Can you be good without God?

[SteveB28]

God's moral law is the standard of measurement, which God, the Judge, uses to declare right or wrong.
God decides and all His creation is subject to them, whether anyone likes it or not.

My judgment, or your judgment, regarding God's moral law, is irrelevant. God's judgment is just as the one who created us and the law.

God is not subject to a democracy or checks and balances of a federal system. God is our Creator and He is our dictator, whether we like it or not. Fight against the bit all you want, but you are still a subject under the decree of a Sovereign God and King.

You are not speaking of morality. You are speaking of obedience. The two are poles apart.

 

[SteveB28]

It's not my description. It's God's description in His holy word.

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
"There is none that is righteous, no not one."

You can deny my comments all day, but God will bring you to account and your denials won't pass the test, which God has set up.
Pray for God's mercy and grace.

Yes, that is something another man wrote many years ago. I disagree with him as well.

 

[SteveB28]

Yeshua, Jesus, is very existent. Your matrix doesn't change reality.

Reality implies evidence. You have none.

 

[(° ͡ ͜ ͡ʖ ͡ °) (ᵔᴥᵔʋ)]

I am not sure where you are going with that. If a religion cannot prove itself to be anything other than a placebo, I really do not have a use for it.

Then it's a good thing that we are not trying to prove or disprove any religion to be anything more than a placebo.

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[Davian]

Yeshua, Jesus, is very existent.

Just not in any way that you can demonstrate.

Your matrix doesn't change reality.

Your beliefs do not change reality.

Are you having doubts about your religion? Is that why you are here? To rant at some atheists until you feel better?

 

[Davian]

Then it's a good thing that we are not trying to prove or disprove any religion to be anything more than a placebo.

That it works as a placebo is already well established, in that so many different religions work for so many people. They cannot all be right.

Now, if you want to concede that you cannot show that your religion is any different from placebo, fine by me.

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[MennoSota]

Just not in any way that you can demonstrate.

Your beliefs do not change reality.

Are you having doubts about your religion? Is that why you are here? To rant at some atheists until you feel better?

"God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. "

A glorious promise for God's elect.

My beliefs are only of value, if God has declared.
I trust God, the Creator. You...you provide a life with no meaning or purpose.
God gives purpose to everything.

 

[Davian]

"God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. "

A glorious promise for God's elect.

Promises are easy.

My beliefs are only of value, if God has declared.

...if your particular "God" exists, and you haven't got the wrong denomination, or hat, or whatever.

I trust God, the Creator.

If you believe that you can get away with anything, as long as you believe, I can see how that might work for you.

Myself, I cannot believe something in the absence of compelling evidence.

You...you provide a life with 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?

God gives purpose to everything.

What is the purpose of burning for eternity the majority of those that ever lived for reasons beyond their control?

 

[Achilles6129]

Nope

God has speaks through His Word. This is enough. I am grateful that the Creator has condescended to share his means of reconciliation to lawbreakers like myself.

So let me ask you: what would you do if you didn't have access to God's word? Like if you were born in a place without access?

 

[Achilles6129]

The whole topic might be easier to address if it was
established just what, exactly, "without God" is supposed
to look like (see post 252). Especially in the eyes of those
who believe there is a God to begin with. As a theist
myself, I just don't quite get that.

What, exactly, is "without God", to a theist?


-

By "without God" I meant in disobedience to God's commands. So the question is, can a person in disobedience to God's commands be good?

 

[MennoSota]

So let me ask you: what would you do if you didn't have access to God's word? Like if you were born in a place without access?

Since God is Sovereign, He might choose to call me to Himself by any means He chose, or He could justly and rightly have me die in my sins and pay the penalty for lawbreaking.
God is not obligated to pardon anyone. Ignorance is not an excuse.
As Christians, however, we are called to speak as Ambassadors for our King, in any and all parts of the world. This is our commission and call to obedience. Silence is disobedience on our part.
How you respond to the message is up to God to decide.

 

[MennoSota]

By "without God" I meant in disobedience to God's commands. So the question is, can a person in disobedience to God's commands be good?

We can never be good. Only God is good. Our goodness comes from the substitutionary act of Christ exchanging his goodness and placing it upon us as He takes God the Father's wrath for our sin.

 

[Rajni]

By "without God" I meant in disobedience to God's commands. So the question is, can a person in disobedience to God's commands be good?

Oh, okay.

Well, that can get kind of complicated.

Firstly, there are 613 commandments.

Then, there's one's rate of obedience: Is being obedient
to those commands most of the time good enough?
Or can one only be considered good if one is obedient
to those commandments 100% of the time?
That sort of thing.

I'm pretty sure goodness was a thing before
commandments came along, though. So
yeah, one can be good without needing
commandments. Even animals have been known
to do what we would consider The Right Thing
in certain circumstances. While that could be
explained as just their natural instinct, one who sees
God in such situations could also chalk it up to
God's empowering them, in such moments, "to will
and to work according to His good purpose", as
Philippians 2:13 puts it.

Divine empowerment, more than mere adherence to a
list of rules and regs, is what can make a person do
good things. That's why it's called the fruit of the
Spirit, I suppose.

All imo, of course.




-

 

[Dave Ellis]

There is no debate on this issue. God is quite clear and any disagreement with God's word is merely someone arguing from a wrong position.

Except I'm not disagreeing with god's word, I'm disagreeing with you.

Unless you feel you speak directly for god?

 

[Dave Ellis]

We can never be good. Only God is good. Our goodness comes from the substitutionary act of Christ exchanging his goodness and placing it upon us as He takes God the Father's wrath for our sin.

We are always good, and god is a turtle named Keith.

See, I can make all kinds of crazy assertions as well and not feel free to back them up with anything substantiative. My statement has just as much basis in reality as yours does.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Ok, I know you are asking me how "intended purpose" is connected with "good and how I can justify that connection. I would have to say that your question would be more appropriately asked, How is "created purpose" connected to something being "objectively good/bad"? The answer is quite simple. In order to measure anything, it requires some kind of objective standard to base that measurement. How do we know which way is true, grid, or magnetic north? We can objectively determine which way is north by using objective standards such as the magnetic poles, north star, GPS, ect. Now, lets say we took that objective standard away. Lets say we are floating in the vacuum of space. Which way is north then?

Although it may not be perfect, "created purpose" is the only objective standard (that I can think of anyway) to measure a thing's goodness. You see, anyone can determine something to be good/bad for various reasons. Sometimes what is "good or bad" is not "black and white". Without an objective standard of measure, good/bad can be rather difficult to determine.

My "painbot" example is the best could come up with to explain this. I know it is not perfect....but eh.

Lets say a man invented a robot. This robot was created with intelligence, feeling, hopes, dreams, emotions, and anything else you would expect a living individual to possess. However, this inventor created this robot for the sole purpose of inflicting pain and suffering onto it and called it a "painbot". (I know this sound twisted but bare with me.) Thus, the created purpose of a "painbot" is to suffer. Thus, the "painbot's" pain and suffering would be objectively good because it fulfills its created purpose. If a painbot was unable to experience pain and suffering, it would defective and rejected. Because for the painbot, joy and pleasure would go against a painbot's created purpose thus making joy and pleasure objectively bad.

Now you may say, "That is sick. Why would anyone be so twisted as to creating painbots?" That still does not change the fact that a good quality painbot is one who suffers greatly and a poor quality painbot is one who does not. All you have done is made the motive for the creation of painbots and the painbots themselves subjective but the actual purpose still remains objectively unchanged.

Lets say the inventor was a psychopath. Lets say he built hundreds of painbots so that himself and many other psychopaths could inflict pain and suffering on a machine rather than another human being. As a result, hundreds of human lives were saved because of it? Some may then say that painbots are good. Lets say that there was a supreme authority above all who created a law that prohibited the creation of painbots. That would make the motive and existence of painbots objectively bad. Yet it still does not change the objective fact that the level of pain and suffering a painbot experiences objectively determines how good or bad that painbot is.

You might be wondering, what does this have to do with a God. Well, I am not sure how it would work out in polytheism, but in monotheism (especially in regards to the God of Abraham) it is critical. Because if the God of Abraham is the one true God. That God is an eternal being who was never created and thus has no "created purpose". Being that this God has some level of intelligence, He is capable of bestowing a purpose onto Himself. However, because He as no equal to make that purpose subjective nor anyone above to make that purpose "objectively bad", whatever purpose He bestows upon Himself is "Objectively Good" by default! As a result, the purpose of all His creations will be "objectively good" by default. So in conclusion, assuming the God of Abraham is the one true God and not another, anything that a creation does that goes against God's created purpose is "objectively bad" and anything that agrees with God's created purpose is "objectively good".

Yes, but the decision to create the painbot as a thing that will only take beatings, and pain and torture or whatnot is still the subjective whim of the creator.

I dealt with this problem with the mathematician example in my post. It may be objectively true that your purpose in life is X, however whether that purpose is self imposed, or imposed externally, it's still a subjective opinion that X should be your purpose.

Presumably if you wanted to reprogram your painbot to be something else, as the creator you would have that ability. That means the externally imposed purpose still ultimately hinges on your subjective will.

 

[Dave Ellis]

It's not for me to demonstrate. That's God's choice as to whether you'll ever understand.

It is for you to demonstrate if we ask you to do so, have you not read your bible?

 

[MennoSota]

We are always good, and god is a turtle named Keith.

See, I can make all kinds of crazy assertions as well and not feel free to back them up with anything substantiative. My statement has just as much basis in reality as yours does.

The Bible isn't made up, like your story.
Try again.
Yeshua, Jesus, makes all your silly comments laughable. He has shown his authority, but you foolishly consider a meaningless existence more rational than following the Sovereign King. So be it.

 

[MennoSota]

Except I'm not disagreeing with god's word, I'm disagreeing with you.

Unless you feel you speak directly for god?

You have shown nothing from God's word to prove your point. I have expressed God's word to you. I am an ambassador for the King (2 Corinthians 5).
You aren't arguing against me. You are arguing against what God has Sovereignly declared in the Bible. So be it.

 

[Dave Ellis]

I agree. I hate to be nihilist, but if a God does not exist. That would mean the universe was created out of nothing by nobody for absolutely no reason, all life is simply a byproduct of nature by natural means, when we die we will fade to non-existance, and ultimately all the universe will loose all it's energy and fade into darkness (as per the laws of thermodynamics and sorry for the run on sentence). So really, what's the point? Everything is meaningless. The best we can hope for is to give our lives some sort of meaning and live it the best we can before we die and fade into non-existance. Which is not wrong at all. However, we cannot escape the fact that since all life will ultimately cease to exist, whatever good or harm someone has done through the course of their life as well as the impact and legacy that individual has made of future generations is in the end...meaningless and so insignificant that it has no value.

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If you can't find meaning in your own life because trillions of years from now the universe will experience heat death, I really don't know what to say to you... But that's an absolutely bizarre reason to not love life, and the people in it.