It is argued that any god that exists is the source of objective moral values. The problem is that there are many different deities believed in around the world and therefore potential different sources of so called objective values. How could anyone tell what is true objective morality with so many gods supposedly believed in?
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God and him being source of objective moral vales
- Thread starter BH
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T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
I have encountered a few religious folk who state that all these different gods are really the same god. That argument doesn't work, however, because they're all giving different instructions on what to do to be moral. So it seems the lesson when it comes to god belief would be that god belief requires a person be amoral.
If you want to have this discussion, you should illustrate the conflicts between different religious authority based moralities. Does different Gods actually yield different objective moralities, or is this a strawman argument?
Politesse
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God's presumed objectivity does not necessarily elevate all writings or portrayals of gods; suppose all of them are wrong except one, somehow? One can say this "feels" implausible, but saying that will do little to change the mind of someone who has already accepted it as proven that their denomination has the whole of the truth. Why appeal to the moral views of a group that the listener already considers illegitimate? You'll just get wrapped up in inter-denominational bickering by proxy.
ruby sparks
Contributor
So...effectively, we have no good reason to put any stock in any particular portrayal of any supposed god's supposed morals. Makes sense, and thank you for pointing it out.
Politesse
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There's no reason to be an asshole about this, I was just opining on the question.
ruby sparks
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I'm not being an asshole. What I said is the upshot of what both you and BH said.
Use of irony on my part, I admit.
fromderinside
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ronburgundy
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Even if we knew via objective evidence that God X existed, that God's moral decrees would be no more "objective" than your or mine subjective feelings about those issues. Are your feelings about whether buttholes should be sniffed any more objective though your dog's feelings about sniffing buttholes? Clearly not, just like God's feelings about abortion and gays is just a subjective opinion of a different entity, no more objective than any human's opinion. What theists are really trying to do is treat blind authoritarian deference as though it's the same as deferring to objective truth about fact. That is what makes theism so inherently dangerous and incompatible with valuing reason and human liberty.
Lion IRC
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Cheerful Charlie
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I have argued morals come from evolution. If we are robbed, raped, attacked, cheated et al, we do not have to run to some ancient book to know how we should feel about that. Nor do we have to consult ancient tomes to know how we should feel when good things happen. Emotions evolved to help animals with highly developed brains use their brains. And this is what we would expect as brains developed from their primitive states. None-existent gods have nothing to do with it.
The problem is that we also have developed large brains that can create abstract reasons, adopt bad religions, ideologies, racism, politics. That gave us Nazis, slavery, dictators like Stalin and radical Islam. Notoriously, religion, gods, seem to have not helped us to avoid that. Religion can easily over ride our moral instincts with evil abstract thinking.
In 1939, just before WW2 broke out, a census in Germany showed 95% of Germans claimed to be Christians. Of the 5% who did not, 2% were Jewish. Christianity with it's supposed God, giver of objective morality failed here. A warning to us all.
The gap between the Bible God and morals, and real world horrors of the near past, shows us that this claim morality comes from God is in the end, not a viable claim.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
Supposedly, God is the wisest being in the Universe, is perfectly moral, and all powerful, omnipotent. If so, God would do a better job of creating this world than God does. Various arguments by theists have been made. God values our free will. If God is omniscient and creates the world, God will have to choose an initial state of creation, which will unfold in a determinate fashion. Free will is impossible.
All moral evil is due to God's choice of which possible world God will actualize.
Put My Spirit In
Ezekiel 11:18-20
Ezekiel 36:26-28
Jeremiah 11:6-7
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Jeremiah 32:38-40
1 Corinthians 1:21-22
Ezekiel 11:18-20
18 And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the
abominations thereof from thence.
19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out
of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and
I will be their God.
Ezekiel 36:26-28
25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all
your idols, will I cleanse you.
26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments,
and do them.
28 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your
God.
And the Bible tells us God will indeed create us moral beings, so the free will defense is hogwash.
Interesting reading, but not really a response to my question.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
The answer form the bible is God could give us objective morality, and the OT claims God intends to do just that. It never worked out as the OT prophets claimed it was going to happen. The question then is where does our tendency towards morals come from? Not God.
If you insist on answering your own question, the answers will be satisfactory to you.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
The original question here is "It is argued that any god that exists is the source of objective moral values". A god who creates all and is omniscient. makes free will impossible. And my Bible quotes further demonstrate that God does not care for free will. Free will is an answer many theists use to explain away moral evil. God allows free will and moral evil to exist is a bad argument, which is what I am arguing. Irrelevant and not viable. The world we live in then, resembles more closely a Universe without a God. Especially a God who cares about us and gives us morals.
The many moral failings of Christian true believers, slavery, Jim Crow laws, et al, make the idea that Christians have an infallible source of morals debatable.
The many moral failings of Christian true believers, slavery, Jim Crow laws, et al, make the idea that Christians have an infallible source of morals debatable.
You have all of these supposed gods with different ideas about morals not to mention worship rituals.
Anyone could claim their god is the wisest, best at creation, has some grand plan or reason to explain supposed shortcomings, ect.
It seems to me, if we are not allowed to use our own reason and subjective opinions to decide what moral claims a god makes are true or not you have to have some sort of objective standard that exists seperate and apart from any god.
Anyone could claim their god is the wisest, best at creation, has some grand plan or reason to explain supposed shortcomings, ect.
It seems to me, if we are not allowed to use our own reason and subjective opinions to decide what moral claims a god makes are true or not you have to have some sort of objective standard that exists seperate and apart from any god.
Cont...otherwise you have no way of knowing which one is right because theoretically they are all smarter than you, more powerful than you, have a grand plan you dont understand and so forth.
Elixir
Made in America
The simple, obvious answer is that none of them is "right". The chances of any one being the "right" one would be 1:20,000 +- 10,000 or so, even ASSUMING that one of them is right. The answer most often given is "the one my parents raised me in is right". As is obvious, the chances that the religion you were raised in just happens to be the One True Religion while that title is conferred upon every religion by its adherents, those chances are vanishingly small. That's why it's called faith.
ETA: I was raised in forced exposure to several religions but not asked to choose. I soon concluded that the only elements of any religion that are likely to be correct are those elements that are shared among the vast bulk of them. Which pretty much boils down to the Golden Rule, aka "Don't be a dick if you can help it."
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When dealing with an all-powerful God it always comes down to might makes right. Lesson 1: Do what one needs to do in order to survive and carry on the species. Lesson 2: When guaranteed a place in heaven all bets are off. Bring on the floods, earthquakes and global warming for the glory of God and t'hell with the species.
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