God and good

Well that's a wonderful thought. Your god is just playing a sick game then? Don't question it right? I mean who are we to judge your deity. If he wants to create things to crush, then well, he's entitled. We are just finite, wicked creatures (and that's our fault, not his).

And some xtians wonder why some others dislike christianty so much!

Anyway those verses deprecating humans are off the point. So let's get to it.

Originally posted by Colleti
It is strangely worded - "it repented the LORD." It does not say he regretted it, but that it repented the LORD . . . I would say then that God was showing his anger against mankind who turned from God. .

Showing his anger? That's an understatement!

Well you don't give me anything here. It seems you just repeat this half of the verse and then conveniently ignore it. If it doesn't mean that God regretted making the world, what do you think it means?

I do agree it is strangely worded (damn KJV 🙂 ), so I have checked out quite a few different translations of this verse. Here are a few. I found no significantly different translations from these.

The NKJV translates Gen 6:6,"And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."

The New Living Translation says, "So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart." (I think this one is a pretty shoddy translation.)

The NIV says, "The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."

The New American Standard, "The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."

The Amplified Bible says,"And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved at heart."

The 21st Century KJV - "And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved at heart."

No matter what translation I turn to one thing is clear. His being "sorry" or "regretting" or "repenting" is all focused on one thing: his making humans. They are all very clear on this. The first part of the verse claims that God "repents" or is "sorry" or "regrets" that he made man. The second portion then adds that the actions of the men made him sad. Very clearly the decision to make man is the object of God's regret here.

So in light of these less ambiguous translations, does you analysis change at all?

Originally posted by bbarr

Second, if the proof is sound (i.e., if it really is a proof), then it shows that a non-relativistic secular morality is possible. [/b]

Originally posted by bbarr
Whoa! My proof, back from the graveyard of abandoned threads!

I have been thinking about the question of God being 'subject' to logic. Is logic a standard which is above God?
Earlier I said 'not exactly.' That's still my position.
It is often asked whether, if this world is the best possible, it might have been better for God not to have created. Now, I'm not here interested in whether this is the best possible world. I'm also not concerned now with whether or not God should have created.
The interesting thing to notice about the question is that it assumes there are only two possibilities: 1) God creates, and 2) God does not create. Why that assumption?
Logically, there are no other possibilities. Logically, God has only two choices: He creates or He does not. No matter how powerful God is, He cannot overcome this limitation. Any option other than those two is a logical impossibility, an inherent contradiction.
But does it actually make any sense to say that logic here stands above God? I don't think it does. Not exactly 🙂
You see, if you formulate some third option and say, 'God does #3', that third option is nonsense and you're not really saying anything about God at all. To say that God can do something which is logically impossible is to be speaking plain and foolish nonsense. God's power is unlimited: He can do any thing. God's power is limited by logic, only because logic tells us what are things (which can be done) and what are nonsense (and can't be done).
Now I haven't stated any of this in terms of formal logic. If any ancient Greek philosophers have said something like this, I don't know their names. But I think this is the answer to whether going from an ethical standard above God to mere logic above God does anything more than push back the question.
Bennett, as our resident expert in logic, I'm especially interested in your reaction to this. Besides that, I kind of miss you 🙂
But of course I'd like to read anyone's thoughts on the matter.

Reading through this post a few times, I don't think you've really found a "not exactly" option. I think you have said what it means for your "God" to be bounded by logic, and then just added a "not exactly" to it. Let's look at it.

Originally posted by huntingbear
God's power is unlimited: He can do any thing. God's power is limited by logic . . .

Well which is it? Can he do anything? Or are your god's actions constrained by what is logically possible (thus able only to do anything that does not violate a rule of logic)? It seems to me that while you admit that your god must be constrained by logic, you don't want to concede that your god is subject to some external rules.

Originally posted by huntingbear
God's power is limited by logic, only because logic tells us what are things (which can be done) and what are nonsense (and can't be done).

This is exactly what it means to be bounded by logic, thus "God" is bounded by logic. God can only do what is logically possible. He is subject to some external law governing his existence. Now the dilemma again is where does this logic come from? If there is some external law not contingent upon God, and we take bbar's reasoning, then morality is derived from this logic, and we are back to the second option of Euthyphro's Dilemma. Thus the statement "God is bounded by logic" ---> the statement "God is bounded by a moral standard."

There are two "not exactly" options that I was able to think up, but both lead to nonsense.

One possible "not exactly" route is to argue that God created logic, (thus he is still "above" and not "subject" to it), but that he then imposed these rules upon himself and does not violate them.

I'm sure you see the problem with this though. One must ask well when he created logic was he bounded by logic? Certainly the answer must be "no." But then we are really talking about a god not bounded by logic, and we arrive at the very issue you pointed out. We have nonsense.

A second "not exactly" position, and maybe the one you are getting at in your post, is that logic is a purely human concept. It is only our way of understanding the world, and is not some universal law of existence. Thus God is bounded by logic only from our perspective.
Unfortunately, this is simply the same as saying, "God is not bounded by logic," and we reach the same crux.

What do you think, huntingbear? Did I miss what you were saying?

Hey bbar. I have a bit of a tangent question. What does it mean practically to be bounded by logic? Let me explain.

Let's take the xtian god. In the Bible, one encounters the story of Balaam. If you have never read this story or don't remember it, let me recount it.

Balaam accepts money to go curse a town. God tells Balaam not to curse the town, but Balaam sets off to do it anyway.
Not one to be disobeyed, God sends an invisible angel to stand in Balaam's path on the road and kill him if he crosses that point in the road.

Now comes the interesting part. Somehow the donkey sees the angel and stops moving forward. Balaam gets pissed off and beats his donkey. Then the donkey speaks! The donkey asks Balaam why he is beating it, when all it is doing is trying to save Balaam's life. God then allows Balaam to see the angel, and Balaam repents, yada yada.

Now back the question. What does it mean to be bounded by logic? If the xtian god did what this tale says he did, and he is bounded by logic then this would imply that everything in this story is logically possible.

Now I see a couple of things that are peculiar. First, and foremost, God can make a donkey speak a human language. Second, God can make a donkey see an object not visible to a human eye. Third, God can make this same object visible to the human eye.

Is it logically possible for a donkey's voice box to produce human speech? Must we appeal to an unknown property of donkey voice boxes? If it is not logically possible, then is God actually making a voice box that can't produce human speech, produce human speech? Or has he modified the donkey so that the animal can speak a human language? In this way then, he is not violating the laws of logic, because he is not making an donkey speak but some super-donkey speak.

I have similar questions for the eyes? Have the donkey's eyes been modified? Did God modify Balaam's eyes? Maybe God modified the angel? Or must one necessarily appeal to some unknown property of eyes that would allow for such an event?

I guess the simple boiled-down question is this: If the miracles we read
in the Bible are true, does this contradict that God is bounded by logic?

Originally posted by telerion
Hey bbar. I have a bit of a tangent question. What does it mean practically to be bounded by logic? Let me explain.

Let's take the xtian god. In the Bible, one encounters the story of Balaam. If you have never read this story or don't remember it, let me recount it.

Balaam accepts money to go curse a town. God tells Balaam not to curse the ...[text shortened]... acles we read
in the Bible are true, does this contradict that God is bounded by logic?

If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking.


Wrong thread, sorry.

Originally posted by huntingbear
Aiden,
I have time only to answer a simplified version of the dilemma, one encountered by theists daily:
Are good actions good because God says they are good, or does God say good actions are good because they are good?

Either alternative seems to leave the theist in a pickle.
A) If good is good only because God says so, then we run to into the problem of arbitrary morality. As you said, what if God declares (or declared) that torturing children was good?
B) If God says good is good because it simply is good, then the standard of goodness is above God and He is subject to it.

When I first became a Christian I had a good long think about this dilemma. I concluded (A). My reasoning:

First, God will not suddenly change His moral commands. He told us that. So what He has declared good is good, and what He has declared bad is bad, with no danger of that suddenly reversing tomorrow.



Suppose what's good or bad is eternally good or bad. Then, if God made things good or bad by declaring it (the bone of contention), he could not then change His mind. Not changing His mind would be a necessary condition for him being able to declare things to be good or bad. However, on its own, not changing his mind about what is good or bad would not seem to qualify as a positive argument for why, merely by declaring something good or bad, God could do so.


Second, while the charge can be levelled that morality is arbitrarily determined by this God, it must be remember that the same God who authored morality is the God who authored the universe. That is, He who commanded good and bad also created the world to match.
I decided that if God had chosen some other moral command(s), He would also have created and ordered His universe differently, to match.


Alas, you can't derive an "ought" from an "is". However God made the world, the question remains: How can He, by declaring it, make any world he makes good or bad?


I no longer think this is entirely acceptable, and I hope soon to see replies to my post which will show up any faults in that position.


Happy to oblige 🙂

Aiden

Originally posted by Quirine
Your question: "Suppose that God says that action X is good and action Y is bad, whatever X and Y are. Is that sufficient to make X and Y good or bad?
This is the general question I would like you to answer. "

My answer: I do not think that God ever said something was good or bad. So for me this whole line of reasoning is not relevant.
I have several ...[text shortened]... d is saying God is bad. There's just no point in doing that.
PS: I do believe in God

Otto

Originally posted by ivanhoe
If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking.


Wrong thread, sorry.

Originally posted by telerion
Hey bbar. I have a bit of a tangent question. What does it mean practically to be bounded by logic?

Originally posted by telerion
Well which is it? Can he do anything? Or are your god's actions constrained by what is logically possible (thus able only to do anything that does not violate a rule of logic)?

Both 🙂
I said, 'God's power is not limited: He can do any thing. God's power is limitied by logic.'
It should be very clear that when I used the word 'limited' in my post, I was using it in two different senses.

It seems to me that while you admit that your god must be constrained by logic, you don't want to concede that your god is subject to some external rules.

It may seem that way to you, but I believe you are wrong. I think you have not considered what I posted, no matter how many times you have read it. I will repeat: to say God can do something which is not logically possible is to say nonsense. Logically, for example, a thing cannot both exist and not exist. It's ridiculous. If you can't see that God's inability to make me exist and simultaneously not exist is not, in fact, a limitation of His power, then I have no idea how to make it any clearer. He still has the power to do all things. But making me exist and not exist at the same time is not a thing at all. It is nonsense.

What do you think, huntingbear? Did I miss what you were saying?

Yes. Consider God before* creation. He can a) create, or b) not create. There are no other possibilities. All things, all possibilities, are contained in these two options. God can do either a) or b), so He can do all things. If you add that God can c) both create and not create at the same time, I have to stop you and say that's not true. c) is inherently impossible, a logical contradiction. God can no more do c) than He can make a triangle with four sides. He is bound by logic, because the illogical is just nonsense. Yet His power is unlimited: He can do all things.
I believe I have reached the limits of my communicative abilities. If this is not now clear, I don't think I have any more assistance to offer. As I told you by PM, I think you approach my posts with preconceptions about the quality of reasoning you will find. I believe this hinders you and you are not actually thinking about what I am saying. If I am wrong, I hope for your forgiveness. And as always I thank you for the conversation.

-Larry

* 'before' is a word which presumes time, and since I believe time is a part of the created order I use the word here only for convenience.

Originally posted by huntingbear
It should be very clear that when I used the word 'limited' in my post, I was using it in two different senses.

This is a great example of how you could really help me. Instead of stopping here. Tell me exactly what the two senses are. You might think them obvious, but they are not to me. Just a quick sentence clarifying exactly what these two meanings of "limited" are would make all the difference.

Huntingbear, I dig what you are saying. All I am saying is that what you have posted about God is exactly what I think it means to be bounded by logic.

I guess we might have reached a nice little dead end. You think I misunderstand you. I think you misunderstand me. How does it go? Toe-May-Toe, Toe-Mah-Toe, Pah-Tay-Toe, Pah-Tah-Toe . . . what do you say?

Originally posted by telerion
This is a great example of how you could really help me. Instead of stopping here. Tell me exactly what the two senses are. You might think them obvious, but they are not to me. Just a quick sentence clarifying exactly what these two meanings of "limited" are would make all the difference.
Huntingbear, I dig what you are saying. All I am saying is that what you have posted about God is exactly what I think it means to be bounded by logic.