Why does God need the Blood ?

Originally posted by Coletti
If good is obedience to God, and God says to sacrifice you son, then to do good, one should obey. But notice the situation. God says "if you love me, give your son as a blood sacrifice." Sound familiar?

It may seem counterintuitive - indeed I think it is counterintuitive - but intuition is no sure guide to truth. (Ever notice that people never blam ...[text shortened]... nnate sense of good and evil. But a right understanding of scripture will not lead to sin.

No, I'd say your cat has gray and black stripes - because you defined you term first - I'm assuming you are using your definition univocally in your reasoning. (Law of Non-Contradiction again)

This is what I mean - words have no inherent meaning. Meaning is given to them arbritrarily. Some people agree with you that 'good' means 'to obey the word of God' but many others use the word regularly and don't mean that. The word 'good' does not inherently mean 'to obey the word of God'. Some people, including you, arbritrarily accept that definition instead of some other one. That definition (I assume) is written in the Bible, which may or may not have been written by God who arbritrarily chose to assign that definition to a Hebrew or Aramaic word (or whatever language it was) and then translated into English by humans who arbritrarily chose to translate that phrase using the word 'good' which was created by non-Christians.

A moral judgment is reasoning to a correct answer to a moral question based on a standard of good and evil. My standard is the Bible...I'm not say you personally are arbitrary - but the standard of suffering and pleasure is arbitrary. Different people have different ideas of pleasure and suffering - some in direct conflict with others. One mans pleasure is another mans pain. That is arbitrary.

I don't agree that different people have different ideas about pleasure and suffering. What I mean by pleasure and suffering are the experiences, not the actions that cause the experiences. The experiences are those which are found to be desireable and enjoyable; happiness, enjoyable physical sensation, inner peace, confidence, security, enjoyable excitement, etc. in the one case and those experiences which are not enjoyable and painful on the other.

Now as you say one person can suffer and another find pleasure in the same event. In such cases there is a trade off, and one must decide with some arbritrariness if there is a net good or evil. So there is some arbritrariness involved. However that is the case with the Bible as well. One must determine if a particular killing is murder for example, and people don't agree. There is arbritrariness there as well.

And sometimes some suffering is a good thing - even a best thing - and pleasure can be the worst thing.

I disagree. Can you give an example? I bet your example would involve further pleasure or pain in combination with the pleasure or pain you are referring to and the combination might be a net good or evil. I bet you'll describe an isolated system of pleasure or pain and then say that a larger system involving other pleasures and pains is net good or evil even though there is a pain or pleasure element.

Yes, insofar as it can cause wrong moral choices. The sense of right and wrong is a good thing, a "common grace" God gives all people. But people are flawed and make grievous errors when "natural law" is all they have to go on. No one can say for sure what is truly right or wrong based on innate sense of good and evil. But a right understanding of scripture will not lead to sin.

Wait; we're defining morality, and then you say using a certain definition is wrong because it leads to wrong moral choices. That doesn't work. You talk about "truly right and wrong" but why do you think there are such definitions? What makes those definitions not arbritrary?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
...This is what I mean - words have no inherent meaning. Meaning is given to them arbritrarily. Some people agree with you that 'good' means 'to obey the word of God' but many others use the word regularly and don't mean that. The word 'good' does not inherently mean 'to obey the word of God'. Some people, including you, arbritrarily acce ...[text shortened]... " but why do you think there are such definitions? What makes those definitions not arbritrary?

...This is what I mean - words have no inherent meaning. Meaning is given to them arbritrarily.

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that since the definition of words are arbitrary, then "good and evil" is also arbitrary? That in effect - there is no fixed meaning to the terms so there is no truth knowledge of good and evil?

I don't agree that different people have different ideas about pleasure and suffering. What I mean by pleasure and suffering are the experiences, not the actions that cause the experiences.

What do you do then with the sadist and the masochist? Do they not find happiness and joy, even physical pleasure, by cause or receiving pain? How do you determine the net pleasure/happiness here? What about a rapist? How do you know his pleasure does not outweigh her suffering?

And since we are talking about experience verses acts - I don't think this helps. Moral judgments are judgments of the acts of people - not their experiences.

I disagree. Can you give an example? I bet your example would involve further pleasure or pain in combination with the pleasure or pain you are referring to and the combination might be a net good or evil. I bet you'll describe an isolated system of pleasure or pain and then say that a larger system involving other pleasures and pains is net good or evil even though there is a pain or pleasure element.

You lost me there. Are you saying that the pleasure/pain measure is a net measure of all people? I don't see how this is practical. Who can begin to determine what action will result in the best net amount of pleasure for all people. And we must consider people of the future in that calculation. On the other hand, if we limit it to the pleasure/pain of a smaller population, then they may gain at the cost to other groups.

Wait; we're defining morality, and then you say using a certain definition is wrong because it leads to wrong moral choices. That doesn't work. You talk about "truly right and wrong" but why do you think there are such definitions? What makes those definitions not arbitrary?

What I meant was any system of morality (ethical theory) that leads to morally wrong choices by it's own standards is useless as a means of having any knowledge of good and evil.

If there is no definitions of right and wrong, then no one has any right to judge what is right or wrong and then insist that anyone should listen to them or act accordingly. Or right and wrong are just a matter of popular opinion - and there is no "truth" of right and wrong we can really know.

Originally posted by Coletti
Don't you see the irony? You are judging God. But you have no accounting or basis on which to make your judgment. You say it is wrong for God to order the destruction of a people, but you do not question your own assertion that what God ordered was evil. If one is going to make a judgment on God, one should have a clear basis from which to make that jud ...[text shortened]... you can reach is there is no God to judge - and there are no fixed moral laws to judge anything.

Your last sentence does not follow; the non-existence of God (or more accurately the lack of evidence for his existence) DOES NOT imply that there are no moral laws to follow. Your argument is circular; God decides what is good, so therefore God decides what is good. It is a part of human nature and experience to act with revulsion at the thought of sticking a spear through a baby; your invented God saying it's A-OK doesn't make it so. Please see the arguments in the other thread, but the bottom line is that the extreme form of Divine Command theory that you are adopting is totally amoral; ANYTHING is justified if someone believes God says it is. This is contrary to all human experience and nature and thus without foundation in reality.

Originally posted by Coletti
...This is what I mean - words have no inherent meaning. Meaning is given to them arbritrarily.

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that since the definition of words are arbitrary, then "good and evil" is also arbitrary? Tha ...[text shortened]... and there is no "truth" of right and wrong we can really know. [/b]

I'm a little confused. Are you saying that since the definition of words are arbitrary, then "good and evil" is also arbitrary? That in effect - there is no fixed meaning to the terms so there is no truth knowledge of good and evil?

You ask if "good and evil" are arbritrary. That is a question that is hard to understand if we haven't yet decided what definitions are to be assigned to the words "good" and "evil". I say that since the definitions of words are arbritrary, the definitions of "good" and "evil", which are words, are arbritrary. Once we've defined the terms, we can discuss whether there is true knowledge of good and evil.

Sadists and masochists are people who experience greater pleasure than they do pain from their actions, according to the definitions of sadism and masochism. Therefore they should be left alone unless there is a third party who is involved. They are doing good by making themselves happy.

How do you determine the net pleasure/happiness here?

Intuitively. This is no more arbritrary than deciding if a particular killing is murder.

The thing about rapists is that there is more going on than just the momentary interaction between the rapist and the person who is raped. The rapist causes great fear in the entire populace. It limits who can do what and when because people have to watch out for the rapist. In addition, as far as I can tell, the rapist's thrill is momentary, while the trauma to the victim is lifelong in many cases. The pain inflicted is far greater than the momentary pleasure the rapist gains as far as I can tell. To really study this issue I'd have to put time into it, but as far as I am aware, the pain outweighs the pleasure.

Moral judgments are judgments of the acts of people - not their experiences.

However the acts themselves have no significance. The consequences of the acts in terms of experiences are what matters. Suppose that when Hitler tortured and killed all the people he did, all those people had "spirit doubles" which they could move their spirits into and could live normal lives. They could shut off all pain experienced by their imprisoned selves and not have to suffer. When those imprisoned selves died, they would come back to life somewhere else. In short, no pain was suffered by the prisoners. All of the sudden Hitler's deeds, while kind of creepy, don't seem so horrible do they? It's the consequences in terms of what people experience of actions which make those actions good and evil. That makes sense to me anyway.

Are you saying that the pleasure/pain measure is a net measure of all people?

Yes.

I don't see how this is practical. Who can begin to determine what action will result in the best net amount of pleasure for all people. And we must consider people of the future in that calculation. On the other hand, if we limit it to the pleasure/pain of a smaller population, then they may gain at the cost to other groups.

This is true. It's a limitation in this moral perspective. However I don't think any other system is any better. For example, the "will of God" system. How many people on this planet agree that they know what the will of God is? Even for people who go by the Ten Commandments, how many agree about what exactly is murder? In either system, one has to use one's intuition in the final judgement.

What I meant was any system of morality (ethical theory) that leads to morally wrong choices by it's own standards is useless as a means of having any knowledge of good and evil.

Don't you believe all humans are sinners? Or do you? I don't really know what your religious perspective is. If all humans are sinners, then your system leads to morally wrong choices by it's own standards for every single human that exists.

Or right and wrong are just a matter of popular opinion - and there is no "truth" of right and wrong we can really know.

I agree that there is no absolute truth of right and wrong that we can really know - unless we define the terms first. Once "right" and "wrong" are defined, maybe there is an absolute truth we can really know. I think my definition allows for this in theory (barring extreme philosophical skepticism). Pain and pleasure are the result of chemical interactions in the brain which are things that can in theory (though not practically) be measured. This level of absoluteness is no less than that of the "good means to obey the will of God" school of thought. In the latter case, you need to figure out what the will of God is, and that's not an easy task.