Can you be good without God?

[MennoSota]

I would agree that man cannot know good and evil apart from God. However, I am not so sure at all that this knowledge is internal to a natural human being. I think that would contradict common sense (theologically) and also contradict a great deal of Scripture. But that's really not the point of this thread and it also drifts into apologetics.

The Bible shares that a gentile may do, by nature, what is required by the law. This gives us the understanding of right and wrong, by God's design. It does not keep us from failing and being found righteous. We still are subject under God's judgment upon sin and lawbreaking.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Yeshua, Jesus, fulfills your first request.

In your second statement you can add..."Without God, there is no meaning or purpose."

Meaning and purpose are vacuous. What exactly is wrong with not being created to fulfill a specific function as deemed by some supreme being?

 

[Eudaimonist]

All serious scholars, including most atheist scholars, disagree with you.

Richard Carrier is a serious atheist Ph.D. historian who has studied the matter in depth, and agrees with him.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Eudaimonist]

You are free to be wrong.

So are you. Reality is very egalitarian that way.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Achilles6129]

The Bible shares that a gentile may do, by nature, what is required by the law. This gives us the understanding of right and wrong, by God's design. It does not keep us from failing and being found righteous. We still are subject under God's judgment upon sin and lawbreaking.

Not sure I agree with your interpretation of that passage, but like I said, it's a debate for another time.

 

[Achilles6129]

Good and evil are defined by God, in His word. Yeshua, Jesus, is proof.

Right. So then obviously you can't be good without God.

 

[Hikarifuru]

Yeshua, Jesus, is human and is relevant. It's your rejection of truth that is irrelevant.

You didn't actually substantiate any of those claims no he is not merely a human, humans cannot do the things he did.

 

[Hikarifuru]

There is only God's moral system that is relevant. All others are cheap imitations.

This is merely your claim based on your moral system itself, who cares that you think so?

 

[Hikarifuru]

The Bible says that God placed eternity in our hearts. We have been provided a sense of right and wrong by our Creator.

The bible also says donkeys talk and that daughters deserved to be burned to death for having sex, who cares what your bible says?

 

[Davian]

Yeshua, Jesus, fulfills your first request.

No it doesn't. I did not ask what you believe.

I asked for you to show me a "god" that "can be proved to have come to earth, displayed his deity and arose from the dead to physically eat with humans again."

In your second statement you can add..."Without God, there is no meaning or purpose."

This is demonstrably false, as my life has meaning and purpose, and I have never believed in any gods.

It also is a argument from consequences fallacy, in that even if that were true, it would not poof your god into existence.

It also begs the question, have you the right god? Have you the right denomination? I am being told in other threads in these forums that if are not of the right denomination, you are a heretic, and as lost as anyone adhering to the wrong religion, or no religion.

But what I gather from your insistence that "Without God, there is no meaning or purpose", is that, without your God, you would be sad. Would that be accurate?

 

[Hikarifuru]

Right. So then obviously you can't be good without God.

There is no justification for these claims, you had a moral system long before you ever learned about god, that you now have a different one doesnt change that.

 

[Davian]

All serious scholars, including most atheist scholars, disagree with you.

But the historical Jesus, of which the the scholars are alluding to in this context, if he existed, has been dead for 2000 years. Why should I care about someone that, if he existed, has been dead for 2000 years?

 

[Hikarifuru]

So what is good and evil, then? And how do you prove it?

You don't prove it to other people, you just have the moral system yourself. That you can't prove it to other people has no bearing on the fact that you've always had one and always will regardless of god.
That you need to prove moral systems mean you don't understand them.

But the majority of morality is already agreed on, don't hurt or kill people. Your need to prove which persons morality is true has nothing to do with whether morality exists without god.

 

[Hikarifuru]

How do you know what an improvement is or positive changes are? Stalin thought killing the aristorcracy and intelligentsia were improvements and positive. Since both your patients and Stalins feelings are from the same source, chemicals produced by evolution, then how do you know one is wrong and the other is right? And you may say that one destroyed humans and the other would not, but evolution does not favor one species over another so wanting to destroy part of one species can not be "wrong" according to evolution. Evolution and nature just tell us the way things are not the way they ought to be.

being able to define and prove goodness has nothing do with whether or not people can be good without god. You had a moral system long before you believed in a god, you had beliefs about what was good before you believed in god. That now you have lost your own decision making ability by no means establishes that goodness doesn't exist with god, the only thing the god gives you is your decision making process.

I don't think you're any different than Hitler or Stalin yourself. You yourself think that without your god there is no right or wrong, you sound like a sociopath to me.

 

[Davian]

Right. So then obviously you can't be good without God.

Not if "good" is defined as "belief in God". As the word is used in the common vernacular, I do not see why not.

 

[Davian]

The Bible says that God placed eternity in our hearts.

The bible writers were free to write whatever they thought might sell their religion.

We have been provided a sense of right and wrong by our Creator.

Or, in the absence of evidence for "Creators", our sense of right and wrong is simply an evolved trait typical of a social species of animal.

Why don't the adult wolves of a wolf pack eat their young?

 

[Hikarifuru]

Right. So then obviously you can't be good without God.

that's silly, the bible specifically says that it is good to give your clothes to people to take care of them. Well guess what people all over the world do that whether they believe in god or not. You can obviously do things your god agrees is good without him. and it wasn't his declaration that made that act good, it was the act itself. It is psychopathic to think something is only good or bad if someone says so. If you think the only thing that makes an act good or bad is your gods statement then you are a sociopath.

The only thing you lack without your god is your ability to make decisions for yourself and think for yourself and decide for yourself that something was good.

 

[Davian]

There is only God's moral system that is relevant. All others are cheap imitations.

Let's explore this "moral system" of yours. If I slaughter everyone in my neighbourhood, can I still go to "Heaven", in your theology?

 

[Hikarifuru]

If we lack morality without god then without god I could rape you and it wouldn't be wrong, if what you lack is the ability to say rape is wrong... then you're just not very intelligent or you have no self esteem, its not that you lack morality.

 

[Dave Ellis]

How do you know what an improvement is or positive changes are? Stalin thought killing the aristorcracy and intelligentsia were improvements and positive. Since both your patients and Stalins feelings are from the same source, chemicals produced by evolution, then how do you know one is wrong and the other is right? And you may say that one destroyed humans and the other would not, but evolution does not favor one species over another so wanting to destroy part of one species can not be "wrong" according to evolution. Evolution and nature just tell us the way things are not the way they ought to be.

Because the positive benefits, or the negative consequences are objective. Someone's personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant to what is objectively beneficial or harmful.

For example, if I believed with all my heart that drinking poison was a benefit to myself, that's not going to stop the objective reality that the poison will kill me, which is clearly harmful to myself.

Helping people overcome psychological problems, is clearly a benefit to the people he is helping. Likewise, killing millions is objectively harmful to the people who are being killed.

That's consequential ethics. What are the consequences of a given act? Based on that, we can judge Stalin to be evil, whereas Larnievc is good (or is at least carrying out a good act in this situation, as we don't know much else about him).