Morality: Who Needs God?

AISH ^ | N/A | by Rabbi Nechemia Coopersmith

[Nix 2]

That is just dumb. Just because someone doesn't believe in G-d doesn't mean G-d doesn't exist. It simply means they don't desire to reliquish what they perceive is control of life and its environs. When an atheist can explain and CREATE life, from no life, THEN, I might have reason to question. To this moment, I have never seen such a thing.

[safisoft]

If some armed band "asked" to pass through my territory, I'd tell them to get lost. If they tried to pass through anyway, I'd do my best to kill them until the survivors took the hint.

If you are saying that you as "Sihon king of Heshbon" would have done the same he, then you as well would have been destroyed. Somehow I doubt that Sihon's response was a moment to be remembered - you likely did not even know his name before I typed it.

[happygrl]

Here's another one for you.

[freeeee]

When an atheist can explain and CREATE life, from no life, THEN, I might have reason to question.

Hmmmm. I recall not so long ago, reading about the first human made species. It was some sort of bacteria, I think, created entirely artificially using DNA. The article failed to mention if the scientists were religious or not.

Wish I had the link for you.

[Nix 2]

DNA IS life, freee. I said CREATE life from NO LIFE. Can't be done. Won't be done. Never.

[freeeee]

DNA IS life

DNA is an aggregation of molecules. Bits and pieces of DNA are not alive. When assembled in the proper sequence, they are the building blocks of life. So it would appear that assembling DNA in the proper order is the process of creating life. And man has achieved this.

[AnalogReigns]

"Just War" doctrine, was developed by Christian scholars some 2000 years after God commanded Joshua to annihilate Israel's enemies. If I understand you, you're accusing God of not following a standard developed by academics for Christians to follow. I have no doubt that those scholars, St. Augustine et als, would disagree with you, and never had laid a charge against God, of having an obligation to follow their principles.

I agree with Just War principles generally--but not being directly spelled out in the Bible, I ONLY agree generally, since they aren't inerrantly authoritative. No warring side in history has followed Just War principles--but it is something good to strive for, particularly in that we don't live in an age where God speaks directly to us or our leaders. I would be quick to add without such a direct command from God, annihilation of civilians is to be greatly avoided--one thing our new generation of micro-targetted weapons explicitly does.

Targeting of civilian population centers (cities) and other tactics used since WWII, prima facia violate Just War principles, yet, are a vital part of modern strategy in war--or its avoidance. Since God Himself didn't always follow Just War principles however, as good in theory as they sound, I must take them with a grain of salt... and our own strategies have saved countless lives.

[Pahuanui]

If there is an absolute standard of morality, then there must be a God.

Oh, I don't know. There are hundreds of millions of buddhists who might disagree.

[The Wizard]

everyone needs God, some don't know it.

[OWK]

Regardless of how they may have come to be there, human beings exist in an objectively real world. Reason (regardless of how it may have been acquired) is man’s only means of discerning that reality. In fact, man’s survival is contingent upon his recognition of reality in objective and absolute terms, and his willingness to act in accordance with the dictates of reality, by choice. Failure to recognize reality and failure to choose one’s actions accordingly, will ultimately end in death. Hence all sane human beings evaluate their world, and form values upon which their choices are predicated.

Each individual rational human being is driven by his own values. Inasmuch as each man may know only the specific workings of his own mind, each individual is uniquely qualified to determine his values, and his alone. No man may claim to accurately represent the mind or the values of another. Hence each man’s values may only be advanced by evaluating the world, forming rational conclusions, and acting for himself.

The free-will choice to act in accordance with one’s own values is recognized by other more traditional names, the most recognizable of which is “the pursuit of happiness”. Whether actions are seemingly motivated by traditional religious pursuits, or by the advancement of family, or friends, or charitable concerns, the pursuit of individual happiness (advancement of one’s own values) is the true motivator. Men seek to please their Gods, or to protect their children, or to help others, because it pleases them to do so.

In order to pursue the rational advancement of their values, individuals must be free to act in accordance with the dictates of their own will. In recognition of the fact that the will of individuals may conflict in advancement of their values, a rational restrictive boundary is created at the intersection of competing wills. This boundary reconciles the potential for conflict, by defining as a right, any action in accordance with the dictates of the will of the individual actor, which does not infringe upon the ability of other individuals to do likewise.

The only means which men have at their disposal to infringe upon the rights of others are initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud. Recognition of this truth, provides the foundation of a moral code. Initiated force, threat of initiated force, and fraud, are immoral inasmuch as they act to infringe man’s pursuit of his happiness as he defines it. All initiated force, threat of initiated force, or fraud, are immoral, whether perpetrated by an individual or by a collection of individuals sometimes known as government.

[Khepera]

Just because there are athiests does not mean there is no G-d. This is an invalid argument from an invalid idea that you have presented.

[fporretto]

Before we get started, I am a religionist (Catholic), and a moral absolutist, and a student of natural law.

The good rabbi has the tail wagging the dog, as strange as that sounds. God is not required for there to be an absolute standard of right and wrong. All that requires is absolute and inexorable consequences -- or, to put it another way, natural laws that can't be finessed.

Many would argue that this alone conclusively implies the existence of God. I believe in God, but I also recognize the availability of other explanations for the invariability of Natural Law. Indeed, I think that's the way God wants it -- for faith is meaningless if it's provable and incontrovertible.

I call this the Divine Non-Coercion Package. It allows men's minds to be free on the Ultimate Subject, for, without freedom, the election of belief is as morally empty as submission to gravity.

C. S. Lewis does some delightful turns on this in The Screwtape Letters.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason:
http://palaceofreason.com

[The FRugitive]

Make sure you do, it's a pretty good article. But I could be wrong. :p

[LuisBasco]

Morality: Who Needs God?

America certainly doesn't need God! Look how well everything has been going the last decade without Him.

We're in hock for trillions, our industrial base is in China, there are no real jobs left, the Chinese and North Koreans are in position to fire missiles up our collective ass!

Hell, we don't need God.

[Nix 2]

Many words, OWK, and I have often referred to some of the things you say as being very reality based, but please explain to me by what criteria THIS government was founded and based, the Constitution was written and based, and why, save for Bill Clinton's abuses, we don't run over our own citizens with tanks during the many protests, ala, Tienemen Square or the Hungarian uprising against the old Soviet? Pol Pot. Mao Tse Tung. Stalin. Lenin. Hitler. Castro. Saddam.

[Question_Assumptions]

Personally, I think that Good and Evil exist as concepts seperate from God. Why? First, if Good and Evil are whatever God wants them to be, that positions God as a tyrant and that's frankly not how I personally experience God. Second, I think it robs God, Himself, of the fundamental choice that every human being has to wrestle with -- whether to be Good or Evil. And it is with this choice that I think Man is created in God's "image". We aren't Good, Evil, or simply Amoral by nature like animals. We have a choice. Do people honestly believe that humans have a capability that God doesn't have?

The understanding that God could be Evil but chooses not to be makes God much more Good, in my eyes, than simply making it a tautology that anything God does is Good. By that thinking, if God were purposely torturing little children or sending Good people to Hell just for the heck of it, that would be "Good". And if you argue that God wouldn't do that because God is Good, that just proves my point. God's options and actions are limited in order to for God to be good, then the definition of Good must be something external to God. Put another way, if God werelike Satan, would you find Him worthy of worship and your love?

[Barry Goldwater]

Ayn Rand derived absolute morality from man's right to his life without any reference to God.

[P.O.E.]

Without God, all things are possible, and that's a pretty frightening prospect.

[OWK]

Without God, all things are possible, and that's a pretty frightening prospect.

Like flying airplanes into buildings?

Oh wait, they did that for God.

[k2blader]

Bump!