As with all my other thought experiments, there is no right or wrong answer here. It is meant to spark discussion about a topic. Please keep it clean and have fun! ----------- THOUGHT EXPERIMENT 6: Good God!
And the Lord spoke unto the philosopher, "I am the Lord they God, and I am the source of all that is good. Why does they secular moral philosophy ignore me?" And the philosopher spoke unto the Lord, "To answer I must first ask you some questions, dude. You command us to do what is good, but is it good because you command it, or do you command it because it is good?" (This is known as the Euthyphro question) "Uhh..." said the Lord. "It's good because I command it...?" "The wrong answer, surely, your mightiness! If the good is only good because you say it is so, then you could, if you wished, make it so that torturing infants was good. But that would be absurd, wouldn't it?" "Of course!" replieth the Lord. "I tested thee and thou hast made me pleased. What was the other choice again?" "You choose what is good because it is good. But that shows quite clearly that goodness does not depend on you at all. So we don't need to study God to study the good." "Even so," spoke the Lord, " you've got to admit I've written some pretty good textbooks on the subject..." ----------
DISCUSSION
The idea that God is good, however, is ambiguous. It could mean that God is good int he same way that chocolate is good, or Billy Bob is good. In these cases, "is" functions to attribute a quality or property to something, such as goodness or blueness. Equally, however, "God is good" could be a sentence like "Water is H2O." Here, "is" indicates an identity between the two terms: the one thing is identical to the other. In the hymns that Christians sing at church, the "is" seemed to be one of identity, not attribution. God is not loving, but love; not beautiful but beauty. God doesn't just have the qualities, he IS them. hence, "God is good" implies that the notions of God and goodness are inextricably linked, that the essence of the good is God. So, it is no wonder that many believe that there can be no morality without God. If goodness and Godness cannot be separated, secular morality is a contradiction in terms. However, that pseudo-conversation I wrote talking to God seems to demonstrate very clearly and simply that this cannot be so. If God is good, it is because God is and chooses to do what is ALREADY good. God doesn't make something good by choosing it; he chooses it because it is good. Now, some might protest that this argument works only because it separates what cannot be separated. If God really is good, then it doesn't make sense to pose a dilemma in which the good and God are separated. But since it seems to make perfect sense to ask whether the good is good because God commands it, or God commands it because it is good, this objection simply begs the questions. Even if God and the good really were one, it would still be reasonable to ask what makes this identity true. The answer would surely be that we know what good is and it is this which would enable us to say truly that God is good. If God advocated pointless torture, we would know that he was not good. This shows that we can understand the nature of goodness independently of God. And that shows that a godless morality is not an oxymoron.
So, what do you guys think? Are there holes in this argument? Can we truly know what goodness is separated from God if there was no God in the beginning? Could pointless torture have been good pre-God?
Here's the deal. This problem makes God very tiny compared to what he is. If God is the God who made everything, then everything was designed to work the way he intended. If his intent was to kill infants, well then that would be the "good" because that would be the way things were meant to be. If god advocated pointless torture, would we really think it was evil? If pointless tortue was good, then it is clearly not bad. BUT (and this is a big but), that is not the way God is.
In this scenario, good is good because God says it's good. The objection by the philosopher that God saying killing babies would be absurd begs the question itself. Clearly, if God said that infanticide was good, then it would be good. The objection that infanticide doesn't "seem" good isn't really relevant. Eating pork doesn't "seem" bad, but it is in some faiths.
God has made everything, but in our simple terms we can UNDERSTAND him as good. Since were clearly smart enough to see the bad in things, we can see that pointless torture sucks. But, some people, do things like this for their own personal benefits or are too blind to see the wrong in what they are doing because of their experience or ignorance. God has made what is good good because God himself is righteous. You cannot worship the devil, as the devil himself is wrong and supports what is wrong. In human terms, if one is not guided rightly by their diety or whatever htey believe in then they could be lost and turn into your next door serial killer.
Eating Pork in my religion is only because of our faith and love twords God, we can't see whats wrong with it, but He's right on everything else and has led some of our people to success. Therefor, in Islam, Its forbidden to eat pork, so we don't. Its not bad or good, but its just not wanted. Also, I believe that following laws like this helps anyway, It'll keep you away from the temptation to do bad stuff. Knowing not to eat pork at five might end up turning into knowing not to kill someone caz they stole your girlfriend. [Weird way of thinkin it, but follow along]
So, for our simple minded world, God is good because he's made it Good, because it IS Good, and because he's said its Good. Some can't understand such, so in the end they start seeing that God and morality are in no way related, and the day they start drinking beer too much, get drunk and hurt someone they'll realize it could have been better just to have always avoided the crap.
Oh heavens, I think I gave my version of this in page 83-84 of Devoidless' "Why...?" thread. But having had plenty of apologetics experience, I'm going to withold comment on the thread itself.
Knowing not to eat pork at five might end up turning into knowing not to kill someone caz they stole your girlfriend.
To frame this, I read this as "following a habit/ritual of moral discipline can preserve one's practice of moral good in general."
But I would suggest that one doesn't actually need God for this.
Well, true enough. But I was just pointing that out for why. The rest of the post is the meaning. XP
I mean, The world has been shaped by God, and all that God has commanded hasn't been wrong, even to Atheists. Therefor, the moral part is kind of connected. Also, Alot of people change from religion, ones that don't experience it usually have different lives. Not to say all will fail, but I know a good lot of people who are Atheists and dont' have much of any religion, they do what THEY think is right which could be being racists for the heck of it or beating on some kid smaller than them just for not giving 'em cash. Sad world, buddy.
all that God has commanded hasn't been wrong, even to Atheists
Whoa whoa whoa, that's overgeneralising. Especially since even on this forum you can witness various arguments about moral codes, both religious and secular. And let us not forget committing atrocities in the name of the Lord!
What is not such a bad generalisation to make is that yes, for many people, religious grounding of morality seems to be their only grounding. But one still has to ask what form of morality this is, and whether this has any implications for whether morality in general is necessarily connected to religion, or whether this is merely reflective of the person "being wayward", or what.
Atrocities in the name of the Lord are wrongdoings in the Name of the Lord therefor going against the Word of the Lord and therefor you don't have a very religious person, just someone doing something to blame it on God. -Gasp-
Also, Your second sentence has confused me. Morality may not be connected to religion 100%, after all, atheists aren't all evil. :P
But it holds that sence to upholding it, mainly starting it and setting up standard ways of living your life. Not just morally but in how to be succesful and what or what not to do. Its not our only grounding, after all, Theres God and all this other stuff. Also, I haven't heard many religious moral codes, I mean, stuff like Death Penalty and Homosexuality is barely mentioned in the Bible, [out of everything else], but that stuff isn't commanded. As some new versions say this, other say that. Whatever, but his main basic codes set out are morally right. [am sure, I think xP]
"Being Wayward" ?? I've heard the song "Carry on my Wayward Son".
Never knew what the word meant. xP
Morality in General is obviously religion, or it wouldn't be a word, but its connected to Religion by showing people a straight path to live their lives. After all, in truth, How many people would care on what they did? [Not a whole lot.]
I dislike posting in topics about religion or God but meh... here I go.
God is good. He created the Earth and all who dwells on it. God has created good the moment he created the Earth. God has never changed the meaning of good. God has never made something bad into good or good into bad (though he has made bad things result in good things and vice versa... but those happen by a chain of events). Now because God has never changed what is "good", then the meaning of good is as well as being written in stone.
This would be the way your average Christain would argue about this. God created good and he has never changed what is good and what is bad. Going by this, I would asume that if God changed what good was, then he would have to make himself known to tell humanity what the new meaning of good and bad was. Now I beleive that most Christains would stop beleiving in God (evin if he showed up in front of them in person) IF God was to tell them that killing infants was now good and torture was acceptable.
To make things simple, if God was to apear to the world in person with all his glory and changed the meaning of good, people would stop beleiving in him (either that what they saw was real or that God is the person to worship). If God apeared in person and explained that he has never changed the meaning of good since he created man, then people would keep beleiving. People will beleive only what they want to beleive.
therefor you don't have a very religious person, just someone doing something to blame it on God. -Gasp-
So how does one judge this?
"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." (John 8:7, NIV)
Zing!
Anyway...I think our differences on how morality relates to religion is because of the way I commentate on both morality (again see Devoidless' thread), and on religion (which I have largely refrained from doing here). To me, religion and notions of God are not all-encompassing but always looked at within the scope of humans and human history. Like Asherlee and Garifu have said, I think that in general even allowing for a reality without religion (something which I might say was difficult to envisage given the contingencies), I think that there are other bases to the various intuitions of our morality, even if it is not a uniform thing.
That is not to say that people are inherently good, but that something governs our behavior and informs us as to whether we should feel good about it or not, that this isn't all arbitrary or dependent on the notion of religion.
The same could also be applied to expressions of religious belief.
Going by this, I would asume that if God changed what good was, then he would have to make himself known to tell humanity what the new meaning of good and bad was.
So recently, the Catholic church has decided to revise the 7 deadly sins and the holy doctrines around this.
Then the Catholic church would split in two if the holy doctrines were changed, evin if the pope himself changed them. You would have some people stay with the Catholic church and go along with the changes... and you would get the others who remained faithful to what the church was like before the change in the doctrines.
There would be one hell of a battle between the New Catholic Church and the old Catholic Church.
Hm, you think? I haven't bothered to speculate on the outcomes, only thought "well it's high time somebody updated."
Because as you well point out, context seems to be entirely forgotten in the mad desire to hold fast to dogma. In this way, the concern about the "growing irrelevance of organised religion" (however valid this is) seems to be traced to the same mechanism, with a growing number of people (the New Age generation) seeking out their own beliefs and form of spirituality.
You will always have the people who will live in the past:those who would stick with the Old Catholic Church, those who would move on with society: those who would move on with the New Catholic Church, and those who would search out their own beleifs: those who would leave the Catholic Society all together.
Though this is a broad observation. Just because a person does not move on does not necisarily mean that they live in the past. Its more of a way of looking at things. = )
From what I can remember, if God operates outside of time, he wouldn't have to come down to change right and wrong, because he would have made it so from the beginning (even though there would be no "beginning" for God). Even to suggest that he got it wrong to start with seems like blasphemy within religious circles! Aye yai yai!
I was hoping to tie together the "human reality entwined with religion" idea in Strop's post, and Moe's post about how if God said something were good which we think to be bad, it would be moot because it would be good. I think this is likely true: Aztecs sacrificed virgins and captured soldiers, and that was considered REALLY good (in a religious context) at the time; who's to say that if God had said "kill infants" back in the day, Christians would think it bad now? The fact is, we are a product of our past, and religion, whether we like it or not, has a firm grip on it. Granted, certain practices have fallen by the wayside as civilization progressed: slavery is mostly gone, human sacrifice is LONG gone. Is this social evolution, manifest in great improvements in civilized society? Ummm, maybe????
