Is God good?

Okay. But there was a man like Adolf Hitler. And he just as strongly felt that he like to do harm to 6 million Jews. So you see you have your preference and he had his.Its left kind of arbitrary. It is left as a matter of personal preference. One like vanilla icecream and another likes chocolate. But I think you do need to feel an abligation to some abstract "something." I think you do have some sense of obligation aside from just preference. You may not know what it is. You have not explained well what is wrong with being sadistic anyway. You an say God is bad, God is evil all day long. Why is evil evil ?Hitler thought it was evil to allow the Jews to live.
You have your preference. Adolf has his.I think there has to be trascendent moral law and thus a transcendent moral law giver. You just telling me "Well, I just feel that I want to be good to my neighbor" is a weak foundation for really explaining moral obligation.Is it a material matter in the brain? Is it something in the blood? Do we need to identify the evil atoms or the evil genes in the human body and illiminate them ?Did Adolf Hitler just have bad genes ? Sure, you gave me your preference. You could also account for your preference in music or sports teams.Another person can just as easily say he prefers to go into a school and do the good of shooting up scores of unarmed students.

Adolph Hitler thought it was his Christian Duty to kill the Jews.But that has NOTHING to do with whether God is good.

So much for Sola Scriptura, no?

Ok, and which one do you prefer? Would you like no harm to come to people or would you like 6 million of them to be killed?Any sane person should easily and immediately be able to come to the same preference as 99.99% of the population.So, we can use the nearly universal preference to come to a conclusion that one of those things is better than the other.Once we get some sort of consensus, then we can assigning things as either good or bad.Then, we can quite comfortably say that killing 6 million people is a bad thing and whishing that no harm come to anyone is a good thing.Its really not that difficult if your position doesn't require insisting that these conclusion are impossible without God.

Hello Jaywill, Interesting discussion.Do you feel that there is such a thing as a objective morality? It is deriving pleasure at inflicting pain on another creature.......and yes there are creatures who like to have pain inflicted on them. And if the SM couple hook up and keep they're perversions to themselves bully for everyone.But Sadism as most things has varying degrees. It is where "we" as a society place that line I feel is where morality comes into the equation. I place the line at causing pain to that which does not wish it so.

Yeah, mine is right. If you can't see that, I can't explain it to you, any more than I could explain color to a blind man.But I don't believe that you or similar Christian apologists are really devoid of morality, I think you just pretend to be because this is necessary to your jejune and footling apologetics. And another chooses to burn heretics alive according to his interpretation of the whims of an imaginary God. But I don't.Your way just makes it more complicated.My way goes like this. I know that person A exists. I know that he would like me to treat him well. I do so for the sake of person A.Your way would go like this. I don't know that person X exists, and I don't really know what he wants. However, people tell me that person X wants me to treat person A well, although they confess that person X regularly treats person A like shit and will in all probability torture person A throughout all eternity. Nonetheless, I am informed that person X wants me to treat person A well (even though he himself manifestly does not) and that I should do so for the sake of person X.So what is the end of all this convoluted reasoning? That my actions should be aimed at pleasing person X, whose existence is doubtful and whose wishes are obscure, rather than person A, whose existence is not in doubt and whose wishes may be ascertained for the asking.Describing person X as "transcendent" does not really help, since I cannot attach any meaning to this word and you haven't tried to do so. Yes I have. I wrote: "I just like people and therefore wish that no harm should come to them."A sadistic psychopath does wish harm to come to people, that's his defining characteristic.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And yet Protestants are not of one mind on these subjects. So what is the doctrine of "THE Church" concerning these subjects? How do we tell the teachings of the Spirit from the fabrications of men?

It's easier than you'd think at first. The reason is "empathy."Humans evolved as social creatures. We can understand each other on a basic level - we can put ourselves in the proverbial shoes of another.I don't want to die. I don't want to feel pain. I don't want to be hungry. Therefore I can safely surmise that you also do not wish to die, feel pain, or be hungry. That same ability to empathize is present in every human being - "do unto others" is a rational position, a logical extrapolation from basic empathy, not a religious commandment, which is why it's far older as a philosophy than Christianity or Judaism.The ultimate arbiter of morality is society, not a supernatural beard-man in the sky deciding what's right and wrong based on his whim. That's why moral standards differ from one culture to the next, and why morality changes over time. As societies and cultures grow and become more inclusive, and morality has changed to encompass empathy for a much wider diversity of people. It's really a rather beautiful thing.It's ironic - the "arbitrary" position is the one where an "ultimate authority" is capable of arbitrarily changing the rules on a whim.

By whether or not Faith believes in them. You're just gonna have to ask her and let her tell you what's what.

I've read that list through a number of times now and have no idea what you think Protestants differ on.

You quoted the Bible implying the Roman Catholic interpretation to it, jar, the commentary was your own, which I thought I made clear. There is no way to read the Bible without interpreting it. Your interpretation is the Roman Catholic interpretation. I'm not IMPLYING it, I'm saying it flat out. You have Roman Catholic beliefs and you deny the main doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, you not only deny them you ridicule them. To call yourself a Protestant is ludicrous.You don't quote where Jesus supposedly said He's not perfect or good but I'll guess you mean where He said "Why do you call Me good, only God is good." And that is one of the many many places he implies that He Himself is God.

Shouldn't you and jar and whoever else take this conversation over to your Catholicism/Protestant thread, instead of cluttering up this thread with chatroom-length posts that have nothing to do with this topic until we hit Summation Mode?I mean, unless you really think that the Protestant/Catholic debate has something to do with the question of whether god is good.

More bullshit and misrepresentation from you Faith, I did not interpret anything, I simply quoted what the Bible said.As I said back in Message 412: Yes, you are flat out repeating falsehoods when you say that I am not a Protestant.; you are knowingly repeating falsehoods. Actually that is a good reference that you once again misrepresent. Here it is in context. Now where in there does Jesus imply that he is God? What he is saying is that to have salvation you need to do things.

No jar. I think he thought it was his duty to Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Let's let Adolf Hitler speak for himself.

quote:

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"If nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such cases all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.

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But such a preservation goes hand-in-hand with the inexorable law that it is the stronger and the best who must triumph and that they have the right to endure. He who would live must fight. He who does not wish to fight in this world, where permanent sruggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist."

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[Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 4th printing (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939, 239-240,242) ]

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Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Oh there are plenty of quotes to support just any smear campaign one would care to employ invoking Godwins law.