Would it be moral to ask your children to suffer pain and death in order to be closer to you?
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Why do you think this question is relevant?
@thoughtful Thanks for your reply - unfortunately I’ve gotten busy and haven’t been able to keep up the discussion. I will catch up later if I can! – D
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Why do you think it is not relevant?
Answer my question and I will answer yours.
Would it be moral to ask your children to suffer pain and death in order to be closer to you?
Your question assumes that humans exist in the same state as God from a moral standpoint. It is essentially based on a misunderstanding of Theology.
If I were in a state of perfect morality and my children who have free will were not I would do anything I could to bring them closer to a state that would allow them to reach the proper eternal state.
As Jesus said to Peter: You are only concerned with earthly things after he told him he will go to Jerusalem, suffer and die.
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Yes, but he would then be interacting with us as part of our society.
Whereas is we caused our own extinction while he was off on Pluto, I don’t know if he could any longer be considered a moral agent.
Yes, and I said as much in another part of my post.
I don’t know how to determine that, since I have no confidence that the Christian god exists in any form other than as a fiction created by Christians. If they insist that we cannot judge God, then it is not like a relationship between humans.
But the moral relationship between a human and a dog is typically one way: We have moral obligations towards dogs, they have no moral obligations towards us. (Though we certainly have expectations and desires regarding how dogs should behave in their interactions with us, and even kill them if they cross certain boundaries, this is not typically done with moral judgement of canine behaviour in mind. “Good dog” or “Bad dog” is not meant literally.)
If that is the pertinent analogy, then it is one in which we are the human and God is the dog.
All of which is to say that Divine Command Theory is an incoherent mess that does not stand up to any degree of scrutiny.
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect illustration of my last point.
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Your last point is circular reasoning. You are like a frog in a well that believes he understands what the world looks like.
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Why would that require pain and death? Wouldn’t an all-powerful deity be able to bring them closer without pain and death? Why order genocides, including the killing of small children? Why kill the first born of every family because one guy refuses to let some people go out into the desert?
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If they can exist, there’s a possibility that they do exist. The burden is equal for the person claiming they don’t exist as the person claiming they do exist.
If you want someone to love you back, they have to actually be free to do so. If they are free to do so, they are also free to do the opposite. (This is the argument that God gave us free will to commit evil in order to have a relationship with us.)
Regarding the latter questions: If God wanted to make himself known and show that evil will be punished because He is good, so that people will seek Him as good, then He must visibly punish evil.
You are claiming that it is more than a probability. You are saying that God does exist. That requires evidence, and the burden to provide that evidence resides with you.
I have never claimed that gods don’t exist. How many times have I explained this?
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What evil did the little children do when the pharaoh refused to let the Hebrew people leave Egypt? Would people look at the US as being good if we went around killing children in order to change the minds of parents?
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First question - We’re all sinners. My children are quite evil. I could explain a few examples if needed. A good God must punish evil.
Second question - That’s a false dilemma that relates God’s goodness to people. People can judge other people; and people don’t have ultimate authority to punish whatever they think is evil. God does have the ultimate authority and must punish all evil, or He wouldn’t be good.
Got it. I find it rather odd then not to use the term agnostic instead of atheist.
Strange that there is so much evil in this world not being punished at the moment.
Then God is not good because people are doing evil right now and no one is punishing them.
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I’m sure that you’ve seen 2 Peter 3 quoted here a lot regarding Christian views on the flood, but look at it again with emphasis on the parts I bolded
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies[b] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.[c]
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
God waits to punish evil until the complete invisible church repents and is saved.
Logic is one way, among others.
But not for the person simply taking the position of absence of belief in their existence.
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I get that - but to me, that’s just intellectual laziness.