Can you be good without God?

[Davian]

I don't have to prove it. <snip>

Of course you do. You are making the wager, right now. Prove that, out of the thousand of religions and denominations, that you have the right one.

You may confirm that you have no idea by responding with even more obfuscation.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Can you be good without God?

There is no life outside of God, so there are no people "without God". He has created, and He sustains all life. The tongues that curse God were made by Him and are living because if Him.

You can do nothing without God, and the genesis of all sin is the desire to make that statement untrue.

Citation needed

 

[Archaeopteryx]

God is not "anyone else". I'm a classical theist. I don't think of God as a being like us. In fact God is more dissimilar to us in essence than he is like us. We can only speak of God's nature analogically.

We live in a universe of many seemingly competing goods. Human autonomy is one of those goods. For God to prevent all wicked people from being wicked, we would have to have no desires of our own and no will of our own. God does not lack power, but he can't do the impossible.

God's plan to deal with evil is found in the Cross. Jesus gives forgiveness to those who have sinned, and hope to those who are suffering. This is not something that can be communicated through an internet forum, however. It can only come from living a life of faith, preferably with a Christian community.

No offence, but that plan is virtually indistinguishable from no plan at all.

 

[Dave Ellis]

You are missing the point. It is not about "length" of life. It is about the fact that after you die. Everything about you cease to exist. Your consciousness, memories, personality, including your precious little experiences. Why worry about your experiences when they will cease to exist along with your consciousness after you die? Yes... you could "live on" in the memory of others, or perhaps through the offspring you produce. It still doesn't matter because all of it will cease to exist. After humanity becomes extinct, the universe will continue like it never existed at all.

That's correct. However I had a great time while I was here.

Let me ask you a question, because I think this is a slam dunk way to illustrate the atheistic view:

Say tomorrow it was revealed without a shadow of a doubt that there is no god. Say we discover something that somehow conclusively makes it impossible for a god to exist.

If that happened, would you kill yourself?

If your answer is no, as I suspect it would be, then you must find meaning and value in your own life. Isn't that enough?

 

[Dave Ellis]

I don't have to prove it. You're not making the wager with me. You're making the wager with God.

Either you die and the molecules that hold you together disband or you face your Creator to be judged for your lawbreaking. If it's the first, justice is never served and you lived an entirely boring and meaningless few years. If it's the latter, you will spend eternity in hell with your bitterness and disappointment at being justly condemned.

What if Allah is the real god? Then you not only lost the wager, but you're in a worse position than we are. We simply didn't believe, whereas you worshipped a false god.

There are thousands of other gods out there, and your god isn't backed by any more evidence than the others. Why should we accept it?

Just because you say so? That isn't good enough.

Why is it you believe?

 

[SteveB28]

That's for you to figure out. I can't make you think.

You weren't asked to make me think - I can quite adequately do that for myself. What you were asked for was some evidence, which you have not been able to provide. That leads us to a conclusion about your ability to do so.

 

[SteveB28]

I'm wondering if the obvious false dichotomy of "Either life has meaning with a god or life has no meaning at all" is a result of theism, or if the predisposition to have these kinds of false black or white ideas lead to theism. Because I see this all time with theists, I'm wondering if it's an actual pattern...

Very much a pattern. 'All or nothing' thinking seems to be part of the job description for many.

 

[Ed1wolf]

"Subjective" is not limited to just human minds. Subjective would apply to any conscious entity.

Your god is no different. Any opinions or judgments he holds would also be subjective.

No, His moral character objectively exists relative to humans.

 

[SteveB28]

If God does not exist, why not go through life working to get the most out of it for yourself?

I do. Don't you?

Rules may be just a barrier holding you back from pleasure. If you devise a method to circumvent rules while maximizing pleasure and never get caught, you should be applauded for your efforts. You get maximum pleasure with zero repercussions and no justice imposed upon your lawbreaking. You lived above the law and had a thrilling life.
Let's all be narcissists! Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!!!

Did it ever occur to you that "getting the most out of life" might include caring about those around you!?

Make it count, Dave. Get off this discussion board and fulfill all your pleasures and wants for you will be soon dead and your molecules will release their bonds to form something else.

May I be the first person to tell you you're wasting your life here on the Christian forums?

You religious folk certainly have a dread of death, don't you?

 

[Davian]

No, His moral character objectively exists relative to humans.

Does it not even occur to you to substantiate these opinions of yours?

 

[FireDragon76]

No offence, but that plan is virtually indistinguishable from no plan at all.

I don't see how that's so, especially as seeing how Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sent us the Holy Spirit to lead us to all truth. Christians have spent lifetimes pondering their significance and always find new things to discover within what has been revealed. If this were no plan, Christianity would have not survived for 2,000 years.

 

[SteveB28]

Every experience you've ever had has come to an end, or one day will come to an end. Did that affect their meaning to you in any way?

Every book or movie you've ever read or watched has come to an end, did that affect your enjoyment of any of them?

Things don't have to be eternal to be meaningful. The vast majority of things we encounter in life are temporary, and sometimes those are the most meaningful things of all.

Oh, well said!

 

[bhsmte]

No, His moral character objectively exists relative to humans.

Opinion.

 

[Ed1wolf]

It is your opinion and your gods opinion that your system is good, so it's subjective. As far as your gods character, he lives to rape, murder and burn people. I on the other hand will never do any of those things. I could teach your god a few things about being good.

No, it is not God's opinion. His moral law is based on His objectively existing moral character which exists outside of humanity. God has never raped, murdered, or burned people. And you do not have any objective standard by which to judge what is actually good. What you think is good is just based on your feelings, just like Stalins. So there is no real difference between your morality and his other than you may allow more homo sapiens to survive.

 

[bhsmte]

No, it is not God's opinion. His moral law is based on His objectively existing moral character which exists outside of humanity. God has never raped, murdered, or burned people. And you do not have any objective standard by which to judge what is actually good. What you think is good is just based on your feelings, just like Stalins. So there is no real difference between your morality and his other than you may allow more homo sapiens to survive.

More opinion, that is not substantiated.

 

[SteveB28]

There's a difference between temporary meaning and ultimate meaning. Obviously someone can find something temporarily meaningful, but ultimately if God doesn't exist then everything is meaningless. And since everything is ultimately meaningless, then the idea of temporary meaning is just a delusion, like good and evil. It's something that you choose to believe but that in reality doesn't matter, no matter how much you may tell yourself that it does.

The simple reality of the matter is that if God doesn't exist then there is no good and evil. Temporary delusions eventually get replaced by reality. So you may temporarily conclude that Stalin was evil, but ultimately he really wasn't and it didn't matter. Your temporary conclusions are really just a temporary delusion then.

What nonsense. The concepts of good and evil aren't arbitrary, in the sense of whimsical. Communities of humans decide, by consensus, what they consider to be good and bad. Whilst those concepts may change, they are nevertheless representative of the majority of that community, at that time.

Religious dogma and the moral stance it demands, by contrast, is frequently anathema to the prevailing moral code.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I don't see how that's so, especially as seeing how Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sent us the Holy Spirit to lead us to all truth. Christians have spent lifetimes pondering their significance and always find new things to discover within what has been revealed. If this were no plan, Christianity would have not survived for 2,000 years.

What does the longevity of it have to do with its truth?

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
Gods Morality is based on His objectively existing moral character. It exists outside of the human mind therefore it exists objectively.

tnt: If a god's morality is objective, then "good" and "evil" have nothing at all to do with that god, because it's based on something external to that god. That's what objective means:

"the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings."

Notice the "outside of a subject's..." part. That goes for you and me, and even a god, who doesn't get some sort of special pleading pass, despite whatever pathetic wordplay most theists use.

I didn't say God's morality is external to Him, but it is external to us. It exists as His moral character which is the state or quality of being true even outside of humanity's biases, interpretations, feelings and imaginings.

ed:Subjective morality is just based on human opinion and just exists in your mind, ie subjectively.

tnt: Yes, and as I said in another post which was conveniently ignored:

"Subjective things exist. Even one better, societies tend to have intersubjective morality, in that the majority of individuals have similar morals. As in, most people believe stealing and murder to be wrong, ceteris paribis. It has never been the case in any society that everyone's morality is completely different from everyone else's. Intersubjectivity makes morality within a society possible. And within any given intersubjective system,objective statements can be made, which makes situational ethics possible.

This is true because ALL humans are created in the image (which includes a moral conscience) of the Christian God so it is expected that there would be an underlying commonality of human morality similar to God's moral laws.

tnt: So the whole Christian gotcha of objective morality is a non starter, and frankly pretty silly."

See above, my statement about atheists not having an objective morality stands.

↑

ed: If morality is not objective then it doesn't actually exist, it is just your subjective feelings and opinion in your head like something imaginary and in fact it is imaginary if there is no God.

tnt: Opinions exist. They're far from imaginary. Let me prove it to you:

My opinion is that you're not spending enough time actually thinking about all this. Because whether a god exists or not, people have actual real opinions about things...

I am not denying the reality of opinions in a subjective sense. But they do not exist in an objective sense. Ie they are influenced by your various bias and etc. See your own definition above.

 

[Ed1wolf]

I can and will say Stalin is wrong, because that's what I believe, the same as you believe that. I have repeated ad nausem to you, objective morality does not exist and is not necessary to have morals.

No, see my post to Todd, if the Christian God exists then there is objective morality based on His objectively existing moral character. I didn't say it was necessary to have personal morals but it is necessary to have universal morals that apply to everyone.

dw: The Christian system is displayed within the bible and that system tortures, burns, rapes and starves people.

No, God has never tortured, burned, raped or starved people. He has allowed evil people and beings to do such things but He has never directly done those things.

dw: I have given scripture after scripture already to display this.

Where?

dw: Stalin is no worse than Christianity. Your god is said to murder and burn far more people than Stalin ever did. Your did cause rape in Isaiah 13:14-16 and yes those actions were based on his desire to respond that way.

No, that is a prophecy or prediction of what is going to happen to them. God did not command it. He just allowed the evil Persians to do that to Babylon because of their evil deeds especially to His representatives on earth, ie the hebrews.

dw: The USA and other places are secular governments that protects us from religious oppression and religion being mixed with the government. A big reason that the USA etc are good, is because we are protected from religious laws being made. Not because religions are good.

No, read the Declaration of Independence, the USA was founded as a theistic nation based on the Biblical God's moral laws. Most of the most important principles of our government are derived from biblical principles such as human rights, equality, freedom of conscience and etc. I never said all religions are good, I said primarily only Christianity is good, though some religions have some good teachings most of them fall far short of Christianity in producing good in the world.

 

[SteveB28]

That would be evil... but I have come to realize that's not a fair comparison to what God is like. God isn't indifferent in the face of evil, nor is he silent. But, you have to be willing to shift your perspective to see that.

Really? Those millions of children who perish terribly every year, while he stands idly by? If you or I could save even one of those children from a horrible death, we would do so.

Because we aren't indifferent about their plight.