Assume the existence of an omnipotent, authortitative God is true.
God manifests himself (be it dream, another person, etc.) and you are 100% sure it is God. God tells you to torture your mother to go to Heaven. Would you?
My argument:
Yes
By Divine Command Theory (DCT), God is the supreme lawmaker, and God is good. If God is good, then God's command is good, which means torturing your mother = good. So therefore, you are to obey God, and torture your mother.
The flaw with DCT is that it can make religion (or morality) arbitrary.
I am assuming someone will come from the "autonomy thesis" angle soon, I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
Divine command theory is flawed for precisely the reason that it cannot be the product of a "good" god.
The idea behind divine command theory is that there is no objective good or evil - all good and evil comes from god. Torture is not intrinsically bad; it is only bad because god says its bad. If god said torture was good, it would be good, regardless of how much pain and indignity was involved.
Keep that in mind for the next bit.
Why are there evil people? The answer: because there are moral laws. You can't have criminals without crimes, right? Until god says "lying is wrong!" then there are no people who are evil for being liars. God's moral command creates evil people.
If god had not made a law against lying, there may have been liars. But they would not be evil. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with lying. It's only evil because god made it evil.
What you end up with is a god who creates evil people unnecessarily. Just for the fun of it, really. That cannot be a good god.
Humans make arbitrary definitions, which you have turned into some kind of weird god, Indi. What does that have to do with the reality of God?
Do you deny that there is an absolute distinction between what is helpful and what is harmful? (You can’t talk abstract terms to pie in the sky intellectuals like this, you have to use only concrete terms or things will get out of hand quickly, Soulfire).
Personally, I think that if I could have put a little fear into my mother, who was contumacious and deeply disturbed in a way that was extremely harmful to me and my younger siblings, it would have helped the situation considerably. She abandoned me at an early age, and then when I came to rescue my siblings, which meant having to deal with her, she was an endless burden of unimaginable proportions who not only made my life miserable in thoughout my 20’s and early thirties, but was constantly stealing money from me. When my siblings were finally off on their own and was able to moved out, she abruptly emptied my bank account of every last penny.
A century ago this kind of insane behavior, yelling and screaming all the time at the hand that fed her, would have met a very brutal reaction. Thank God I was not raised by her. Being abandoned by her at an early age was actually quite a blessing.
| Indi wrote: |
Divine command theory is flawed for precisely the reason that it cannot be the product of a "good" god.
The idea behind divine command theory is that there is no objective good or evil - all good and evil comes from god. Torture is not intrinsically bad; it is only bad because god says its bad. If god said torture was good, it would be good, regardless of how much pain and indignity was involved.
Keep that in mind for the next bit.
Why are there evil people? The answer: because there are moral laws. You can't have criminals without crimes, right? Until god says "lying is wrong!" then there are no people who are evil for being liars. God's moral command creates evil people.
If god had not made a law against lying, there may have been liars. But they would not be evil. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with lying. It's only evil because god made it evil.
What you end up with is a god who creates evil people unnecessarily. Just for the fun of it, really. That cannot be a good god. |
God's laws are there for our benefit. Theoretically at least, if everybody followed them, there would not be much suffering in the world. If God does not care about whether we suffer or not, however, then it would be wrong for Him to make arbitrary laws of good and evil. (Such as making it moral to torture your mother.) God created morality to make life easier for us, not to condemn us. If He hadn't given any laws, that would show that He is uncaring about us, which would not be characteristic of a 'good' God. (Of course, the meaning of 'good' breaks down a little when you start considering exactly what the difference between good and evil is. Suppose God decided that being uncaring towards one's creations is 'good'?) | ocalhoun wrote: |
| God's laws are there for our benefit. Theoretically at least, if everybody followed them, there would not be much suffering in the world. If God does not care about whether we suffer or not, however, then it would be wrong for Him to make arbitrary laws of good and evil. (Such as making it moral to torture your mother.) God created morality to make life easier for us, not to condemn us. If He hadn't given any laws, that would show that He is uncaring about us, which would not be characteristic of a 'good' God. (Of course, the meaning of 'good' breaks down a little when you start considering exactly what the difference between good and evil is. Suppose God decided that being uncaring towards one's creations is 'good'?) |
You're not using divine command theory.
You are claiming that moral laws are put in place to prevent harm - that is, that something is "bad" because doing it causes harm. By saying that, you are using an objective measure of morality, not divine command theory. You are allowing for the existence of morality without a god - because i could just as easily make a moral code based on minimizing harm without any need for a god.
In divine command theory, there is no absolute standard. All morality comes from the god. Something is not "bad" because it causes harm, it is "bad" because the god says it's bad, nothing more, nothing less. Ask the question: "why did god say X is bad?" If the answer is anything other than "because he felt like it", for example, if it is "because it hurts people", then you are not using divine command theory.
Very few people who talk about relative morality - of which divine command theory is an example - actually believe in relative morality when you put their ideas to the test. | Indi wrote: |
| it is "bad" because the god says it's bad, nothing more, nothing less. |
Of course.
I was explaining why God says it's bad, instead of just telling us to do whatever we want with no thought to consequences.
A good God does not give a command without a good reason. | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | it is "bad" because the god says it's bad, nothing more, nothing less. |
Of course.
I was explaining why God says it's bad, instead of just telling us to do whatever we want with no thought to consequences.
A good God does not give a command without a good reason. |
Hmm...my reading of the O.T. gives me a different view... | ocalhoun wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | it is "bad" because the god says it's bad, nothing more, nothing less. |
Of course.
I was explaining why God says it's bad, instead of just telling us to do whatever we want with no thought to consequences.
A good God does not give a command without a good reason. |
i'm not sure what your point is.
If God had a reason - good or no, as long as it's not just a totally made up reason like "i didn't like it, so i made it evil" - then you are not using divine command theory.
If you are using divine command theory, then there is nothing wrong with rape, murder or anything else... except that God said he didn't like it. If God changed his mind tomorrow and said they are fine, then they would be fine.
If you are using divine command theory, then there is no "why" except "God says so".I just know you have to respect your parents (father and mother). No point of fearing them and not respecting them.
i wouldnt, simple as, i am an aethesit but assuming all the things are true i wouldnt, because my family if my family and it is wrong, and a god that would ask that of you is a dick
Soulfire, the entire fact that you are considering God telling you to torture your mother means that you might be having even some kind of menthal problems. In my humble opinion, it wouldn't be wise to find out the will of God in your dreams or another people's words, especially when they are absurd and absolutely against what is written in the Bible. Well, unless you consider then as infallible autorities, which in the first case means schizophrenia, and in the second being completely brainwashed. If you would be 100% sure it would be the will of God, you'd have my sincere condolence. Myself, I'd definitely prefer to search for His inspiration in the Bible.
| the_mariska wrote: |
| Soulfire, the entire fact that you are considering God telling you to torture your mother means that you might be having even some kind of menthal problems. In my humble opinion, it wouldn't be wise to find out the will of God in your dreams or another people's words, especially when they are absurd and absolutely against what is written in the Bible. Well, unless you consider then as infallible autorities, which in the first case means schizophrenia, and in the second being completely brainwashed. If you would be 100% sure it would be the will of God, you'd have my sincere condolence. Myself, I'd definitely prefer to search for His inspiration in the Bible. |
i'm pretty sure Soulfire isn't actually hearing voices telling him to torture his mother, dude. ^_^; Read it a little more closely. No, don't even bother that... just read the first word of his first post.
It's a hypothetical question.What Indi said!
Not only that, but in Genesis 21:12 God tells Abraham to obey Sarah's demand to cast his other wife and child out into the desert. Torture your wife and baby is the actual version of this dilemma posed in the Bible.
| Indi wrote: |
i'm pretty sure Soulfire isn't actually hearing voices telling him to torture his mother, dude. ^_^; Read it a little more closely. No, don't even bother that... just read the first word of his first post.
It's a hypothetical question. |
Just as I hypothetically assumed that someone really believed in the voice of God telling him to toruture his mother. I didn't adress this directly to Soulfire, but gave my opinion about a hypothetical character who would believe so. Peace 
| the_mariska wrote: |
| Just as I hypothetically assumed that someone really believed in the voice of God telling him to toruture his mother. I didn't adress this directly to Soulfire, but gave my opinion about a hypothetical character who would believe so. Peace |
Ha ha, excellent answer! ^_^ Good call, my bad. | Soulfire wrote: |
Assume the existence of an omnipotent, authortitative God is true.
God manifests himself (be it dream, another person, etc.) and you are 100% sure it is God. God tells you to torture your mother to go to Heaven. Would you?
My argument:
Yes
By Divine Command Theory (DCT), God is the supreme lawmaker, and God is good. If God is good, then God's command is good, which means torturing your mother = good. So therefore, you are to obey God, and torture your mother.
The flaw with DCT is that it can make religion (or morality) arbitrary.
I am assuming someone will come from the "autonomy thesis" angle soon, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. |
Well before saying the action is wrong to commit what if your mother has done something terrible or will do something terrible. This means essentially your act is in good faith and you have slain evil.
Also you must consider that this kind of vision could be a test of faith, not that you are faithful to your god but that you are willing to sacrifice your own life for the life of another.
But more on the subject of the topic your interpretation of DCT is flawed or the whole theory is flawed. As with anything isn't the first command the most important so if you are supposed to honor thy mother and father you are breaking gods' will. So through DCT this would be a serious flaw as it would mean god didnt mean for you to honor thy mother and father. I also believe omnipotent figures would not make mistakes such as this.
If his existence was fact and was 100% confirmed I would definetely follow the command but as we know god he exists in are hearts and in our thoughts guiding us not telling us what to do. | DeFwh wrote: |
| But more on the subject of the topic your interpretation of DCT is flawed or the whole theory is flawed. As with anything isn't the first command the most important so if you are supposed to honor thy mother and father you are breaking gods' will. |
No, sorry, it is your understanding of it that is flawed. It is never the case in any rule set that the first command is the most important. Never, ever. Either the most recent command is the most important, or (in the case of a perfect and unchanging ruleset) they are all equally important, or some rules have been given higher precedence than others (not because they were first, but because they are the most important).
The only cases where rule 1 is more important than rule 2 is in cases where they have been sorted by their importance (as is usually the case, like in the ten commandments).
But in Judaistic religions, the rules are clear. God's most recent command always takes precedence. For example, God ordered the Isrealites to kill everyone who wasn't a virgin girl in Judges 21 and rape everyone who was... after he had given the ten commandments with their "thou shalt not kill" edict. | Indi wrote: |
| For example, God ordered the Isrealites to kill everyone who wasn't a virgin girl in Judges 21 and rape everyone who was... after he had given the ten commandments with their "thou shalt not kill" edict. |
Considering what the DCT infers that the situation you referred to would mean killing all non-virgin girls was a good thing. So is god 'good' or 'bad'?
If hes good then DCT could possibly be true but if hes bad then DCT is obviously flawed.
What if killing and torturing have a bigger purpose that only god can see. | DeFwh wrote: |
| Considering what the DCT infers that the situation you referred to would mean killing all non-virgin girls was a good thing. So is god 'good' or 'bad'? |
i don't understand what you mean by the question.
If divine command theory is true, and if God told you that raping virgins and killing everyone else was a good thing, then yes, it would be a good thing.
But as for God being good or bad... if divine command theory is true, then if God says he's good, he's good. If God says he's bad, he's bad. Doesn't matter how many virgins God has ordered raped, or how much suffering he caused. Good and bad are determined by - and only determined by - the word of God. Period.
| DeFwh wrote: |
| If hes good then DCT could possibly be true but if hes bad then DCT is obviously flawed. |
As i said, if you're using divine command theory, then God decides whether he's good or bad. And if God decides that he's bad, but that it's good for you to follow him anyway... then dammit, you do what he says.
That's the way divine command theory works. No reason, no sense. What God says goes. Period.
Where divine command theory falls apart is when you start trying to apply reason or logic.
| DeFwh wrote: |
| What if killing and torturing have a bigger purpose that only god can see. |
If there is a purpose, then divine command theory is not true. | Indi wrote: |
| If there is a purpose, then divine command theory is not true. |
Could you elaborate? | DeFwh wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | If there is a purpose, then divine command theory is not true. |
Could you elaborate? |
If there is any reason for God to create moral laws other than his own fancy - any purpose, any function, any logic - then those laws do not ultimately originate with God.
If a purpose exists, then anyone who figures out the plan can figure out the moral laws that would make the plan happen. That means that person can figure out morality without ultimately consulting God. That is contradictory to divine command theory, which states that all moral laws ultimately originate from God. In divine command theory, the only way to determine right from wrong is to ask God or consult someone or something that asked God. | Indi wrote: |
| For example, God ordered the Isrealites to kill everyone who wasn't a virgin girl in Judges 21 and rape everyone who was... after he had given the ten commandments with their "thou shalt not kill" edict. |
Is marriage a form of rape? Even if it is a marriage by abduction, such as the Abduction of Psyche (every culture use to do that sort of thing back then) it was still not rape, which requires callously leaving the victim when you are done with her, rather than taking her home and making her your wife.
Now as to the murder part, you may very well have more of a point there, that looked like a brutal situation that made the bitterness of the Civil War look quite civilized by comparison. I will enquire further on this matter because it is most appalling at first glance.
Never the less, God doesn't come into this anywhere. Nowhere does it say that God told them to do anything. The took council among themselves and came up with their own conclusion, not God's. | Soulfire wrote: |
Assume the existence of an omnipotent, authortitative God is true.
God manifests himself (be it dream, another person, etc.) and you are 100% sure it is God. God tells you to torture your mother to go to Heaven. Would you?
My argument:
Yes
By Divine Command Theory (DCT), God is the supreme lawmaker, and God is good. If God is good, then God's command is good, which means torturing your mother = good. So therefore, you are to obey God, and torture your mother.
The flaw with DCT is that it can make religion (or morality) arbitrary.
I am assuming someone will come from the "autonomy thesis" angle soon, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. |
Okay, first of all you have to ask yourself if this "vision" makes any sense whatsoever. Does torturing your mother actually fall within the standard guidelines of your religious belief? If not I would go check in with a qualified psychological professional.
Simply put, people go nuts (not a clinical term) all the time, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) thought that Satan speaking through his neighbors dog (or so he claimed) was telling him to commit those murders. I suspect "God" has also told quite a few outrageous things as well. Any command from any version of a "Higher Power should be an occasion for a sanity check. | Tex_Arcana wrote: |
| Simply put, people go nuts (not a clinical term) all the time, David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) thought that Satan speaking through his neighbors dog (or so he claimed) was telling him to commit those murders. I suspect "God" has also told quite a few outrageous things as well. Any command from any version of a "Higher Power should be an occasion for a sanity check. |
i noticed this phenomenon in a similar thread i made a while back. Curiously enough, it turns out that while people have no problems believing that God exists, and that he has a direct interest in every aspect of your life, and that he talked to people in the past, and that he created an incarnate god to walk around on Earth... they cannot accept the possibility that he might speak to someone now - and immediately leap to the conclusion that it must be a schizophrenic episode.
Curious.While I don't think that Einstein was an atheist at all, he was a theist in pretty much the same mode I am (which is different to be sure, but not atheistic) it should be pretty straight foreward to you, Indi, that many people who claim to believe in God are in truth actually nothing more than atheists in the guise of fanatical religionists.
Matthew 7:21-23 refers to this. Jesus says that in the future (present) Christianity will be full of the ranks of the damned.
| mike1reynolds wrote: |
| Not only that, but in Genesis 21:12 God tells Abraham to obey Sarah's demand to cast his other wife and child out into the desert. Torture your wife and baby is the actual version of this dilemma posed in the Bible. |
funny how easy it is to take quotes out of context and make them mean ANYTHING. God specifically tells Abraham that this son that he sends away will be the founder of a Nation. I wouldn't say sending my son off to be founder of a nation is torture. They weren't even in the desert for long enough to be thirsty(their waterskin had just emptied) before God sent an angel to them.
the real flaw in your DCT stuff is that if this particular God were the type of God to command you to torture your mother for no apparant reason, he already would have set a precedence for that type of activity as being good. Most of the time in DCT God isn't a psychopath, he gives orders based on a belief system that he has apparantly been setting up for some time. so if he orders you to torture your mother, it's more than likely well after it's been established that torture isn't an evil act. | Indi wrote: |
similar thread i made a while back. Curiously enough, it turns out that while people have no problems believing that God exists, and that he has a direct interest in every aspect of your life, and that he talked to people in the past, and that he created an incarnate god to walk around on Earth... they cannot accept the possibility that he might speak to someone now - and immediately leap to the conclusion that it must be a schizophrenic episode.
Curious. |
Well' I do have whole conversations with God/dess all the time during guided meditations and such but since my Deities aren't particularly known for playing faith games, petulent behavior, or general cruelty towards their followers I know that any command to harm others or myself has to come from another source.
Probably, the one really good thing about being in a religion where even a newcomer is considered a Priest/ess (still in training but then we are all still in training the rest of our lives in truth) is that each individual is encouraged to develop their own personal relationship with Deity and use that as their primary guide for their lives. What works for the High Priest/ess might not work for the Neophyte. It is the High Priest/ess job not to dominate and dictate how everything is done and the "right and only" way things are. Their job is to give them the technique and tools so that they can follow their own path acording to their relationship with Deity. In the nearly 20 years that I have been an Irish Celtic Neo-Pagan I have shared the circle with a wide variety of people from different religions including Asatru, Temple of Isis, Ar nDraiocht Fein, and even Universalist Unitarians. Our visions may be different but our paths cross we all share a common direction.
Perhaps if all religions were to concider that it isn't the path you walk but where you are going is most important there wouldn't be so much craziness. It doesn't matter if a religious leader claims to be one thing or another. What matters is his message. If he preaches hate when his religion teaches love leave him aside and don't listen to him. If a religious leader is different from your own but preaches love the as your religion then listen to him instead for a while and befriend him. What have you got to lose?
Opp, got off on a rant. Anyway there is "good" communication with (and from) Deity and then there are nutso episodes where your Id tries to get the better of you. If you have trouble telling which is which and your being told by "God" to do destructive things then ask yourself WWJD (certainly not picket veterans funerals or blow up Planned Parenthood clinics) and get thyself to a sanitarium. | Tex_Arcana wrote: |
| Well' I do have whole conversations with God/dess all the time during guided meditations and such but since my Deities aren't particularly known for playing faith games, petulent behavior, or general cruelty towards their followers I know that any command to harm others or myself has to come from another source. |
That was another phenomenon i noticed. People automatically assumed that any such request must be a test of faith of some kind. i don't see how that follows.
Assuming that you're not imagining your god, then it must be an intelligence that exists outside of your mind - as in, it must have thoughts and knowledge that you don't. Assuming that it's really worthy of being called a god, that means that its thoughts and knowledge must be greater than your own.
Now, you already believe that your god is not capricious, and would not tell you to go kill someone just to be mean-spirited or cruel or to test you. It follows then, that if your god tells you to kill someone, there must be a pretty damn good reason for it - and not just a good reason for the person to be killed... but a good reason for you to do it.
In which case, you'd be pretty stupid not to comply, no?
See, the way i did it is not the same way Soulfire did. He is using divine command theory. i'm just using plain old common sense. If a being that is enormously more intelligent and aware than you tells you to do something - and if you believe that being is generally good - then it only makes logical sense to comply. Doesn't it?According to the ten commandments you're supposed to "honour thy father and mother". In no way could torture be honouring her. Therefore, I'd figure that if YHWH asked you to do this it would actually be a test. If you do it, torture your mother, then you fail the test. If you don't do it then you pass.
Yep, in my opinion, Abraham actually failed his test when he attempted to sacrifice his own son.
Take care,
Eyvind
I would say that under no circumstances should you torture your mother.
Also, God is not necessarily good. If you actually take a hard look at all of the Catholic scriptures, God is actually a very very vengeful and sadistic deity. But if you want to look at it from the Christian POV, Lucifer is supposedly evil, also known as the Devil. But, Luciferians see him as the Bringer of Light, or the one who brought wisdom to this world against the orders of a Dictatorial and oppressive God. The Christians see Lucifer as some red horned demon with a pitchfork or as a serpent. The Luciferians see him as a very handsome angelic like deity with extreme charm and charisma, but the charm and charisma are just natural gifts and are not meant to be used in a detrimental way. So it really depends on your God, some are good, but some are not so good. But, you just still NEVER EVER torture your mother. I would rather burn in Dantes 9th Circle of the Inferno then be in Paradise with a scum bag that would make me do that.
If you mother is a contumacious woman who wishes to keep your siblings as lap dogs for the sake of her own childish ego, then it is permissible to torture her with such taunts as, “You shall never have access to MY children.”
Alas, I did not really mean it, but she died two years ago, even as I had promised her grandchildren soon, and she giggled in glee like a little girl at this promise.
After her death I felt no little anguish in the thought that she will never meet in person my future offsping, but over time it has dawned on me that deep down inside her spirit knew that I was right and that it would be far better that they be watched over by their maternal grandmothers.
Last edited by mike1reynolds on Tue May 29, 2007 3:05 am; edited 1 time in total
| EanofAthenasPrime wrote: |
| so...if you have a dream of God, you exclude the possibility the dream was made up by your subconscious, IT HAS TO BE GOD? |
What the Hell does that have to with the subject at hand of who is worthy and who must suffer at God's hands because of their own willful perversion? | mike1reynolds wrote: |
| EanofAthenasPrime wrote: | | so...if you have a dream of God, you exclude the possibility the dream was made up by your subconscious, IT HAS TO BE GOD? |
What the Hell does that have to with the subject at hand of who is worthy and who must suffer at God's hands because of their own willful perversion? |
Wtf dude. IT has everything to do with the ORIGINAL TOPIC. get a grip. Maybe READ THE ACTUAL TOPIC? | EanofAthenasPrime wrote: |
| mike1reynolds wrote: | | Got me, what does anything you have said have to do with anything previously said? |
OMG! the whole f^ing topic was about obeying a dream that God told you to kill your mom. OMG! I SAID HOW F^KING STUPID THAT BS IS BECAUSE IT IS A DREAM, NOT REALLY GOD! ANYONE CAN HAVE A DREAM OF GOD! IT DOESN'T MEAN IT IS GOD! OMG |
1- Swearing leads you nowhere.
2- The topic mentioned a dream as a possibility on how God would communicate with you, but it doesn't say that it would be necessarily like so. Read more closely, maybe?
| Soulfire wrote: |
| God manifests himself (be it dream, another person, etc.) and you are 100% sure it is God. |
3- "Kill your mom"? I thought it was "torture". Torture doesn't mean death. Soulfire never mentioned killing, but whatever...
Now, on to the subject... And I'm aware that I may as well offend a lot of people with what I'm about to say here.
I agree with what Indi has said so far. I'm an atheist myself, but considering that "what God commands must be done because we are to obey His words if we want to go to Heaven", then if God told you to torture your mother, you'd sure as heck do so if you wanted to go to Heaven, wouldn't you?
This is the part where the angelical boys and girls would say:
"Oh, but God is a good guy and He'd never tell us to do something that evil! Besides, one of the commandments says that we should honor our mother and father, so it goes against what He said before, so there!"
You know what? You already fail at religion if you're to say that. If you have as a philosophy of life obeying whatever God tells you to do, then you'll do it at all times, and not just when you feel like it. I have a hard time deciding what I'm gonna have for lunch, and I may change my mind in-between. If we were made at His image, can't He change his mind as well sometimes? He might decide that the commandments are void now.
Also, I had this idea that God was vengeful and He can be quite nasty if you piss him off. It's Noah's episode all over again... One day he might decide "Heck, screw this", and wipe us all out. He kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden at the first thing they screwed up on, right? That's some forgiveness to you... | CMA wrote: |
Oh, but God is a good guy and He'd never tell us to do something that evil! Besides, one of the commandments says that we should honor our mother and father, so it goes against what He said before, so there!"
You know what? You already fail at religion if you're to say that. ... |
No, no. You don't fail at religion, you only fail at following direct divine command. And that may be the whole point. Religion is a world view, more than just simple blind slavery to the supposed word of a deity. It involves moral decision making. If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that. The directive could very likely be a test of your true heart, or how good a person you truly are. And obeying any directive that contradicts the spirit of the religion could be (and in my opinion would be) failing the test.
Eyvindbut think of this...what if they dream/vision was Satan's trick to decieve you! then God would be pissed off at you for failing "the test" and of course, being the good guy that he is let Satan go unpunished.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| No, no. You don't fail at religion, you only fail at following direct divine command. And that may be the whole point. Religion is a world view, more than just simple blind slavery to the supposed word of a deity. It involves moral decision making. If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that. The directive could very likely be a test of your true heart, or how good a person you truly are. And obeying any directive that contradicts the spirit of the religion could be (and in my opinion would be) failing the test. |
i'm sorry, there's a lot of strangeness in all that. >_< You say it's bad to blindly follow the commands of a god - that you should use "moral decision making" - but in the very next sentence you advocate... following the moral commandments of a god. So... don't do whatever a god tells you to do just because a god tells you to do it... but do what the god originally told you to do... because?
Also, everyone always assumes these kinds of commands are "tests". Does that even make sense? If your god really knows enough about you to be worthy of being called your god... why would they need to test you?
And even if they did decide to test you... why assume that the right answer must be to follow the original commandments? i mean, consider this logically. You have a being who is immensely more intelligent and aware than you. This being has told you that it is necessary to torture your mother. That is the directive you have been given. How can you possibly say that you know better than your god? It has told you to do X. If you believe that you are not to do X, then you are effectively saying:
1.) Your god is lying to you.
2.) Even though you have been given an instruction from your god, you know better.
But by what justification can you assume either?
Put it in a more worldly, less divine perspective. A parent has told their child "never, ever, ever push the red button by the door... never do it!" The child, being obedient, obeys. So far so good. Then one day, without warning, the parent tells the child "go, push the red button now!"
What should the child do? Assume this is a "test" and disobey?
Let's make it even more interesting. The child asks "why?" and the parent answers: "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" Now what should the child do? | Indi wrote: |
| The child asks "why?" and the parent answers: "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" Now what should the child do? |
Ah, but young child, I have eplained, and will explain again, if you ask in coherent terms.
These are simple matters, and I will explain again, if you desire.
But you do not wish too understand, you only wish to destroy. Karma is a bitch! Wish to destroy others and it will be your own fate.I would never believe it was 100% God. Especially with a command like that...
What command? The "command " of karma? Wish for harm too others and you will suffer it yourself, invariably.
“When the wheel of sharp weapons strikes with its sharp swords against your face, remember that it is you yourself who set the wheel in motion.”
-The Wheel of Sharp Weapons
(One of the Tibetan sacred scriptures)
Too add, from the same work:
“The peacock thrives off of berries that are poisonous too other birds.”
In other words, to strike with black magic at a Buddha only resolves to Awaken him.
| Indi wrote: |
| Eyvind wrote: | | No, no. You don't fail at religion, you only fail at following direct divine command. And that may be the whole point. Religion is a world view, more than just simple blind slavery to the supposed word of a deity. It involves moral decision making. If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that. The directive could very likely be a test of your true heart, or how good a person you truly are. And obeying any directive that contradicts the spirit of the religion could be (and in my opinion would be) failing the test. |
i'm sorry, there's a lot of strangeness in all that. >_< You say it's bad to blindly follow the commands of a god - that you should use "moral decision making" - but in the very next sentence you advocate... following the moral commandments of a god. |
Well, actually, not really. You're working on the premise that religion is based on the commandment of a god. I, however, am not. Just because a religion espouses certain virtues doesn't mean that they came from a god as divine command. My sentence above does not advocate "following the moral commandments of a god" but rather remaining true to the virtues of your religion... the two are distinctly different.
| Quote: |
| So... don't do whatever a god tells you to do just because a god tells you to do it... but do what the god originally told you to do... because? |
Again, this assumes religion as a product of divine command.
| Quote: |
| Also, everyone always assumes these kinds of commands are "tests". Does that even make sense? If your god really knows enough about you to be worthy of being called your god... why would they need to test you? |
This is based on the premise that deity is omniscient (and brushes up against the concept of predestination). I, personally, disagree with these concepts so feel that deity may well need to test us.
| Quote: |
| And even if they did decide to test you... why assume that the right answer must be to follow the original commandments? |
As above, religious virtues/morals, not commandments. But since you asked, it would be because those are what are important to the community.
| Quote: |
i mean, consider this logically. You have a being who is immensely more intelligent and aware than you. This being has told you that it is necessary to torture your mother. That is the directive you have been given. How can you possibly say that you know better than your god? It has told you to do X. If you believe that you are not to do X, then you are effectively saying:
1.) Your god is lying to you.
2.) Even though you have been given an instruction from your god, you know better.
But by what justification can you assume either? |
By the justification that we were given sentience and free will. If something doesn't make sense (as would be the case when divine command contradicts religious moral) we are justified in questioning it.
| Quote: |
Put it in a more worldly, less divine perspective. A parent has told their child "never, ever, ever push the red button by the door... never do it!" The child, being obedient, obeys. So far so good. Then one day, without warning, the parent tells the child "go, push the red button now!"
What should the child do? Assume this is a "test" and disobey?
Let's make it even more interesting. The child asks "why?" and the parent answers: "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" Now what should the child do? |
I appreciate the analogy, Indi, but unfortunately you leave out the very much necessary context. Let's say the red button has a very sharp pin on it that makes you bleed profusely when you touch it. The child has seen this first hand, perhaps a friend pushed it once. The child has confirmed that to push it is a bad thing. Then the parent says that it's now ok to push it. But the child can still see the pin. He/she can still see that it is harmful. What should the child do? The choice is now much easier, isn't it?
Take care,
Eyvind | Eyvind wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | Eyvind wrote: | | No, no. You don't fail at religion, you only fail at following direct divine command. And that may be the whole point. Religion is a world view, more than just simple blind slavery to the supposed word of a deity. It involves moral decision making. If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that. The directive could very likely be a test of your true heart, or how good a person you truly are. And obeying any directive that contradicts the spirit of the religion could be (and in my opinion would be) failing the test. |
i'm sorry, there's a lot of strangeness in all that. >_< You say it's bad to blindly follow the commands of a god - that you should use "moral decision making" - but in the very next sentence you advocate... following the moral commandments of a god. |
Well, actually, not really. You're working on the premise that religion is based on the commandment of a god. I, however, am not. Just because a religion espouses certain virtues doesn't mean that they came from a god as divine command. My sentence above does not advocate "following the moral commandments of a god" but rather remaining true to the virtues of your religion... the two are distinctly different.
| Quote: | | So... don't do whatever a god tells you to do just because a god tells you to do it... but do what the god originally told you to do... because? |
Again, this assumes religion as a product of divine command. |
Those statements were based on this argument: "If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that." So if those virtues did not come from the god, where did they come from?
And if they did come from the god, then it is true that you are saying that you should follow one set of instructions from the god but ignore others.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | And even if they did decide to test you... why assume that the right answer must be to follow the original commandments? |
As above, religious virtues/morals, not commandments. But since you asked, it would be because those are what are important to the community. |
And how do you know what is best for the community? How do you know that when your god asks you to do something, even if it sounds bad, it's not for the better of the community? If you believe that, then you believe that your god is lying to you and/or that you know better.
Consider this: why would they ever ask you to do something that would harm the community? Your answer is that you're being tested. If that's the case, then there must be a chance that you would fail the test... otherwise the test is meaningless... and your god cannot know what will happen.
What that means is that this god would risk the suffering of others just to test you. Remember, by your own claim, the god does not know what will happen. It is entirely possible that you could surprise the god with your ingenuity and manage to torture your mother severely before he could arrange to have you stopped.
You have arrived in a bit of a mess. Either god does not know enough to be able to be sure that you will not succeed in harming someone... or they don't need to test you. Or, option three, they don't care: they're perfectly ok with risking someone being tortured just for the sake of testing you. All three options are problematic.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | i mean, consider this logically. You have a being who is immensely more intelligent and aware than you. This being has told you that it is necessary to torture your mother. That is the directive you have been given. How can you possibly say that you know better than your god? It has told you to do X. If you believe that you are not to do X, then you are effectively saying:
1.) Your god is lying to you.
2.) Even though you have been given an instruction from your god, you know better.
But by what justification can you assume either? |
By the justification that we were given sentience and free will. If something doesn't make sense (as would be the case when divine command contradicts religious moral) we are justified in questioning it. |
You have said that you do not believe that a god can be omniscient. Fair enough. But i don't think you can reasonably argue that you're smarter than a god.
Yet that's exactly what you're claiming. You're claiming that it's ok for you to override - not question, override! - an instruction given to you by a god. Your logic for this is... that you know better. That you have used your inferior logic with the limited information you have - inferior and limited with respect to the resources the god has available - and determined that you know enough to outsmart god. That god is really trying to fool you into this test, but you have seen through his test - you have outsmarted him - and thus are justified in just ignoring the command.
The god doesn't need to be omniscient, and he doesn't need to have absolute divine authority. If he is reasonably smarter than you, and if he is reasonably more benevolent than you... then you would quite literally be an idiot not do what he tells you to do. i mean, if this being - it doesn't even need to be a god - is smarter and more benevolent than you... why wouldn't you do what it tells you to do?
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | Put it in a more worldly, less divine perspective. A parent has told their child "never, ever, ever push the red button by the door... never do it!" The child, being obedient, obeys. So far so good. Then one day, without warning, the parent tells the child "go, push the red button now!"
What should the child do? Assume this is a "test" and disobey?
Let's make it even more interesting. The child asks "why?" and the parent answers: "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" Now what should the child do? |
I appreciate the analogy, Indi, but unfortunately you leave out the very much necessary context. Let's say the red button has a very sharp pin on it that makes you bleed profusely when you touch it. The child has seen this first hand, perhaps a friend pushed it once. The child has confirmed that to push it is a bad thing. Then the parent says that it's now ok to push it. But the child can still see the pin. He/she can still see that it is harmful. What should the child do? The choice is now much easier, isn't it? |
You change the example in a very self-serving way to avoid the problem. But alright. i'll allow it. Yes, i will allow the strange situation as you have described it. Because, as you will discover, the changes you made are not good enough.
So, once again, from the top. You are a child, and your parents have told you to never, ever press the red button. Never. You saw your friend do it once, and get jabbed by the pin in the button. You can still see the pin there.
Now, one night, without any warning or explanation, your parent suddenly says to you, "Go, push the red button." Of course, you ask "why?" Your parent answers, "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" You reply, "But i will get stuck by the pin!" Your parent replies, "You must do it anyway. i have told you to go do it, go do it."
What do you do? | Quote: |
| Yet that's exactly what you're claiming. You're claiming that it's ok for you to override - not question, override! - an instruction given to you by a god. Your logic for this is... that you know better. That you have used your inferior logic with the limited information you have - inferior and limited with respect to the resources the god has available - and determined that you know enough to outsmart god. That god is really trying to fool you into this test, but you have seen through his test - you have outsmarted him - and thus are justified in just ignoring the command. |
Kinda off topic, but that is kinda the mentality of the people who are in charge at mental asylums. They think they know better than the "crazy people" they own, and think because they have a college degree of physicology they can lock the "crazy ones" inside a cage indefinitely. Again, the people who are at asylums usually aren't murderers and common criminals. They usually are just clueless people who haven't harmed anyone, but by humanities evil nature are of course put into an asylum because noone understands them. Like in James Bond Tommorow Never Dies "The difference between insanity and genius is measured only by sucess." Remember in the olden days, alchemists and atheists were burned at the stake for their "heresy." It is the same today. Again, I don't want to get too off topic so keep the replies simple. | EanofAthenasPrime wrote: |
| Quote: | | Yet that's exactly what you're claiming. You're claiming that it's ok for you to override - not question, override! - an instruction given to you by a god. Your logic for this is... that you know better. That you have used your inferior logic with the limited information you have - inferior and limited with respect to the resources the god has available - and determined that you know enough to outsmart god. That god is really trying to fool you into this test, but you have seen through his test - you have outsmarted him - and thus are justified in just ignoring the command. |
Kinda off topic, but that is kinda the mentality of the people who are in charge at mental asylums. They think they know better than the "crazy people" they own, and think because they have a college degree of physicology they can lock the "crazy ones" inside a cage indefinitely. Again, the people who are at asylums usually aren't murderers and common criminals. They usually are just clueless people who haven't harmed anyone, but by humanities evil nature are of course put into an asylum because noone understands them. Like in James Bond Tommorow Never Dies "The difference between insanity and genius is measured only by sucess." Remember in the olden days, alchemists and atheists were burned at the stake for their "heresy." It is the same today. Again, I don't want to get too off topic so keep the replies simple. |
That's just pop culture myth. Modern psychiatric hospitals are not "insane asylums" anymore. People who are in them are either in them willingly, or they have demonstrated an inability to function in society.
In plain English, that means that you don't get thrown into a psychiatric hospital just because you believe that some people are really evil reptilian aliens plotting against humanity (case in point). But if your belief interferes with your ability to function in the world - like if you're actually out trying to kill these supposed reptiles - then you will be committed. The same is true even if you don't represent a threat to anyone but yourself. | Indi wrote: |
| Those statements were based on this argument: "If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that." So if those virtues did not come from the god, where did they come from? |
Well, they may have come from the community itself. Or been based on observations of characters in mythology (both human and divine). It doesn’t really matter. My point is that they are not necessarily divine “command”. They are guidelines, practices that most usually benefit or help solidify the community in some way. The deity of a community would, I believe, have this “community concern” as his/her primary objective, or at least one of their primary objectives (if they don’t then they are not rightly the god of that community.) Thus any directive should have this objective at its root, or at least not be in opposition to it. If, to the recipient of the divine command, the directive is at odds with this primary objective, the directive needs to be explained by the deity. (And there’s no reason for the deity not to explain it if, after all, we are less intelligent beings.) And so, if it is not properly explained then it can only be a test of some “quality” in the recipient (“faith” being the usual suspect).
| Quote: |
| And if they did come from the god, then it is true that you are saying that you should follow one set of instructions from the god but ignore others. |
As above, the first set need not be “instructions” in the first place. That is, we don’t follow them because we were told to but because they are good for the community.
| Quote: |
| And how do you know what is best for the community? How do you know that when your god asks you to do something, even if it sounds bad, it's not for the better of the community? |
Because if it truly were for the benefit of the community then it would be in everyone’s best interest to make things explicitly clear. Something so drastically opposed to the norm of the religion would be shrouded in question. The god would explain it to the recipient. Why would he/she not, if it were in the best interest of the community? Unless it was a test?
| Quote: |
| If you believe that, then you believe that your god is lying to you and/or that you know better. |
Right! Exactly! It’s a lie. In which case, either:
1. the god does not have the best interests of the community in mind
or
2. the god is testing the recipient.
In either case disobeying the command would be justified.
I can’t “know better” than a god, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that I need to blindly do exactly what they tell me without applying what I do know about the character and nature of that god and the religion associated with him/her.
| Quote: |
Consider this: why would they ever ask you to do something that would harm the community? Your answer is that you're being tested.If that's the case, then there must be a chance that you would fail the test... otherwise the test is meaningless... and your god cannot know what will happen.
What that means is that this god would risk the suffering of others just to test you. Remember, by your own claim, the god does not know what will happen. It is entirely possible that you could surprise the god with your ingenuity and manage to torture your mother severely before he could arrange to have you stopped. |
Indeed, and in that case the god has proven that there is a significant problem in his/her community and can take steps to remedy the problem. YHWH’s “tough love” on the Hebrews (slavery in Egypt, for example, not to mention the introduction of a whole slew of unifying socio-political codes) could be seen as an attempt to solidify the community after Abraham demonstrated a flaw in the community’s solidarity by disregarding the well-being of his own son!
| Quote: |
You have arrived in a bit of a mess. Either god does not know enough to be able to be sure that you will not succeed in harming someone... or they don't need to test you. Or, option three, they don't care: they're perfectly ok with risking someone being tortured just for the sake of testing you. All three options are problematic.
You have said that you do not believe that a god can be omniscient. Fair enough. But i don't think you can reasonably argue that you're smarter than a god.
Yet that's exactly what you're claiming. You're claiming that it's ok for you to override - not question, override! - an instruction given to you by a god. Your logic for this is... that you know better. That you have used your inferior logic with the limited information you have - inferior and limited with respect to the resources the god has available - and determined that you know enough to outsmart god. That god is really trying to fool you into this test, but you have seen through his test - you have outsmarted him - and thus are justified in just ignoring the command. |
Where do you get “outsmarted” from? Giving the correct answer to a test is not “outsmarting” the test-administrator. Test-taking students don’t show that they “know better” than their teacher when they work out problems on tests, but rather they illustrate that they’ve learned something. I still can’t see how using my brain to interpret the revelation implies that I think I’m smarter than my gods. My gods gave me the ability to reason and it is unreasonable to assume that they wouldn’t expect me to exercise that ability.
| Quote: |
| The god doesn't need to be omniscient, and he doesn't need to have absolute divine authority. If he is reasonably smarter than you, and if he is reasonably more benevolent than you... then you would quite literally be an idiot not do what he tells you to do. i mean, if this being - it doesn't even need to be a god - is smarter and more benevolent than you... why wouldn't you do what it tells you to do? |
Doesn’t need to be a god? Ok:
Well I can tell you for sure that a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist is smarter than me. Should I follow what they tell me to do blindly? Ok, right, they don’t have enough authority for that (though they may be benevolent). To make a more appropriate analogy I’ll concede that a good number political leaders are smarter than me. They have brains and authority (and perhaps even benevolence towards their community – though political cynics will likely debate that 
). Should I follow their directives without question? By your logic then, the Nazi’s who refused to follow Hitler’s commands during WW2 were idiots?
| Quote: |
| You change the example in a very self-serving way to avoid the problem. |
That’s the nature of the game isn’t it? We put forth analogies to try and support our own ideas while at the same time looking for flaws in other people’s analogies.
The down-side is that we keep building/renovating our analogies until we have a complete, detailed scenario that often either becomes a discussion point in its own right or becomes so convoluted that the value of the original analogy is lost. But I digress...
| Quote: |
But alright. i'll allow it. Yes, i will allow the strange situation as you have described it. Because, as you will discover, the changes you made are not good enough.
So, once again, from the top. You are a child, and your parents have told you to never, ever press the red button. Never. You saw your friend do it once, and get jabbed by the pin in the button. You can still see the pin there.
Now, one night, without any warning or explanation, your parent suddenly says to you, "Go, push the red button." Of course, you ask "why?" Your parent answers, "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" You reply, "But i will get stuck by the pin!" Your parent replies, "You must do it anyway. i have told you to go do it, go do it."
What do you do? |
You’ve added urgency to the scenario but nothing to alleviate the mystery or “badness”. You’ve given the child nothing and so can not blame the child for refusing. Plus now you’ve given the child the added concern that you don’t care about his/her pain! Poor kid…
And anyway, if it’s something really that important but something so complicated or so secret that it prohibits an explanation to the child, then it’s probably not a suitable task for the child and should be looked after by the parent.
So here is my view in a nut-shell:
1. If the god tells us to do something that is out of character with the nature of the god and/or religion, then, being the rational creatures we are, we have the right (personally, I’d even go so far as to say “the obligation”) to question this.
2. If the god is still “on our side” then we should expect an explanation as to why this out-of-character action must be done. If we don’t get an explanation this must mean that the god is testing us.
3. If it’s a test then we can expect that the correct answer will be the answer that coincides with the non-deviant character of the god/religion (in other words we are being tested on our moral learning up until that point, not on any new “material”).
4. If we obey the deviant command then we fail and the god has proven that there is a weakness in the moral fibre of the community.
5. If we disobey the deviant command then we pass and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief knowing they’re not as likely to be thrown into any solidarity training camps in Siberia.
Take care,
Eyvind | Eyvind wrote: |
| Indi wrote: | | Those statements were based on this argument: "If your religion espouses certain virtues (such as honouring your parents) then any directive supposedly coming from your deity must be interpreted in light of that." So if those virtues did not come from the god, where did they come from? |
Well, they may have come from the community itself. Or been based on observations of characters in mythology (both human and divine). It doesn’t really matter. My point is that they are not necessarily divine “command”. They are guidelines, practices that most usually benefit or help solidify the community in some way. The deity of a community would, I believe, have this “community concern” as his/her primary objective, or at least one of their primary objectives (if they don’t then they are not rightly the god of that community.) Thus any directive should have this objective at its root, or at least not be in opposition to it. If, to the recipient of the divine command, the directive is at odds with this primary objective, the directive needs to be explained by the deity. (And there’s no reason for the deity not to explain it if, after all, we are less intelligent beings.) And so, if it is not properly explained then it can only be a test of some “quality” in the recipient (“faith” being the usual suspect). |
While it's all certainly true that it's possible to determine morality objectively - without the need for divine command - that still doesn't excuse ignoring a deity when they tell you that some moral fact is true... even if that fact contradicts your own understanding. Why? Because doing so - whether you like to admit it or not - is effectively saying that your understanding of morality is better than the deity's.
Why do i keep insisting this? Because you keep saying that when the deity's word contradicts what you know, you can conclude that the deity is lying to you (to "test" you). What does that mean, in plain English? It means that you have been presented with two contradicting facts - the word of a god vs. your own understanding. Up to this point, you have no reason to believe that the deity would lie to you. Your argument, really, is that the fact that the contradiction exists is proof enough that the deity is lying. Or in other words, that you are so certain of your own understanding that even when you are presented with contradictory evidence by a god, you can safely rely on it and ignore the god. Because your understanding of morality has to be right, the god must therefore be wrong.
Something about that sounds wrong to me.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | And if they did come from the god, then it is true that you are saying that you should follow one set of instructions from the god but ignore others. |
As above, the first set need not be “instructions” in the first place. That is, we don’t follow them because we were told to but because they are good for the community. |
But you surely know that there are cases when those... whatever you want to call them... suggestions?... are not what is best for the community. When one person is hoarding food that could help the whole community survive in a time of drought, the... suggestion... to not steal will kill everyone but the hoarder. That's clearly not best for the community. When invading barbarians are going to genocide your entire race out of existence, the "suggestion" to not kill becomes downright dysfunctional.
So clearly those "suggestions" are not absolutes. There exist cases when they can be overidden.
Now, you have a deity that has your best interests at heart and knows much more than you do, and that deity tells you to ignore one of those "suggestions" and instead follow his immediate instructions. If it were true that those "suggestions" were absolutely and universally valid, then yes, you would have a good case for ignoring the deity. But they're not. So by what logic do you conclude that this is not a case where the situation demands that those "suggestions" be ignored? Maybe the deity is aware of some danger that you are not, and is attempting to save you - had they not stepped in, you would have continued following the "suggestions" which would lead to your demise, which is why the deity has intervened and said "forget the suggestions, trust me".
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | And how do you know what is best for the community? How do you know that when your god asks you to do something, even if it sounds bad, it's not for the better of the community? |
Because if it truly were for the benefit of the community then it would be in everyone’s best interest to make things explicitly clear. Something so drastically opposed to the norm of the religion would be shrouded in question. The god would explain it to the recipient. Why would he/she not, if it were in the best interest of the community? Unless it was a test? |
You're asking me? i have no clue. But i am not the one committing the fallacy of assuming that just because i cannot think of a reason why the deity would not explain it, that must mean that there is none.
i should also point out that in point of fact, it turns out that either the deity isn't benevolent at all... or your logic is wrong. You believe that if something were to the benefit of the community, it would be in everyone's best interests for the god to make it known. Sounds good so far.
Reality disagrees. Looking back on history, it turns out that there are many things that would have been beneficial to the community to know that the deity - if one exists - simply didn't tell us. Why didn't the god tell us millenia ago about germs and bacteria? About upcoming natural disasters? About killers and terrorists in our midst? Hell, why doesn't he tell us what we need to know now to do things like cure cancer, grow enough food to prevent global starvation, and solve the population crisis?
So either the god doesn't have our best interests at heart at all... or sometimes it is in our best interests to not tell us everything.
The standard answer is "because he has a higher agenda that requires the suffering caused by those things". Alright, fine. Now explain why you think that suddenly doesn't apply in your specific case; why you think that when you are instructed to do something and not given a reason, suddenly there is no higher agenda that you are not ready understand.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | If you believe that, then you believe that your god is lying to you and/or that you know better. |
Right! Exactly! It’s a lie. In which case, either:
1. the god does not have the best interests of the community in mind
or
2. the god is testing the recipient.
In either case disobeying the command would be justified.
I can’t “know better” than a god, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that I need to blindly do exactly what they tell me without applying what I do know about the character and nature of that god and the religion associated with him/her. |
i'm not sure where you come across this notion that blind obedience is what i'm talking about. As a matter of fact, i thought i was being explicitly clear that the only logical conclusion was to trust the word of the deity. Not blind obedience, rational trust.
The argument goes: the deity has your best interests at heart, the deity knows more than you, thus when the deity tells you to do something, how is it logical to suddenly assume that the deity is trying to deceive you or that you know more than the deity? It isn't. Thus you should do what the deity says. There's no blind obedience there, it's a perfectly rational trust in an instrument (the god) that is always more reliable than your own senses.
Now, the issue i'm having here is how you know it's a lie. Sure, if you could determine it's a lie, then you would be perfectly justified in ignoring it. But how - precisely - do you make that determination?
Your answer seems to be that you assume your own understanding of the universe (and the deity) is so solid that even when contradicted by the word of a deity, you can trust it more than the deity. My response is that that's bunk. You cannot possibly understand a god that well - no one does. No one can explain why a god would create as much pain and suffering as exists. They can try to offer rationalizations about sufferning being required to teach some lesson... but then can't explain the lesson or why it must be taught. Eventually every discussion about the characteristics of a god will boil down to the fact that you simply trust them... that there are aspects of the universe and the god that you just don't understand, but nevertheless you trust that there are valid reasons for them to be as they are.
And that's fine. That's a perfectly valid thing to do. After all, if you really believe that the god is benevolent, then it only makes sense to assume that when something appears to be nasty, there must be some ultimate, underlying benevolent reason for it to exist by necessity.
What i don't get is how you can go from that trust most of the time to suddenly throwing it away when you are given an order that seems to contradict what you understand about the universe. i mean, we've already established that you can't know everything about the universe or the god, but that you trust the word of your god. But then all of a sudden you do know so much about the god that you can conclude that it's lying. So... what exactly is the nature of this trust? Do you really trust the god, or do you only trust your conception of the god?
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | Consider this: why would they ever ask you to do something that would harm the community? Your answer is that you're being tested.If that's the case, then there must be a chance that you would fail the test... otherwise the test is meaningless... and your god cannot know what will happen.
What that means is that this god would risk the suffering of others just to test you. Remember, by your own claim, the god does not know what will happen. It is entirely possible that you could surprise the god with your ingenuity and manage to torture your mother severely before he could arrange to have you stopped. |
Indeed, and in that case the god has proven that there is a significant problem in his/her community and can take steps to remedy the problem. YHWH’s “tough love” on the Hebrews (slavery in Egypt, for example, not to mention the introduction of a whole slew of unifying socio-political codes) could be seen as an attempt to solidify the community after Abraham demonstrated a flaw in the community’s solidarity by disregarding the well-being of his own son! |
That's one possible interpretation i suppose. Creates a whole new slew of problems, of course. If the god needs to test Abraham to learn that he is... flawed?... in this way... then how is it that he can conclude that the same is true for all of Isreal without testing each of them? If Abraham is a representative sample of all of Isreal... how did the god know this without testing them all? Maybe Abraham was the only Isrealite that would have done that. Also, why was it necessary to punish generations of Isrealites for one person's - or even one generation's - flaw (and if the answer is because the god would have known the flaw existed in subsequent generations, then clearly the god can know these things without requiring testing)? How exactly was Isreal supposed to learn the lesson not to blindly obey when they were "rescued" from Egypt by blindly obeying both God and Moses? And so on and so forth.
Again, i think you'll find that if we trace these questions far enough, eventually you'll get to a point where you "just trust" that the answer is so. On some level, you're doing that already. There is absolutely no indication that Isreal was being punished for Abraham's actions. You "just trust" that it is so.
And like i said, that's fine. But you're "just trusting" the god when it's convenient for you and assuming divine dishonesty when it's not. You trust that even though the god rained down generations of suffering on its "chosen people", the ultimate motivation for that was benevolent. But when it comes to torturing your mother... nope, that has to be a test. i'm not seeing it.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Where do you get “outsmarted” from? Giving the correct answer to a test is not “outsmarting” the test-administrator. Test-taking students don’t show that they “know better” than their teacher when they work out problems on tests, but rather they illustrate that they’ve learned something. I still can’t see how using my brain to interpret the revelation implies that I think I’m smarter than my gods. My gods gave me the ability to reason and it is unreasonable to assume that they wouldn’t expect me to exercise that ability. |
Where do you get "test" from?
The situation is not a testing situation until you determine it to be so. If you had a teacher who was trying to instruct you in some topic and they told you a fact that seemed to contradict what you had been told before, why would you assume that you were being tested? Perhaps your understanding was simply not sufficient to grasp the full concept before now. Perhaps you simply misunderstood before... or even now. Perhaps there is no contradiction! and part of the lesson is understanding this.
The way i see it is if you had a teacher that you believed was a master of the topic and who genuinely wanted you to learn it well, and if that teacher presented you with a contradiction, the first logical step to take is to ask a question. If the teacher then tells you "that is not for you to know now", then what do you do.
According to you, you tell the teacher: "Ha ha, you're trying to trick me! This is a test! So what i'm going to do is ignore what you're saying now and go by what you taught me before."
According to me, you tell the teacher: "Alright, i'll trust you for now because you know the topic better than me and have my best interests at heart. Hopefully the reason will be clear to me later."
Which sounds more rational to you?
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | The god doesn't need to be omniscient, and he doesn't need to have absolute divine authority. If he is reasonably smarter than you, and if he is reasonably more benevolent than you... then you would quite literally be an idiot not do what he tells you to do. i mean, if this being - it doesn't even need to be a god - is smarter and more benevolent than you... why wouldn't you do what it tells you to do? |
Doesn’t need to be a god? Ok:
Well I can tell you for sure that a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist is smarter than me. Should I follow what they tell me to do blindly? Ok, right, they don’t have enough authority for that (though they may be benevolent). To make a more appropriate analogy I’ll concede that a good number political leaders are smarter than me. They have brains and authority (and perhaps even benevolence towards their community – though political cynics will likely debate that ). Should I follow their directives without question? By your logic then, the Nazi’s who refused to follow Hitler’s commands during WW2 were idiots? |
You're going to have to explain your logic to me. i'm unclear on why you think that it would be rational to trust an expert in a specific field on every random topic that comes up.
If a brain surgeon tells you that something about brain anatomy is so that seems to contradict your understanding, then yes, i would say trust them without question (assuming that you have reason to believe they are a benevolent brain surgeon of course). Doesn't that makes sense? But if they tell you something about house construction that seems to contradict your understanding... why exactly do you think you should "blindly" follow them?
Same goes with political leaders. If you can find something that they know better than you - which is not necessarily the case, because politics is not a field that requires intelligence to succeed in - and if you have reason to assume benevolence, then yes, trust them in that field. But i'm unclear on why you think that that necessitates trusting them "blindly" in every field.
Same goes with Hitler. If you had some reason to assume Hitler's benevolence (which, given his own writings, is clearly not the case - you could trust that he will do (what he thought) was best for Germany... not you... and it would be up to you to decide whether what's best for Hitler's idea of Germany is best for you), and if you had some topic that Hitler was an expert on (for example, he may have been a wackjob when it came to "racial science" and an idiot with military matters, but he was a brilliant political scientist... of sorts), then by all means, trust Hitler on that topic. If Hitler says the best way to build a cohesive and productive society is by convincing the masses that they are threatened by some enemy, i'd say trust him on that (again, assuming you have reason to believe his benevolence and competence). But Hitler was no historian or biologist... so... why would the average German be an idiot for not swallowing his racial theories? He was also no military genius, so why would the average German be an idiot for not trusting his military strategies? You're going to have explain those things to me.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | | You change the example in a very self-serving way to avoid the problem. |
That’s the nature of the game isn’t it? We put forth analogies to try and support our own ideas while at the same time looking for flaws in other people’s analogies.
The down-side is that we keep building/renovating our analogies until we have a complete, detailed scenario that often either becomes a discussion point in its own right or becomes so convoluted that the value of the original analogy is lost. But I digress... |
Technically no, that's not the nature of the game. You build/renovate your own analogies, not the other person's. You answer the other person's analogy, either by explaining how your idea works with the analogy or by showing that the analogy is flawed. If you can do neither, then there is a problem with your idea.
| Eyvind wrote: |
| Quote: | But alright. i'll allow it. Yes, i will allow the strange situation as you have described it. Because, as you will discover, the changes you made are not good enough.
So, once again, from the top. You are a child, and your parents have told you to never, ever press the red button. Never. You saw your friend do it once, and get jabbed by the pin in the button. You can still see the pin there.
Now, one night, without any warning or explanation, your parent suddenly says to you, "Go, push the red button." Of course, you ask "why?" Your parent answers, "i cannot explain it to you because it is not for you to know right now. i have told you to push the red button. Go, push it now!" You reply, "But i will get stuck by the pin!" Your parent replies, "You must do it anyway. i have told you to go do it, go do it."
What do you do? |
You’ve added urgency to the scenario but nothing to alleviate the mystery or “badness”. You’ve given the child nothing and so can not blame the child for refusing. Plus now you’ve given the child the added concern that you don’t care about his/her pain! Poor kid…
And anyway, if it’s something really that important but something so complicated or so secret that it prohibits an explanation to the child, then it’s probably not a suitable task for the child and should be looked after by the parent. |
Actually, if you read the original analogy, the urgency was there to begin with. And i was quite intentional about not eliminating the mystery or the badness because both exist in reality. Is it so strange that we don't completely understand what is going on around us? Hardly. Is it so strange that many things we must do are painful? Nope, quite common, actually.
You're still avoiding the question. i put that bizarre pin thing in there (even though it makes no rational sense - who would make a button with a pin in it like that? - there are certainly buttons that have bad consequences when pressed... but that pin thing is just weird) and you still can't say for certain that the child should not press it when told to. Instead you're equivocating with the new idea that it's beyond the child's capability. Nonsense. It's a button. Any fool child can push a button. The child does not need to know what the button does or why in order to be able to push a button. Sure they can know that the button has normally bad consequences and thus they should not push it, but if they are told that they must do it... why is it beyond their capability?
So, i say again. Same analogy, complete with that weird pin. Should the child push the button? Or refuse? Is it rational for the child to assume the parent is "testing" them, as you claim?Oh my God, you really should write a book instead of posting such long replies. 
| Soulfire wrote: |
Assume the existence of an omnipotent, authortitative God is true.
God manifests himself (be it dream, another person, etc.) and you are 100% sure it is God. God tells you to torture your mother to go to Heaven. Would you?
My argument:
Yes
By Divine Command Theory (DCT), God is the supreme lawmaker, and God is good. If God is good, then God's command is good, which means torturing your mother = good. So therefore, you are to obey God, and torture your mother.
The flaw with DCT is that it can make religion (or morality) arbitrary.
I am assuming someone will come from the "autonomy thesis" angle soon, I'm interested to hear your thoughts. |
If GOD tells you to blow up the WTC, would you?
Think twice. | Indi wrote: |
While it's all certainly true that it's possible to determine morality objectively - without the need for divine command - that still doesn't excuse ignoring a deity when they tell you that some moral fact is true... even if that fact contradicts your own understanding. Why? Because doing so - whether you like to admit it or not - is effectively saying that your understanding of morality is better than the deity's. |
This does not necessarily follow. Disregarding the unexplained command doesn’t mean “knowing better” but simply means knowing “something”. My “gods-given” rational faculty combined with the “something” I know justifies questioning the directive.
| Quote: |
| Why do i keep insisting this? Because you keep saying that when the deity's word contradicts what you know, you can conclude that the deity is lying to you (to "test" you). What does that mean, in plain English? It means that you have been presented with two contradicting facts - the word of a god vs. your own understanding. |
Yes.
| Quote: |
| Up to this point, you have no reason to believe that the deity would lie to you. Your argument, really, is that the fact that the contradiction exists is proof enough that the deity is lying. |
No. The fact that the contradiction exists AND is not explained is what allows me to conclude that the command is a test.
| Quote: |
| Or in other words, that you are so certain of your own understanding that even when you are presented with contradictory evidence by a god, you can safely rely on it and ignore the god. Because your understanding of morality has to be right, the god must therefore be wrong. |
No. Again, it’s because the god doesn’t explain the contradiction. Rational creatures need this if they are expected to act against the morals they have built up over their lifetime. Otherwise they are being asked to do it on faith… blind faith. You call it “rational trust” (below) but I see nothing rational about blindly following (and yes, it would “blind” without an explanation) such a drastic contradiction.
| Quote: |
But you surely know that there are cases when those... whatever you want to call them... suggestions?... are not what is best for the community. When one person is hoarding food that could help the whole community survive in a time of drought, the... suggestion... to not steal will kill everyone but the hoarder. That's clearly not best for the community. When invading barbarians are going to genocide your entire race out of existence, the "suggestion" to not kill becomes downright dysfunctional.
So clearly those "suggestions" are not absolutes. There exist cases when they can be overidden.
Now, you have a deity that has your best interests at heart and knows much more than you do, and that deity tells you to ignore one of those "suggestions" and instead follow his immediate instructions. If it were true that those "suggestions" were absolutely and universally valid, then yes, you would have a good case for ignoring the deity.
But they're not. So by what logic do you conclude that this is not a case where the situation demands that those "suggestions" be ignored? |
It may very well be a case where those suggestions are meant to be ignored. But then the deity should know that we rational mortals need a bit more to go on than just “do it”.
| Quote: |
| Maybe the deity is aware of some danger that you are not, and is attempting to save you - had they not stepped in, you would have continued following the "suggestions" which would lead to your demise, which is why the deity has intervened and said "forget the suggestions, trust me". |
Fair enough, but then if they’re stepping in to save us then why would they do it half-assed like that. A rational deity would know that we need more to go on. If it was so important then he/she would quite simply give us what we need to make it happen… namely, an explanation for why the deviant command should be followed.
| Quote: |
| i should also point out that in point of fact, it turns out that either the deity isn't benevolent at all... or your logic is wrong. You believe that if something were to the benefit of the community, it would be in everyone's best interests for the god to make it known. |
Actually, no. I don’t believe that and I don’t… think… I ever said it. What I said was that if the god wants something done for the benefit of the community then he/she has to explain it properly if he/she wants it properly done. This is different from asking him to reveal everything that is good for the community as you seem to indicate I said.
| Quote: |
| Reality disagrees. Looking back on history, it turns out that there are many things that would have been beneficial to the community to know that the deity - if one exists - simply didn't tell us. Why didn't the god tell us mil |