Do morals come from God?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by James R, Jun 29, 2005.

  1. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    What I find interesting is all these people saying that if God did this, he would cease to be their god.
    If you see that you have a choice, why choose this version of God in the first place?
    Do you base your life and beliefs on (insert your religion here) because it is right, or do you say that (insert same religion) is right because it happens to fit into your life and beliefs?
    In other words, is your religion right, or conveneient?

    And those that say they will assume that it isn't really God, justthe Devil (or whoever) posing as God, because it would be impossible to tell the difference.
    How, then, do you know that the people who wrote the books you base your beliefs on were getting their information from God ro the Devil (or whoever)?
     
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  3. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    I would also ask how even God could "create" morals? He could say what he would want you to do, but in what way would they be objective? They'd simply be the subjective whims of a supreme being.
     
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  5. Rosnet Philomorpher Registered Senior Member

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    Not exactly. It could be like making laws in a society. They should be such laws which could guarantee (at least in part), the maintenance of the society.
     
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  7. devils_reject Registered Senior Member

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    Yes if you believe God exists because all things including evil assumably came from he or she. The question then is where did she get all these ideas...hold on let me give her a phone call and get back to you on that
     
  8. Imperfectionist Pope Humanzee the First Registered Senior Member

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    We create morals, it's got nothing to do with a God that designs parasites that hatch in their host's body and eats them from the inside out.
     
  9. capnjeremy Registered Member

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    "God's commandments" as they are right now, and as they have been, have killed countless people already. I doubt anyone religious enough to follow his commandments in the past would draw the line there, in the face of God.

    This is, of course, assuming that God exists. I am on the atheism side of that argument. But if he did come down, I think you'd do what he said, regardless of how you felt... it's a <i>God</i>.
     
  10. Imperfectionist Pope Humanzee the First Registered Senior Member

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    I wouldn't automatically worship a God. The gnostics thought there were more than one, and that the God of Israel wasn't the superior one, he only thought he was.
     
  11. Vertigoll Gringorican Registered Senior Member

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  12. Rosnet Philomorpher Registered Senior Member

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    I don't believe God exists. I was only proposing a way in which God could decide on a system of morality. The same we can decide a system of morality for a robot which we create.
     
  13. devils_reject Registered Senior Member

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    Justice comes from the one with the biggest gun, bought by the ones with the biggest purse, and sold to the morals.
     
  14. ketch22 Registered Member

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    You simplify it too much. If God truly came down, and it was undoubtedly Him... yes, I would kill my brother if told to do so. If the creator of the known universe and all that is and ever will be, commanded me to do so, I would do so without hesitation. Because I would know without a doubt that this is not all there is and that my brother's life on this earth isn't all there is for him... that this finite existence on earth is just that... finite. It is the non-believer who has a difficult time with earthly morals... thinking that death and taking life somehow makes God immoral. God created morality, therefore He lives outside it.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Faith and Knowledge: Who do I kill?

    Welcome to our humble bedlam, Ketch.

    Um, well, isn't that the thing?

    To the one, if you meet the Buddha upon the road, you are to kill him.

    To the other, if it is undoubtedly God, then it isn't God.

    "The Babel fish," said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.

    "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

    "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

    "'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

    "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

    "'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.


    (Adams)

    Even in the American creationism debate, the religious advocates have some difficulty answering the concept. Regardless of whether we call it creationism or Intelligent Design, it won't be a science until it can affirmatively posit hypotheses about its underlying premise; in other words, it must devise a way to test for the existence of God. Without that, all they have is anti-identification. To the other, Christians, at least, are expected to run on faith.

    If you know, undoubtedly, that it is God, that is an indication that there is a problem. And if it sounds paradoxical, well, it sort of is. But that's God. A mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 1979. Flag.Blackened.net. February 6, 2010. http://flag.blackened.net/dinsdale/dna/book1.html
     
  16. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Hypotheticals have to make sense, otherwise they are worthless. That command can not be followed because most of humanity would die as a result, and only 1 person per family would survive.

    Care to rephrase it?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  17. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    That humanity would not survive doesn't make it nonsensical (unless one presumes that the survival of humanity is a key requirement). In fact, it can be demonstrated that, in the long in, humanity will not survive now. The universe will eventually see the end of our species, and that does not make the reality senseless.
     
  18. Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Damn I have just realized I responded to a 5 years old thread...Somebody shot me...
     
  19. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    HA...If it was truely God he wouldn't bother asking and just do it himself...afterall the issue of the sanctity of freewill is already thrown out the window so why would he bother...

    So if he did ask he aint God but something else again...
    "what? Can't do it yourself?" would be my taunt. "need me to do your dirty for you?"

    Thus empowered I would be more powerful than this wanna be!
     
  20. Thoreau Valued Senior Member

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    Well thought of scenario James.

    First off... no I wouldn't kill my brother or anyone else. I think ones answer all comes down to this question: Who do you love more, your family or yourself?

    Answer that and you will answer your question.

    I tend to see myself as very altruistic. I'd much rather die or take a bullet for someone else, especially my family. But that is my own stance.
     
  21. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    To me it's an issue of just "who's morality do you follow?" Your own or someone elses?

    It's like saying if the Church says it's ok to do such and such than this makes it moral?
    Unfortunately a great many people use every one elses morality instead of deriving their own for them selves. [ a weaker self esteem position and a weaker positioon in general IMO]

    Do something just because someone else says so thus aborgating your rights by defering to an imaginary authority figure. A state for self delusion for sure!
    The most common example is how people regard the law.
    1] I follow the law
    2] I use the law
    3] I am inspired by the law.

    example:
    "I maintain the speed limit when driving my car not because the law says so but because I say so", is the ideal.

    [every one has the innate "right" to decide to break the law]

    just thoughts...
     

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