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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The President of the Immortals
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
God simply cannot be a sadist. That is not an option. Either he is good or he doesn't exist. The reason I say this is because God is, by definition, the first cause and creator of all things, including our minds and moral sense. If he is evil, then we are evil and in no position to make any moral judgment about him.
Didn't God create sadists too, along with their "minds and moral sense"? Or does God only get credit for creating your morality? This seems like a pretty clear case of creating God in your own image. It also seems like a slightly recycled version of the Euthyphro dilemma, edited for monotheists.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
If you believe that God micromanages the universe such that I should give him the credit if my souffle doesn't fall, then there's no way to escape the conclusion that he is, at least, unconcerned with human suffering--and very possibly gratuitously and malevolently cruel.
However, if you assume that he created a universe governed by cause and effect, and really can't interfere with this without betraying his true nature, and that he tries to teach us how to deal with this in a way that will make us more like him, then it's not so bad.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
Didn't God create sadists too, along with their "minds and moral sense"? Or does God only get credit for creating your morality? This seems like a pretty clear case of creating God in your own image.
Not at all.
Nothing I have said contradicts the possibility of the operation of free will. But we cannot talk about morality at all (of whatever version) unless there does actually exist a moral sense. If we assert that a sadistic God exists, then we would have to wonder as to the basis by which we can judge him to be a sadist. That is the point CS Lewis was making in the passage I quoted, and I would be interested to see your refutation of his point.
Of course, the alternative is atheism, but that provides no answers at all concerning both morality and suffering. Death, agony and suffering is just a case of matter being reconfigured - nothing more. Such a position flies in the face of the normal human response to suffering. Therefore the atheistic view is totally out of kilter with reality.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
If you are talking with such a person the only useful answer is "I'm so sorry." and maybe "How can I help?" (even if it's only running to the pharmacy or watching the kids for an hour).
Someone in this case isn't looking for an argument, and will in fact most likely get angry if you give her one. But she is often looking for evidence--any evidence--that someone in the universe loves her and cares about the shit that she's undergoing. And even minor actions can give her back a sense of hope, and even sometimes of God's love in spite of everything.
Job's friends would have done great if they'd only had the sense to keep their mouths shut.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Unreformed:
Second, the vast majority of suffering in the world is either caused by human actions, whether sins of commission or sins of omission. Even during natural disasters the amount of suffering is vastly exacerbated by our actions (or lack thereof). E.g., if we had spent more money on the levees in New Orleans the amount of suffering from Katrina would have been vastly reduced. Sin, much like shit, rolls downhill.
That, if I may say so, is quite blatant double standards. Sins of commission are not at all the same as sins of ommission - and the only thing preventing natural disasters from being utter catastrophes is human action. Shit may roll downhill - but all that is keeping us out of the shit at all is human action.
As for God being the President of the Immortals, he certainly is in the Book of Job. The God that "Hardens Pharaoh's heart" is the President of the Immortals. The God that drowns the world in the Flood is the President of the Immortals. The God that made Abraham sacrifice Isaac as a test is President of the Immortals whether or not he went through with it.
And as for the New Testament, the God presented there is more terrible than the one of the Old Testament. Abraham argued with God. Jonah argued with God. The God of the NT is far more distant, condemning people to be thrown into a lake of fire en masse without accepting arguments.
As for EE's question about how an unjust God can exist and how we can know him to be unjust, that's easy. To understand justice you need a relationship between equals rather than a power-based relationship. We can understand justice in a way that (pre-Incarnation) God never can precisely because God has no equal. The only constraints on the whims of God are the whims of God. In order to negotiate, to socialise, we need to put ourselves into the shoes of others - and only by doing this can we have any real understanding of what justice is. Our sense of justice does not come from God, but from valuing each other as equals.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
Our sense of justice does not come from God, but from valuing each other as equals.
Is that your subjective opinion, or is there some objective basis to it? If so, then what is the justification for such a view?
What if some people decide that their idea of justice is different from yours? After all, some people once decided that it was entirely just and proper to murder Jews. Some people think it is entirely just and proper to execute helpless and vulnerable unborn babies for committing the sin of being disabled. Some people consider it entirely just and proper to treat others as lesser mortals, such as in the caste system of India. I could go on...
In what sense are these people "wrong"?
By the way... it does not follow that the law of a more powerful being should necessarily be arbitrary. That is an idea derived from human power dynamics that you are projecting onto the idea of God.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Nothing I have said contradicts the possibility of the operation of free will. But we cannot talk about morality at all (of whatever version) unless there does actually exist a moral sense. If we assert that a sadistic God exists, then we would have to wonder as to the basis by which we can judge him to be a sadist. That is the point CS Lewis was making in the passage I quoted, and I would be interested to see your refutation of his point.
You seem to be needlessly combining two different questions; how we define sadism and whether we can say sadism is immoral. Judging whether God is a sadist is simply a matter of determining if He needlessly inflicts suffering on others. The other half, determining whether or not doing so is morally right or not, is what I gather to be the main thrust of your question.
Your argument seems to be that, since God is the arbiter of morality, by self-definition He is good. While defensible on grounds of self-consistency, this is as arbitrary a system of morality as any devised by human understanding. It's also somewhat problematic from the standpoint of God not making any direct, unambigous statements to humanity. There's no reason any of the injustices you cite couldn't be justified by simply stating "God said it was okay". In fact, in the case of the Indian caste system divine endorsement is implicit.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
Our sense of justice does not come from God, but from valuing each other as equals.
Is that your subjective opinion, or is there some objective basis to it? If so, then what is the justification for such a view?
That justice must work from all sides or else it is simply an "ow" response and retribution. And unless you see the other side as an equal (or a superior) you aren't going to bother weighting their position as equal to yours.
quote:
What if some people decide that their idea of justice is different from yours? After all, some people once decided that it was entirely just and proper to murder Jews.
You'd have to ask the Philistines or the Jebusites or the Midianites or the Amlekites or anyone else that the God of the Old Testament ordered to be wiped out by the Israelites.
quote:
By the way... it does not follow that the law of a more powerful being should necessarily be arbitrary. That is an idea derived from human power dynamics that you are projecting onto the idea of God.
No. It doesn't follow that the more powerful being's dicatates are arbitrary. What normally does follow is that the authority of such a law is based on the simple foundational principle "Might makes right".
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your argument seems to be that, since God is the arbiter of morality, by self-definition He is good. While defensible on grounds of self-consistency, this is as arbitrary a system of morality as any devised by human understanding. It's also somewhat problematic from the standpoint of God not making any direct, unambigous statements to humanity. There's no reason any of the injustices you cite couldn't be justified by simply stating "God said it was okay". In fact, in the case of the Indian caste system divine endorsement is implicit.
No, it's a different argument to that. It is based on the assumption that God made us, not (necessarily) that he defines morality.
God made us, including our minds.
Our minds judge certain things to be good and evil. Often (not always) what we mean by that is that these things really are good and evil, objectively speaking, not merely that we like or dislike them. In general, human beings believe in ethical standards.
If we are right about ethics, our ethical sense allows us to perceive something which is true (which doesn't mean that we can never be wrong in our assessment, just that being ethical allows us some measure of real insight).
That faculty of truth-perception therefore comes from God, since he made the mind in which it is found.
God (we can define as) someone who knows and understands everything, so he knows and comprehends what he has made.
God (as so defined) could not endow us with a faculty which he cannot himself comprehend, and if he comprehends our faculty of ethical perception, he must be capable of ethical perception himself.
Therefore God, if he exists as we have defined him, must be moral. A God who was not himself moral could not have made us to be capable of seeing moral truths.
That argument doesn't require God to have invented morality, only that morality wherever it comes from, is objectively true. It also need not imply that our particular judgements have a divine stamp of approval - it is aimed at the way God made us, not his subsequent guidance (or lack thereof).
Justinian's argument against is that ethics might be true, but be learned behaviour rather than God-given - I think that would imply, though, that God is incapable of the sort of empathy and imagination that we are capable of, so seems to me to shift the argument back a notch, rather than refute it.
It is, of course, easily challenged (as EE accepts) by denying that there is a God (as so defined) or by saying that there might be a God, but our moral sense is actually a delusion, and no objective morality exists. In the latter case, God is President of the Immortals, and our false sense that this is somehow unfair is merely another one of his tricks - but to criticise that God we need to say, I think, that in his deceit he's stumbled across something true, that is, a standard by which he is wrong. I think it is very difficult to believe in a God who can cause us accidentally to discover morality while remaining ignorant of it himself. Any being who could fairly be described as God must surely be able to see at least all of the truths that we see.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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windsofchange
Shipmate
# 13000
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Posted
That lady, bless her heart, is right: He DOES "have fun with us" - the Bible tells us so!Reread the Book of Job: God definitely enjoys placing bets with Satan on His servants' lives, and doesn't look kindly on those who try to explain His violent actions away.
[ 16. July 2012, 16:53: Message edited by: windsofchange ]
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"Sometimes, you just gotta say, 'OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals' and move on." (owner of Coney Island Freak Show, upon learning someone outbid him for a 5-legged puppy)
Posts: 153 | From: Reseda, CA, USA | Registered: Sep 2007
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
You'd have to ask the Philistines or the Jebusites or the Midianites or the Amlekites or anyone else that the God of the Old Testament ordered to be wiped out by the Israelites.
Well if there's no God, then it's perfectly OK to commit genocide (we know that is the case, just ask millions of unborn babies). It's just nature "doing its thing"; you know, some people (i.e. conglomerations of atoms) deciding that it is in their survival interest to reconfigure (i.e. destroy) other conglomerations of atoms.
So if you have a big issue with God, then let's talk atheism. That means we're back to square one. Anything goes.
Your campaign to convert people to atheism by means of the nasty Bible is really "frying pan into the fire" stuff, I'm afraid. If you don't accept that, then please could you be so kind as to show me how you justify your morality objectively according to your philosophy?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
God (we can define as) someone who knows and understands everything, so he knows and comprehends what he has made.
God (as so defined) could not endow us with a faculty which he cannot himself comprehend, and if he comprehends our faculty of ethical perception, he must be capable of ethical perception himself.
Therefore God, if he exists as we have defined him, must be moral. A God who was not himself moral could not have made us to be capable of seeing moral truths.
I think you're making an unjustifiable logical leap there. Possibly a couple of them. First, demonstrating that God can perceive morality does not necessarily demonstrate that He is moral. Given that your argument seems to arise from the fact that humans can perceive morality but are not necessarily moral themselves, this non-identity would seem obvious.
The other assumption you seem to be making is that simply because humans perceive morality that means that morality objectively exists. Humans perceive a lot of things (faces in clouds, etc.) that don't actually exist.
At any rate if we grant the assumption that morality is an underlying facet of the Universe doesn't that render God irrelevant? After all, if morality is embedded in the Universe then you don't need a belief in God to develop a proper moral code any more than you need to be a pagan to understand buoyancy, Jewish to comprehend relativity, or a Protestant to work with electromagnetism.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think you're making an unjustifiable logical leap there. Possibly a couple of them. First, demonstrating that God can perceive morality does not necessarily demonstrate that He is moral. Given that your argument seems to arise from the fact that humans can perceive morality but are not necessarily moral themselves, this non-identity would seem obvious.
Yes, that's true. Although when we see what's right but do what's wrong, it is usually because of some weakness or conflict of desires or lack of willpower. It doesn't seem to me to be an unreasonable assumption that an omnipotent God who could see that something is good, would be able to do it. And would want to – moral sense is not simply observing that something fits the definition of right or wrong, but also wanting the good and rejecting the evil.
I don't think that's logically absolutely watertight – but I find it very difficult to believe in the possibility of an evil God. If God is not good, I don't think he exists. I can't imagine what it would be like to have an omniscient, all-powerful being who feels, or decides, or perceives morality, but somehow is prevented from doing it. What stops him?
quote:
The other assumption you seem to be making is that simply because humans perceive morality that means that morality objectively exists. Humans perceive a lot of things (faces in clouds, etc.) that don't actually exist.
That's the other side to the argument – you can say that we (people) are just mistaken about morality, that our sense of it is not an insight into what's really true. But if you say that, you can't also say that God is objectively wrong to slaughter indiscriminately, just that we'd prefer him not to.. The 'President of the Immortals' accusation is an accusation that God, or a particular concept of him, is in the wrong.
The argument doesn't try to establish (as far as I understand) that you cannot have an uncaring God -it tries to establish that you cannot have both an uncaring God and an objective morality by which to condemn him. If morality as a concept is true, then God, since he can do everything we can do, must be able to see it at least as well as we can.
quote:
At any rate if we grant the assumption that morality is an underlying facet of the Universe doesn't that render God irrelevant? After all, if morality is embedded in the Universe then you don't need a belief in God to develop a proper moral code
Some ideas of God.
Not mine (I think on the contrary that the existence of God is one reason why atheists can be and are objectively right about morality – he is the ultimate arbiter who can commend your moral choices whether you believe in him or not).
I don't know if EE thinks atheists need to believe in God to be truly moral.
[ 16. July 2012, 20:30: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well if there's no God, then it's perfectly OK to commit genocide
Balls.
quote:
(we know that is the case, just ask millions of unborn babies).
I'd ask. But none of them could understand the question.
quote:
If you don't accept that, then please could you be so kind as to show me how you justify your morality objectively according to your philosophy?
I just need to establish that every human has value. I can do this epistemologically by pointing out that in the absence of an omniscient creature every one of us has a viewpoint that no one else does. I can do this pragmatically by establishing that everyone can be useful. I can do this a number of other ways. Both these are absolutely objective and if you have the belief that all have value you are right at the Golden Rule already. You then support the Golden Rule with the idea that if everyone followed the same set of rules it would lead to the best possible outcome. And once you're at the golden rule the rest of morality is just commentary.
And in both cases there are interesting issues round the unborn and permanent coma patients - and Peter Singer carries them to their logical conclusion - that infanticide can be permissable as infants aren't people.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Lamb chopped ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
As for the rest of you ...
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If you are talking with such a person the only useful answer is "I'm so sorry." and maybe "How can I help?" (even if it's only running to the pharmacy or watching the kids for an hour).
Someone in this case isn't looking for an argument, and will in fact most likely get angry if you give her one. But she is often looking for evidence--any evidence--that someone in the universe loves her and cares about the shit that she's undergoing. And even minor actions can give her back a sense of hope, and even sometimes of God's love in spite of everything.
Job's friends would have done great if they'd only had the sense to keep their mouths shut.
This.
The way we point to God in times like those is through compassion. Latin com+pati (like the passion), to suffer together. A gloss on Greek syn-pathos. We are called to suffer together with people in these situations, not to argue with them.
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
...infanticide can be permissable because infants aren't people.
Do you agree with that?
If so, then you have destroyed your own moral credibility.
Lovely atheism, innit? Let's just kill the little brats, because they're not really people!!
Thank God that judgment is coming on the depraved psychopaths who espouse such a view. I am not ashamed of believing in hell when faced with such an example of Satanism dressed up as atheism.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
I've just discovered this thread and it seems to be tackling the questions brought up in the in God we trust thread.
Fascinating stuff.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If you are talking with such a person the only useful answer is "I'm so sorry." and maybe "How can I help?" (even if it's only running to the pharmacy or watching the kids for an hour).
Someone in this case isn't looking for an argument, and will in fact most likely get angry if you give her one. But she is often looking for evidence--any evidence--that someone in the universe loves her and cares about the shit that she's undergoing. And even minor actions can give her back a sense of hope, and even sometimes of God's love in spite of everything.
Job's friends would have done great if they'd only had the sense to keep their mouths shut.
That's a very good reply. It would be heartless in the extreme to produce arguments for or against God, with someone who is dying.
My mother was embittered by the death of a child, and her existing atheism was rendered into a kind of enraged anti-theism.
I didn't argue with her. In fact, I thought her point of view was valid for her, although I didn't share it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
...please could you be so kind as to show me how you justify your morality objectively according to your philosophy?
Why does it have to be objective? Is there no room for subjectivity and consensus in your worldview?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
It's an excellent OP, IMHO. A huge proportion of the souls God creates spend less than a year on earth. And people are moved by the death of infants to ask "Why?" But if God has created us to be with him and to love him, doesn't it make more sense to ask why some of us live long lives, rather than why infants die?
In the context of an eternity with my loving creator, on the days I can persuade myself to believe that this is what might be possible, what meaning could my earthly life have, whatever its length (or brevity)?
A neat answer is that our lives are a process of santification. But then, why would God choose this woman's to go through decades of painful, arduous sanctification, while taking another soul to him after only one minute on the maternity ward?
Why?
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
...please could you be so kind as to show me how you justify your morality objectively according to your philosophy?
Why does it have to be objective? Is there no room for subjectivity and consensus in your worldview?
Oh yes, there is certainly room in my worldview for subjectivity: I subjectively decide that I want Justinian to justify his views objectively. Because this is my subjective view then I assume you will accept its validity?
Or is it a case of "all subjective views are equal, but some subjective views are more equal than others"?
In other words, who decides what is a valid subjective view and what is not? How is this done without recourse to an objective principle or methodology?
(And who said that "subjectivity and consensus" is what we should embrace? It looks to me like you are trying to promote that as an objective principle!)
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Lamb chopped
As for the rest of you ...
Yes. Also Churchgeek: quote:
My late mentor turned theodicy into what he called "anthropodicy": justifying the human. But not as you'd expect. For him, the goal was to affirm, in the midst of the mystery that is suffering, that "it's good to be human" anyway. It's worth noting here that God apparently thinks so too, since God became human in Jesus, knowing full well how miserable our lives are and how miserable his own would end. As I've said before on these boards, God's apparent response to human suffering is, "Hey, let me get in on that!" Which is puzzling indeed. The best you can do is to struggle to keep your whole being, your pain and suffering and shitty experiences, in relationship with Christ. I find myself sometimes praying at Communion, reflecting on how now that I've received Christ under the species of bread and wine, now he's right there in my painful feet, in my chemically unbalanced brain, etc. etc. It's almost like saying, "HA! I got you! Now you have to go through this with me!" Like the digested bits of Jesus have to actually become the broken fibers in my heel or the ache in my jaw or some wheezing bit of lung. And I think that's precisely what Jesus wants to do, be with us right where we're hurting - not just in a "spiritual" sense (if by "spiritual" you mean something less real than physical), but wedged right down in there where the pain is. Doesn't help much when your intellect is trying to rationalize the mystery...but maybe that's where our problem is. And my experience definitely depends on a rather high view of the Sacraments.
[ 17. July 2012, 12:06: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
...infanticide can be permissable because infants aren't people.
Do you agree with that?
If so, then you have destroyed your own moral credibility.
Lovely atheism, innit? Let's just kill the little brats, because they're not really people!!
Thank God that judgment is coming on the depraved psychopaths who espouse such a view. I am not ashamed of believing in hell when faced with such an example of Satanism dressed up as atheism.
No I don't. It's the equivalent to killing someone straight after they convert so they don't have another chance to sin and die in a state of grace. Which is what happens if you take a Christian Sacramental view to its logical conclusion. Or the Christian logic of "Kill them all, God will know his own" (see the Albeginsian Crusade for details).
What I was acknowledging by citing the flaws was that the morality was incomplete and where the fuzzy edges based on pure logic were. I apologise that accepting that I have an incomplete morality, just as I have an incomplete understanding of the world, is something that blew your mind, and I should have known better than to lay this out.
And next time, please don't selectively edit me to ascribe what I am specifically saying are someone else's views to me. Peter Singer is a fairly notorious philosopher and as far as I know literally the only person who argues that utilitarianism should be taken to its logical conclusions.
As for calling others depraved psychopaths, you are one that argues that eternal torture is moral rather than depraved beyond all mortal measure.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Oh yes, there is certainly room in my worldview for subjectivity: I subjectively decide that I want Justinian to justify his views objectively. Because this is my subjective view then I assume you will accept its validity?
Who said anything about validity? I'm just curious about why you feel the need for an objective justification in the first place.
quote:
Or is it a case of "all subjective views are equal, but some subjective views are more equal than others"?
I never said all views were equal either. You're tilting at windmills.
quote:
In other words, who decides what is a valid subjective view and what is not?
For most moral issues, that would be the individual. For the ones that directly and/or negatively impact on other people that would be society.
Of course, in and of themselves all views are valid. It's only when those views turn into actions that some become good or bad.
quote:
How is this done without recourse to an objective principle or methodology?
By consensus and agreement. This isn't a difficult concept - governments and societies manage it all the time.
quote:
(And who said that "subjectivity and consensus" is what we should embrace? It looks to me like you are trying to promote that as an objective principle!)
Is that like the old "if you're going to insist on tolerance then you have to accept my intolerance" canard?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
And next time, please don't selectively edit me to ascribe what I am specifically saying are someone else's views to me. Peter Singer is a fairly notorious philosopher and as far as I know literally the only person who argues that utilitarianism should be taken to its logical conclusions.
I apologise that I didn't include Peter Singer's name in the quote. However, I did ask you whether you believed this, and did not assume that you did. I acknowledge that my editing may have given a wrong impression. Sorry.
However, Singer's views do seem to be a logical consequence of viewing human beings in a purely materialistic way, hence my reference to atheism. And, of course, as a Christian, I see something more behind evil than merely bad philosophy, hence my reference to Satanism. I won't mince my words when I say that Singer's views are utterly evil (but within a subjective view of morality, is he not entitled to call his views "good"?).
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
(but within a subjective view of morality, is he not entitled to call his views "good"?).
Sure he is. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to agree.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
And next time, please don't selectively edit me to ascribe what I am specifically saying are someone else's views to me. Peter Singer is a fairly notorious philosopher and as far as I know literally the only person who argues that utilitarianism should be taken to its logical conclusions.
I apologise that I didn't include Peter Singer's name in the quote. However, I did ask you whether you believed this, and did not assume that you did. I acknowledge that my editing may have given a wrong impression. Sorry.
However, Singer's views do seem to be a logical consequence of viewing human beings in a purely materialistic way, hence my reference to atheism. And, of course, as a Christian, I see something more behind evil than merely bad philosophy, hence my reference to Satanism. I won't mince my words when I say that Singer's views are utterly evil (but within a subjective view of morality, is he not entitled to call his views "good"?).
Singer's views on just about everything so far as I can tell are a reductio ad absurdam - and only intended to be taken seriously in so far as they get him into the media. But his mistake (whether knowing or not) is a common one - confusing the map with the territory.
Logic is an incomplete tool. It is demonstrably incomplete, but for all it is incomplete it is a very good tool. However when you are Peter Singer you (in your statements at least) have a very good map in hand, but assume that the map is a complete representation of the route. You are narrowing down humans to one single and incomplete axis and this is ... inhuman. So no I can't provide you a full rational grounding for morality - I can just provide you a good start and some fairly detailed guidelines, complete with an indication of where the map fails.
I have this problem with Christian Ethics as well - except moreso. Most Christian ethics try to narrow down human value to one axis (one I believe to not exist but even if it did this would be a problem). Rather than making the measure of a man that which they are logically, the measure of a man becomes that which they are in God's eyes. And if all morality is held against a yardstick of God this lessens humans to a single dimension, leading to "Kill them all, God will know his own". And a lot of Christian morality just relates Good to God and your relationship to God.
The idea that you can truly measure the richness of life or of humans using only one tool is IMO an incredibly dangerous fallacy - but this doesn't mean that certain tools are useless.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Indeed Niminypiminy
Churchgeek
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by windsofchange:
That lady, bless her heart, is right: He DOES "have fun with us" - the Bible tells us so!Reread the Book of Job: God definitely enjoys placing bets with Satan on His servants' lives, and doesn't look kindly on those who try to explain His violent actions away.
It's interesting nobody has picked up on this yet. It illustrates that my dying woman's view of God has, in fact, a foundation in scripture. And this isn't the only time such a view comes up - what about Paul and his "How dare the pot question the potter" routine? Is that what we are to God? - things to be wagered on? Things to be moulded to beauty or grotesqueness on a whim, and then thrown aside and smashed when he gets bored with them?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If you are talking with such a person the only useful answer is "I'm so sorry." and maybe "How can I help?" (even if it's only running to the pharmacy or watching the kids for an hour).
Someone in this case isn't looking for an argument, and will in fact most likely get angry if you give her one. But she is often looking for evidence--any evidence--that someone in the universe loves her and cares about the shit that she's undergoing. And even minor actions can give her back a sense of hope, and even sometimes of God's love in spite of everything.
Job's friends would have done great if they'd only had the sense to keep their mouths shut.
ABSOLUTELY. Yes! I second everyone's to this.
The philosophical/theological stuff we're dealing with on this thread has to be done in advance if you want it to help you with your pain at all. The human concern and care is what helps in the moment, and personal devotion and sacramental prayer life, I think, help over the long haul.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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Golden Key
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# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
If you are talking with such a person the only useful answer is "I'm so sorry." and maybe "How can I help?" (even if it's only running to the pharmacy or watching the kids for an hour).
Someone in this case isn't looking for an argument, and will in fact most likely get angry if you give her one. But she is often looking for evidence--any evidence--that someone in the universe loves her and cares about the shit that she's undergoing. And even minor actions can give her back a sense of hope, and even sometimes of God's love in spite of everything.
Job's friends would have done great if they'd only had the sense to keep their mouths shut.
Yes.
Also (as she permits) hold her hand, give her a hug, read to her (NOT the Bible, unless she requests it).
You could also, if you know her sense of humor well enough, say something like, "well, looks like you'll get a chance to tell God off then! And if you decide to punch God in the nose, throw a punch for me, too, ok?" (I think there may well be a line of people waiting to do just that, possibly depending on whether or not God's got a good explanation. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
I don't believe that God sends bad stuff, tests us, whatever. God may sometimes bring something good from a bad situation, but bad things are just bad.
That having been said, it can be very helpful personally to yell at God.
There was a great scene in "Babylon 5" where Susan Ivanova had a really rough day. When she got back to her quarters and was trying to go to bed, her doorbell rang--but no one was there. Happened several times. Finally, she looked up at God and said, in her wry way, "You are having FAR too much fun at my expense!"
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by windsofchange:
That lady, bless her heart, is right: He DOES "have fun with us" - the Bible tells us so!Reread the Book of Job: God definitely enjoys placing bets with Satan on His servants' lives, and doesn't look kindly on those who try to explain His violent actions away.
It's interesting nobody has picked up on this yet. It illustrates that my dying woman's view of God has, in fact, a foundation in scripture.
But there's a lot more to the book of Job than the prologue. The heart of it is the debate, and that explores all sorts of ideas: God being able to do whatever the hell he wants, whether he infallibly punishes wickedness, what's the best man can hope for from him, whether we have any standing to question him at all...
And it ends with tensions unresolved. Job ends up by withdrawing all charges against the Almighty, repudiating the case he had maintained so stubbornly, and despising himself - and with God vindicating him and saying that Job spoke what was true.
I don't think that there is any simplistic reading of Job which does justice to all of its tensions, but I do think one point that it is hard to argue against is that Job was right to think that God should be moral. He was right to think it a problem that the innocent suffer, and right to reject the solutions offered to him, that those who suffer must therefore deserve it, or that morality is merely an exercise of God's power to define things to suit his will. If we think that the prologue to Job portrays a ‘President of the Immortals' God, the Job-like response is to be pissed off with that portrayal, to insist that there must be truths about God which the prologue does not reveal, and to demand of God that he reveal those truths to us and stop looking like an arsehole. Job goes much further with those demands than he himself ends up being comfortable with, but God nonetheless vindicates him.
quote:
And this isn't the only time such a view comes up - what about Paul and his "How dare the pot question the potter" routine? Is that what we are to God? - things to be wagered on? Things to be moulded to beauty or grotesqueness on a whim, and then thrown aside and smashed when he gets bored with them?
My Sunday school group has been looking at the parallel OT passage in Jeremiah, with Israel as the clay in the potter's hands.
And it's a scary story. It's meant to be. God is saying exactly that he has the right to smash up everything we care about, AND that he is going to do it, as easily as the potter reshapes clay, if that's what it takes to get what he wants. There is no getting away from the fact that God say explicitly that he is willing to be much more unpleasant than any of us could possibly want. The rather jolly-looking potter pictured in my Sunday school course material misrepresents the image of God which the prophet gives - which is one of our utter helplessness in the face of instant destruction. (I ignored the picture, and showed a clip from ‘All Quiet on the Western Front' instead, to make the point that this is frightening).
The only thing that distinguishes God from the President of the Immortals is the reason why he does scary shit. The POTI (did we really get so far on this thread without the acronym?) does it for his personal entertainment. There's nothing in it for us, and his malicious attentions are random and arbitrary. The Christian God is supposed to be doing it for a good purpose. He is building something - a kingdom, a people, a revelation, a new creation - that is worth it, and that is for ‘our'* good. God is not acting "on a whim", or because he "gets bored" - but that doesn't make the image of God a comforting one. It is still terrible, but there are reasons for the terror.
That distinction is important. It would be absurd for Job to insist on holding the POTI to a moral standard. The POTI doesn't give a fart for Job's morality, he just likes to watch Job squirm. But it is not absurd, it is the greatest piety that Job is capable of, for him to demand that his God should hear him and do right. Job's God knows more than Job, he has plans that Job doesn't understand and a vision that Job doesn't share, but they have righteousness in common. God values Job's goodness, and accepts Job's claim that God ought to be good.
(*The definition of ‘our' here is problematic. Does it imply that every single person who ever suffers needs to be a beneficiary of God's plan, if that suffering is to be justified? Is it therefore necessary that for God to be good all must be saved? I hope so, but there I'm going beyond what we've been told.)
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Eliab, that's a really clear and thoughtful reading. I'd never say it to someone on the sharp and pointy end of the stick, of course--which is where I spend most of my time--but it reminds me of what Lewis said about God in A Grief Observed. That when you're under the knife, it's hard to tell whether God's ruthlessness is that of a surgeon (who is ruthless in doing ultimate good) or a vivisector (who doesn't give a damn about his victim).
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
(*The definition of ‘our' here is problematic. Does it imply that every single person who ever suffers needs to be a beneficiary of God's plan, if that suffering is to be justified? Is it therefore necessary that for God to be good all must be saved? I hope so, but there I'm going beyond what we've been told.)
Eliab, I'd like to second Lamb Chopped's thanks for your very thoughtful exploration of the question. But you'll see I've homed in on your footnote. This is precisely one of the most difficult parts of the problem for me: a lot of Christian thinking on this subject gives the impression that God is willing to put the Plan ahead of the Person. Any person - any number of people - can be shattered like unwanted pots, as long as it's for the good of the Plan.
Put yourself, for instance, in the position of an Egyptian woman, widowed because her husband happened to be a charioteer on That Day, washed up on the shore of the Red Sea. How is God not the POTI from that woman's point of view? What consolation is it to her to tell her that in fifteen centuries (or thereabouts) the Saviour of the World will be born from the descendants of those escaping slaves? Will that fact dry her tears?
(It seems to me, as a footnote of my own, that putting the Plan above the People was precisely the reason we didn't like regimes like the Soviet Union. Is God another Stalin?)
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
That when you're under the knife, it's hard to tell whether God's ruthlessness is that of a surgeon (who is ruthless in doing ultimate good) or a vivisector (who doesn't give a damn about his victim).
So you look at times when you aren't under the knife. And what happens to the victims afterwards - whether they recover (the point of surgery) or get worse.
In the case of times when you aren't under the knife - God hardening Pharaoh's heart is incredibly damning.
And afterwards - there is no afterwards for the classically presented Hell. It is eternal. And therefore it can't be a surgeon's treatment. We're looking at vivisectionist.
So under classical Christian theology God is a vivisectionist.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Adeodatus, have you heard that story (a rabbinical one I think) where the angels are rejoicing with the Israelites as the Red Sea comes back together, and God says to them: "How can you rejoice when my people are dying?"
I don't think God has an overarching Plan to which all lesser mortals must be sacrificed; as somebody said, he does all things for each. But there's no way my mind is big enough to stretch around all the ways he works this out.
I can only see the little bit from my corner, and most of that I can't grasp either. So in the end it comes back to personal acquaintance (as in, "I know him, and he just isn't the kind of person who would do X.") But that isn't going to be satisfactory testimony to anybody who is lacking that particular knowledge-by-acquaintance themselves.
Which is why I don't argue with people in pain.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Justinian, there is no way of arguing with you without drawing this thread down a zillion and one tangents. Which would be sort of a shame. But if you wanted to take up Pharaoh in Kerygmania, I'd be happy to join you.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Adeodatus, have you heard that story (a rabbinical one I think) where the angels are rejoicing with the Israelites as the Red Sea comes back together, and God says to them: "How can you rejoice when my people are dying?"
Yes, that's a nice rabbinical gloss on the text, if you're into the business of making excuses for God's monstrous behaviour. He (presumably deliberately, because God does nothing by accident) lets the Red Sea slosh all over the charioteers and then, when they're drowning, says, "Aw, I'm really upset cos they're all dying." I mean, what?
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Hey, I didn't say it was holy writ.
ETA: And no, I'm not into making excuses for God's behavior, monstrous or otherwise. Why would he need someone to defend him? Particularly someone like me?
The most I can do is speculate, and I avoid doing that when I know someone is hurting. Because it doesn't help.
[ 19. July 2012, 23:50: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This is precisely one of the most difficult parts of the problem for me: a lot of Christian thinking on this subject gives the impression that God is willing to put the Plan ahead of the Person. Any person - any number of people - can be shattered like unwanted pots, as long as it's for the good of the Plan.
Yes, I think a lot of Christian thinking is on those lines. For it to work, for me, the Plan has to be for the benefit of People. I think one could argue from scripture that the Plan is the redemption of the world and therefore to the immense benefit of People generally, and, most of the time, that works for me. I prefer it to Christian ideas where the Plan is more of an abstraction: the reconciliation of mercy and justice, or the promotion of God's glory, for example. The Plan, for me, has to be one in which we, and our happiness and well-being, really matter to God as one of his primary concerns.
What I would like even more is a Plan that works like that for every single Person individually: so that at the end of it, everyone agrees that their pain was worth it. I hope that's true, and I think I believe it, but I also think that's more than what the Bible says.
I can live with that. Going back to Job, the story works, and works very well, if Job's children are essentially part of Job's good fortune: they are valued by him, are a mark of God's favour, and represent something of his future hopes. Their loss is then a tragedy, but one that can, in principle, be made up later. That doesn't work if you consider them people in their own right, with their own stories, that we don't get to hear about. And I think the book of Job shouldn't be read in that way. It is about Job's suffering and hope, it isn't their story at all. The writer(s) and inspirer didn't intend us to draw any conclusion about what Job's children would have said to God. It's not about them.
But I don't think that in reality, Job's children were any less valuable to God than Job was (assuming historicity here, which is dubious). Each of them could have advanced a very good case of being treated unfairly, and (if God is Job's God and not the POTI) received an answer that they could have accepted. We just don't have those answers in the book. Your answers may not be in the Book either. You may have to wait until he answers you out of the whirlwind.
quote:
Put yourself, for instance, in the position of an Egyptian woman, widowed because her husband happened to be a charioteer on That Day, washed up on the shore of the Red Sea. How is God not the POTI from that woman's point of view? What consolation is it to her to tell her that in fifteen centuries (or thereabouts) the Saviour of the World will be born from the descendants of those escaping slaves? Will that fact dry her tears?
No. And nor should it. The loss and the pain are real.
The same is true of all bereavements - few people die so obviously at God's hand, but no one ever died except as a result of his decree that his spirit would not abide with people for ever, because they are mortal. Each of us can expect to mourn half of the people we love, and for the other half to mourn us, because of the Plan.
For me, it's a clue to the Plan that death is so horrible, especially early death. If we get our values from God, as people have argued here that we do, then he may share our feelings of satisfaction at the end of a good life, our relief at the prospect of release from pain, but also our sense of horror and loss. The Plan has to be opposed to death, if God is Job's God. If God is good, people aren't disposable. They can't be thrown away carelessly. God has to have an answer for the charioteer and his widow, if your evocation of the waste of his life resonates with God's values in anything like the way it does with human ones. Could it be that one day, that man and woman will be reunited in a new world more wonderful than anything they could have imagined, and be told "This is what I planned all along. Your sacrifice helped me to make it true"? I can't point to that in the Bible, except as a hint and a hope, but if God is good, something like it is what we should hope for.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Going back to Job, the story works, and works very well, if Job's children are essentially part of Job's good fortune: they are valued by him, are a mark of God's favour, and represent something of his future hopes. Their loss is then a tragedy, but one that can, in principle, be made up later. That doesn't work if you consider them people in their own right, with their own stories, that we don't get to hear about. And I think the book of Job shouldn't be read in that way. It is about Job's suffering and hope, it isn't their story at all.
<snip>
If God is good, people aren't disposable. They can't be thrown away carelessly.
If we take the book of Job to be telling a story that God wants told (i.e. it's the "Word of God" in whatever sense you wish to interpret that term), then not only can God throw away people carelessly, he does. As you indicated in your post, we don't care about Job's children as people and the story is structured in such a way that we're not supposed to care about them, except as they relate to the protagonist.
We come across a similar situation in the Second Testament:
quote:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So we've got God incarnate explaining that this man was made blind from birth and had to spend the first couple decades of his life eking out a marginal existence as a beggar just so God could come along at the right time and impress everyone with how great and magnanimous He is.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
We come across a similar situation in the Second Testament:
quote:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So we've got God incarnate explaining that this man was made blind from birth and had to spend the first couple decades of his life eking out a marginal existence as a beggar just so God could come along at the right time and impress everyone with how great and magnanimous He is.
Well clearly it didn't work then, did it? Because God doesn't appear to be very impressive at all, but in fact totally callous!
Or is it the fact that millions of those terribly simple religious folk throughout history are not as clever as "oh so sophisticated" 21st century atheists, and your reading of this text would never have occurred to them?
Or could it be that there is a different interpretation, and the cynical reading offered by Croesos et al might not actually be the definitive one?
It could be an exercise in realism, in which Jesus seeks to prevent people from speculating about the origin of individual suffering and from apportioning blame to parents, and if there is any purpose at all, then it is a pragmatic one: for the man to be healed. In other words: stop speculating and get on with solving problems (which is rather relevant for certain atheists, who seem to exploit other people's suffering for the cause of their anti-theism - usually without permission - and one wonders whether they will actually do anything to alleviate that suffering, as in: "How nasty God is for what happened in Japan. Yeah... proves that God doesn't exist, or if he does, he's a sadist. But I'll be blown if I'm going to get off my fat arse and do something to help the suffering people of Japan!")
(But anyway... I can't really see your complaint, given that you have made clear elsewhere that morality is subjective. So what's wrong with someone deciding to be callous and egocentric? It can't be called "wrong" within moral subjectivism, can it?)
[ 20. July 2012, 14:37: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
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Posted
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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
(But anyway... I can't really see your complaint, given that you have made clear elsewhere that morality is subjective. So what's wrong with someone deciding to be callous and egocentric? It can't be called "wrong" within moral subjectivism, can it?)
Even within moral subjectivism it's perfectly valid to hold someone to the standard they themselves have set.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
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Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
Even within moral subjectivism it's perfectly valid to hold someone to the standard they themselves have set.
Why is it valid?
I thought everything was supposed to be subjective. So if I decide that this is not valid, I can't be wrong, can I?
Or is it a case of: "You can be as subjective as you like, as long as you subscribe to our form of subjectivism."?!
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Croesos
We come across a similar situation in the Second Testament:
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As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So we've got God incarnate explaining that this man was made blind from birth and had to spend the first couple decades of his life eking out a marginal existence as a beggar just so God could come along at the right time and impress everyone with how great and magnanimous He is.
Well clearly it didn't work then, did it? Because God doesn't appear to be very impressive at all, but in fact totally callous!
Or is it the fact that millions of those terribly simple religious folk throughout history are not as clever as "oh so sophisticated" 21st century atheists, and your reading of this text would never have occurred to them?
If "millions of terribly simple religious folk" interpreted that passage as meaning "God is awesome", then how did God setting up the situation to make Himself look totally awesome not work? Your own reaction demonstrates that deliberately blinding someone so that you could restore his sight at the exact right dramatic moment decades later works on a PR level.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
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Originally posted by Crœsos:
If we take the book of Job to be telling a story that God wants told (i.e. it's the "Word of God" in whatever sense you wish to interpret that term), then not only can God throw away people carelessly, he does. As you indicated in your post, we don't care about Job's children as people and the story is structured in such a way that we're not supposed to care about them, except as they relate to the protagonist.
An awful lot depends on how we interpret the Bible as the Word of God. It is possible to think that God wanted Job's story told, because Job got an answer of sorts which satisfied him, and also to think that God also has an answer for all those other Jobs who died without hearing theirs. The Bible being God's Word doesn't make it his last word, or his only word.
A secular illustration: If you had only seen the original Star Wars (ie. Episode IV) you might reasonably conclude that though Darth Vader was a satisfactory villain, with an imposing presence, a good costume, a personality and the hint of a backstory, George Lucas didn't really care much about him as a person. He is there to be a personal symbol of evil to be fought against. If his TIE-fighter had been atomised instead of being driven down out-of-control, nothing much would have been lost from that original story, and we wouldn't really have minded that he was dead. He was only a villain. By the time you see Episode VI, you can't see him that way any more - it is obvious that his redemption is a major theme. Episode IV is still the authentic and inspired Word of Lucas, though. It just doesn't contain everything that Lucas has to say.
If I saw the Bible as equivalent to the whole of the authentic Star Wars canon, then I would conclude that Job's children were minor supporting characters whom I was not expected to emphasise with, because in the Bible that's what they are. But if I see the Bible like one single film, I can only say that that's what they are in this episode, and that I haven't seen where their stories are told fully. The Bible is not the sum total of all that God has to say.
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So we've got God incarnate explaining that this man was made blind from birth and had to spend the first couple decades of his life eking out a marginal existence as a beggar just so God could come along at the right time and impress everyone with how great and magnanimous He is.
You can read the passage like that. Nothing in the text stops you. But it is inconsistent with the view that Jesus is good - and I think the NT should be read on that assumption.
I am more certain of God's goodness than I am certain that the Bible is inspired. Partly that is because (on grounds similar to the one's EE proposed) I can't really believe in an evil or amoral God - if there is such a quality of goodness, I can't imagine a being called ‘God' who lacked it. Partly it is on prudential grounds (if God is evil, we're all screwed anyway, no matter what we do, as we can't predict what might provoke or lessen God's cruelty, but if he's good, we can expect him to approve of goodness). Partly it is because believing the Bible to be inspired doesn't help me unless God is good - the scriptures of an evil deity could be a deceptive trap so the Bible can only claim to be a reliable guide if its source is reliable. In passages like this, where a fully satisfactory reading can be reached by supposing Jesus to be denying that the man deserved his fate but proposing to give meaningless suffering a meaning by making a blind man the eye-witness of God's glory, then I'll read it that way.
I don't have an interest in a Christianity in which God is not good. Everything else I believe comes after, and is built on, the belief that God is good. Knock that away and there's not one theological brick I would think worth the bother of picking up. It's not the text that prevents me from reading the gospels as you describe - it's the fact that if I did read the gospels in that way, I'd have no reason to read the gospels.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
You can read the passage like that. Nothing in the text stops you. But it is inconsistent with the view that Jesus is good - and I think the NT should be read on that assumption.
Why? If Jesus is good then it will be evident from the text. And so will God's goodness be.
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I am more certain of God's goodness than I am certain that the Bible is inspired. Partly that is because (on grounds similar to the one's EE proposed) I can't really believe in an evil or amoral God - if there is such a quality of goodness, I can't imagine a being called ‘God' who lacked it.
I can believe people worship such a God, however. I can because I see it every time I pick up and read the Bible. The God presented in the bible is petty, callous, vindictive, and an embodiment of Might Makes Right. And Jesus is little better than the God of the OT.
Stories like Lamb Chopped's merely go to show just how evil such a God is - if God didn't want to kill the Egyptians he didn't have to, as Adeodatus points out.
Now I don't believe that this universe was created by the Maker of Hell. But when people preach the bible to me that's what they are preaching. And I have every sympathy with people who believe in a God other than the one presented in the bible. If I believed in that one I'd be a satanist on the grounds it was the only moral course of action.
And I have a huge reason to read the gospels - other people think they are important.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The God presented in the bible is petty, callous, vindictive, and an embodiment of Might Makes Right. And Jesus is little better than the God of the OT.
All I can say is that I haven't found such a God in the Bible. I've found lots of passages I have trouble with, lots that are hard (or impossible) to reconcile with the portrayal I find in most of it of a very good and loving God, but nothing that makes me think that God is evil.
I know that you can challenge me by quoting the genocide passages and asking if I think that is a good God. And the answer is that I don't. Such good as I get get from those passages requires me to allegorise away the thought of the slaughter of innocents. But it is not on those passages that I get my portrayal of God.
Yes, that is a selective reading. I admit that fully. I come to the text with my presumption that God is good and find enough there to support it that I can still believe that the Bible can tell me a lot about God. Which is why I think the book of Job so important: it tells me that it is right to go on believing that God is good by objective standards even when faced with evidence to the contrary - that 'defending' God by arguing that it he has done something then it must be right by definition, even if it looks odious, is not the sort of approval God asks for. I'm not going to say that I think the acts attributed to God were right, and I'm not going to say that he didn't do them. I am saying that I am more certain of the goodness of God than I am of anything else in the Bible, so the Bible is not going to disturb my faith in that.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian
The God presented in the bible is petty, callous, vindictive, and an embodiment of Might Makes Right. And Jesus is little better than the God of the OT.
Stories like Lamb Chopped's merely go to show just how evil such a God is...
It does seem rather ironic (and farcical) that you go on one thread waxing eloquent about how morality is subjective, and come on here using terms that suggest that morality can be defined objectively. (For example, what does the word "evil" mean in subjective morality?)
Perhaps you didn't think anyone would notice this inconsistency!
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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