The Judeo-Christian "God" was extremely immoral by today's standards, and immoral by his own standards. "Thou shalt not kill," eh? Well, God flooded the planet, blew up two cities for putting it in the wrong hole, and let Satan ruin a poor guy's life for no good reason. I don't think any higher power is a good judge of morality (nor practicality), because they're all fabricated by man (and you'd never trust another man to tell you what's right and what's wrong, so why trust something they made up?).

To pre-empt Jack's response: it's an opinion that "God" exists. It's a fact that he doesn't.

That's because Yahweh was a god of war.

Prove it.
Facts require evidence.

The whole point of this topic is to discuss whether God defines morality or not; if the Christian God exists then it wouldn't make sense for God to not define morality, or He would be bounded by something beyond Himself. If God doesn't exist then there is no absolute morality, only whatever morals you feel yourself or can enforce on others.
I consider the God of the Bible to be perfectly moral, because He created morality. Everything which God has done is moral because He chooses what is moral and what isn't.

Kay, I started writing this before Jack responded, but:
You're asserting that there is no higher power. The burden of proof now lies with you, but you'll find that it is impossible to prove a higher power does not exists, just as it is impossible to prove one does exist.

Also, are you suggesting morality is a universal constant that applies to every organism the same as it does to man? Is asexual reproduction of amoeba sinful? If you cannot apply these sets of moralities to all species, why are you trying to apply it to something otherworldly?

Okay, first, something cannot be both an opinion and a fact. You can have an opinion on a fact, and you can have facts that support your opinion, but whether or not apples taste good is not a fact, and whether or not apples grow from trees is not an opinion. The existence of something is either true or false (quantum shenanigans aside). Secondly, your assertion that "God" doesn't exist isn't proven, and you've provided no evidence to support the assertion. Finally, what does this have to do with morality?

Can God not choose to intentionally do something immoral? Is God incapable of immorality? If he defines morality and then acts in violation of it, is that not an instance of him being immoral?

He could, yes, but He says in the Bible that He doesn't.

(Deuteronomy 32:3-4) "For I proclaim the name
of the LORD; Ascribe greatness to our God! {4}
"The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are
just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.

(Psalms 5:4) For Thou art not a God who takes
pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with Thee.

Alright, but have we not agreed that killing is immoral, and also agreed that God has killed? It seems rather contradictory to say that God doesn't do any immoral acts when this is the case.

It is immoral for humans to kill, not for God to kill. and indeed, in certain situations it is moral for humans to kill (death penalty).

I am editing my complimentary response out because Jack said in the shoutbox that I misread his post. I thought he was saying that God would not commit an immoral act (while demonstrating that normally immoral acts can actually be moral depending on the circumstances), not that God cannot commit an immoral act because he's not held at any kind of standard or to any level of accountability.

If you think that God can strike down a perfectly innocent person for absolutely no reason other than personal whim, and that it would be automatically moral because he is the president of morality, then that's insane.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2012, 5:04 am by Azrael.

Azrael, I think you forget the scope of such a being. If He exists as described, God is so powerful, that he can make 2 + 2 = 5 be utterly true, and we would be not just powerless to deny it, but incapable of proving it wrong. His merest whim can change the nature of the universe, or create universes, or destroy them. If he does exist as omnipotently as he is described, then his 'personal' whim could truly change the nature of morality. In fact, not only would it be changed, but we possibly would never even realize that anything had changed. This is the consequence of His omnipotence, logic is largely fruitless in bearing any knowledge about His nature and capabilities. In essence, if He said killing someone was moral, suddenly we would find that it would be, since the nature of the universe would be derived entirely from Him.

Two things here:

1) Since God says he will never perform an act of immorality, anything he does will be regarded to be morally sound, regardless of how immoral the act would be if a human did it. He could rape and pillage villages, set babies on fire, and kill because he's bored, but those would all be moral acts. However, from the set of morals mankind has, God has definitely been more immoral than anyone that has ever lived (due to the longevity of his eternal existence, no doubt). So, I suppose the answer to this thread is that if God were human, he would be the most immoral being in the universe, but since he is otherworldly and says he doesn't perform immoral acts, he is infallibly moral.

2) Is the death penalty morally justified? Is killing in war also morally justified, then? Is murder alright as long as it is legal? No, it isn't. They aren't killing in the name of God when they issue the death penalty; the sentence isn't issued because the criminal has forsaken the Bible. They're killing because the person broke the law, law that man created. We can justify the death penalty, but it is still not moral, even by the Bible's standards (correct me if I'm wrong, though).

The only scenario I see killing someone as morally justified is if it's the only way to save another person's life, which isn't a scenario that would likely ever come up.

Under the laws of the Old Testament, it would be immoral to not carry out the death penalty where it was commanded.

But when it comes to laws which are not specifically written in the Bible, (the specifics of which only applied to the Israelites before Jesus' resurrection), we come across an interesting question on whether or not it would be morally justifiable to kill someone for breaking a law which was not specifically set forth by God for this age. I'll have to think about this some more, although it's not entirely relevant to the topic and more relevant to a topic about morality. Without giving it a great amount of thought and research at this time, I can only postulate that the themes of the Old Testament civil laws would ideally be carried through to this age, if not the specifics.

Yes.


And this is part of the reason why the Old Testament is so great. Not like that New Age sequel.


It isn't a question that will be come across since we only give the death penalty for murder.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 3 2012, 7:26 pm by Azrael.

Most Western countries only give the death penalty for murder at the moment, if that. But what about countries which give the death penalty for rape? Would it be morally justifiable to do so?

You have yet to explain why the Bible should count as factual evidence. It shouldn't. It's a work of fiction and God is a fictional character within that work of fiction, much like James Raynor of StarCraft or Mario of Super Mario Bros. So, until you provide evidence for ANY of your points, do not expect someone else to do so out of the kindness of their heart.
It is very disturbing that you are not content with enforcing your skewed version of reality upon people, but must go a step further and have your own moral choices become the paradigm of a good citizen. That is inherently evil; it's not even an arguable issue anymore. I need not even respond to points like this without ridiculing you for being so downright shortsighted.
Riddle me this; I create a biome. I create all the organisms within. The entire landscape is in my vision. These organisms that I've created have lives, families, sentience, and build cities. Then, I flood the biome, blow up the cities, and plague and slaughter the sentient organisms. Am I moral? If your answer is yes, check in to your nearest mental institution and do us all a favour.
You could say the same thing about disproving the existence of unicorns (and you'd be right), but if no evidence for something exists (and works of fiction don't count, otherwise Scooby Doo is now real), it is already disproved. You're not real until proven otherwise - reality doesn't work like that.
God does not exist; he is fictional, thus I am not applying it to something otherworldly. There is no argument that can be made for the existence of God, anymore than there's an argument for the existence of the Zerg or the Metroids.

Other organisms, like lions, tigers, and bears, cannot comprehend moral justifications, nor can they see a moral consequence. Neither could early humans; if society looked to the conflicts that no doubt occurred within tribes of Neanderthals, where they raped, pillaged, slaughtered, and stole from one another, most would say something along the lines of, "That's wrong! That's immoral! That's inhumane!" You can say the same thing about lions stalking and viciously killing their prey, but it won't get you anywhere. You can indeed apply morality to anything; what you get out of it, though, is another topic of discussion altogether.
I can honestly agree with your statement here; I'm not arguing with you, though. In America, we welcome the idea that the Earth was created six thousand years ago. It wasn't. That's just not true. Thus, it's an opinion - and a wrong opinion - that the Earth was created six thousand years ago; it's a fact that it wasn't. You cannot argue aptly and readily with sentiments such as yours; when dealing with the swill and the swine of society, you do have to forgo common sensibility for practicality.
I essentially responded to the same statement from Jack. I'm just responding so you didn't think I ignored this response.
It has more to do with the topic of discussion that this thread has turned into than it does with morality. From what I garnered from the statements here, people were discussing more the existence of God and existence of an absolute godlike Christian morality.
You should walk around preaching that you're the lord of your own household, and because you built the house, and built the furniture, and built the decorations, and bred the animals, and reproduced to make the people that populate the house, you can do whatever you want and be morally sound. No. You can't. You are incorrect, and vehemently so.
I like this statement, especially because it bears a strong resemblance to the question, "Can God create a boulder so heavy that even He cannot lift it?" Any Christian would respond to a question that doubted God's abilities with, "God can do anything!" Such a response is damning for Jack and his ilk.

To extrapolate something, though, I find it odd that no one has brought this up yet. If I travel to a land bereft of a moral definition, and I define an accepted moral of, "It's wrong to sleep with those who are not your spouse," and I go and sleep with someone who is not my spouse, I have broken my own moral definition. I think that's obvious, and you can't really argue with that without going back to the opinion vs. fact debate that me and Roy have begun.
Come on, Azrael. Actually try to respond with reasoning and points.
I see treason in a lot of these, buddy.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 4 2012, 12:27 am by Roy. Reason: Re-added nondeleted quote and specific response to said quote.

We have been discussing morality based on the assumption that a divine being exists; then you come along and make the statement "God doesn't exist." The burden of proof lies upon you to prove it, and in addition your statement is completely offtopic, because everyone else in this thread, from what I remember, has been working off the assumption that God does in fact exist; orherwise there is no point in arguing about divine command theory.
You don't appear to actually be responding to the part of my post which you quoted.No, because you are a human, and therefore are bounded by the moral laws which God has created. God, on the other hand, being the creator of said moral laws, is also outside of them, so He is entirely moral in whatever He does, unless He decides to do something immoral. The Christian God is perfect, so He never does anything immoral.As I said before, this topic works off the assumption that God exists. However, I also can make unsabstianted claims: God exists, pronogo doesn't, and the Bible is 100% true, therefore you're wrong. LOL LOGIC

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2012, 11:59 pm by Roy. Reason: Inappropriate for SD

The problem of evil's first premise is that God exists [link]. Therefore, this position is out of the scope of this discussion.



Ad hominem and personal attacks have no business here. Furthermore, I believe you may be committing a straw-man fallacy and appealing to spite/ridicule.



Unlike our court of law, which operates on the Boolean premise that you are innocent until proven guilty, logic does not follow this dichotomy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Further, you assume the burden of proof to disprove the existence of God (weak position) or all possible deities (strong position). In reference to the problem of evil, it limits the number of deities to those which are omnipotent.



You seek to abandon that which you are attempting to promote? It is difficult to share a gospel of love if you argue with bullets.

---

The rest of your post is riddled with personal attacks against Jack. I highly suggest that you more carefully construct your responses and refrain from taking further jabs at Jack. It's against the forum rules and serves no purpose but to destroy any meaningful discussion. Jack is a very intelligent and curious member, and while your prejudice may prevent you from seeing that, it's high time you treated him with the respect he -- and everyone in this discussion -- deserves.

Well a big problem with divine command theory is knowing what the God's moral rules are.
Let's grant two presuppisitions, that God does exist, and it is the Christian God of (whatever Jack's religion is).

Now... how do we establish what that God's moral laws are? The Bible? The Holy Spirit?

Answer me this and I'll puzzle this out with you, Jack.


Obviously I'm of the opinion that there is no sufficient evidence or argument to indicate that any God does exist, but I also think that divine command theory would fail as a form of morality even IF Jack's God did exist. So I'm happy to discuss this one with you.

It's definitely morally justifiable to give the death penalty for rape. In fact, that's what they used to do in the United States as well. The reason they took the death penalty off the table is for one simple reason: If someone will get the death penalty for rape, then the rapist has a strong incentive to murder their victim, since it lowers the chances that they will be caught, and doesn't provide any additional risk or punishment to them even if they are caught for the murder.


Treason and espionage, which are defined well enough to mean undermining the security of the nation or the safety of its people.

I wouldn't really care if they decided to lock such people up forever in some military prison instead, but I understand why a nation would choose to approach treason in this way. You have to keep in mind that these acts often equate to conspiring to commit mass murder (like selling nuclear secrets).

At any rate, the United States has not executed anyone for reasons other than murder for many decades.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 3 2012, 7:26 pm by Azrael.

The Ten Commandments, or if you prefer, the summary of the Ten Commandments which Jesus gives:
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all
your mind.’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
The Bible is full of more specific examples of how to carry out that love.

Slightly off-topic, but why do we call it the Ten Commandments when there are not ten of them?
I presume it would be immoral to violate any of the 613 commandments in the Bible, or are some less important than others? Can one commandment be less immoral than another?