of some dictatorship someplace decided to execute everyone who wore yellow or was born on Tuesday or whatever–he controls the army and the Presidential Elite Guard and the security police, so unless you can overthrow him, you are forced to accept his arbitrary whims. Since God is all-powerful and can’t be overthrown, we have no choice but to knuckle under to whatever arbitrary moral standards he sets (“Sacrifice oxen to me!..No, wait, don’t!..Set Saturday aside as a holy day, and kill anyone who does any work on that day!..No, make that Sunday that is the holy day of the week!..Homosexual sex is wicked!..So are cotton-wool blends!” I suppose God could have just as easily said the man being on top is wicked. Or tomorrow God could order us all to refrain from heterosexual sex except for the purpose of procreating new worshippers; otherwise, we are to have homosexual sex as often and with as many partners as possible, for the greater glory of God.)
According to Super Gnat, we live in the ultimate despotism.
Well, yeah. Therefore we’re fortunate that God is just and merciful and consistent and that He provided a way for us to go to heaven to be with Him. The general point I was trying to make is that there’s no point in whining over things being unfair if God Himself is the standard for objective morality.
In the interests of clarity, substitute the word ‘God’ for ‘things’ in the above post.
Originally posted by H4E:
Just curious, and I sincerely hope this question won’t be out of line in GD, but do you (H4E) only post in threads pertaining to religious issues? I mean, do you ever post on any other subject? And if the answer to those questions are yes, how do you do it? Do you have certain keywords, like God, Satan, bible, whatever, that you specifically search for?
Anyway, I apologize for the hijack. It’s just something that’s made me wonder whilst I’ve been pretty much in lurker mode. Please return now to your regulary scheduled debate.
You can’t meaningfully say “God is the definer of morals. If he decided that the color yellow was sinful, then it would be so” and then follow up with “Fortunately God is just”. By the first statement, God is the source of justice, so if God decided that the color yellow is sinful, that would be “just”, by definition. If God decided that since all humans are sinful (by his standards, whatever those standards may be, such as for example if he had created all human beings with blond, sinfully yellowish hair), and damned us all to an eternity of torment, that would be “just” as well. If God created the entire human race solely to take pleasure in damning and tormenting them, that would also be “just”.
Your second statement implies that there is some standard of justice outside of or above God, in contradiction to the first statement. It implies that if God decided the color yellow was sinful, we could say that this arbitrary decision was unjust. But if that’s the case, then we should also be able to say now whether or not the alleged moral standards and actions of God are unjust or not.
Let’s see what God has to say:
For this is what the Lord says -
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited -
he says:
I am the Lord,
and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right. Isaiah 45:18-19
Seems clear to me. If God, the one and only God, creator of all things, requires man to follow his commandments, that’s what man should strive to do. Did not God provide the manner of reconciliation when man erred(sinned)? Yes, he did. You don’t have to like it. Believe me, being a Christian is truly a lot harder than many people think. It runs counter to the all too human impulses we’re subject to everyday. Temptation is, literally, everywhere. We also see the consequence of succumbing to temtation everywhere as well. I struggle to live up to a standard I know I can never meet, but that doesn’t invalidate the standard. Gives me incentive to wake up each morning and try again.
No, MEBuckner, God is not the ultimate despot. Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion, ignoring God in favor of man’s imperfect judgment - whose, by the way, yours? mine? anyone and everyone’s? would lead to the ultimate in despotism. Despotism of the individual, with no standard, no norms, no rule of law. And no one with veto power. Don’t tell me that’s not what you’re arguing. If you reject God, you must then substitute some other standard, some measure by which we judge our public and private lives. Majority rules? Hmm. Wouldn’t that be despotism of the majority, in your argument? After all, even a majority can be wrong, can’t it? Anarchy, in its purest form? Bah, that’s irresponsibility disguised as freedom. So, what’s left?
Argue with God. Go ahead. I do, with healthy fear and respect, I can assure you. I don’t understand a great many things, but the more I read the Bible, the better my understanding of the One who made the rules I struggle with everyday. I am in awe of the majesty and wonder of God; the Bible can seem like such a confusing jumble of word pictures and strange doctrines of long ago, until, yes, until, you seek knowledge. The words aren’t there just to be some fairly nice poetry. They have meaning, and the depth of the layers of meaning must be sought out. I can’t seem to find it, but God assures us that those who seek Him will find Him, that God will let all who seek find Him.
Wow. A single-digit midget caught on fast.
And as far as I’m concerned, putting an (one) exit at the end of a long, ardous maze in which you cannot go backwards isn’t right, fair, or just. Demolishing the maze, or even popping in to point things out occasionally, would be infinitley more fair.
And, hopefool, welcome to the Boards. That answer is yes, AFAIK, but we don’t like to have personal inquiries here in Great Debates. 7 posts and you already catch on quick. I hope you like it here.
Let’s see what God has to say:
For this is what the Lord says -
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited -
he says:
I am the Lord,
and there is no other.
I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right. Isaiah 45:18-19
Seems clear to me. If God, the one and only God, creator of all things, requires man to follow his commandments, that’s what man should strive to do. Did not God provide the manner of reconciliation when man erred(sinned)? Yes, he did. You don’t have to like it. Believe me, being a Christian is truly a lot harder than many people think. It runs counter to the all too human impulses we’re subject to everyday. Temptation is, literally, everywhere. We also see the consequence of succumbing to temtation everywhere as well. I struggle to live up to a standard I know I can never meet, but that doesn’t invalidate the standard. Gives me incentive to wake up each morning and try again.
No, MEBuckner, God is not the ultimate despot. Carrying this argument to its logical conclusion, ignoring God in favor of man’s imperfect judgment - whose, by the way, yours? mine? anyone and everyone’s? would lead to the ultimate in despotism. Despotism of the individual, with no standard, no norms, no rule of law. And no one with veto power. Don’t tell me that’s not what you’re arguing. If you reject God, you must then substitute some other standard, some measure by which we judge our public and private lives. Majority rules? Hmm. Wouldn’t that be despotism of the majority, in your argument? After all, even a majority can be wrong, can’t it? Anarchy, in its purest form? Bah, that’s irresponsibility disguised as freedom. So, what’s left?
Argue with God. Go ahead. I do, with healthy fear and respect, I can assure you. I don’t understand a great many things, but the more I read the Bible, the better my understanding of the One who made the rules I struggle with everyday. I am in awe of the majesty and wonder of God; the Bible can seem like such a confusing jumble of word pictures and strange doctrines of long ago, until, yes, until, you seek knowledge. The words aren’t there just to be some fairly nice poetry. They have meaning, and the depth of the layers of meaning must be sought out. I can’t seem to find it, but God assures us that those who seek Him will find Him, that God will let all who seek find Him.
Yes, you’re right. Thank you for pointing out the paradox.
Upon further reflection, what I was trying to say was that we are fortunate that God is 1)not capricious, in that He is consistent in what He does and what He tells us to do; 2)has laid out exactly what we would have to do to be perfect (see 10 commandments) so that we know the rules; 3)Hi Opal!; and 4)atones for our sins by following His own rules, that a blood sacrifice is necessary for the remission of sins.
I would lean more towards the first interpretation, but with the caveat that God allows Himself to be limited by the rules that He set. God has certain attributes that can be depended on, and one of those is abiding by His own rules. For example, He makes a covenant (promise) with the Israelites “Obey me and I will bless you, disobey me and I will curse you”. The rest of the Old Testament bears this out; good things happen to Israel (later Judah*) when they obey God, bad things happen when they drift into idol worship.
[sub]*I say Judah because when original Israel broke up into two kingdoms Judah obeyed God once in a while but new Israel never did.[/sub]
As always, the theist accuses the atheist of having an arbitrary basis of morality. What Super Gnat’s admission shows is that the morality of the theist–or rather, the hypothetical morality of God–is also arbitrary. Most theists reject the idea that there is a moral standard above, beyond, or outside of God. But that just leaves God on an equal moral footing with the individual or the majority or the philosopher-king or whoever is propounding a moral standard. The theist’s God would have more power to enforce his will, certainly, but if the argument just boils down to that–“God is bigger than you are, so you have to accept what he says”–and frequently the theist argument does boil down to just that; see the Book of Job–then this is not in principle different from “might makes right”, the Law of the Jungle. If we don’t accept that the might of humans frees them from the need to be accountable for their actions, we shouldn’t accept that the incomparably greater might of the theist’s God would free him from the need to be accountable for his actions either.
It may be argued that God is not only more powerful, but also that he knows more. But we don’t blindly accept arguments from greater knowledge for entities who are less than God. “The President for Life has all the different secret police organizations and whole armies of informers to provide him with information; his security forces tap every phone line and listen in on every conversation. You must accept that he knows more about what’s best for this country, and that he therefore must have had a good reason for having your entire family taken out and shot.”
The theist may reply that God’s knowledge and power are not merely greater but are perfect. But then shouldn’t God’s powers of reason and argument also be perfect? Why is God, by even the admission of theists, so often mute and unable to provide any better reason other than, as in the Book of Job, “I’m just God, and that’s all there is to it”? “Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s a Mystery, but someday after we’re dead, we’ll understand.” The God of the Bible is quite poor at articulating any consistent set of moral standards to follow. (Almost all theists would tell us that infanticide is wicked and evil, and some would go so far as to say that every newly-fertilized zygote deserves the full protection from harm we give to a newborn baby. But of course a Bible-believing theist cannot really claim any Biblical warrant for saying “Infanticide is wrong”; all they can say is “God hasn’t told us to kill these particular infants or unborn children, so killing them is wrong.”) And to the extent there are consistent moral standards in the Bible, modern Christians (fortunately) show little inclination to follow them.
Of course when I say things such as that individuals or groups need to be accountable for their actions–that we can’t just arbitrarily lock people up or kill them without providing some reason and principle for our actions besides “Because we can, that’s why”–I’m also implicitly presupposing some axiomatic principle–respect for human dignity and autonomy or respect for human life. (For that matter, arguing that moral standards be consistent is itself axiomatic–Why should I or God or anyone be “consistent”?) And I can’t in some sense prove my axioms; I can try to boil them down to the most basic set possible, and then be consistent about them (“OK, so I don’t think newly-fertilized zygotes should have rights, whereas hypothetical sapient beings from another planet should or self-aware artificial intelligences or newborn cloned humans should”). But there’s still that unpleasant sense of teetering on the edge of the abyss. In the end, I can’t really say it isn’t all just meaningless anarchy. I can make basic assertions, and try to show why everyone should accept those basic assertions, and then try to show why other things follow from those assertions. But if someone won’t accept the basic assertions–if he values his own life, but sees no reason to value anyone else’s–I guess all we can do is do our best to impose our will on him.
The theists like to think they’ve found a way out of this quandary, just like they like to think they’ve found some way out of a lot of other quandaries, but they really haven’t. As this thread shows, theists haven’t really solved the problem of why some things are right and some things are wrong. “Because I say so.” “Because God says so.” Just like the “First Cause” argument in cosmology, it just moves everything back a step. “Everything needs a cause, and the ultimate cause of everything is God.” “Well, what caused God, then?” “Oh, God is uncaused.” “Well, then why can’t the Universe simply be self-existent?” “The moral standards of atheists are arbitrary, because they don’t refer to anything higher than human reason and experience. Moral standards must be related to God’s ultimate moral standards.” “Well, where did God get his moral standards?” “Oh, he just made them up. Whatever God says is right.” “Well, then why can’t we just accept the moral standards human beings come up with using their own reason?”
Of course it’s not that I really believe in God, but wish to reject his standards. I don’t believe in God. But it’s often asserted that there must be a God, or there is no morality. This discussion simply shows that humanist moral standards are no more arbitrary than theist ones, and at least human reason actually exists and is accessible to us.
And finally a huge practical problem is that, if I proclaim a moral standard, or “the majority” proclaims a moral standard, I or we or they are available to be questioned and asked to defend what we’re saying with some sort of reasoned argument. Whereas when “God” proclaims a moral standard, “God” is nowhere to be found to answer questions, and instead we have to argue with the fallible and mutually inconsistent self-anointed interpreters of “God’s” contradictory pronouncements, who frequently seem to provide no more justification for their positions than “Because God says so, that’s why”.