Atheist Discussion Topic: How did you determine your deity is the moral one instead of the devil?

[Russell_SA]

That’s contradictory.
Why would I ground my morality in an immoral being?
Before you cite the barbaric passages of the OT as evidence of an immoral God, think about what fundamentalism is and how Catholicism differs from fundamentalists in reading scripture, among other things.

Straw man.

All has presented so far is that their deity is moral because its their deity; which is circular logic or that their deity is moral because it’s the most powerful, which is just might makes right. So just being a deity makes it a moral agent. I don’t see how that is justified yet other than someone applying their own internal moral compass to pick that deity as a reference point.

 

[Stephen168]

How do catholics square the circle of moral practices their deity calls for while they believe those practices to still be immoral.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

I see why “beating your wife?” is a bad question.

Yes, it is a bad question because contained in the question is the false assumption you beat your wife.

But why is it the same to not assume that every action the deity takes or requests are always moral actions? I don’t see that as the same

Your question contains the false assumption that God commands us to preform immoral practices.

I assume everyone reading this see’s that point as well and understands why that comparison does not work here.

Your assumption is wrong. That is why several readers have said your question doesn’t made sense or have basically ignored it.

 

[ProdigalSun]

I see why “beating your wife?” is a bad question. But why is it the same to not assume that every action the deity takes or requests are always moral actions? I don’t see that as the same and I assume everyone reading this see’s that point as well and understands why that comparison does not work here.

What action by a “Diety” are you talking about? What exactly has the "Deity " requested?

Although we may understand what you are saying and asking it behooves us to answer suc blatant false assumptions and logical fallacies that have permeated this thread.

You need to start with is there a God? If there is a God then Reason dictates there is only one! That One is a being of infinte power wisdom love that sustains us wanting us to exsist. He is not a God of the Gaps or punishment but one that creates everyting at every moment it exsists. I fthe Devil were standing beside God you would know instantly who was God by the fact the Devil would be the one running away!

 

[Russell_SA]

You didn’t really answer the question. When someone concludes it is logically correct to rob you, are you OK with that? Should they be punished just because the government might disagree?

I’m not ok with it off course, but they might be because they may be stealing for a reason that is justified to them for the outcome of that result. That is what would be expected for a moral system directed by evolution. We are all evolved with an idea of fairness just that each tribe comes to its own ways of administering fairness to the situation. That is why we have conflicts about this issue but the more we find overlaps of the human condition, the more we understand what appears to be fairness to the situation. Governments have made the punishments wrong, in the idea of extreme under or over bearing punishments before and we always attempt to fix the situation. It’s complicated and always will be when you have to ask everyone in the room what the correct amount of fairness should be instead of just asking the most powerful person in the room.

 

[Stephen168]

All has presented so far is that their deity is moral because its their deity; which is circular logic or that their deity is moral because it’s the most powerful, which is just might makes right. So just being a deity makes it a moral agent. I don’t see how that is justified yet other than someone applying their own internal moral compass to pick that deity as a reference point.

This is what YOU have presented and we have rejected.

 

[Stephen168]

I’m not ok with it off course, but they might be because they may be stealing for a reason that is justified to them for the outcome of that result.

Should they be punished just because you don’t like it? Why don’t you like it?

 

[Russell_SA]

What action by a “Diety” are you talking about? What exactly has the "Deity " requested?

Although we may understand what you are saying and asking it behooves us to answer suc blatant false assumptions and logical fallacies that have permeated this thread.

You need to start with is there a God? If there is a God then Reason dictates there is only one! That One is a being of infinte power wisdom love that sustains us wanting us to exsist. He is not a God of the Gaps or punishment but one that creates everyting at every moment it exsists. I fthe Devil were standing beside God you would know instantly who was God by the fact the Devil would be the one running away!

Well I don’t see a point in going into specifics of what’s moral to you may be immoral to me lists. I have yet to run into a religious person that has yet found moral fault with their deity that I have found fault with and as such always come across to me as not a morally serious person. The assumption of the “infallibility” is something I find as always attempting to square the circle. It’s always, morality of the times, people were mistaken, bad for a greater good, etc. With deities like this one, who needs a devil. Again though you are presenting a might makes right, power is the reference point of morality point there.

As to the reasoned existence, you can’t think something into reality. You can think of where to go look for it, but as a philosophical naturalist, reality is my reference point for why logic works. I can mathematically (logically) conclude something should exist, but I can not present it that it is actually there until we can run the test to see if the tests can falsify that conclusion. Just like Einstein mathematically (logically) concluded Gravity waves should exist, we didn’t teach that they were part of reality until 2015 when we were finally able to actually detect them in reality.

 

[Russell_SA]

This is what YOU have presented and we have rejected.

I reject your reality and substitute the following points presented:

"All the universe is his, including ourselves. " Response #6 Might Makes Right

“Are you referring to God’s role as supreme arbiter and judge? Thus, the executor of justice?
Easy. He alone sits in that chair. Grace VS. Justice from a God that exudes both” - Response #14

"Here are a couple of simple questions regarding your friend as the reference point of reference points:

1. Did your friend create himself?
2. Did your friend cause the universe to be?
3. Did he cause you to be?
   If your answer to these questions is “no” (I hope it is), then
4. Why would you think he is the objective reference point of anything? " - Response 21

 

[Russell_SA]

Should they be punished just because you don’t like it? Why don’t you like it?

The punishment should fit the situation as we understand fairness. I don’t like it because I don’t understand the situation and only understand that I have had my social reward taken from me by someone who put in no effort to acquire my social reward for my contribution to the tribe.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Ok, the question goes into the idea of if two entities of power presented themselves, such as the devil and the deity. How would a human be able to tell the difference between the two as to which is the moral one? Not which is the more powerful, but the moral one. How would they make that assertion at the beginning? We do this all the time with two strangers walking up to us, why would that process be any different for these two deities?

As an aside, I’d like to know what sort of background you have with religion. The reason I ask is because I get the impression that you have some fundamental misunderstandings not just about Catholicism but religion in general.

The difference between discerning the morality of two strangers and discerning the difference between God and Satan is something fundamental. Discerning two strangers on the street requires the limited capacity of one’s own intellect. Whereas discerning between God and Satan does not rely solely on one’s own intellect. It relies mostly on work that has not been done by me, but by all those who have come before me. This principle is not much different than that of building upon scientific discoveries of the past. This is why Catholics have the Church. It’s our “body” of work on the discernment of morality…I have given you a link to part of it - Theology of the Body - have you read it yet?

But the reasoning remains for the individual as well as the reasoning that has been done by past generations. But I guess I could give you some of the more basic litmus tests that Catholics use. The most basic is judging by the fruit that comes from that which is being judged. There are others but they require more than what a forum is capable of giving effectively.

So, I hope you see the difference. It’s one of the reasons Catholics don’t encourage Christians to form their own churches, because you sort of lose that body of work that has been built upon for 2K years in favor of your own interpretation of anything from scripture to morality. There is no need to re-invent the wheel every generation.

 

[Stephen168]

How do catholics square the circle of moral practices their deity calls for while they believe those practices to still be immoral.

Your question contains the false assumption that God commands us to preform immoral practices.

What action by a “Diety” are you talking about?

Well I don’t see a point in going into specifics…

So after being challenged a few times, you got nothing. There is in fact no need for a Catholic to “square the circle” because the circle is a figment of your imagination.

 

[Stephen168]

Everyone is free to make the choice themselves, but the entity dishes out punishment on the people that do not pick it as a reference point.

The punishment should fit the situation as we understand fairness. I don’t like it because I don’t understand the situation and only understand that I have had my social reward taken from me by someone who put in no effort to acquire my social reward for my contribution to the tribe.

 

[Russell_SA]

So after being challenged a few times, you got nothing. There is in fact no need for a Catholic to “square the circle” because the circle is a figment of your imagination.

Slavery in the bible. It is explicit spelled out on how to treat and keep slaves. The immoral action here for me is the idea of owning another person as property regardless of how well or terribly you treat them.

I understand the need to push for that point, but I also understand that this conversation will now sound like the media attempting to interview a politician for bad comments. They’ll just double down and have a platform to create so much rhetoric that people just walk away from the conversation. We all know how this dance goes.

 

[Russell_SA]

As an aside, I’d like to know what sort of background you have with religion. The reason I ask is because I get the impression that you have some fundamental misunderstandings not just about Catholicism but religion in general.

The difference between discerning the morality of two strangers and discerning the difference between God and Satan is something fundamental. Discerning two strangers on the street requires the limited capacity of one’s own intellect. Whereas discerning between God and Satan does not rely solely on one’s own intellect. It relies mostly on work that has not been done by me, but by all those who have come before me. This principle is not much different than that of building upon scientific discoveries of the past. This is why Catholics have the Church. It’s our “body” of work on the discernment of morality…I have given you a link to part of it - Theology of the Body - have you read it yet?

But the reasoning remains for the individual as well as the reasoning that has been done by past generations. But I guess I could give you some of the more basic litmus tests that Catholics use. The most basic is judging by the fruit that comes from that which is being judged. There are others but they require more than what a forum is capable of giving effectively.

So, I hope you see the difference. It’s one of the reasons Catholics don’t encourage Christians to form their own churches, because you sort of lose that body of work that has been built upon for 2K years in favor of your own interpretation of anything from scripture to morality. There is no need to re-invent the wheel every generation.

This line of reasoning sounds like a family structure where the mother knows how to comfort her children while maintaining the wrath of the father. She’s learned how to appease the leader. The children love the works their mother wraps them in, but then when they get to see what their father is capable of, he’s still a moral agent? We all know the issues people have with the morality of this deity spelled out in its texts and we all know the ongoing issues the world has with the CC. Do we really need to go into that conversation? How many good deeds does a priest have to make before he’ll be protected by the vadican from ever being placed on trial all for the sake of church unity and sentenced to a life time of prayer? Every other secular humanitarian aid organization doesn’t make this calculation but the CC seems to have that mathematical formula down.
How well do we have to treat our slaves in the bible before it become immoral instead of just understanding that owning another human being as property is always immoral. Either these moral teachings are eternal or not regardless of the situation or time period.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

This line of reasoning sounds like a family structure where the mother knows how to comfort her children while maintaining the wrath of the father. She’s learned how to appease the leader. The children love the works their mother wraps them in, but then when they get to see what their father is capable of, he’s still a moral agent? We all know the issues people have with the morality of this deity spelled out in its texts and we all know the ongoing issues the world has with the CC. Do we really need to go into that conversation? How many good deeds does a priest have to make before he’ll be protected by the vadican from ever being placed on trial all for the sake of church unity and sentenced to a life time of prayer? Every other secular humanitarian aid organization doesn’t make this calculation but the CC seems to have that mathematical formula down.
How well do we have to treat our slaves in the bible before it become immoral instead of just understanding that owning another human being as property is always immoral. Either these moral teachings are eternal or not regardless of the situation or time period.

I don’t know what your getting at with the mother father thing. Or, why you think I’m bringing up bishop’s who reassign troublesome priests - that has largely been corrected BTW.

But you may have stumbled onto something regarding the moral teachings being eternal. I know the answer.

But you still have not addressed much of my last post. At least not in a way that I could understand. And your religious background?

 

[Stephen168]

How do catholics square the circle of moral practices their deity calls for while they believe those practices to still be immoral.

Slavery in the bible. It is explicit spelled out on how to treat and keep slaves. The immoral action here for me is the idea of owning another person as property regardless of how well or terribly you treat them.

As I thought, it is not what God “calls for” but what YOU believe God “calls for.”

I understand the need to push for that point, but I also understand that this conversation will now sound like the media attempting to interview a politician for bad comments. They’ll just double down and have a platform to create so much rhetoric that people just walk away from the conversation. We all know how this dance goes.

The way the “dance” has worked in the past is when you are challenged and things don’t go your way, you get indignant and start name calling.

Atheist do not have a monopoly on reason.

 

[goout]

Slavery in the bible. It is explicit spelled out on how to treat and keep slaves. The immoral action here for me is the idea of owning another person as property regardless of how well or terribly you treat them.

I understand the need to push for that point, but I also understand that this conversation will now sound like the media attempting to interview a politician for bad comments. They’ll just double down and have a platform to create so much rhetoric that people just walk away from the conversation. We all know how this dance goes.

Scratch an atheist, find a fundamentalist, who reads a huge compilation of ancient literature with several different genres as though CNN was reporting it live in 2017. What you do is textbook fundamentalism and straw man.

Show us the triumph of reason please. Make some reasoned replies to actual belief.

 

[Kliska]

I don’t see the link from self existence and all power to those qualities. As I still see it, those qualities are applied only after we’ve been given (name removed by moderator)ut into someone’s character for how they assess situations and their level of understanding of what to do next. Granting someone those qualities as an identity factor about them that is inarguable regardless of their actions is as foreign to me about moral identity as it goes. Each person’s actions and choices always goes into the assessment of that person’s moral description. So they may be moral in some areas and fall short in others. No one is granted a pass regardless of their existence or power. Could you help me understand how that is wrong in this analysis? I really can’t see how that deity gets that type of pass over any other entity.

You’re thinking in human bound terms because you are 1) human and 2) as an atheist you have a certain philosophical starting point that limits possibilities (and please don’t misunderstand me, those limits are understandable, I’m not trying to bash your perspective, it just may be why is feels so foreign). The reason I say this is that the words and phrases you are using show a certain bias in perspective. For example, the phrase, “those qualities are applied” still shows you are thinking of these things, such as “love” as a qualities, a reactive quality. What I, and I believe others, have presented is that God, as God, as I AM, as self-existent, doesn’t require application of said qualities, He “just” is. Those words that we use, such as lovely or loving, reflect such things as a measuring stick by which we humans compare things. So, the phrase, “is God more or less loving than Paul” has no actual application as God is Love, something we could (and would) never say about Paul.

 

[Peter_J]

I’ve always understood words like, love, beauty, fairness, justice, perfection, etc. are all adjectives. Comparison words that have a reference point. Saying that this deity is the embodiment of these descriptions comes across as an assertion that is no different than saying my friend is the reference point of what all other love is compared to. But I made a judgement call to pick that reference point using my own moral system. But that is subjective because my friend can fall out of being that reference point because I have standards as to what that reference point must continue to embody. Therefore my own internal moral compass is the reference point. How is it that is not the case for this deity other than it just being the most powerful entity in the room? Anyone can make a proclamation about itself, but if the audience isn’t convinced that is the case, it doesn’t make it so in their understanding and as such is an unjustified claim or assertion.

But there’s a fundamental difference between defining a word and making a claim. When we say that God is good, we are making a claim about him by applying to him a word whose meaning is already known. That’s different than if we had invented “good” as a new word, and then defined it in such a way that it automatically applied to God.

 

[Russell_SA]

As I thought, it is not what God “calls for” but what YOU believe God “calls for.”

The way the “dance” has worked in the past is when you are challenged and things don’t go your way, you get indignant and start name calling.

Atheist do not have a monopoly on reason.

Sorry but don’t tell me that there’s some special hidden meaning about how the deity specifically describes how slavery should be practiced that everyone reading these passages are just too ignorant to understand. That’s never going to be good enough and it does come across as a white house press secretary shoveling spin. Every entity that takes actions that fall into moral judgment will always have to be held responsible for those actions that are documented about their character, regardless of their deity status. Granting a pass to deities for any action they direct without moral judgment is to make yourself morally bankrupt and allows for any action in the name of this deity to be justified because all they ever claim is that their deity told them to do this.

Atheist do not have a monopoly on reason, any more than anyone else does. However, if you subscribe to the moral system of “just following orders”, then that is a non-sequitur for us.