Abortion

Tinker Grey · Jan 19, 2020

coffee4u said:
Psalm 139
13-14
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.

16:Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

The Bible is the claim, not the evidence.

JackRT · Jan 19, 2020

"The law does not provide that the act of abortion pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation..."--St Augustine

"The intellective soul i.e., true person, is created by God at the completion of man's coming into being." -- St Thomas Aquinas

"Many modern philosophers and theologians return to St. Thomas' view."-- Fr Joseph F. Donceel, S.J.

"To admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual soul from the moment of its conception, when matter is in no way ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby." --Jacques Maritain

"Many people believe that the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to abortion stems from its conviction that a new human person exists from the first moment of conception...It is clear that this is not now, or has ever been, official church teaching on the matter."--James T. McCartney

"In the rabbinic tradition...abortion remains a non-capital crime at worst."--Rabbi David Feldman

The Scriptures are silent in defining when one becomes a person.

There is one thing that a great many people don’t understand about being pro-choice. You do not have to morally agree with abortion to be pro-choice. That is why it is not called pro-abortion. It is an undertstanding that you can’t make that choice for someone else. In fact most pro-choice people are not pro-abortion.

NxNW · Jan 19, 2020

coffee4u said:
Didn't I already agree that a skin cell by itself wasn't a human being, so why would a hangnail be one? Trying to say we said things that we didn't say. Typical.

You're claiming a single cell (zygote) is a human being, which is equivalent and equally nonsensical.

Nothing is impossible with God, which is nothing that you would understand.

Ah, insults.

A soul comes into existence the moment life does. If the egg splits into another person that is another soul.

So the second person didn't come into existence until after conception? This contradicts your claim that life begins at conception.

The zygote is a soul whether it is born or not.

I thought it was a cell.

Since the egg came from the mother's own body the zygote didn't seize anything and lol you really equate pregnancy with slavery? Whatever.

If it's part of her body, she has the right to detach it. If it's not part of her body, she has the right to detach it. If it's another human being, then I remind you (yet again) that under no circumstances do human beings have the right to attach themselves to someone else without permission, so she has the right to detach it.

NxNW · Jan 19, 2020

stevevw said:
You’re not understanding the point. The debate is about morality. In this case Gods morality and you cannot apply science to morality. (...)

It is God who created us and is applying his morality to us and not the other way around.

If morality is absolute, then it exists separately from God, and so God is subject to it as well. It seems that you're claiming that God created morality, which makes it arbitrary and not absolute. Which is it, arbitrary or absolute?

Dave Ellis · Jan 19, 2020

coffee4u said:
Created what things differently? How people think? People choose to love or hate, take or give.
Just because he knows and can see what will happen does not make God responsible for what people do. Or are you saying he should step in and stop every wrong before someone makes it? Then he has taken away your free will. Do you not want your free will? If God took away People's free will they would complain about that as well, or maybe because they had no free will they wouldn't even be able to complain, instead they would be robotic.

How we think is a direct result of how our brains are wired and constructed. That is inescapable.

If god created us all, then he created our brains and decided how they would be wired. The example I brought up earlier in this thread was that most people including myself have no interest in becoming serial killers.

I could theoretically choose to become a serial killer, but it's not in my nature to do so. I would never make that decision.

So, if that's how I am wired, then it's certainly within god's ability to wire everyone in a similar way. If it's not an infringement on my free will, then it wouldn't be an infringement on anyone elses free will. We could have a world where nobody has the desire to be a serial killer if god wanted it that way.

However, the same example could be used for any moral injustice. We could live in a world where people don't have the desire to rape, steal, abuse, or anything else along those lines. It wouldn't be an infringement on free will, people just would not have the desire to do any of those things.

So, the fact god created people with the desire to commit moral atrocities must mean god is ok with those people existing, and carrying out said atrocities.

Dave Ellis · Jan 19, 2020

coffee4u said:
This is the whole point, God wants mankind to choose and you can only do that with free will. When Eve was offered the fruit she could have stopped and talked to God, when Eve gave Adam the fruit he could have done the same, they didn't.

He knows when each sin will occur but he doesn't endorse it, encourage it or cause it.

That's like saying if I built a time bomb, placed it somewhere, set the timer and armed it, it's not my responsibility when it eventually explodes.

It's a ridiculous argument.

Dave Ellis · Jan 19, 2020

stevevw said:
You’re not understanding the point. The debate is about morality. In this case Gods morality and you cannot apply science to morality. That is what NxNW was claiming that God was evil and using his acts in the bible. So, I was defending Gods actions as morally right according to his standard and capacity.

There is no difference between "god's morality" and "our morality" if morality has an objective basis. It would exist independently of a god or us, and the standard would be the same.

stevevw said:
First how do you know this. How do you work out Gods thinking? Second using human logic if there is evil then there has to be good otherwise evil has no meaning. If people are created to not be able to do evil deeds, then they must not be able to know evil. If that is the case, then people would not understand what good is either or love and hate. What are we left with then people being puppets or robots or some unimaginative blob, who knows?

Likewise, there's no difference between "human logic" and "god's logic", logic also has an objective foundation. Furthermore, if evil didn't exist, then what we call good would be ALL that exists. We may not be able to identify the concept as there's nothing to contrast it with, however that doesn't change the fact that all of the actions that would be taken in such a world would be things we'd consider to be good.

stevevw said:
Yes you cannot become a serial killer because that is associated with a mental disorder that takes away free will. But that does not mean everyone does not have free will in what they choose to do or not to do. Mental disorders affect the brain and change a persons normal ability to think rationally away. That is why people can be declare criminally insane. It sort of takes away their responsibility to really know the difference between right and wrong. But you having a so called normal brain do have a conscience and know the difference.

Serial killers have free will, they chose to become serial killers. Some may do it due to mental disorders, but there is no one universal cause to becoming a serial killer.

Besides, you're now contradicting yourself. On one hand you're claiming god places great importance on free will, however now you're saying he allows free will to be taken from certain people whenever it happens to be inconvenient for your argument?

stevevw said:
I think you’re doing a lot of assuming and speculating about how God does things. To know for sure, I think you’d have to know the mind of God. But using human logic maybe that is how humans are made. There may be what is regarded as a normal range but to have that normal range there must be all the subnormal possibilities like the possibility that humans can have mental disorders. Just like a person can have a mental disorder a human can also be incredibly intelligent discovering treatments to help those mental disorders. Just like love means nothing without hate and good means nothing without evil. Otherwise once again if God starts cutting bits out of us, we would not be free human agents capable of many possibilities.

But Christians also believe that we were perfect in Gods paradise and did not have these mental disorders, diseases or death. But once sin entered the garden things changed and humans could then experience physical death, pain, and all the afflictions we have today.

On the contrary, you're telling me exactly what god's justifications are for doing certain things that I'm bringing up. I'm questioning the claimed actions of his, and you're telling me what his thoughts and justifications are.

If anyone is arguing from a position of knowing the mind of god, it's you. I'm just critiquing his supposed actions.

stevevw said:
Not really. I always picture Gods position as the butterfly effect. If he starts messing with peoples lives and their thinking, then they are not longer in control of their lives and free will. This can have consequences for others and being a free agent. Every event that happens has 100’s of connected decisions and acts and if one is changed it can affect an entire chain of events that could create chaos.

God is in this position where he created free agents and must allow them to be free yet knows what will eventually happens so has to bide his time to let things play out otherwise it could have implications for all humans such as take away their sovereignty and right to be autonomous beings .

Point proven, you're explaining to me god's thoughts and reasons in this rebuttal. You have nothing to go on but rampant speculation, however none of it really discredits my original argument.

stevevw said:
Yes that’s Sam Harris’s idea the Moral landscape. Though I think he has some good points with this idea using human well-being as the measure for morality has been shown to be unreliable. It takes a utilitarian approach and morality is measured by humans happiness and pleasure which can mean anything from self sacrifice to self pleasure (hedonism) and sadism.

If you think sadism and hedonism is what would result from his idea of what is morally good, then you don't understand his views.

stevevw said:
But once again you are assuming a lot and perhaps injecting your perception of what you think it was like for God and how he should have acted. You don't know that and to know everything involved in when God created the universe and everything you would have to know the mind of God. So your speculating is unqualified.

But taking our human perspective how do we know God did not create the universe and everything else as perfect. That his original plan was for a perfect world and that sin came and corrupted things. That now sin has come it has to run its course to allow evil to eventually be weeded out of everything. The bible speaks of sin being allowed to run its course so that it can be completely defeated otherwise Satan will think he still has a chance. That may be how it is and God cannot cut things short to establish the law and Christ to defeat sin.

So, if god's original plan was to create a perfect universe free of sin....

That means one of two things:

1) He failed in his plan, which seems unlikely for an all knowing and all powerful god. This would make him incompetent at universe design.
2) He succeeded in his plan, and his idea of a perfect universe is the exact one we are living in right now

Which one is it?

stevevw said:
Yes as Christians we can often sin and do our own will. I know I have and then later have come full circle to realize that my way did not work and the later seen the wisdom of Gods way. Gods plan is not happening now with many people sinning and rejecting him. The bible said God desires that all should be saved.

So you reject the idea that all happens according to god's plan?

stevevw said:
I don't understand this logic. If your boss made a plan at work to do something and then you decided change that plan and not follow it then whose fault is that. You had the choice to follow the plan but didn't. God has a plan and people had the choice to follow it. They didn't so now that plan has been put in jeopardy and is causing all sorts of problems. Just like you not following your bosses plan and the wheels come off his new project and have ramifications for everyone and the company.

This is not an apt analogy as my boss is not the all powerful creator by which all things are said to happen according to their plan.

If all things did happen according to my boss's plan, then by definition I would have to do everything in the plan exactly as specified.

stevevw said:
This bible verse is read out of context. Paul is writing to the Ephesians who are already Christians. He is telling them that God has a plan for them. God knows they would be saved and therefore he always had a plan for them. You speculate that God set a plan for everyone in place and we have no choice yet the bible is full of verses that talk about making choices and choosing to believe or not.

Huh, so the bible has contradictions.... who'd have thought?

stevevw said:
When God says he has a plan it does not mean he has already planned for some to be saved and for some not to be saved. We still have the choice in the matter. It is hard to understand Gods sovereignty on this so we have to believe that He is doing the right thing. We cannot apply human logic here as God does not work to time and space and our reality as we know it. He somehow knows before anything was made who would be saved yet also allows individuals be choose salvation or not in the time and place they do. To understand this would be to understand what was before the big bang. We can only speculate.

Romans 8:29 and Ephesians 1:4-5 disagree with you.

stevevw said:
If God is the ultimate judge and has the right to Judge all through Christ then there must be a fair way to do this where everyone is held accountable even more so than our highest court. The bible states this is the case so in quoting verses you have to take all into consideration and see what it is saying overall about God as creator and judge of everyone. You can't pick and choose verses without considering what the bible says about who God is in its entirety.

But yet when I show verses that contradict your claims, all you do is pick and choose other verses or make unsupported claims to dismiss my argument.

stevevw said:
So are you saying there was nothing in his upbringing or that he may have been born with that caused him to have delusions or neurological disorders that caused him to not understand his acts as evil like you or I would understand them.

By all accounts Jeffrey Dahmer had a completely normal upbringing. I have no doubt something was wrong with his brain, however if god created him, then he created him in that way.

stevevw said:
But we cannot apply our understanding of morality to God. It is God who created us and is applying his morality to us and not the other way around. The police have the right at times to break the laws they apply like breaking the speeding laws to get to a crime or breaching peoples rights to privacy to get information. People can breach moral objectives such as killing someone in self defense of their family or stopping a evil dictator like Hitler in war who is killing millions.

This applies to God even more so and the context I am talking about with God is even greater than we know when we apply those examples I mentioned. For God it is about a spiritual war against evil that we don't comprehend. It is about his plan to install a Savior and about stopping sin destroying the world and everyone. If we say that it is OK for the UN to say its OK to go to war against some dictator or to kill in self defense the who are we to say that God who knows even better everything that needs to be considered so that things are fair and judge fairly has the right to do so.

Again, if morality is objective, then god and us have the same moral standard.

Likewise, if god is all powerful, he could snap his fingers and make evil disappear instantly, he could "win the war on evil" without any effort whatsoever. So what's taking him so long?

stevevw said:
How can a person give a citation for this. We are talking about morality and theology. You asked a theological question. Why would you want a scientific citation.

I didn't ask for a scientific citation, I just had enough of replying to paragraphs of unjustified claims, and didn't want to do one more. If you want to make claims like these, back them with some reason to actually accept your claims as credible.

Dave Ellis · Jan 19, 2020

Strathos said:
The Bible doesn't say what you claim it says. You're insisting on an overly narrow interpretation.

Explain how

Strathos · Jan 19, 2020

Dave Ellis said:
Explain how

Show me where it says that there is only one possible set of actions any human can ever take.

JackRT · Jan 19, 2020

What I find puzzling is that in prehistory Satan/Lucifer/ Devil/Serpent and a bunch of angels rebelled against God and in a great battle they were defeated. Is an almighty God that powerless that he needed the loyal angels to fight for him? What if they had lost the battle? Would God have just faded away? Now, a defeated enemy is rendered powerless to create more problems but at some later point S/L/D/S comes roaring back to totally screw up God's new creation to the point that God has to send his own son to sacrifice his life to redeem creation. End of story? No! Not at all. S/L/D/S is not defeated at all! He is still active in the world still trying to screw up God's plan? God's plan? God is all powerful but his plan has already failed --- not just once but twice! I am sorry but this story is completely meaningless to me, actually it is worse than meaningless. Maybe it is just a story? If so it is a meaningless story.

Dave Ellis · Jan 19, 2020

Strathos said:
Show me where it says that there is only one possible set of actions any human can ever take.

If all happens according to god's plan, then you have no option to deviate from that plan. You would only have the illusion of choice.

coffee4u · Jan 19, 2020

Dave Ellis said:
How we think is a direct result of how our brains are wired and constructed. That is inescapable.

If god created us all, then he created our brains and decided how they would be wired. The example I brought up earlier in this thread was that most people including myself have no interest in becoming serial killers.

I could theoretically choose to become a serial killer, but it's not in my nature to do so. I would never make that decision.

So, if that's how I am wired, then it's certainly within god's ability to wire everyone in a similar way. If it's not an infringement on my free will, then it wouldn't be an infringement on anyone elses free will. We could have a world where nobody has the desire to be a serial killer if god wanted it that way.

However, the same example could be used for any moral injustice. We could live in a world where people don't have the desire to rape, steal, abuse, or anything else along those lines. It wouldn't be an infringement on free will, people just would not have the desire to do any of those things.

So, the fact god created people with the desire to commit moral atrocities must mean god is ok with those people existing, and carrying out said atrocities.

The brain that you are thinking with is a fallen brain. God didn't make Adam's brain this way but they wanted to 'be like God' Even though they couldn't really and fully be like God at all. They ate and they got a sliver of the knowledge of good and evil, that caused aging and death of the body, spiritual separation from God and the inner selfish nature. You choose minute by minute to make good and bad decisions to turn to or away from God. You have chosen to be an atheist or would you rather God came down and force you to be a Christian? The brain is wired to make choices, nobody simply wakes up one day as a serial killer, it was many steps over many years. Most sin is caused by the selfish nature and most sin is that, selfishness. The passing thought of being selfish isn't a sin, it's dwelling on it, building on it and acting on it. Nobody is at the mercy of their own thought life, you make a decision to turn away from the thought, to go get help if you need it.

Strathos · Jan 19, 2020

Dave Ellis said:
If all happens according to god's plan, then you have no option to deviate from that plan. You would only have the illusion of choice.

You're going in circles now. Refer to my original argument.

SkyWriting · Jan 19, 2020

Nithavela said:
Anti-Abortion is mostly a really modern issue outside of the catholic church. The mainstream evangelicals only discovered it after they lost the culture war in the US and needed a new moral high ground.

Go back a few decades and nearly all non-catholic christians would tell you that the decision to abort is between a woman and her doctor, maybe with close relatives included.

Yes, you'd have to travel back in time.

As of 2019, public support for legal abortion remains as high as it has ... mainline Protestants (60%) and a slim majority of Catholics (56%)

ruthiesea · Jan 19, 2020

G-d created good and evil. Without both there would be no freedom of choice. He showed us the path to righteousness and gave us the choice as to what path we will follow. While our choices are influenced by genetics and our upbringing we still can choose and should take responsibility for our choices.

The man asked G-d, “Why do you allow such evil things to happen?”
G-d answered, “Why do you?”

JackRT · Jan 19, 2020

ruthiesea said:
G-d created good and evil. Without both there would be no freedom of choice. He showed us the path to righteousness and gave us the choice as to what path we will follow. While our choices are influenced by genetics and our upbringing we still can choose and should take responsibility for our choices.

The man asked G-d, “Why do you allow such evil things to happen?”
G-d answered, “Why do you?”

So are we made in God's image and likeness or have we made God in our image and likeness?

muichimotsu · Jan 20, 2020

NxNW said:
If morality is absolute, then it exists separately from God, and so God is subject to it as well. It seems that you're claiming that God created morality, which makes it arbitrary and not absolute. Which is it, arbitrary or absolute?

Weird how a meta ethical position like divine mandate theory is actually ethical subjectivism, just changing the subject to one that can't be criticized or verified at all beyond faith

stevevw · Jan 20, 2020

Dave Ellis said:
There is no difference between "god's morality" and "our morality" if morality has an objective basis. It would exist independently of a god or us, and the standard would be the same.

You came into a conversation I was having with someone else about Gods morality and you asked for scientific support for God which was irrelevant for proving morality.

As far as Gods morality is concerned objective moral values are rooted in God's nature and not in His will so by nature he cannot be evil and is morally good. Gods goodness is expressed to us with his moral laws for which become a Christians moral duties. So objective morality doesn't exist independent of God, they are God and he cannot be or do anything else.

Likewise, there's no difference between "human logic" and "god's logic", logic also has an objective foundation.

But God is not a finite being and is not restricted by our understanding of time and space.

Furthermore, if evil didn't exist, then what we call good would be ALL that exists. We may not be able to identify the concept as there's nothing to contrast it with, however that doesn't change the fact that all of the actions that would be taken in such a world would be things we'd consider to be good.

Do you have any support for this as even if you could support this you would not know what to look for. Good would mean nothing without evil like love would mean nothing without hate. These are essential values that need to be recognized as they are the basis for human endeavor and existence. I think your drawing a long bow that cannot be verified so it is easier said than done.

Serial killers have free will, they chose to become serial killers. Some may do it due to mental disorders, but there is no one universal cause to becoming a serial killer.

There are certain common factors and the fact is serial killers are either born or made they don't just pop up out of thin air from a so called normal person who has no history or neurological disorders. Humans have a survival instinct where anyone could kill but most people are able to rationalize things to know that it is wrong in most situations. Serial killers don't have that ability. There are certain common factors such as childhood abuse and trauma that certainly causes them to not be able to think and act like most people.

Many serial killers are survivors of early childhood trauma of some kind – physical or sexual abuse, family dysfunction, emotionally distant or absent parents. Trauma is the single recurring theme in the biographies of most killers.
What makes a serial killer?

Besides, you're now contradicting yourself. On one hand you're claiming god places great importance on free will, however now you're saying he allows free will to be taken from certain people whenever it happens to be inconvenient for your argument?

No I said Gods creation was perfect and then it was corrupted by sin. This has allowed things to deteriorate and become imperfect. If God makes creates with free will then by nature there has to be the possibility of consequences of choice if there is good and evil. Wrong choices can lead to bad consequences which may mean things become corrupted and put in chaos. That leads to the loss of God given free will.

On the contrary, you're telling me exactly what god's justifications are for doing certain things that I'm bringing up. I'm questioning the claimed actions of his, and you're telling me what his thoughts and justifications are.

If I am defending Gods actions morally I am doing it from a biblical position of what the bible says. That is different to you injecting your views onto God restricting him to our time, space and understanding. God thinks infinitely and we think finitely for one. The bible tells us why God did things. Jesus clearly tells us how we should act morally.

If anyone is arguing from a position of knowing the mind of god, it's you. I'm just critiquing his supposed actions.

But your critiquing God from a atheistic and worldly perspective when God also occupies a divine and spiritual realm beyond our reality of time and space. I qualify when I try to explain things in human terms to try and explain things. I don't say that is is how things are but that these may be possibilities to consider to try and show how the context may be beyond what we understand.

Point proven, you're explaining to me god's thoughts and reasons in this rebuttal. You have nothing to go on but rampant speculation, however none of it really discredits my original argument.

This explanation of how God relates to us is common knowledge and derived from an understanding of what the bible says. It is not just plain speculation. You make criticize God without reading or understanding the bible. It would be like a layperson criticizing a mechanics work when they have never read a car manual.

If you think sadism and hedonism is what would result from his idea of what is morally good, then you don't understand his views.

That is the common view of most critics. Sam Harris's moral landscape is certain no verified idea and has many inconsistencies and problems so I don't thin we can place too much faith in it as a foundation for objective morally. The very fact that people are debating the interpretation of it points to its subjectivity. What one person views human well-being is based on happiness and pleasure another person will disagree so we are back to subjectivity.

So, if god's original plan was to create a perfect universe free of sin....

That means one of two things:

1) He failed in his plan, which seems unlikely for an all knowing and all powerful god. This would make him incompetent at universe design.
2) He succeeded in his plan, and his idea of a perfect universe is the exact one we are living in right now

Which one is it?

Once again you are restricting things to human logic and God is beyond this. What if his plan is still ongoing and is not completed yet. What if as the bible says that in the end a perfect situation is achieved. It just means that it has to take a certain path for that perfection to be established.

So you reject the idea that all happens according to god's plan?

I don't think every single little step happens according to Gods plan. If we have free will I cannot see how that would be the case. Just because God knows what happens and speaks like he knows what happened doesn't mean he controls everything that happens. When a storm or earthquake occurs it is the result of certain laws and conditions that come together (Chaos theory). God is not going to control all these events. He has only created the laws that govern these things.

So he has only created the ability to have free will and it is up to us to choose which way to go. God sees us outside time like the event has already happened because God is not subject to time as we know it. The bible says God was there before time. There is a video I watch on this that explained things well which ends with God is responsible for the fact of freedom but humans are responsible for the act of freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN53uHzOoXs

[/quote] This is not an apt analogy as my boss is not the all powerful creator by which all things are said to happen according to their plan.

If all things did happen according to my boss's plan, then by definition I would have to do everything in the plan exactly as specified.[/quote] But like your boss God does not make robots to carry out the plan. Humans are free agents otherwise we would be slaves or robots. So people can choose to follow the plan and just because God knows the end result as to who follow that plan or not does not mean he had any influence or control of the steps taken in implementing that plan by people. A good example is
if you were watching a replay of a footy game and someone told you the score so you knew the end result. Does that mean that the players don;t have free will anymore during the game.

Huh, so the bible has contradictions.... who'd have thought?

Or that you are misinterpreting the bible.

Romans 8:29 and Ephesians 1:4-5 disagree with you.

But yet when I show verses that contradict your claims, all you do is pick and choose other verses or make unsupported claims to dismiss my argument.[/quote] No I don't pick and choose verses. I choose to investigate and understand bible verses in context and with a better understanding from others who have studied the bible more comprehensively. Something it seems you don't do and if anything you are the one pulling isolated verses out of the bible and using them to suit your preconceived view that God and the bible are wrong. Here is a commentary that explains things better than I could about Romans 8:29. The author Greg Boyd is an internationally recognized theologian, preacher, teacher, apologist and author.

The text does not imply that God loves certain individuals ahead of time but not others. And the text certainly doesn’t imply that God foreknows who will and will not choose to be in Christ ahead of time. In fact, any attempt to use this text to prove that God foreknows future free acts actually backfires, for the “foreknowledge” Paul speaks about is limited. Paul says “those who God foreknew he predestined…” This implies there are others God did not foreknow.

Nor can this passage be used to support that idea that God predestines who will and will not be in Christ. Read the text carefully. What is predestined is not who will be in or out, but what will happen to all who are in. They will eventually be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and glorified. God predestines the consequence of the choice to be in Christ or not, but he doesn’t predestine the choice itself. Scripture is clear that God wants every person to put their trust in his Son, and through his Spirit God empowers us toward this end (2 Pet. 3:9).
How do you respond to Romans 8:29-30? - Greg Boyd - ReKnew

By all accounts Jeffrey Dahmer had a completely normal upbringing. I have no doubt something was wrong with his brain, however if god created him, then he created him in that way.

God no more created Dahmer that way than he did for the Aussie bush fires. The bush fires are said to be a combination of climate change, droughts and poor land management. As mentioned research shows that most serial killers have been conditioned to end up that way. But even if they were born that way this is often the result of genetic disorders or other influences that effected the brain sometimes through prenatal events or even hereditary such as epigenetics. But certainly not God reaching down and making it that way.

Again, if morality is objective, then god and us have the same moral standard.

As mentioned God by nature is all good. He cannot be morally bad. So whatever you perceive as him being bad is your subjective view of morality.

Likewise, if god is all powerful, he could snap his fingers and make evil disappear instantly, he could "win the war on evil" without any effort whatsoever. So what's taking him so long?

Gods acts in his time and that time is perfect time so that in the end sin and evil will be defeated. Any other time will not achieve the outcome. The same as when Jesus came. It was at the right time for Christ in our history and happened according to the prophesies. Any other time it would not have brought the right outcome as people were not ready.

I didn't ask for a scientific citation, I just had enough of replying to paragraphs of unjustified claims, and didn't want to do one more. If you want to make claims like these, back them with some reason to actually accept your claims as credible.

That,s what I am trying to do. Sorry if I am not explaining things well. The thing is originally someone was criticizing God morally for killing people. I said we cannot judge God on how we perceive things as God is beyond our realm of time and space. They were trying to tie him down to how we see things. I said that for one we see death differently.

For atheists killing is final as this world is all there is so it has more gravity. For God the taking of a life is not final and is moving people from one dimension to another so it doesn't have the same implications as it does for human understanding. That needs to be taken into consideration what applying our view or morality onto God.

stevevw · Jan 20, 2020

NxNW said:
If morality is absolute, then it exists separately from God, and so God is subject to it as well. It seems that you're claiming that God created morality, which makes it arbitrary and not absolute. Which is it, arbitrary or absolute?

God by nature is good and cannot be immoral. I don't think it is a case that he made morals but that he is morally good by nature. As the bible tells us about Gods eternal nature Romans 1:20 so that means he has always been there so his goodness was not created. So all Gods actions are good. It is just that we apply our subjective understanding of morality onto Gods acts and judge them immoral. But God acts outside our reality of time and space so we need to consider this as well. So what may seem wrong on face value for a God who acts eternally and does not conform to our reality the same criteria may not apply.

muichimotsu · Jan 20, 2020

Conflating God's nature with morality is just skipping over the discussion, special pleading of the entity in question so that you don't need to discuss morality in itself at all, but only in relation to divine mandate meta ethics, which is ethical subjectivism under a new name

Abortion

Wanderer

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Contributor

Contributor

Contributor

Contributor

No one important

Well-Known Member

Contributor

Well-Known Member

No one important

The Librarian

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

I Spit On Perfection

inquisitive

inquisitive

I Spit On Perfection

Similar threads