I'm a good person I don't need God

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opop said:
If it is truly an objectively evil act, then it means that to not want it is needed _by everyone.
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Whoa, hold the horses. An objectively evil act is objectively evil DESPITE whether anyone or everyone decided it to be so. Just because you get a consensus doesn’t make it right (or wrong). And punishment for said act has zero implications likewise.

If you mean that God decides what is wrong and right and fits the punishment accordingly, then you have to tell me what He thinks about every single moral act. Throwing a few verses from scripture or the catachism doesn’t really cut it.

Although you do actually hint at how we determine it ourselves late in your post. By ‘a genuine care for the universe’.

Congratulations on winning the wooliest statement on CAF this week. Perhaps you could be more specific?
 
Bradskii said:
Whoa, hold the horses. An objectively evil act is objectively evil DESPITE whether anyone or everyone decided it to be so. Just because you get a consensus doesn’t make it right (or wrong). And punishment for said act has zero implications likewise.
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I understand your confusion, I sometimes have difficulties to express myself clearly. I didn’t want to say that objective evil needs a consensus in order to be objective. It doesn’t even depend on God’s decision. Even God can’t choose what is objectively right or wrong. If an act is objectively evil, then it is a necessary truth that this act is evil.
What I was saying is that fulfiling one’s moral obligation is an imperative and absolute requirement, and that therefore it doesn’t make sense to speak about moral obligations if there is no bad consequences to care about for the one who doesn’t fulfil those obligations. Why? Well, first try simply to imagine a situation where I tell you that it is your absolute and imperative duty to never pick a pebble on the ground. I’m sure that your reaction would be to consider that as totally rubbish. And you would be right, but why? Because the act of picking a pebble on the ground doesn’t seem to produce any bad consequence at all. So, how can it be a duty to never pick a pebble on the ground. It doesn’t make sense, right? In other words, you clearly see that if not fulfiling a duty would have zero bad consequences, then this supposed duty would not be a duty at all. So, even in the impossible case where an act with zero bad consequences would be a duty, well no one would care about this duty. And this is the best answer to the deontogist extremist who says that some things are duties even if they have absoltely zero bad consequences: I don’t care.
To be continued…
 
Therefore, in order for a duty to be duty, there must be two conditions: 1. the act of not fulfiling this duty should produce bad consequences 2. there must be objective reasons for the person who has this duty to avoid those bad consequences if he knows them (by objective reasons I mean reasons that are necessarily good reasons for the one who consider them) This last condition is particularly important. Why? Because sometimes, the bad consequences of an act can be bad only for some persons but not for the one who commits the act. For example, if you kill a attacker in self-defence in order to protect your loved ones, then this act is bad only for the attacker, not for you. For you and your loved ones it is actually a good action. Therefore, although you act has bad consequences, you don’t have objective reasons to avoid them. But now consider the case where a criminal kills children for his pleasure and never get caught and is never punished. Does his actions have bad consequences? Yes, but only for the children and their families, not for him. But does he not have objective reasons to avoid those bad consequences even if they don’t affect him? Well no, what would these reasons be? Certainly he may have empathy and some attachment to society. But those are not objective reasons. Because it may be that they are not good reasons for him. He may prefer the pleasure he gets from his crimes rather than to follow his empathy. And since he doesn’t get caught, he can enjoy the benefits of society without problems. So the question is: why would he care about this supposed duty to never commit murder? Since not fulfiling this duty doesn’t produce bad consequences for him, he has as many reasons to consider this a duty as you have to considre not picking a pebble a duty.
So my point is that, if there is not absolutely bad consequences for such uncaught criminals (i.e. consequences that they could not not care about if they happened to them) after death, then the duties they didn’t fulfil are not actually duties, and they are therefore not criminals.
 
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Whether something is right or wrong is irrelevant to any punishment you may or may not receive.

If there is no God and you do wrong and get away with it, it is still wrong. You have simply avoided the consequences. If there is a God and you do wrong and you might ultimately get punished for it, it is still wrong. Whether God punishes you or not.

I say ‘punishes or not’ because everyone has a handy get-out-of-jail card if you earnestly repent, which always strikes me as nonsensical. I could get eternal damnation if I refuse to repent for having sex outside marriage and Pol Pot gets off with a warning for genocide if he does.

I don’t class that as justice in any sense of the word.

But you are heading in the right direction when you class something as being wrong if it intentionally causes harm. I’ve no problem with that.
 
Bradskii said:
Whether something is right or wrong is irrelevant to any punishment you may or may not receive.
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But what does it mean that something is “wrong”? If there is no life after death then you must admit that what’s wrong for some people is not wrong for some others. Indeed, take again my example: if a criminal kills children for his pleasure and never get caught and is never punished, then his actions are wrong only for his victims, not for him (it’s actually a pleasure for him). Just give me one objective reason why he ought to stop what he does. You can’t say: because he harms children. Because that would be a valuable reason only from the point of view of the victims. It would not be a valuable reason from the point of view of the criminal, and therefore not an objective reason at all. So just give me one single objective reason that doesn’t involve life after death. I don’t think you will find one.
 
opop said:
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Bradskii:
Whether something is right or wrong is irrelevant to any punishment you may or may not receive.
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But what does it mean that something is “wrong”? If there is no life after death then you must admit that what’s wrong for some people is not wrong for some others. Indeed, take again my example: if a criminal kills children for his pleasure and never get caught and is never punished, then his actions are wrong only for his victims, not for him (it’s actually a pleasure for him). Just give me one objective reason why he ought to stop what he does. You can’t say: because he harms children. Because that would be a valuable reason only from the point of view of the victims. It would not be a valuable reason from the point of view of the criminal, and therefore not an objective reason at all. So just give me one single objective reason that doesn’t involve life after death. I don’t think you will find one.
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It is harm. Causing harm for harm’s sake is objectively wrong. Period.

It’s developed from the Golden Rule. Matthews 7:12. And based on reciprocal altruism. For no other reason than it works.

And you are saying that something cannot be objectively bad if not all people agree that it’s bad (the person harming children thinks it’s ok). That is entirely irrelevant. Otherwise you are doing no more than taking a vote on it.

Notwithstanding you are slipping between what can be classed as objectively wrong and why someone ought not to do wrong. If something is objectively wrong then that is the reason why someone ought not to do it. It’s no more complicated than that.

1: Torturing children for fun is causing harm for harm’s sake.
2: Therefore it is morally wrong.
3: We ought not to do that which is morally wrong.

QED
 
That’s between them and God…personally, I find the ‘gooder’ I am, the more I believe!
 
I think it is weird someone can burn in hell for eternity for premarital sex but someone can repent of the murder of millions through genocide and go to heaven. It doesn’t make sense honestly. Why is repentance so importany anyways?
 
Because it shows you feel bad because of what you did, and you at least want it to be repared. Maybe the person who committed genocide did a worse evil, but in the end he tried to amend it while the extramarital person refused and stuck with a self-righteous attitude of no repentance.

PD: Sorry for the bad english
 
God doesn’t make sense to me. Honestly which is worse? Someone who killed thousands of people or someone who had sex with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Sometimes I don’t understand religion. Perhaps I think too deeply about things.
 
Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman said:
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Bradskii:
I could get eternal damnation if I refuse to repent for having sex outside marriage and Pol Pot gets off with a warning for genocide if he does.
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Yeah. God is merciful.
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Well we are not God so we can only judge His actions (yeah, I said ‘judge His actions’) from a mortal viewpoint. Coming up with the old saw ‘we cannot know God’s ways’ doesn’t cut the mustard in these parts. So if excusing genocide because the guy who commits it has realised the error of his ways doesn’t sound like justice to this mere mortal then that’s how I shall call it. God doesn’t get a free pass on anything. And I’ll be sure to let Him know anytime I’m likely to meet Him.

There are three aspects to justice when it comes to punishment. Firstly as retribution. Secondly as a warning to others to not make the same mistakes. And thirdly as protection for the rest of us.

Seeing as the nice Mr. Pot had to die before he gets what he deserves, the third aspect isn’t applicable. Neither is the second as God has decided to keep the details of any punishment to Himself, so we don’t know if Mr. Pot is being eternally roasted or is having a chat with the heavenly multitudes. Including, one would imagine, all his victims (assuming they all repented for that extra marital dalliance and made it heaven with the guy who killed them).

So retribution is all we have left. But I guess you don’t feel the need for it. Unless you were a mother who watched as ber baby’s head was smashed against a tree in the killing fields (and I have stood next to such a tree. Which is adjacent to a very tall memorial made up of the skulls of those who were dug up. Some of the skulls are quite small).

So in my (mere mortal) view, retribution is required. Just like God punished the whole planet by flooding it, I demand my pound of flesh. I demand justice whatever pious plea for mercy is offered up. And justice itself demands it.
 
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Well lucky for us sinners, you’re not God. God is merciful, and just because you can’t understand why He is doesn’t mean He’s wrong. You don’t get to tell God what justice is, or whether somebody is truly repentant, or anything like that. You’re mortal. You can’t judge what God does because God is, by definition, perfect. God does not do “revenge.” God forgives.
 
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Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman said:
Well lucky for us sinners, you’re not God. God is merciful, and just because you can’t understand why He is doesn’t mean He’s wrong. You don’t get to tell God what justice is, or whether somebody is truly repentant, or anything like that. You’re mortal. You can’t judge what God does because God is, by definition, perfect. God does not do “revenge.” God forgives.
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No. You are wrong. I DO get to say if I think God is wrong. And I just did unless I’m very much mistaken. And yes, I am mortal. So guess what? MY only options are to judge things accordingly. Your only option seems to be that because God is God then you have to agree with whatever He does.

How you actually know is another matter. Because you actually don’t. And further, your idea of justice is pretty much the same as mine.
 
All you’re doing is revealing how far off from perfection your idea of forgiveness and mercy is. Judge Him all you want, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. If God forgave Pol Pot, then He did it for a good reason and even if you don’t get it, it’s the just thing to do.
 
Jump4Joy said:
I think it is weird someone can burn in hell for eternity for premarital sex but someone can repent of the murder of millions through genocide and go to heaven. It doesn’t make sense honestly. Why is repentance so importany anyways?
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God gets to decide, and this is how he made it.

Repentance means turning away from sin, and turning toward God. Nothing unclean can enter heaven, so if we don’t turn away from our sins and toward God, we are going in the wrong direction for eternity.
Jump4Joy said:
God doesn’t make sense to me. Honestly which is worse? Someone who killed thousands of people or someone who had sex with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Sometimes I don’t understand religion. Perhaps I think too deeply about things.
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I don’t think there is any such thing as 'thinking too deeply". I think you just are not seeing things from God’s point of view.
 
I’ll leave judgment to God. Hypothetical situations although interesting drive me nuts. I seriously don’t think you can compare a homicidal maniac to a fornicator. They each have different reasons for acting in a manner. There are different degrees of culpability.
I’m thinking if someone who had sex outside marriage once being condemned to hell or someone who had sex with their fiance before they were wed.
 
Perhaps it doesn’t matter if we agree honestly so long as we try to obey.
 
Capta(name removed by moderator)rudeman said:
All you’re doing is revealing how far off from perfection your idea of forgiveness and mercy is. Judge Him all you want, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. If God forgave Pol Pot, then He did it for a good reason and even if you don’t get it, it’s the just thing to do.
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The point is that you don’t get it either. Because both you and I would send Pol Pot down for the rest of his natural life with the hardest labour imaginable. At the very least.

If God said ‘welcome to heaven, buddy’, then it wouldn’t be justIce as far as either of us are concerned. And saying ‘He did it for a reason’ is passing the buck. You have to call it as you see it. Anything else is being dishonest.

So how about it? Whatever God decided, if that nice Mr. Pot is now playing a harp and chatting with those he killed, how would YOU feel about it?
 
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