Euthypro Dilemna

I was dealing with the suggestion that it was God who was doing the instructing. Not an invisible man.Do try to walk a straight line on this will you?- Why not? I'm assuming you're back to it being God who tells me so. Not a delusion, not an invisible God, but the Creator of the Universe and everything in it. Why wouldn't do as he says - especially if I believe he is the goodest thing there possibly can be?- Hopefully by now you'll have decided who is supposed to be doing the talking to me God/belief/invisible man. Please inform me as to your decision.

I'm merely stalemating your point. If neither of us are in a position to say who a Christian is, then this particular arrow just sits there in your quiver awaiting a way to wend it's way to your bow.There's no need to read the link when the point can be stalemated outright. Apols for not clarifying this sooner.Certainly, that a person is a pastor doesn't necessarily count for a whole lot. You ever heard of cultural Christianity? There's a lot of it about.

All the same in my book. Now deal with the reality of your statement instead of skirting it with sarcasm.However, I think you have made your point in regards to the topic.

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl Sagan

That's only a problem for you. To me, a non-believer, a christian is as such they say they are. I don't see why someone would lay claim to being a christian if they are not.

You know Hitler used this very same rationality to murder millions of people. Yes, yes I know I just surcumbed to Godwin's Law but I believe this is warranted here.It is rather disgusting your justification of such acts Iano. I have lossed all respect I have for you. Truley disgusting. And you call non-believers perverted.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

The reality of my statement assumes your original IF condition to be true. If God said..Retract that IF condition (by muddling it up with all sorts of instruction-givers) and there is nothing left to deal with. If there's no IF, then there's no THEN.- I think you've just unravelled yours, to be honest.The topic itself has to do with a supposed dilemma, which has yet to be rendered as far as I can see.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Sure, but what you seem to be ignoring is that, in my response it is assumed that God has actually instructed me (hooahs original query asked "If God said..").In Hitlers case we don't know whether God actually instructed Hitler or not. All we have is Hitlers claim.So the two cases aren't comparable. All you seem to be looking at is the output - irrespective of the input. And measuring that output against your own notions of good/evil. You vs. God.There is, as already pointed out, no dilemma for me as a believer in plumping for Gods view of good and evil and not yours. I should add at this point that I think it extremely unlikely that God would ask any such thing. We're only dealing with a logical hypothetical and should bear that in mind. Logically hypothetically, cows can jump over the moon- Sure (and believers too, in so far as we don't conform to Gods' will). Good/morality/perversion - all are related to God-the-standard.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

The man falling from a tall building might not see he has a problem but that doesn't alter his having one. You are that falling man.That someone says they're a Christian doesn't necessarily mean they are. Otherwise the con-man knocking at the old ladies door telling her he's the gas man is a gas man.Why would someone lay claim to the title? Well perhaps they were brought up to believe that they met the criteria for being a Christian but those that told them so were in error? Perhaps they were wolves in sheeps clothing? Perhaps they liked the social/community aspects of Christianity and rowed in alongside.Someone can be genuine. But genuinely wrong.

quote:

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"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

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Edited by iano, : No reason given.

And all we have from your proposition that God is good are your unsubstantiated claims. What is the difference? You have no method for determining independently that God is good. It is just your assumption. You have yet to provide any verifiable evidence that your god is good. None. And calling it a definition of God only leads to circular reasoning. You assume he is good with no way of knowing this to be true. Why are they not comparable?How do you know the input: God speaking to you is different than God speaking to Hitler? Right, because what other moral standard can I compare God too? Now when I say my own notion of good/evil realize that this is a compendium of accumulated ethics from the dawn of time including but not all-encompassing JudeoChristian values, not something I thought up of overnight. Now if you want to go into specifically how or where all my moral standards come from that would be a seperate issue which I don't mind discussing in another thread. BTW, it wouldn't be Me vs. God from my perspective. It would be my moral values vs. those of the imagined god described in the Bible. There is no dilemma for you because you brainwash yourself into thinking there is not but for the rational, moral person (believer or not) there is certainly a dillema here. How can you determine God is good? Like I said before baseless assumptions do not make a definition i.e. God-good, true. But you have no way of prooving that God would never ask this to happen, do you? Or do you know the mind of God? If the God of the universe came down and told you to kill your family, you would do so without hesitation, would you not? For me, I would not if I had any ability to resist I would do so. That to me is the difference between me and you. According to you. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

But we're all in the same defintional boat. You might call kindness good but have no way to knowing this to be true outside a definition which says "kindness is good".This dilemma was supposed to be a believers dilemma wasn't it?(I'm not sure what this has to do with Hitler vs. Me btw.)- The are not comparable because in the one case, God is assumed (for the sake of argument) to be talking to the person (me). In the other case, it is not known whether God is talking to the person (Hitler).Which means the possiblity exists for me killing my family to be Gods request of me and Hitlers killing of many not to be Gods request of him (despite his claims)Which means you're comparing apples and pears.- Fair enough. But the root of this dilemma ultimately rests on reference to a.n.other moral standard. And so the dilemma isn't really a dilemma, it's a matter of which moral standard do I choose.- There is no dilemma because good is defined in the way defined. Because I chose this definition - as opposed to other possible definitions (with an undefined concept not being a concept at all) I am free from having to involve any assumptions.The only interesting question - and one you seem to unconciously acknowledge in your argumentation in this thread - has to do with possible connections between what God considers good and what you consider good. In the meantime, your dilemma is that The Supposed Dilemma supposes a standard of good against which God need be measured as a check (but against which he cannot be measured if he himself is good).Which is truly Alice in Wonderland stuff!- I sure do. Although I cannot of course prove this. Not that it matters. I'm only suggesting it highly unlikely that God would ask me to kill my family. This, in order to indicate my opinion that there's not as much distance between your standard and Gods standard as you'd like to think.- Given that I fail to do things that God askes of me that would be far more simple to do than kill my family, I'm inclined to think that I wouldn't in practice. We're dealing with hypotheticals here you should bear in mind.But I'd have no moral issue with doing it (supposing I was certain it was God doing the asking). My not doing so would be the result of sin - in the case that I didn't.- And not according to you. Like I say, this is all about comparing standards. It's not about a true dilemma.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Hehe. Thanks DA. That's alot of what I was trying to get out, I just let my astonishment at the statements being made ge the best of me. I suppose I looked at him actually commiting the aforementioned acts as opposed to the topic at hand.

Hello Iano, I realize that for arguments sake we are assuming God to be true and personally speaking to you, however in reality there is no way to know if the voice you hear in your head is God's, Satan's or your own. The fact that you seem to be able to act on it while showing no hesitation or remorse is a little scary. It not so much apples and pears considering no one has any way to tell if your claims along with Hitler's, were they ever to happen, to be a true request of God or the concoction of a delusional brain.

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'Qui non intelligit, aut taceat, aut discat'
The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open.-FZ
The industrial revolution, flipped a bitch on evolution.-NOFX

No 'because I wanted to' is not a reason. When someone asks why did you do 'x', 'because I wanted to' is a given. The question being asked is 'why did you want to do x?' If it is the only reason why, then it is whimsical - he killed the tribe for no other reason than a passing fancy or desire that he acted on. That's whimsy.If he did it because it was the moral thing to do - that would be excusable. Yes we do choose what standard of good to follow. Except God. Who doesn't do things according to a standard of morality, according to you. How could you possibly determine if god's standard is best of all? Surely not by some standard of 'goodness' - because that would be circular madness. When I am talking about good - I am talking about your understanding of it. Not for you, no. As I've said several times. And if you are happy with a whimsical god too - then it would seem there is no dilemma for you at all. So you agree there is no actual moral reason for Yahweh to tolerate sin for only so long? You don't need a definition for what I mean by 'good'. You seem to agree that God does not do something because doing that something is 'good'.As Plato/Socrates might say: you know that an object is carried because someone carries it. Not that someone carries an object because it is carried.So is an action good because god does it as opposed to god doing the action because it is good? You've misunderstood. I was merely expressing that what God says goes and we don't have any choice in that.Besides we are obliged to be yes-men in the sense you described. As with any obligation we can break it and there will be consequences. If someone puts a gun at my head and tells me to give them my money, I could refuse...but most people would agree that I was being forced to give them my money nevertheless.

I assume then, that you don't bother reading the Holy Bible?

We're not talking reality, we're talking for arguments sake. And for arguments sake God is doing the asking - not Satan/delusion or the invisible man. Therefore there need be no hesitancy, and certainly not remorse.- For the sake of argument God would have spoken to me (so says the poster who began all this). Whereas who spoke to Hitler is unknown. Potential apples and pears for want of further information.Thus the link: iano/Hitler cannot be made.Edited by iano, : No reason given.