If human opinion creates 'good' and 'bad', how can we actually determine God is 'good' and Sat

God was created in 1610 as a new English word made up from nothing.

YHWH is good. He's going to be really mad people call him "god".

He ordered everyone to call him YHWH.

This is an age old question, and one that provides many, differing answers. The answer i'm about to give is based on Robert M Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality" ... google the term for more info, highly recommended.

The problem with the question is our frame. It's the language you use to ask the question, and how you interpret possible solutions. If "good" exists, so does it's opposite, we'll talk about "the good" here, a term Plato used. Please understand there are many different words with the same inherent meaning.

Thanks to Plato, and Aristotle, amongst others, we understand the world in terms of subject and object, and how they react to each other. So, if something like good exists, it is either subjective, and personal, or objective, and universal. The problem is that it cannot be universal, since we don't all agree on it, and if it's subjective then it has no meaning, to others.

You will not get an answer here, or from me, that actually gives you what you want to know. All i can try give is that our we all understand it, is wrong. Eventually, you only have yourself to trust in these matters, and thus we here would agree that it's subjective. But Pirsig suggests, and i agree entirely with him, that our western mindset and structure is incapable of answering it. The taliban believe 100% that they are right, and to them, they are. Nothing you think or feel or say could ever change that. But strangely, their underlying motives are probably the same as yours are, peace at home and freedom from ... whatever. Any truly objective "god" would conclude that the taliban and the us are exactly equally bad, no different.

Re-ask the question, in different ways, perhaps that will help, the question needs to be asked, all men agree on that. I've found the answer in taoism, christianity, science, and all other strange places. It's been a fascinating journey so far. I like to believe that we all want "the good" and each knows best how to become it, thoughts?

peace

reply to post by Noncompatible

Now define selfish and selfless.

Selfish= To do what you want, when you want, and how you want. No matter how it affects others.

Selflessness= To do what is in the best interest of others even when it may affect you negatively.


God is love.

He loves "others" so much, He creates the concept of "others" and then creates others.

God Almighty also creates them with free will, 'cause that's how He rolls.



Satan chooses his own path and influences others to follow him. He knows that this will lead to death and destruction. But hey, its fun while it lasts.

That's how he rolls.

reply to post by dusty1


Prove God exists

Prove Satan exists.

Prove God is love.

Prove that without God there would be no "love".

Wtihout evidence or at least some proper reasoning, why should i be expected to believe any of this? Why should i respect your belief?

I say there is no need for a God, infinity is our reality. You can't prove me wrong, but i can't prove it right either. See how rediuclous these theories are without "KNOWING".

No one knows, not scientists, not even you.....I'd suggest not pretending to know the "TRUTH" when really it's just what other men have told you, or what you've read in ancient scripture.

reply to post by RimDaas


I guess a good example is Enki and Enlil both possess different traits but both seem good or bad depending on what you are reading of them.

There is no good and evil but then again that is prob what the Arizona shooter would say because he believed in the philosophy of NOTHINGNESS.

There is only true and false

Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know what is good and evil.

Genesis 3 verse 22
Skull and Bones Chapter 322 Brotherhood of Death

Who is us?
Those entities in Geithner, Hillary, Pelosi,Kashkari, Bush, Boehner, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld and many others on many levels... and they do jump around from person to person. Kinda like in that movie with Denzel Washington and John Goodman. Like that song...Tiiiiahhh-ime is on my side,,,yes it is

Please dont say its the plural of God because that is false, not true.

Originally posted by rebeldog
reply to post by Anhur

 

the whole God is perfect thing is ridiculous, no?

a perfect being could not creat anything unperfect.. of god intentionally created man flawed doesn't that prove he must not be perfect? a perfect being can only create perfection, OR it is not a perfect being.

unless god is also evil, which is a better explanation. i would never treat one of my kids better than the other.. who would?

If you wish to keep a perfect society, then the first thing you remove is free will. This is the reason some people are contrary for the sake of being contrary. It's the right to be a jerk and a snot and all the other things that some people find charming and others difficult.

In the angels, made to obey, one chose not to and suborned others to do the same. He was cast out.

In a later time, humans were given free will to choose to exist in paradise. One was suborned and through free will even God's perfect plan was corrupted.

Its like leaving ten dollars in your ashtray of your car. If your kids know you do that, then you are not tempting them to steal - you are asking them to be honest and keep their hands to themselves.

God gave free will despite knowing that it could derail a perfect plan. Knowing that, He would also know how to put it back on track. The point of being omnipotent is to be able to have all the ends sorted before it all got started.

reply to post by MagoSA

If you wish to keep a perfect society, then the first thing you remove is free will. This is the reason some people are contrary for the sake of being contrary.

What nonsense. What an insult that is to the human intelligence, to say that without a belief in a God, we are incapable being altruistic and empathetic as people. If God was proved wrong tommorow, we would still have to work together and cooperate to decide what is best and most just for humanity. Sweden has a majority of Atheists and their crime rate is very low and they are as civilised, if not more, than most countries.

Your very own consitution was designed to separate Religion from state, because clearly God's own immoral preaching is unfit for a stable society. "A wall of separation" A state where people are free to practice religion, but not free not govern people by "GOD", to indoctrinate them.

According to scripture God waits (AT LEAST) 75,000 years of human evolution, pain and death only to decide to bring a saviour about just over 2000 years ago. Do you really think humans didn't undersatnd the benefits of solidarity and cooperation before God was introduced? I don't think they would have survived otherwise.

Just because there are no "absolute" morals, this doesn't mean that without a belief in God, killing would be an admirable endevour in any society.

reply to post by awake_and_aware

If God was proved wrong tommorow, we would still have to work together and cooperate to decide what is best and most just for humanity.

You don't know that.

Sweden has a majority of Atheists and their crime rate is very low and they are as civilised, if not more, than most countries.

The 9,350,000 inhabitants of Sweden reported 1,410,000[1] offences to the authorities in 2009 (approximately 151 offences/1000 inhabitants). The number of reported crimes have increased radically since a national statistics began in 1950. A lot of this is attributed to a higher degree of reports, but the largest factor is the factual increase of crimes.

Increase in the rate of violent crime in Sweden from 1976 to 2006. In three decades, reported violent crime have increased by about 200 %.

According to a 2009 European Union study, Sweden has one of the highest rates of reported rape in Europe, with the researchers stating that it cannot be explained purely by a greater tendency to report rapes but reflected that rape was more common in Sweden

Crime in Sweden

Originally posted by dusty1
reply to post by Noncompatible


Selfish= To do what you want, when you want, and how you want. No matter how it affects others.

Selflessness= To do what is in the best interest of others even when it may affect you negatively.


God is love.

He loves "others" so much, He creates the concept of "others" and then creates others.

God Almighty also creates them with free will, 'cause that's how He rolls.



Satan chooses his own path and influences others to follow him. He knows that this will lead to death and destruction. But hey, its fun while it lasts.

That's how he rolls.

edit on 16-1-2011 by dusty1 because: (no reason given)

Again fine interpretation. But still only yours.

Except for the God part. Here you abdicate your responsibility and advocate the reward punishment system nearly all religions adopt.
"Be good and go to heaven. Be bad and go to hell."

Only problem ? It should be be "good" by worshiping my way and obeying my guidelines and ethical code and social mores.

Sounds selfish to me. As does being "good" to buy your way into an afterlife.

Love ? To attribute love to a deity is to diminish the human condition

In God's eye we are ALL bad (evil). The only way to become good is to accept Jesus into your heart and then you are forgiven for being bad.

reply to post by dusty1


Cool stats bro, the wikipage you linked doesn't aim to correlate Atheism and Crime Rate. People can be civil without God, there are many secular charities out there.

atheism.about.com...

If God was proved wrong tommorow, Would you not want to cooperate to build a just civilisation? We automatically would have to, goverments are secular anyway, there would still be laws etc.

I really don't get your point, Most atheists i've met are very placid, honest people, not all Atheists are nihilists or meglomaniacs, very few atheists i know are xenophobic, quite the opposite. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens are moral people, Religion does not have a monopoly on morality.

Originally posted by freedish
In God's eye we are ALL bad (evil). The only way to become good is to accept Jesus into your heart and then you are forgiven for being bad.

edit on 19-1-2011 by freedish because: Jesus is Love

Somewhat troublesome for the majority of the people on the planet really as christianity is a major faith but far from the only one.

reply to post by awake_and_aware

If God was proved wrong tommorow, Would you not want to cooperate to build a just civilisation? We automatically would have to, goverments are secular anyway, there would still be laws etc.

That is exactly what happened.

Humanity followed it's own path apart from God's original purpose.

Humans formed their own governments.

I think many people have good intentions when they enter politics or run big businesses, but power corrupts.



By the way.

You think it's ok for governments to write laws, after all, it's for our benefit.

If a Creator exists, wouldn't it make sense that He would give His creation written laws, for their benefit?

I really don't get your point, Most atheists i've met are very placid, honest people, not all Atheists are nihilists or meglomaniacs, very few atheists i know are xenophobic, quite the opposite. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens are moral people, Religion does not have a monopoly on morality.

The bible even says that some people do not have God's laws but by their nature, these people follow the law.
Romans 2:10

You don't have to have religion to have good qualities.

I really don't know the personal character of the men you referencing.

What I do know, is if these men are wrong, they are Pied Pipers' leading people to their destruction.



This is a big social experiment. For the first time people on a large scale now have no belief in God or gods. The numbers are growing.

Atheists believe that doing away with religion will be a good thing (and they are partly right). According to the Bible the governments of the earth will turn on the religions of this world and do away with them.

I guess we will see what happens.

reply to post by Noncompatible

Sounds selfish to me. As does being "good" to buy your way into an afterlife.

Eternal life is a free gift.

You can't bribe God for everlasting life.


I would like to ask you a question.

If you were going to start a company or organization, would you hire or select just anybody, or would you be selective in who you accepted?

reply to post by RimDaas


Human opinion doesn't decide good from bad, or right from wrong. Any attempt to appeal to man for moral authority is a fallacy.

reply to post by awake_and_aware

I really don't get your point, Most atheists i've met are very placid, honest people, not all Atheists are nihilists or meglomaniacs, very few atheists i know are xenophobic, quite the opposite. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens are moral people, Religion does not have a monopoly on morality.

Moot point. God has written his laws on all mankind's hearts. It's "instinct" to us like salmon migrating upstream and spawn eggs once before they die. These atheists have morality because they were made by the same Creator.

We all have the same computer programmer.

Originally posted by freedish
In God's eye we are ALL bad (evil). The only way to become good is to accept Jesus into your heart and then you are forgiven for being bad.

Err, we never become "good", but justified. We move from a unrepentant sinner to a repentant one. We are all "bad" guys, and Jesus was the only good "man".

"If the Bible was a western, we'd all have on black hats and Jesus would be the only dude with a white one." ~ Mark Driscoll

reply to post by Noncompatible

"Be good and go to heaven. Be bad and go to hell."

That's not Christianity, that's RELIGION. Redemption says we are all bad and Jesus paid the debt we owe for us, and salvation is a free gift that we do not deserve. (grace)

Religion is the sickest human invention. And you're 100% right, it's a reward/punish system based on behavior modification. "Religion" is doctrines of demons, it was the pharisees, Sadducees and the religious people today. Religion is a man-made system to either self-righteously justify oneself to a perfect, eternal God, or used the control people. Redemption is completely opposite. Check out my video in the sig "Do You HATE Religion as Much as I Do?"

It's actually blasphemous for someone to think they could add to what Jesus already did for us.

Sounds selfish to me. As does being "good" to buy your way into an afterlife.

Sure, it is selfish, in fact purely evil. That's not redemption, that's religion ^. It's what the devil wants you to believe. Not only to blaspheme God and His Son and His sacrificial death for us, but to keep people from trusting Christ and what He did for us.

Originally posted by Anhur
I'm sorry to say but it's all "relative". Anyone's definition of "good" or "evil" is based on their experiences, and is entirely relative to that individual.

Dumb, "relativity" is a self-defeating fallacy. What if my experiences tell me it's "right" to murder you? Or to murder an entire country or race of people? It might be wrong for you, but what if someone else is brought up that it's okay, and in fact refereed to accomplish ones goals in life.

Sorry, but there is a moral authority, and that is the word of God and His commandments. And especially Jesus's two commandments. A. Love God and B: Love other people. Saying in following these two we fulfill the entire law and the prophets from the first covenant. (OT)