Forums → WEPR → The Religion Debate Thread

No, they don't. You can't deliberately defy something you know nothing about. It's like being condemned for doing something last week that supposedly violated an obscure sixteenth century taxation law from an Indonesian bill that was passed without anyone's knowledge and forgotten in a desk drawer until yesterday. Just having a rule exist under some circumstance does not obligate everyone in the universe to follow it.

You can definitely break a law you're unaware of. That doesn't make you any less guilty.

Guilty in the eye of the one who made the law, perhaps, but that is irrelevant. You cannot be made responsible for breaking a law you knew nothing about.

Also, to tie this with the other argument, since you believe God to be omnipresent, yet religion to be dependent of place of birth / culture, this further muddies the picture as God apparently gave different laws to different cultures, yet, in your opinion, only acts upon those you were taught about?

That doesn't make sense anywhere. If you didn't know that you're not allowed to kill someone, you're still guilty. Perhaos a better example would be iff you didn't know about drinking laws in a different country, you're still held accountable.

I never said those religions were right. There is only one true God and only a few worship Him.

You can definitely break a law you're unaware of.

And it's not just having a rule under circumstance. It is a rule by the highest authority in the universe.

If you didn't know that you're not allowed to kill someone, you're still guilty.

Perhaos a better example would be iff you didn't know about drinking laws in a different country, you're still held accountable.

I assume that every country has a law against murder... that's just common sense. Also, legal laws are a bad example, perhaps, for the simple reason that they are laws of real entities (countries) and when you visit that country, you can be expected to inform yourself and respect that other country's laws, as you know there can be real penalties.
In the case of religions however, my point is that you cannot be held morally responsible for not following a law you were not aware of. What is worse, there are so many different religions and denominations, it is strictly impossible to know about every single law, even less follow them all, just in case one of those religions might be right. From that point of view, the vast majority of humanity would be doomed to rot in hell either way, completely independently of whether they are good people or not. That's bonkers. And entirely arbitrary.

I never said you said that. You did say that what religion you are is heavily influenced by where and when you were born. You also said you never read the Koran, so if there was a God and He was more like Muslims believe He is, you've probably broken God's laws innumerable times already, without knowing. But I realize you won't care as you think you're one of the chosen few anyway. I'll come back to that later.

Is that not what my analogy just demonstrated?

No; it's having a rule that circumstances render utterly impossible to follow, and while we mortals must make do with a fallible and biased judicial system that inevitably fails to account for these circumstances, Almighty God is supposed to be better than that.

Well, no. If you lack any awareness that this is a criminal act, you can't be guilty. That's what insanity pleas are for, after all.

Right, so if such a country* suddenly declared that this law is universally enforceable and began convicting† various people outside its jurisdiction‡, holding those people accountable for violating this law would be unethical and utterly absurd. That is the problem.

I don't understand why it would be necessary to follow the laws of every religion. There should only be one set of true laws if only one true God exists.

Why should God have laws that make it okay for people to disobey Him just because they can't obey Him?

The difference is that people of every religion are under God's jurisdiction because they were made by God.

I

t's the argument from inconsistent revelations. You cannot know which rules of which denomination of which religion are the correct ones.

If people can't obey Him, He has no right to punish them for not being able to obey Him.

No, it isn't. To someone who doesn't even know about Him, there is no way to even suspect that He has that authority over them. It makes just as much sense as a country you've never heard of deciding that its unconventional laws apply to you.

I don't understand why it would be necessary to follow the laws of every religion. There should only be one set of true laws if only one true God exists.

Watch all of it.Edit: oops i din't see that you posted

How can one know which one is true? You might be convinced you are right, but for someone like me, all religions are equally unlikely. If I had to choose from the myriads of religious denominations, I'd have no clue, since all religions each claim to be the true one. How could I be punished for not following a rule when there are too many potential ones to follow, and it isn't even clear whether any is relevant at all?

If there is only one God, how come there are so many different religions to begin with? You'd think an omnipresent supposedly all-loving being as possessive as the Christian God would make clear which is true and which isn't. And no, that would not impair our free will. You have to know the options to make a real choice, and knowing of the options available does not warp your choice, quite the contrary in fact.

If people can't obey Him, He has no right to punish them for not being able to obey Him.

What is the logic to that?

Just thought I'd help out this aspect, as it may be an important one.

The reasoning behind this comes from Immanuel Kant, who developed the following claim: 'ought implies can'. Basically, if I ought to do something (i.e. I have a moral--or even legal--obligation to do something) it follows that I can do it.

In other words, if it is the case that I ought to do something, it follows that I can, in fact, do it.

The converse (which the quoted text mentions) is that if I cannot do X, then it's not the case that I have a moral obligation to do it. This gets a bit complicated, but it comes down to whether or not a moral obligation can be discharged--that is, whether I can do some action to fulfill the obligation.

So if I cannot obey God, then I am under no obligation to do so.

But the question here comes down to whether someone who is unfamiliar with the notion of God can obey him. In a trivial sense, they can't because it's not obeying God (after all, they're not aware of any laws/commandments that they are obeying). That's not quite what's at issue here, though. I can follow a law, even if I'm not familiar that such a law exists.

What's going on in a case like this, however, is that I'm following a law, but not obeying it. Put another way, I just so happen to be doing what the law says. In a sense, we're now in the realm of moral luck, where I am no longer praiseworthy (or credit worthy, or creditable--depending on your specific views here) for doing the morally correct thing.

I've now lost my train of thought (I've been working nonstop for 10 hours and I've very tired), but I think there's something there you guys can go off of if you want. Sorry for rambling.

That's on you, my friend. If God says you need to follow the law, you best be following the law.

With Christianity, you are not required to follow any laws to be saved because Jesus did it for you. It is ONLY by the grace of God that you are saved.

Now this is where I would point you to the link I sent. You might want to start at lesson 3.

@Moegreche I see. You know, you write very well when you're tired. However, maybe the problem in this particular argument lies in the word "can". There is a lot to cover so I suggest watching the lecture on free will, but basically since the fall of man, we have lost the desire to choose righteousness. It's not that we can't choose to obey God, but we would rather not based on our deepest inclinations.

He never showed up to tell me what to do or not to do. So I can't; so it's not on me, no.

Only some Christians believe that.

Why, then, is the Bible full of things to do and not to do? Worse, the Bible explicitly shows God punishing people for their actions.

I feel like we already had that argument, but I find that a horrible thing to believe in, as it means nothing we do or are is relevant at all, even more so since apparently his son took responsibility for anything that might ever be done. All we are supposed to be are living proof of God's glory; isn't that what you said last time we talked about that?

Does it explain the multitude of religions and denominations?

What is the logic to that?

Watch all of it.

That's on you, my friend. If God says you need to follow the law, you best be following the law. Too bad no one can.

[...] but basically since the fall of man, we have lost the desire to choose righteousness. It's not that we can't choose to obey God, but we would rather not based on our deepest inclinations.

As a creature of God, it is your responsibility to obey Him, so you should try to find out what He requires at least.