Judging God

[Fez]

Neb, I could never imagine you slapping anybody

On a more serious note, sometimes I feel you "slap" yourself too much

You are an amazing woman with a wonderful insight, and a gift to this forum.....

Worthy needs rocks to weather some of the storms on the boards.

You are one of them!

[nebula]

Well, then I just apologize. I will keep my Swedish sense of humor under control.

Apology accepted.

[nebula]

Fez!

[esyflw]

Judging God is the dumbest thing to do.

/end thread

[Nakosis]

I have noticed that atheists bring judgement against God based on there personal morals.

God is not loving because he did x, y,z God is not good because, x, y, z. These are all statements based on a moral view point that their idea of God does not line up with.

So my question is where do atheists get the moral code to judge God by?

Everyone has a sense of right and wrong. This is developed as we grow up. It is influence by or parents, what we are taught the movies we watch, books we read etc. Since we have common experiences being human we either gain, develop or are taught common values of right and wrong. People are influenced by life, It becomes part of their thinking, part of who they are. It all seems natural, to the individual, there is no other why for them to think. However people have forgotten all of the things that influenced their sense of morality.

Some religious leader puts forth a moral code that influences a cultural movement. A person raised in a Christian culture such a moral code seems natural/right. It is easily accepted by them that this code was inspired by God and is good, worthy of acceptance.

Atheists develop a sense of right and wrong in the same way. It is developed as they grow and mature. They may also not know exactly what influence their feelings towards right and wrong. However it is who they are/part of their thinking. They don't really choose their morality. It's a result of their past experiences with life.

The only real difference is they believe their sense of morality was developed by natural causes.

However Atheists of course have a vested interested in finding fault with the Bible. They view it as moral concepts being dictated by other men such as themselves. Having no more authority then themselves to determine right and wrong. They judge it and the concept of God developed from it as they would judge the morality of any other book, based on their sense of right and wrong.

[apologia828]

As I said before, I am not judging God (that would be absurd). Actually, I am not judging anyone.

I just find it contradictory to call the God of the OT a benevolent being. The same with the salvation

doctrine; I find it inconceivable that a good human being who never believed in Jesus, is not

rescued from eternal torment. I cannot imagine such a superior being putting so much importance

into believing in Him.

And I think now that my moral compass (which did not change BTW) is a result of evolutionary pressure.

Sorry if this had already been responded to but i feel obligated to respond here. There are several inconsistencies within your argument on salvation. You have heard wrong or been taught wrong what we as Christians really believe concerning soteriology and the Gospel. I will now take a moment to lay it all out.

1. You make reference to a good human being. In Paul's letter to the Romans he responds to a group of Jewish christians who have the notion that there is something special or better about them when comparing themselves with the Gentiles. Paul crushes this idea and yours I might add with these words: 9 What then? Are we any better? Not at all! For we have previously charged that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin, 10 as it is written:

There is no one righteous, not even one.

11 There is no one who understands;

there is no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away;

all alike have become useless.

There is no one who does what is good,

not even one. Romans 3:9-12 HCSB

Paul demonstrates that there is none actually good. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

All have a penalty to pay and as Scripture tells us the penalty for sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Therefore, it is not false to say anyone who doesn't accept Jesus will go to hell but it can be misleading for their rejection of Christ is not the reason why they are going to hell. Look at John 3:16-17 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. HCSB

Jesus did not come to condemn but to save sinners from their rebellion and sin against a righteous God. This is what the Gospel teaches. Therefore, it is fair and consistent if you accept what the Scriptures say and I mean all of the Scripture as a whole.

Now, the atheist worldview can only operate upon subjective morality. Therefore, their code is themselves or whatever they perceive as wrong or right. This becomes a huge problem because within this mindset they cannot say that what Hitler did was wrong. Especially in the cases where he killed off people who were mentally or physically handicapped since they serve no benefit within the process of evolution. In fact, if allowed to reproduce they will damage the human race. Therefore, Hitler was preventing others from receiving bad genes. Or, how about the famous question, is there a situation where it is acceptable to torture a newborn baby? If you say no, then upon what basis is it wrong and if yes, then in what situation would it be ok? See, atheists must borrow from our worldview in order to say they believe that what God did in the OT was wrong.

In conclusion, we are just men! Men looking up to an all-powerful and glorious God. Look at our court systems today. The injustice and corruption. Who are we to judge anyone, let alone God! I'll let Paul finish my argument.

Rom 9:18-23

18 So then, He shows mercy to those He wants to, and He hardens those He wants to harden.

19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? 22 And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction? 23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory — HCSB

Edited August 5, 2011 by apologia828

[apologia828]

You are making the assumption that the existence of objective moral laws cannot exist without God, and, therefore, atheists can only subjectively decide what is right and wrong. This is far from being proven. Apart from the fact that even Christians do not always agree on what is wrong and right, If I tell you that objective mechanisms for the stability of cooperating sentient beings can exist without God, what arguments can you use to prove the contrary?

You also make the unproven assumption that dualism is true. If our identities could be reduced to the algorithmic structure of our brains, then the difference between subjective and objective vanishes. Actually, subjectivity would be meaningless. You do not believe that, but many neuroscientists do, so the best we can say is that the matter is not settled.

Most of our moral imperatives derive immediately from an emergent property of our brains interconnections. This thing is called empathy, and empathy is what activate repulsive responses at level of our brains that we sense as painful, and, therefore, wrong.

Empathy is immediately activated when we see a child suffering, and this has a clear evolutionary purpose. It can be that this descend from God, but I do not see the necessity.

Objective moral laws exist but only within a set of cooperating social systems like ours. Without these beings on which they operate, the very concept of object morality is meaningless.

Therefore, your objective morals are based upon what a set of cooperating social systems accept to be right or wrong at a given point in time. That is not objective in slightest bit since if in a 100 years from now those societies decided it was morally ok to bury wives alive with their dead husbands (as was practiced in certian asian societies) then this form of murder would be acceptable.

And sorry if this is getting too personal but how do you decide your own morality. Whatever society thinks? I know that's probably not true. Or whatever you feel in your heart is good or bad?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

Edited August 5, 2011 by apologia828

[Shiloh62]

I have noticed that atheists bring judgement against God based on there personal morals.

God is not loving because he did x, y,z God is not good because, x, y, z. These are all statements based on a moral view point that their idea of God does not line up with.

So my question is where do atheists get the moral code to judge God by?

From their limited human minds.

[apologia828]

I follow you, but what makes you believe that the laws we feel as moral in our heart come from God? And, if they come from God, what makes you believe that God's commands are always objectively moral? And if God does not always impose objective moral values, how do you discriminate between objective and not objective ones?

For instance, Do you think it is objectively moral to stone people who collect wood during the sabbath?

We should ask the people who lived when this law was defined. We have two cases :

1 - they thought it was ok to stone people who collect wood during the sabbath. This cannot be considered objective since I hope you do not feel the same

2 - they thought it was wrong to stone people collecting wood during the sabbath. Then this is obviously not an objective moral law, either

In any case we land with the following: stoning people who collect wood during the sabbath is NOT objectively moral. Do we agree? If yes, then we have a case of moral law which is not objective and depends on other factors like time, culture, theocratic society, current covenant, etc. but nevertheless derives directly from God.

But if we have such cases, what makes you believe that your sense of right or wrong is really objective, even if it comes from God?

The first problem is I don't believe that laws we feel in our heart come from God. I believe everyone has an implanted sense of what is wrong or right however, as Jeremiah says the heart is deceitfully wicked, who can know it? Therefore there is some true within each individual but our sinful nature tends to distort and twist that truth. Consequently, I believe true objective morals come from God's Word. In following with this you have brought up a typical case. The case you have brought up is a subjective law. I'm sure you've heard about Covenant theology. Well, this law obviously applied and had a specific purpose within the old covenant, however it does not apply in the new. Although the principle does, which refers to the command that the sabbath is to be honored. This was a law given to a specific people at a specific time but the objective morals remain the same from their day to ours.

Regardless, none of this is really the point. The point is that it is objectively wrong to disobey the creator whether His command is not to pick up sticks on the Sabbath or not to eat fruit from a specific tree. Disobedience to a perfect God who wants the best for us and has always remained true to His Word is foolish and wrong. I think you would agree with that if you believed in this God.

Still, from your perspective all you can say is that stoning someone for working on the sabbath is wrong to you but may not be wrong for others because as previously demonstrated your morality is basically determined by society, past experiences, and your own conscious. Obviouy it would be impossible for someone with subjective morals to objectively label anything in Scripture as right or wrong eventhough so many atheists do this.

[doubting_tommy]

I have noticed that atheists bring judgement against God based on there personal morals.

God is not loving because he did x, y,z God is not good because, x, y, z. These are all statements based on a moral view point that their idea of God does not line up with.

So my question is where do atheists get the moral code to judge God by?

Perhaps they get their moral code from God, but that God is not the same God as the one depicted i the Bible.