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Thread: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

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    Default Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Some say we cannot say or know, because it is all myth.

    http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

    I think they are wrong as men can judge actions.

    I think we can at least know if Yahweh and Allah, and the religions they spawned, are good or evil.

    Since God is a Man interpreting God’s words, believers all following a Man.

    We invent our Gods and put them above us. But ultimately get all we know of God, and his morality from others around us. Priests and imams interpret and are the spokes in the religious communication network. Those priests and imams are teaching violence against their neighbor instead of love. I do not see that as ethical behavior for any moral religion.

    From what you know of Yahweh and Allah, and the religions they have spawned, would you say that those two War loving Gods, as we also love it in their image, good Gods, or would you say they are something else?

    Regards
    DL
    Last edited by Gnostic Christian Bishop; May 05, 2016 at 08:27 AM.

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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    What makes them evil?
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Of course they're not moral and ethical, very much the opposite, but it doesn't matter.
    To believe in them requires a teleological suspension of the ethical. You have to believe that for instance Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son was not only "good" but superlatively good. You have to believe that God created the world and that God is good and that God gives cancer to children and you have to continue to believe that God is still good despite this. Not to mention the endless list of other evils that must be called "good" if one wishes to be religious.

    But that's fine. Religion has a few shortcomings, like any passionate commitment, if it were a matter of logic there'd be no need for faith or passion or commitment. I have many religious friends and only really recently have we discussed it and I'm now getting the sense that being religious is in its simplest form a kind of passionate commitment, like being in love, where one can see the short-comings of one's lover, but it doesn't matter, one is in love, one is committed. Nobody gets passionate over the proposition that 2+2=4, it is simply the case. The very fact that religion and being in love make no sense, the very fact that to be religious is to be out of your mind (as one is out of ones mind when in love) is what makes passion possible. It is passion that makes life: life.

    Anyway, what are we talking about? Oh yeah, any all powerful being is inherently an evil being: to cause/permit all evil that exists, existed and will exist. There can be no greater evil than that.

    I used to go out with this Swedish chick and she was cross-eyed, everyone commented on it and I simply couldn't see it, in fact I'd get so angry whenever someone brought it up, I nearly punched my best friend over it, he literally thought I had gone insane. That's what passion is, being blinded like that, even to the point of violence. I'm sure everyone can understand that, it's a kind of insanity. So it doesn't matter to the religious people whether or not their God is "good" or "evil" they're passionately committed and it doesn't matter to non-religious people because to us being religious looks like a form of mental illness.
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
    -Betrand Russell

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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Is it good, moral, or ethical for a mom to lie and hide medicine in food? Is a doctor good, moral or ethical when he or she cuts your skin?

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    Anyway, what are we talking about? Oh yeah, any all powerful being is inherently an evil being: to cause/permit all evil that exists, existed and will exist. There can be no greater evil than that.
    Fundamentally wrong. You can't have good without evil. For you to be able to call something or someone good evil must exist. Just because you allow evil to exist doesn't make you evil in any sense of the word.
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnostic Christian Bishop View Post
    Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods? .. men can judge actions.
    Basing our judgement on what?

    What is this thing, this "ethics" you're talking about, on which we should judge not existing deities? From where does it come your "ethics"? When you use the noun "men", what do you mean? Where is this common "ethics" among human beings? Is it the "ethics" you find on media (TV, newspapers, and the Net)? Is it the ethics of winners of WW2? Is it the ethics of Stalin, Roosevelt and Mao Zedong? Is it the "ethics" coming from UN? Is it the leftist liberal (sorry!) ethics by Obama & Soros? Is it European this "ethics"? That is: does it come from Kant and Hegel? Or is it a worldwide ethics? If so: based on what? Where is your ethics? What is your "ethics" that should work for Angela Merkel and for Vladimir Putin, for Pope Francis and for Erdogan, or even for you and for me? Where can I find it?

    I cannot think you are seriously advancing the proposal of replacing the ancient Gods with mainstream media's garbage!

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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    @Gnostic Christian Bishop

    Well that really depends.

    If you are true believer in any of the versions of the of the god Abraham than the question moot. There is only one god and he/she/it is always right after all its her or his playground made by him for his reasons and he is absolute ruler of it and its direction. The ants really cannot judge the ethics of a being they cannot understand in reality - right?

    If you are real atheist than the answer is also obvious - no. The god of Abraham is an incoherent, rather careless mass murdering indifferent deity and I am happy to not believe. But please don't go all Dawkins and become for Atheism as bad as the Mormons that come to my door - I really don't need sermon of any sort.

    If you are Agnostic but say possibly spiritual or a believer in a non God of Abraham based faith - just get some popcorn, enjoy the show as they contort themselves to convince you they have the right version and don't worry about it. Edit: well unless that gets you on the wrong end of ISIS or the Inquisition or whatever then I suggest a quick move to anywhere else sooner the better.
    Last edited by conon394; April 25, 2016 at 09:46 AM.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

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    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    Just because you allow evil to exist doesn't make you evil in any sense of the word.
    Of course, but that is not what I said: if you have the power to save someone and choose not to, that is evil. For instance if you're standing next to the controls of a wood chipper and you see a child has fallen into it and you choose to do nothing and instead just watch in smug self-righteousness: that is evil. God being all powerful has the power to stop such things, but chooses not to and instead watches.
    This is what I was talking about with the teleological suspension of the ethical, religion is the opposite of logical, like being in love, others might point out the flaws in the object of your affections but you literally cannot let yourself see them, that's what faith is: calling what is so utterly evil "good".

    You can't have good without evil. For you to be able to call something or someone good evil must exist.
    Of course. But that doesn't detract from any my propositions.
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    Of course, but that is not what I said: if you have the power to save someone and choose not to, that is evil. For instance if you're standing next to the controls of a wood chipper and you see a child has fallen into it and you choose to do nothing and instead just watch in smug self-righteousness: that is evil. God being all powerful has the power to stop such things, but chooses not to and instead watches.
    This is what I was talking about with the teleological suspension of the ethical, religion is the opposite of logical, like being in love, others might point out the flaws in the object of your affections but you literally cannot let yourself see them, that's what faith is: calling what is so utterly evil "good".

    Of course. But that doesn't detract from any my propositions.
    A teacher has the power not to flunk a student who failed his tests. Is she or he evil for failing the student?
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    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    First I think that is a bit misleading. Himster was explicitly referring to willfully failing to help. In the case of a teacher failing a student that might be good in many cases. Has In you failed you really have little no talent in this area (fill in the blank) or did none of the work required etc. Now if you add some particulars a teacher who never lectures, provides no feed back to the student (or the student and parent(s) - depending on age) no reading list, no materials and than fails the class on the final they have no prepared for or even had the opportunity to try and be prepared for... I would call that malicious behavior but likely not evil.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    First I think that is a bit misleading. Himster was explicitly referring to willfully failing to help. In the case of a teacher failing a student that might be good in many cases. Has In you failed you really have little no talent in this area (fill in the blank) or did none of the work required etc. Now if you add some particulars a teacher who never lectures, provides no feed back to the student (or the student and parent(s) - depending on age) no reading list, no materials and than fails the class on the final they have no prepared for or even had the opportunity to try and be prepared for... I would call that malicious behavior but likely not evil.
    Teachers often willfully don't help a student to pass either. Just like the a person can be really bad or a little bad, a student might fail a class by just few points. The "maybe you failed for a good reason" doesn't always apply. Not every student is born to a wealthy family who can provide great resources for learning either. A teacher doesn't really care much if you had enough time to study for Differential Equations class because you had to look after your baby sister with your mom sick and dad gone, or because you're juggling through 3 jobs to pay for the rent of your family. Will you need that class in the future? Maybe, maybe not, depending on the job you have. However, it's part of the required classes and you have to pass if you want to keep your scholarship. Only thing you need is a few more points on the final exam. Sadly, this is no rare occurrence. There are many such stories out there endured by capable and good individuals that could be avoided by a little teacher intervention. Are those teachers evil for abiding by the rules of the university?

    In this metaphor with god, we've been given the tools. Lectures have been given in the form of prophets and holy books. We're given a brain that is capable of understanding the right and wrong. One important thing, at least in Islam, is that you need enough knowledge to be judged. Basically, if you've never been exposed to Islam you won't be judged in the similar manner to a person who was exposed.
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    MaximiIian's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    You keep cross-posting from SciForums, and it's all the same : just more rambling, preaching proselytising for your Gnostic religion. For someone who keeps critiquing Christianity and Islam and Judaism and what have you, you're doing an awful lot of the same as the Abrahamic faiths.

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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    I don't know much about Allah.

    YHWH is a composite figure created (in good faith in many cases I would imagine) as the location for people's sense of religio, their reverent awe at the mystery of the world. The different stories represent different figures, sometimes a murderous and vile figure, sometimes a grumpy arbitrary curse bestower, sometimes a benevolent loving father, sometimes a deal-maker, sometimes a dupe for Satan.

    The morals of the figure represented in the many bible stories are contradictory as the men and women who imagined YHWH (and the other deities with whom YHWH became conflated) all had their own ethical and moral approach. Some must've been murderous and vile people, some were looking for love, some wanted to make a deal with a powerful supernatural figure for land, some wanted to explain how bad things happen to good people.

    Whatever you believe about YHWH it is clear that the source material about him depicts not one God but many, as the accounts are literally contradictory, and some have most likely been cut and pasted from other mythoi. The God depicted by the Bible as a whole cannot exist: it is not possible for example that God was both called YHWH by Abraham (as mentioned in Genesis) and first called YHWH (and explicitly not known as YHWH to Abraham) by Moses at Sinai (as mentioned in Exodus).
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    A teacher has the power not to flunk a student who failed his tests. Is she or he evil for failing the student?
    It is not up to the teacher, unless the teacher is so inept that he/she cannot follow protocols set by the board of education.
    It's the board of education that is more godlike, but again they're a committee subject to a whole variety of checks and balances to keep choice out of the picture as much as possible. And so on and so forth. As a teacher with a God-complex I quite like your metaphor, but you have to see its limitations in this context.

    The teacher is not as Godlike as either of us would like, the board of education is not omnipresent or omniscient or omnipotent, they cannot see everything, know everything nor are they capable of everything.
    On the other hand God is all knowing, all powerful etc, he knowingly creates and observes all suffering, he tortures babies with a thousand horrifyingly excruciating diseases, he watches children starve, he sends tsunamis and earthquakes wiping out villages, towns and cities, he crushes pregnant women and suffocates them slowly in avalanches and drowns little girls on their birthdays, he makes dead fetuses rot in their mothers' wombs spreading slow and fatal putrefaction and watches all with a sickening sense of self-righteousness reserved for only the worst villains mankind can struggle to imagine and the all the other endless stream of evils knowingly inflicted by a God that chooses to do so, even though he has the power to not do so. To call such a being anything but evil would make the whole notion of good and evil utter nonsense and useless on its most fundamental level.
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    It is not up to the teacher, unless the teacher is so inept that he/she cannot follow protocols set by the board of education.

    It's the board of education that is more godlike, but again they're a committee subject to a whole variety of checks and balances to keep choice out of the picture as much as possible. And so on and so forth. As a teacher with a God-complex I quite like your metaphor, but you have to see its limitations in this context.

    The teacher is not as Godlike as either of us would like, the board of education is not omnipresent or omniscient or omnipotent, they cannot see everything, know everything nor are they capable of everything.

    On the other hand God is all knowing, all powerful etc, he knowingly creates and observes all suffering, he tortures babies with a thousand horrifyingly excruciating diseases, he watches children starve, he sends tsunamis and earthquakes wiping out villages, towns and cities, he crushes pregnant women and suffocates them slowly in avalanches and drowns little girls on their birthdays, he makes dead fetuses rot in their mothers' wombs spreading slow and fatal putrefaction and watches all with a sickening sense of self-righteousness reserved for only the worst villains mankind can struggle to imagine and the all the other endless stream of evils knowingly inflicted by a God that chooses to do so, even though he has the power to not do so. To call such a being anything but evil would make the whole notion of good and evil utter nonsense and useless on its most fundamental level.
    A teacher could easily change a test result and help a student not flunk. I know of one kid who failed his class because his teacher didn't give him 3 more points on the final exam. There are many similar cases. A teacher could easily give the answer to a question in an exam to a student, or share the homework answer for easy credit. There is a lot of things he or she can do to help a student not fail the class. Yet, often, he or she doesn't choose to do so.

    The way you object this comparison/metaphor is just stupid. Of course, the teacher isn't omnipresent or omniscient. She or he is not supposed to be. That's not how a metaphor works. Sigh...

    God doesn't randomly punish people nor it creates natural disasters. Everything happens under the laws of physics and biology. It doesn't make a baby sick or anything like that. Just because it created the mechanism for existence of matter and life doesn't mean he personally created every single act. Children who suffer in any way gets a free ticket to heaven for that anyways. Hardly an evil act.
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    A teacher could easily change a test result and help a student not flunk. I know of one kid who failed his class because his teacher didn't give him 3 more points on the final exam. There are many similar cases. A teacher could easily give the answer to a question in an exam to a student, or share the homework answer for easy credit. There is a lot of things he or she can do to help a student not fail the class. Yet, often, he or she doesn't choose to do so.
    Funny how we're talking about the idea of ethics and you come up with this scenario...

    I wonder why the teacher doesn't do so. Often, these days in America at least, to their career detriment if enough students do poorly enough.
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  16. #16

    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gaidin View Post
    Funny how we're talking about the idea of ethics and you come up with this scenario...

    I wonder why the teacher doesn't do so. Often, these days in America at least, to their career detriment if enough students do poorly enough.
    We're actually talking about good vs. evil in that context. I'll bite though... It's generally seen as unethical for anyone to basically fabricate records. Is it, however, ethical to flunk a student because of a few points in an elective humanities course and have her lose the scholarship she had, causing her entire academic career in jeopardy?
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    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    A teacher could easily change a test result and help a student not flunk. I know of one kid who failed his class because his teacher didn't give him 3 more points on the final exam. There are many similar cases. A teacher could easily give the answer to a question in an exam to a student, or share the homework answer for easy credit. There is a lot of things he or she can do to help a student not fail the class. Yet, often, he or she doesn't choose to do so.

    The way you object this comparison/metaphor is just stupid. Of course, the teacher isn't omnipresent or omniscient. She or he is not supposed to be. That's not how a metaphor works. Sigh...

    God doesn't randomly punish people nor it creates natural disasters. Everything happens under the laws of physics and biology. It doesn't make a baby sick or anything like that. Just because it created the mechanism for existence of matter and life doesn't mean he personally created every single act. Children who suffer in any way gets a free ticket to heaven for that anyways. Hardly an evil act.
    Sigh.... yeah let's just keep on sighing in turns like a passive aggressive whore house. That sounds like fun.
    Of course a teacher isn't supposed to be omnipresent or omniscient, a modern teacher has practically no power, he or she is basically a cog in a massive machine far far from the power source. The kind of choices you're talking about a teacher taking part in are precisely non-teacherly actions, actions that deserve immediate termination and suspension from ever teaching again. If a teacher made those choices he/she would simply not be a teacher.

    That teaching system you've described is a terribly and easily corrupted system, totally lacking the necessary impartiality required to have minimum fairness found in most education systems in developed countries. A proper system requires layers of fail-safes to ensure with ironclad certainty that no one teacher can decide the fate of a student or even a student's significant test. Yes it is ethical to flunk a student by a few points, those rules were put there to ensure the closest thing to fairness is achieved. What would be unethical would be to make a number of exceptions, having special and unique standards for the "almost adequate" while everyone else is held to a higher standard. what can be questioned however is are those standards themselves actually fair and equal? That's a totally different and very far removed from your envisioned metaphor as that's decided by committee after committee and only superficially altered after decades.

    Back to the topic at hand.
    If God is the creator and is all powerful and is all present and is all knowing: he created the universe knowing the precise suffering and every moment of that suffering in intimate detail of very being who ever lived and ever will live and all natural disasters, every fly that falls from the air etc. etc. all of that is/was/will-be his decision, his will, is desire. He knowingly caused the suffering and possesses the power to thwart that suffering and disasters, and he observes it all, but he still chooses to torture babies and shite, to call him anything other than evil would make the whole dichotomy of good and evil utterly meaningless from the get go.

    Now you say children who suffer in any way automatically go to heaven and you say that is not an evil act, so the obvious question after that is: Why don't you commit this magnanimous of ultimate charity act yourself? Hand out these free tickets to children with a bit of torture, suffering. If torturing children is such a good act as you say: obviously you should do it, if you don't, can you tell me why?
    The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts.
    -Betrand Russell

  18. #18

    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Himster View Post
    Sigh.... yeah let's just keep on sighing in turns like a passive aggressive whore house. That sounds like fun.
    Of course a teacher isn't supposed to be omnipresent or omniscient, a modern teacher has practically no power, he or she is basically a cog in a massive machine far far from the power source. The kind of choices you're talking about a teacher taking part in are precisely non-teacherly actions, actions that deserve immediate termination and suspension from ever teaching again. If a teacher made those choices he/she would simply not be a teacher.

    That teaching system you've described is a terribly and easily corrupted system, totally lacking the necessary impartiality required to have minimum fairness found in most education systems in developed countries. A proper system requires layers of fail-safes to ensure with ironclad certainty that no one teacher can decide the fate of a student or even a student's significant test. Yes it is ethical to flunk a student by a few points, those rules were put there to ensure the closest thing to fairness is achieved. What would be unethical would be to make a number of exceptions, having special and unique standards for the "almost adequate" while everyone else is held to a higher standard. what can be questioned however is are those standards themselves actually fair and equal? That's a totally different and very far removed from your envisioned metaphor as that's decided by committee after committee and only superficially altered after decades.

    Back to the topic at hand.
    If God is the creator and is all powerful and is all present and is all knowing: he created the universe knowing the precise suffering and every moment of that suffering in intimate detail of very being who ever lived and ever will live and all natural disasters, every fly that falls from the air etc. etc. all of that is/was/will-be his decision, his will, is desire. He knowingly caused the suffering and possesses the power to thwart that suffering and disasters, and he observes it all, but he still chooses to torture babies and shite, to call him anything other than evil would make the whole dichotomy of good and evil utterly meaningless from the get go.

    Now you say children who suffer in any way automatically go to heaven and you say that is not an evil act, so the obvious question after that is: Why don't you commit this magnanimous of ultimate charity act yourself? Hand out these free tickets to children with a bit of torture, suffering. If torturing children is such a good act as you say: obviously you should do it, if you don't, can you tell me why?
    So, even when those standards a teacher is supposed to abide by are utterly unfair, it's unethical for a teacher to give just 3 more points in an elective class to a student who is otherwise doing pretty adequate in her core lessons so that she doesn't lose a scholarship and not jeopardize her entire academic career?

    Nope. It wouldn't make the whole dichotomy of good and evil utterly meaningless. You're just making a huge logic leap to make an argument. I'm not really surprised that you've been ignoring other examples as well. Is a doctor evil for cutting your flesh to save your life? We usually don't look at events in a vacuum. Evil exists so that good can exist. If god intervened in any bad situation evil would be meaningless. Without that dichotomy it would be quite meaningless for god to divide people between hell and heaven as well.

    It's god's desire. It doesn't torture babies. That's your perversion of what happens. It's not its job to save anyone. Its your creator, not your nanny. The fact that you even exists by its own doing is a plus for you whether you suffer or not. Just because god know everything doesn't mean it is the cause of your suffering. We, humans, have the knowledge of people suffering, and the power to stop it, pretty much every day. Most of the people here have enough money to end the suffering of a person in the world. Yet, we spend that on expensive restaurants, clothes, gadgets, etc. Are we all evil?

    If the suffering of a child has a cure why would I end his suffering by ending his life? I would try to end his suffering without ending his life. It's not for me to take a life like that. Though, I already made my position on euthanasia clear in this forum...
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  19. #19

    Icon6 Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Setekh View Post
    God doesn't randomly punish people nor it creates natural disasters. Everything happens under the laws of physics and biology. It doesn't make a baby sick or anything like that. Just because it created the mechanism for existence of matter and life doesn't mean he personally created every single act.
    I think your idea of God is not exactly the one most people perceive when they talk of Yahweh/Allah. Those gods are known for both being more 'all-powerful' than you describe, and also intervening in human affairs in wrathful ways: causing natural disasters, advocating violence, etc. But no matter. I don't mind this line of discussion, so I'll continue.

    If I understand your argument here, it's that God does not have knowledge of the future, correct? Otherwise, God created this universe with the knowledge of what would happen to every inhabitant for all time, and thus is directly responsible for every 'accident'.

    However, even if God does not have knowledge of the future, he still created the laws of the universe with the knowledge that these things were bound to happen, right? He could have simply created a universe where humans would not have been subject to accidental death in the first place, but he did not. That seems to be evil in the forum of negligence, at the very least.

    Now, if you're arguing that he didn't even have human beings in mind when he created the universe this gets more complicated. I suppose it's possible (though extremely unlikely given what we know about biology) that God expected that the laws of creation would trend toward the evolution of far more hardy species, and that once those species finally reached sentience they would be at the top of their food chain, incredibly large, and practically invulnerable to disease. Maybe he didn't even foresee diseases or viruses as potential forms of life to begin with. This god seems pretty suspect, though. Not only would he have pretty pitiful knowledge of what he was creating, but if he were truly good, he would admit his mistake and correct things when they went wrong.

    I suppose you could also conceive of a scenario in which God is simply the god of this particular universe, under constraints of his own that we aren't aware of. Perhaps he is unable to work beyond the confines of the physical laws governing the entirety of existence (of which he is also a part of), and simply created a universe to fill some cosmic need. Or maybe he is more like the teacher in your metaphor - subject to the laws of a divine "board of education" which places restrictions for a greater good we're not able to conceive of. Perhaps he was just given powers by a more powerful being and does not fully understand them. Similarly, our universe could be a science project for higher beings (which God is one of), and he is learning to be a better deity in his interactions with us. In these cases, good and evil are a bit murkier. Still, I don't know who would want to worship any of these gods out of anything but fear...

    Children who suffer in any way gets a free ticket to heaven for that anyways. Hardly an evil act.
    This brings up quite a divide in the thinking between those who believe in a better-than-now afterlife, and those who do not. If heaven is preferable over living here, it is easy to rationalize life being quite cheap. But if instead life is all we have (and we have no scientific knowledge that implies it is not), then it is extremely precious!

    Though, because this is your God we're trying to determine the morality of, we'll assume the existence of an afterlife.

    What is the value of growing to adulthood and living a full life? Are there actually any benefits to this over dying as a child? Because if it is good act to allow a child to die an accidental death simply because they get to go to heaven, it seems to be an evil act to force, say, parents to watch their child die or otherwise suffer through a torturous existence only to end up in the same place later (assuming they didn't lose faith due to all of the cruel things happening to them!). Because the suffering of one is linked to the suffering of others, shouldn't a just god also reward those close to the child as well? In many ways, they'll have suffered far more by the time all is said and done.

    Evil exists so that good can exist. If god intervened in any bad situation evil would be meaningless.
    How much evil is necessary to prove the point, though? Must every single type of conceivable evil exist? Further, how much of each type of evil needs to exist? If accidental death is a necessary evil (and if it is, you'll need to explain why...), how regularly do we need to be subjected to it? Couldn't disease exist in much more muted forms? Couldn't the human body withstand much greater impact? This ties in directly with the above discussion about how much control God had over creation and humanity's part in it. Either he had control over it and decided on this exact level of accidental death - which I would argue to be exceedingly cruel - or he did not have control over it and is not nearly as omnipotent as claimed.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

    Quote Originally Posted by Meebleborp View Post
    I think your idea of God is not exactly the one most people perceive when they talk of Yahweh/Allah. Those gods are known for both being more 'all-powerful' than you describe, and also intervening in human affairs in wrathful ways: causing natural disasters, advocating violence, etc.
    When was the last time god intervened?


    Quote Originally Posted by Meebleborp View Post
    But no matter. I don't mind this line of discussion, so I'll continue.

    If I understand your argument here, it's that God does not have knowledge of the future, correct?
    No. I said nothing that indicates that.


    Quote Originally Posted by Meebleborp View Post
    Otherwise, God created this universe with the knowledge of what would happen to every inhabitant for all time, and thus is directly responsible for every 'accident'.

    However, even if God does not have knowledge of the future, he still created the laws of the universe with the knowledge that these things were bound to happen, right? He could have simply created a universe where humans would not have been subject to accidental death in the first place, but he did not. That seems to be evil in the forum of negligence, at the very least.

    Now, if you're arguing that he didn't even have human beings in mind when he created the universe this gets more complicated. I suppose it's possible (though extremely unlikely given what we know about biology) that God expected that the laws of creation would trend toward the evolution of far more hardy species, and that once those species finally reached sentience they would be at the top of their food chain, incredibly large, and practically invulnerable to disease. Maybe he didn't even foresee diseases or viruses as potential forms of life to begin with. This god seems pretty suspect, though. Not only would he have pretty pitiful knowledge of what he was creating, but if he were truly good, he would admit his mistake and correct things when they went wrong.

    I suppose you could also conceive of a scenario in which God is simply the god of this particular universe, under constraints of his own that we aren't aware of. Perhaps he is unable to work beyond the confines of the physical laws governing the entirety of existence (of which he is also a part of), and simply created a universe to fill some cosmic need. Or maybe he is more like the teacher in your metaphor - subject to the laws of a divine "board of education" which places restrictions for a greater good we're not able to conceive of. Perhaps he was just given powers by a more powerful being and does not fully understand them. Similarly, our universe could be a science project for higher beings (which God is one of), and he is learning to be a better deity in his interactions with us. In these cases, good and evil are a bit murkier. Still, I don't know who would want to worship any of these gods out of anything but fear...
    First of all, you're going widely off the path. There is no need for that...

    Knowing what will happen doesn't make it responsible. Are you responsible for what other people choose? God gave humans free will. It's merely respecting its consequences. Are you evil for not sending help to poor people around the world? You know for a fact that people suffer daily because of hunger. Does that knowledge make you an evil person?

    Accidents usually happen due to negligence of people. You can't take that out of the equation and leave free will in.


    Quote Originally Posted by Meebleborp View Post
    This brings up quite a divide in the thinking between those who believe in a better-than-now afterlife, and those who do not. If heaven is preferable over living here, it is easy to rationalize life being quite cheap. But if instead life is all we have (and we have no scientific knowledge that implies it is not), then it is extremely precious!

    Though, because this is your God we're trying to determine the morality of, we'll assume the existence of an afterlife.

    What is the value of growing to adulthood and living a full life? Are there actually any benefits to this over dying as a child? Because if it is good act to allow a child to die an accidental death simply because they get to go to heaven, it seems to be an evil act to force, say, parents to watch their child die or otherwise suffer through a torturous existence only to end up in the same place later (assuming they didn't lose faith due to all of the cruel things happening to them!). Because the suffering of one is linked to the suffering of others, shouldn't a just god also reward those close to the child as well? In many ways, they'll have suffered far more by the time all is said and done.
    Life is indeed precious. Most, if not all religions, talk about preciousness of earthly life as it's often the key to a good afterlife. In Islam, earthly life is most importantly a test for afterlife. These are basics that you should have known...


    Quote Originally Posted by Meebleborp View Post
    How much evil is necessary to prove the point, though? Must every single type of conceivable evil exist? Further, how much of each type of evil needs to exist? If accidental death is a necessary evil (and if it is, you'll need to explain why...), how regularly do we need to be subjected to it? Couldn't disease exist in much more muted forms? Couldn't the human body withstand much greater impact? This ties in directly with the above discussion about how much control God had over creation and humanity's part in it. Either he had control over it and decided on this exact level of accidental death - which I would argue to be exceedingly cruel - or he did not have control over it and is not nearly as omnipotent as claimed.
    You tell me. How much evil is necessary? I'm not the one who tries to draw a line here. You seem to be.
    The Armenian Issue

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