A question that was first presented by Socrates.

Well my first response would be to ask which God are you talking about? There are many mythologies with many deities. Some set rules for ultimate obeyance and others do not.Socrates definitely did NOT share the monotheistic Judeo-Xian-Islamo God, so I find it odd that he would say "God" anything. Indeed many of the Gods held at that time made laws and told individuals what to do, but without connotations of "good" and "evil" as we know them today.If you are talking about the Xian God then it is clearly what God says is good, and not vice versa... at least with a literal reading of the Bible.God made everyone nude and was not sharing that knowledge. The fruit of the tree of knowledge, which was said to give Adam and Eve knowledge like Gods (of good and evil), let them know their nudity (which God allowed) was bad.If you follow him, what he says is good.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

My reply was supposed to be deeper than that. In addition to God vs Gods, comes an acknowledgement that some Gods do not make such commands anyway. It is also true (though I'd have to see that specific text you are speaking of) good and evil back then were sort of different than they are thought of today.I guess I am being real picky, but being a philosopher I kind of get picky on things like that.In any case, I addressed the question you were getting at. It seems to me Genesis pretty well begins by showing good is what God says, not what he does.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I have no idea if it is possible or not, but I do think the theoretical implications are exactly what you suggest.That's why I DON'T believe people actually get their morality from their Gods. If they did then in reality they have no morality at all. It is simple obedience. Or I suppose "do what god says" is the whole of that morality.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Not wrong... though I've had a bit of experience in that territory.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually it creates a problem. If it is true that when man gains access to the true good, he comes to an OPPOSITE conclusion than what God had been telling them (with regard to how they should live), then how can God be the transmitter of good?God even becomes angry with them for knowing they should live opposite from what he created.This appears to indicate that God expects them to live as HE says, and accept what good he tells them, even if that is not true right/wrong.I just realized this raises another question.If man gained knowledge of right and wrong from eating the fruit, did he lose it? If so, how since if he ate from the tree of knowledge he'd have been alive forever (even if God did not want it). If not, why has man needed guidance as to what is right or wrong? Shouldn't he "know it"?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually I know the genesis account pretty well... ugh, I was just through the minutiae of it with someone else in another thread.I wasn't trying to suggest that the tree was more than knowledge of good and evil, and that they did or did not actually get that knowledge.The point I was trying to make was that once they knew good and evil they felt that nakedness was bad and had so had to be clothed. Yet strangely God had placed them in that state and appears to have been quite content to have them live that way. He even realized something was "wrong" when they were hiding and wearing clothes.So if nakedness was bad, why had God made and kept them in that condition? Doesn't that set a dichotomy between Good and good? This seems to be a way to explain that problem, but it really isn't fleshed out in scripture.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think you should respond directly to Darth because you seem to be hitting on exactly the point he wants to discuss.It looks like you might be agreeing with me.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Mmmmmmaybe we don't agree. Why did he make and keep us naked? He seemed to think that was good, but when they ate from the tree of knowledge, they learned it was evil. Then God got pretty pissed.I realize that is taking things literally and there are more metaphorical interpretations (which I am fond of myself), but it does raise a question (IMO).

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)