God and the flood

[Itinerant Lurker]

If God commanded me to I would.

No. If god ordered me to do that I would not do it.

If God ordered me to do that I would do it.

Could you. . .maybe clear this up a bit? I don't want to misrepresent your position here.

 

[quatona]

Ok, anonymous poster´s sole moral standard and criteria is out of the bag.
His conclusion is actually his very premise.

We can all go home now after our time has been wasted by responding to his dishonest request.

 

[anonymous person]

Yes, actually, I am. You call it not moral because you look at it from the human perspective of ending their earthly life, but when life on earth ends, a new life - an eternal life - begins. God's mercy to those who are His is calling them home. His mercy to those who don't yet know or love Him is leaving His servants in the world long enough to tell them about His love.


You make the common mistake of believing that morality stems from humanity. Once again, this requires a humanistic philosophy, which if you believe the Bible is completely inaccurate.

God is the only lawgiver and judge. What is moral is defined by God, though we often try to impose our own definitions and values on it.

And, once again, it's not about pain and suffering in this world - that will be forgotten in the next. It's about eternity. How do we know that, in the time that it took them to drown, some of these people didn't recognize that this judgment was from God and repent in their last moments, therefore escaping the final destination of hell? They certainly wouldn't have that chance with a sudden, instant death. The idea that for God to cause someone to suffer is evil or immoral is not only anti-biblical, but absurd. If we, as humans, have the right to cause other humans to suffer for breaking the law we imposed upon them without being called immoral, how much more does God have the right to cause the beings that He created to suffer for breaking His perfect law?

God caused Jesus - His own Son - to suffer more than any of those people drowning in the flood ever suffered - and all so that we could obtain forgiveness. Yet so many of us continue to reject Him, and not only that but to blaspheme Him by calling Him unloving and unmerciful. And still He reaches out to us in mercy, desiring that all of us come to salvation.

Additionally, the idea that an act of judgment is devoid of mercy because it involves suffering is also absurd. You would hardly call it unmerciful for, say, a judge to offer a criminal the mercy of a short sentence but still require him to undergo the suffering of a few years behind bars. But for God to allow children to forego an eternity of suffering and cause them to suffer for a few moments instead, you deem that unmerciful (and unmoral). Interesting.

Indeed. Very well said.

 

[anonymous person]

Ok, anonymous poster´s sole moral standard and criteria is out of the bag.
His conclusion is actually his very premise.

We can all go home now after our time has been wasted by responding to his dishonest request.

LOL...

Dishonest request?

How is asking you to explain yourself dishonest?

 

[anonymous person]

Could you. . .maybe clear this up a bit? I don't want to misrepresent your position here.

Whatever God commands is right and obligatory for me. Whatever He forbids is wrong and I am obligated to abstain.

Why?

Because God is the Highest Good. He knows what is best for me.

 

[quatona]

Could you. . .maybe clear this up a bit? I don't want to misrepresent your position here.

He just insisted that his God must be capitalized.

 

[Itinerant Lurker]

Yes, actually, I am.

Okay. At this point, then, the conversation is pretty much over. I thank you for your time but if you assert that drowning a child because her parents are bad is moral then I frankly don't think you know what you're talking about.

You make the common mistake of believing that morality stems from humanity. Once again, this requires a humanistic philosophy, which if you believe the Bible is completely inaccurate.

God is the only lawgiver and judge. What is moral is defined by God, though we often try to impose our own definitions and values on it.

Okay. Then we agree that your God is the kind of person who drowns children because their parents are bad. The difference simply is that you view drowning children as good if God does it and I do not. I am 100% okay with being on this side of that argument.

And. . .

And at this point you're just word salading your previous argument. I get your position, no need to overdo it.

 

[anonymous person]

I find in conversations like this, people can only give lip service to moral relativism for so long. Eventually, some thorny issue will pop up, like children drowning, and the moral objectivist comes out of people.

 

[quatona]

LOL...

Dishonest request?

How is asking you to explain yourself dishonest?

It came down to exactly that which I asked you in the beginning to make sure not to waste my time (but you pretended to not understand):
Are you actually willing to apply moral criteria and standards to God´s actions (as your question pretends), or will your ultimate standard sooner or later turn out to be "It´s good because it was God who did it", anyway?

 

[HitchSlap]

Children in the womb don't drown.

They didn't live, either.

Does that make your god a Jedi level abortionist?

 

[AV1611VET]

I still have had no luck in tracking down the "Drowning Family" expansion pack.

Look in the hybrid section ... between giants and fallen angels.

 

[Itinerant Lurker]

Whatever God commands is right and obligatory for me. Whatever He forbids is wrong and I am obligated to abstain.

Why?

Because God is the Highest Good. He knows what is best for me.

Ah, well I thank you for your time then but, as with nomadictheist, I think this is a conversational dead end. You believe that genocide is moral if God commands it, and I don't see how you could ever persuade me that this is anything other than a completely psychopathic view.

I don't think that this is an artifact of my atheism either. When my son was born I was a Christian, a rather strong one at that. I remember holding him in my arms for the first time and recalling for some reason the story of Abraham and Isaac. I knew at that moment that I would never consider even for a moment sacrificing him if God told me to. Even if I knew with 100% certainty that God existed and that he wanted me to. . .that some things are just not worth paradise.

 

[HitchSlap]

I find in conversations like this, people can only give lip service to moral relativism for so long. Eventually, some thorny issue will pop up, like children drowning, and the moral objectivist comes out of people.

Yes, I object to drowning children. It's wrong, and I wouldn't have done it if I were god. But then again, I have a higher morality than the god in the OT.

 

[quatona]

I find in conversations like this, people can only give lip service to moral relativism for so long. Eventually, some thorny issue will pop up, like children drowning, and the moral objectivist comes out of people.

I don´t need to be a moral objectivist to find your lack of morals abhorrent.
You have now revealed that you don´t have any ethical or moral convictions (neither objective nor subjective) at all.Your only rationale is obedience.
That´s valuable information.

 

[bhsmte]

Scary stuff folks.

 

[anonymous person]

Ah, well I thank you for your time then but, as with nomadictheist, I think this is a conversational dead end. You believe that genocide is moral if God commands it, and I don't see how you could ever persuade me that this is anything other than a completely psychopathic view.

I don't think that this is an artifact of my atheism either. When my son was born I was a Christian, a rather strong one at that. I remember holding him in my arms for the first time and recalling for some reason the story of Abraham and Isaac. I knew at that moment that I would never consider even for a moment sacrificing him if God told me to. Even if I knew with 100% certainty that God existed and that he wanted me to. . .that some things are just not worth paradise.

Ok.

When you looked at your son, did you see him as a gift from God?

 

[anonymous person]

I don´t need to be a moral objectivist to find your lack of morals abhorrent.
You have now revealed that you don´t have any ethical or moral convictions (neither objective nor subjective) at all.Your only rationale is obedience.
That´s valuable information.

And your views are valuable to me as well. Thank you for them.

 

[anonymous person]

Yes, I object to drowning children. It's wrong, and I wouldn't have done it if I were god. But then again, I have a higher morality than the god in the OT.

That is great.

I would like to debate you one day, when you are up to it.

I would present to you the moral argument for the existence of God.

 

[anonymous person]

AV1611VET and nomadictheist, it does seem as if we have a thread chock full of people who are not moral relativists after all!

Now if only I could get someone to debate me on why, in the absence of God, drowning children is objectively wrong.

 

[HitchSlap]

AV1611VET and nomadictheist, it does seem as if we have a thread chock full of people who are not moral relativists after all!

Now if only I could get someone to debate me on why, in the absence of God, drowning children is objectively wrong.

It's wrong because I wouldn't want my baby drowned. End of debate.