Is God's moral above humans?

Originally posted by Surtur
Funny enough yeah I love Penn too. Penn and Tell Bullsh*t was an awesome show. I had a similar experience as him in terms of how you turn someone into an atheist. I didn't specifically choose to sit down and read the bible though, it was forced upon me due to being forced to go to Catholic School as a kid and in high school. We had the religion class with the bible readings and you'd be assigned a certain passage and then you'd have to read it out loud and in class and discuss, etc, etc. Every year it would be different parts of the bible.

Then you have the stations of the cross thing we'd do in church where they'd put up the big images and force the kids to go around to each one, etc. Every 2 years the school had a "Passion Play" which was basically just what it sounds like, a play about Jesus and him being crucified and all that. To which again...we were not given a choice and were forced to do this.

Lol. This perspective is hilarious to me, because I went through a lot of the same stuff, but I loved a lot of it. Hell, I was Jesus once or twice in the Passion play. It wasn't a school thing, though; we'd literally act it out on...I think it would've been Good Friday...at all the masses that took place that day.

One year, the lady in charge of the play and the guy playing Pontius Pilate got into a big fight, and he stormed out in between masses, presumably not to return. I had played Pilate the previous year, and a friend of mine, who had just entered the seminary but was back in town for the weekend, had played Jesus that year as well. I called him up and switched to Pilate to make it work. I felt somewhat heroic. Good times.

Originally posted by Surtur
You know thinking about it I agree with you on this. My perspective does have very little meaning. So lets say I can't judge God, I say that is fair. So we can't say he is good or bad. So I guess all I can do is list his "accomplishments" from the bible.

The list would include murder on a scale higher then any human being has ever wrought.

Originally posted by Digi
Lol. This perspective is hilarious to me, because I went through a lot of the same stuff, but I loved a lot of it. Hell, I was Jesus once or twice in the Passion play. It wasn't a school thing, though; we'd literally act it out on...I think it would've been Good Friday...at all the masses that took place that day.

One year, the lady in charge of the play and the guy playing Pontius Pilate got into a big fight, and he stormed out in between masses, presumably not to return. I had played Pilate the previous year, and a friend of mine, who had just entered the seminary but was back in town for the weekend, had played Jesus that year as well. I called him up and switched to Pilate to make it work. I felt somewhat heroic. Good times.

Well I won't say it was all not fun. I mean, school wasn't 100% dreadful. For me it was just the forced church going stuff.

Originally posted by psmith81992
Sure, and as an omnipotent being, he has his reasons.

Correct, I am sure he does have his reasons for murdering massive amounts of people.

Originally posted by Surtur
Correct, I am sure he does have his reasons for murdering massive amounts of people.

Yup.

Originally posted by Surtur
Well I won't say it was all not fun. I mean, school wasn't 100% dreadful. For me it was just the forced church going stuff.

Well sure, some of it was monotony. But I even enjoyed a lot of the ritual stuff that bored most kids.

I enjoy telling people who know me fairly well that I was seriously thinking of becoming a priest at one point. It's so wholly incongruent with my present day personality that they have trouble believing it. But like, I still know large chunks of the Catholic mass in Latin. Freaked my gf at one point with it. She told me she thought I was trying to summon an Elder God or Satan or something. Was a lovely prank.

Originally posted by Surtur
Morals as WE know it? God is not a very good person. Good people don't manipulate others, kill vast amounts of people, nuke cities with meteorites and kill innocents for merely look back(Lot's wife), and all that jazz. But if I point this out people will say I am bashing religion.

Lot's wife made her choice ahah

Originally posted by Surtur
So you see the excuse here is that he's God and thus is on a higher level and can totally have some higher view of morals or what right and wrong is and all that stuff.

Again, we breed animals to eat them, and only a handful of humans are even bothered by that. How good are human morals anyways? When an abstract powerful being acts "wrong", at least he has the assumed power to undo death and give bliss.

When we hurt people. We. Can't. Do. Shit.

But let's hang to our moral superiority 👆

Animals aren't thinking intelligent beings the way humans are. Especially the ones we tend to eat. So we can just scratch that right off.

I also never said we were morally superior. See, a person would be saying they are morally superior if they said "I'm just on a higher level, your morals don't apply to me". It is not moral superiority in a topic about God to bring up the common defenses of his actions. When I go out and specifically create topics just to bash "God" then maybe we can talk about me acting morally superior, but it makes no sense to suggest that merely because I'm bringing up the oh so often used defenses brought up whenever these *multiple* atrocities are mentioned.

whenever these *multiple* atrocities are mentioned.

Originally posted by psmith81992
But that's just the problem here. You keep referring to them as "atrocities" without any kind of context. So you ARE using your rationale to bash God.

But uh, people know the context. God thought everyone save a few was wicked, so he murdered them all with a flood. Or we could go with the other one of God thought everyone in a city was wicked so he murdered them all via meteors. I tend to just think coming a few people short of total genocide is the worst of the two. I'm kind of tending to assume anyone getting involved in a discussion about the biblical God has some basic knowledge of the biblical God.

Unless you meant instead of giving context of why he did what he did I wasn't naming a specific atrocity?

Originally posted by Surtur
But uh, people know the context. God thought everyone save a few was wicked, so he murdered them all with a flood. I'm kind of tending to assume anyone getting involved in a discussion about the biblical God has some basic knowledge of the biblical God.

But what further do I need to dwell? Do people not know the story? What other context do you feel there is besides "God thought most people were evil and thus murderized them" ?

If you have some context that makes it not an atrocity, I am all ears. Just so we are clear though, the people being evil doesn't make it any less of an atrocity.

Originally posted by Van Hohenheim
I'm talking about the Christian god, by the way. Please keep this discussion civilised and sophisticated, thank you. I'm very curious as to what you all think.

I don't believe in the Christian God so I do not think that his morals are above human morals (in fact I think that Christian morals are also just a different set of human morals)

If it was proven (which I don't think is possible) that a Christian God exists, that created us, etc. I would still not view his morals to be superior to other morals, I would just view such a being as another, albeit very powerful, opinion regarding morals.

Originally posted by Surtur
But what further do I need to dwell? Do people not know the story? What other context do you feel there is besides "God thought most people were evil and thus murderized them" ?

If you have some context that makes it not an atrocity, I am all ears. Just so we are clear though, the people being evil doesn't make it any less of an atrocity.

According to you, but you have to go into the context of these stories and see if there's something more than "people were killed", otherwise you're not talking about an omnipotent being. You really can't have it both ways.

If it was proven (which I don't think is possible) that a Christian God exists, that created us, etc. I would still not view his morals to be superior to other morals, I would just view such a being as another, albeit very powerful, opinion regarding morals.

You just dodged my question though: what context makes it not an atrocity according to you? You felt the need to talk about the context so that should mean you have some as yet unmentioned context of the situation that goes beyond "God thought most of the people he is responsible for creating were evil, thus murdered them".

Originally posted by Surtur
You just dodged my question though: what context makes it not an atrocity according to you?

I don't have the time to post the explanation of the flood, I'll do it when I get home. But it's rational when you read through it.

http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/15807/why-did-god-create-the-great-flood
http://answersfromthebook.org/2009/10/07/why-did-god-send-the-flood/
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090418221957AA1UR8o
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-killing.html
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=260

These were just the quickest links I can find. I think the last one is what you're looking for.

God thought most of the people he is responsible for creating were evil, thus murdered them

Edit: Also was just browsing through this, thought it was a good read:
http://www.inplainsite.org/html/can_god_kill_the_innocent.html

Originally posted by psmith81992
I would very much doubt that if a Christian God was proven to exist, you wouldn't change your stance here.

Why do you think that? Like so many of the things he wants from us seem so unjust to me. And I'm a pretty rebellious person, and since he's all knowing anyways, there isn't even a point in faking ones disapproval.

The Christian deity is definitely sub-moral in much that he is purported to have done, i.e., the outright murder of King David's infant son, etc., and in the New Testament his smiting of Ananias and Sapphira. As Carl Jung in his devastating critique of Yahweh said, although YHVH is supposed to be omniscient, he is too poorly developed to consult that omniscience, and hence commits all kinds of crimes, sins, and moral faux pas.

Abrahamic deities are vengeful, jealous, and insecure.

There is nothing moral about any of it. In fact the word itself is ridiculous

Originally posted by psmith81992
I don't have the time to post the explanation of the flood, I'll do it when I get home. But it's rational when you read through it.

http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/15807/why-did-god-create-the-great-flood
http://answersfromthebook.org/2009/10/07/why-did-god-send-the-flood/
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090418221957AA1UR8o
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-killing.html
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=11&article=260

These were just the quickest links I can find. I think the last one is what you're looking for.

That's an overly simplistic view of looking at the event in question. Furthermore, you haven't really gone beyond "God killed people and babies". That's not context, that's nothing. That's an incredibly basic understanding of the great flood.

Edit: Also was just browsing through this, thought it was a good read:
http://www.inplainsite.org/html/can_god_kill_the_innocent.html

Man you realize you just gave me a ton of reading. Just looking at the outline of the link you said is what I'm looking for..has stuff like "physical life is not all there is" . So essentially saying since there is a heaven killing kids isn't that bad. Then it says nonsense like atheists can't make moral judgements. Then it says atheists have no moral qualms about killing children. Then it basically concludes with "humans can't kill because they don't know the consequences" so come on.

You realize this basically just adds up to "God can do whatever he wants because he is omnipotent".

Why do you think that? Like so many of the things he wants from us seem so unjust to me. And I'm a pretty rebellious person, and since he's all knowing anyways, there isn't even a point in faking ones disapproval.

You realize this basically just adds up to "God can do whatever he wants because he is omnipotent".