You know how in the ancient pagan myths the gods have to keep doing stuff to keep the universe going? Sailing the sun across the sky in a boat, huffing and puffing to keep the winds going, that kind of stuff? That’s the interpretation of those verses that you’re seeing here. It shouldn’t surprise you to know that it’s difficult to find evidence that this is how the verses were originally understood.
Expected avoidance of hard questions confirmed.
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That’s even worse! So all he is saying is that this god is good as viewed by itself. Lots of the most horrible people are, in fact, good according to their own lights. A god’s subjective impressions of itself are not only unknowable, but absolutely and utterly useless, just as a god’s subjective opinions about morality are.
That does seem to strengthen my statement about Stockholm Syndrome. And it also further affirms the utter meaninglessness of the statement “god is good.”
Well, of course, there is no evidence that this is so. The mere declarations of theologians certainly do not carry any weight on a topic like god, on which theologians have no data and no insights not shared by everyone else.
But if it were so, what of it? The sort of moral relativism that says that because gods are a different type of thing, we cannot hold them morally accountable for their acts is pretty extreme, and completely indefensible. None of the classic excuses – infirmity, incapacity, insanity – apply. Moral judgments simply do not depend upon the actor’s mere identity.
But that’s true of everything. Language can only crudely approximate a squirrel. The complexity of a squirrel, in fact, will probably never be fully encompassed by any combination of words, both because we can’t learn everything about a squirrel and because the nature of language is inadequate to fully and exhaustively describe anything. There’s nothing profound about that; there is nothing unusual about the inability of language to fully characterize a god.
But we do not refrain from discussing squirrels, or engage in philosophical fan-dancing and “apophatic” sciuridology. What we do is recognize what we know, what we don’t know, and what we have good reason to believe, and we do this based upon evidence. Here, we have a god whose existence is proposed and whose behavior is said to be reflected in various old writings. If it was among us, doing these things, and if we had the ability to stop it, we would; and we would be right to do so. Whether it is, by its own lights, behaving well or badly surely has nothing to do with a reasoned moral judgment about its behavior.
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To whom does God have that obligation?
Perhaps. What’s your point?
The point is that torturing you or anyone for eternity cannot by any standard be considered “good”. To suppose that it’s good by God’s standard is to make the word meaningless, and that’s not a synonym for ineffable.
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You are welcome to your opinion, but I don’t agree. Perhaps that is the answer to the question posed in the topic heading. What does theology study? What does “good” mean to a creator.
Well, sure. And if the answer to that is “evil,” then god is evil.
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And if you were offered the chance to spend eternity with a being like that would you accept? Or would you prefer to be separated from that being?
My point is what I wrote. Letting God get away with acts that humans commonly consider evil on the grounds that we are in no position to understand why he does such things, implies that God’s ‘goodness’ is essentially incomprehensible to us. This ‘goodness’ clearly includes things that no same person would consider ‘good’ if it were done to them. Therefore, belief in a ‘good’ afterlife is groundless because the things that God might do to you may, in fact, be utterly horrible. This follows inescapably from the argment that is presented above.
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I would prefer to conduct myself well, and in accord with my duties to those around me. I am sure that my preferences regarding what some great ghost will do when I am dead are relevant to nobody. But praising evil is off the table.
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I don’t think it implies that. I certainly think that it implies God’s understanding of what is good in a relationship between creator and creation might differ from what is considered good in a relationship between two creations.
@faded_Glory, I think this is why Jesus, who is fully divine and human, is a more understandable model for us to imitate as to what consists of being and doing good as a human. Jesus helps us to understand the sometimes inscrutable and seemingly inexplicable things that God does.
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I find myself thinking, as I consider this thread, what the attitude of a slave-woman in ancient Egypt whose child had been killed by this god would have been. Evidently the “correct” view would be that she could not regard such a deed as wrong in any sense, and that she ought to be very happy that the universe is ruled by such a good god which does so many good things.
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Yes, I noticed you are very sure of that. That’s your choice.
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Well, but they ARE relevant to nobody, right? I mean, if fellowship with this evil god is something which the evil god decides to admit people to, or subject them to, or not, then it’s not really up to me to say what I’d like. What’s up to me is this: do I toady to evil, in the hopes that I will be spared the suffering laid out for others, or do I do and say what is right?
It is, of course, something of an academic question as there is no good reason to believe that this god exists, hence little utility in praising its wickedness.
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Every sentence in that was an exercise in not answering the question. Why don’t you agree? If that’s what theology studies, what’s the answer? But seems that we have established the answer: “good” means nothing to a creator.
Depends on the nature of the separation. Will I be tortured in imaginative ways forever, or will I just be dead?
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I’m puzzled. I looked back at your previous post and I couldn’t see a question in it. (Not that I am under any obligation to answer your questions of course, just as you are not under any obligation to answer mine.)
I have reached a different conclusion. “good” means something different to a creator than to a creation. I do not claim to completely understand that difference, but it is something I continue to ponder.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have a definite answer to that question either. But based on what I have studied so far I find the second option more plausible.
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If God were as evil as you believe then probably not. But the understanding of the branch of christianity that I currently find most plausible is that for reasons not fully understood we have been offered a choice. I don’t mean to sound like I am prying into your personal business, but I’m always interested in hearing about other people’s choices and the reasons behind them, because I want to make a wise choice as well. But for me the bottom line is that you don’t have to justify your choice to me, and I don’t have to justify my choice to you. And even if we end up making different choices I can still admire your eloquence.
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You articulated the question yourself in that very post. I have to say you seem unduly hostile.
Do you claim to understand that difference in any way or to any degree, and if so what is your understanding?
In that case I pick your separation option.
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