Based on what you've written, it sounds to me like you don't need God for your morality. Would that be a fair assessment?
In general, do you think morality comes from God? (Other than in the sense that you believe God is responsible for the existence of everything that exists, that is.)
No, I believe morality comes from the divine and can express itself through the divine spark in any human.
Strange that you say that, then complain that there are no secular rulebooks (which is false, by the way).
The bible does a pretty poor job at teaching morality, if that is the aim. Do you agree? Does God bear any responsibility for that, do you think?
Yet you don't name any of these supposed secular moral (oxymoron?) rule books.
Men wrote the Bible, and it's morality successfully ended a lot of barbarism. Human sacrifice replaced by animal sacrifice, charity for the poor and infirmed, etc..
It seems to me that God is not a vital part of such a community. Any moral rule book would do as well as, say, the bible. Do you agree?
Aside from that fact that God is central to such communities, why hasn't any non-theistic rule book done so? Just happenstance, or that theism, itself, creates a nature affinity for such communities?
Maybe you should get out more?
Not an argument and beneath you. If you have a counterexample, please, substantiate this straw man. If what you know of Christianity is only what you knew as a child or young adult, then you don't really have an adult understanding of the subject.
Does it have anything to do with God?
That's a silly question that only further illustrates your lack of adult understanding of religion. I would probably be an atheist too (and did reject religion for a time), if my understanding didn't evolve with age. Adult Christians follow the rules because they've come to see the reasons, as God does. Just as children come to understand the reasons for their parent's rules, and no longer fear punishment. Questioning whether God is necessary for the one is just as silly as questioning whether parents are necessary for the other.
Sorry. Are you addressing me, or "you" in some generic sense?
You, as you seem to assume that religious adults only follow out of fear. If not, it sure sounded like it.
I put a hypothetical scenario and some questions up for your consideration, and for anybody else who is interested in responding. Where are the straw men?
Any analogy to religion. If you want to beg off that analogy, that's fine by me. My interest in you're little story ends there.
My parents have been present in my life. See the thread title and the example. What have present parents got to do with anything?
And what has this got to do with God?
Hope you're not being intentionally obtuse.
You contrasted God "telling you what to do" versus an absent God. That's as much a false dilemma as you only identifying present parents by them "telling you what to do". Neither are encapsulated by "telling you what to do". At least I hope your parents aren't.
Hardly. There's a vast literature about secular morality. Maybe you should consider reading more widely.
If you like your morality packaged like the bible, you could do worse than to start with A.C. Grayling's The Good Book, as an example of the kind of secular rule book that you were unaware existed until just now. Check it out! It does a significantly better job of codifying morality than the bible does.
Yet the general public are completely unaware of any of it, and it does not even engender a sense of community. Something crucial must be missing from it.
Got any secular rule book with even a tiny fraction of the impact or recognition of the Bible? We all know the answer to that.
Seems a bit of a harsh punishment - eternal damnation for failing to obey God's rules in one's brief mortal life.
Coming back to the question of the thread: do you think God should bear any part of the blame for this outcome, if it occurs?
It is an anologous situation that the boy in my parable faces, vis a vis his parents, is it not? I assume you would say that the parents have no case to answer, there. Is that right? You pooh poohed my suggestions regarding the parents' culpability. Are they faultless in that scenario, then, in your eyes?
Again, it's not externally imposed punishment. It's internally imposed separation.
No, free will makes any such separation the individual's choice.
Again, the boy is a runaway, not an orphan. You're little story is a fundamentally flawed straw man. No one can answer your loaded questions, knowing that they are a straw man analogy to religion. Parents abandoning their child can be at fault without that being any honest analogy to religion.
Interesting.
Tell me why being a "follower" (i.e. theist) exempts a person from God's punishment. Does God not care for non-followers (atheists)? On what basis does God make a distinction between followers and non-followers, when it comes to deciding who goes to hell?
Again, for the umpteenth time, it is not externally imposed punishment; it is internally imposed separation. God wants all to join, and only those who reject God cannot, because they decide they will not. Only you decide if you go to hell.
Sorry. You've lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about.
It may be beyond you.
God sure left a lot of things to personal interpretation, didn't he? Couldn't he have expressed his most important commandments a bit more clearly?
You seem to be filling in the gaps that God left.
No, just putting it in modern terms.
Is that all it is? You don't think that God left anything important out of his ten most important commandments? You don't see any significant gaps there?
Do you think the Ten Commandments where meant to be all encompassing, when you've already mention the number of Jewish laws yourself?
But yeah, I suppose if humans didn't have a conscience and free will, you would have to include contract law, penal codes, etc., huh? 9_9
Arguably, all criminals condemn themselves. Do the crime, do the time. The authorities are there to make sure you do the time. In my parable, the relevant authorities are the parents. In your bible, the relevant authority is God. The authorities are the enforcers. They make sure that those who stray from the dictated path are punished.
I understand that, in the modern era, there's been a drift away from the literal idea of Dante's Inferno. I'm not particularly surprised if you have a watered-down concept of hell which amounts to little more than a separation from God. (Which is torturous because... ?) In the past, people tended to take the threat of hell rather more literally than you do. I think you'll find there are still people who believe in a literal fire-and-brimstone hell, and it scares the willies out of them.
It's cute how you call a straw man a parable.
Arguably, criminals are only caught because they make mistakes. Prison is just the natural consequence of such mistakes. The authorities are there to subvert vigilante or mob justice, which most would consider a worse fate. Likewise, God gives you a chance you would not have otherwise. Your initial rejection doesn't instantly damn you, just like your commission of a crime doesn't instantly get you killed by a vigilante.
In the original, Jewish conception of hell, it was a real place, Gehenna, where children were once sacrificed by fire or a perpetually burning garbage heap.
Why do you, an atheist, torture yourself ceaselessly questioning the beliefs of theists? What are you missing that you hope to find?
Again, please show me the people who fear a literal fire and brimstone. Are they Appalachian snake handlers too?
Are you saying, by analogy, that your God doesn't impose anything on human beings? If that is the case, then would you agree that he truly is an absent parent?
Again, do you only identify your own parents by them imposing stuff on you? You're just repeating your false dilemma of "telling you what to do" versus being absentee.
