Is God Self-Evident

What if the parent said "stay away from the computer" and spent the evening on the computer themself? Would that not be a 'do as I say, not as I do? And a perfectly rightful one at that? The parent is exempt because they are the parent and the child is the child.I'll repeat the point that

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you're comparing apples (eg: God's righteous killing) with pears (our unrighteous killing) so as to erroneously arrive at a "do as I say" comparison.

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Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I am sorry iano, you are right- to a point. The parents in each of the situations did have a valid reason- in that they could not trust their child to intelligently mange the situations, but as such did trust themselves- or at least provided sufficient excuses.However, you still have to give us the criteria or excuse that exempts God from his own laws. Please do not answer with the argument from creation=authority. If I choose to bio-engineer a human being (hypothetically speaking), does that give me absolute/justified power over that being's existence?Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.

There is another distinct possibility here at play, Iano. that I'd like for you to consider. We all know that for centuries certain Muslims have been hiding behind the false justifications that they're doing Allah's will by slaughtering innocent lives. Crusaders have done the same thing in their time. Is it impossible to believe that the Israelites may have used the same false pretense, claiming that God "willed it" when in fact they came to that decision as a failsafe, blanket justification for cold-blooded murder? Perhaps to ease their own conscience? So it is God's righteousness to not only smash little babies on rocks, but to "delight" in the savage act as well? What ungodly affront is God "repaying" them for?How can one determine what is actually God speaking to them versus a demonic attack feigning to be God's divine will, Iano? If what you thought was God instructed you to smash a little baby on to rocks, how would you respond? I know the whole "Lean not on your own understanding" thing, but there has to be some sensibility here.

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"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samual Adams

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Do people have different consciences? If so, how would we tell*? Remember, the mechanism of salvation posed suggests that people can suppress conscience in order to:

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a) carry out evil (suppression of conscience telling us what we "ought to do")

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b) justify the evil done (suppression of conscience telling us that we didn't do as we ought to have done = suppression of guilt)

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By this means will you arrive at a situation where different people have different moralities. It doesn't mean they weren't/aren't equipped with the same conscience at the outset.

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The interesting thing is the contradiction in your claims.On the one hand you say that our conscience is the "voice of God" telling us what is good and evil and that suppressing it is wrong.On the other hand - whenever a conscience says anything which contradicts your beliefs you say that it is a subjective judgement which should be suppressed in favour of your nihilistic doctrine.In another thread you say that the love of truth is needed for salvation, In this thread it is apparent that you have no love for the truth. preferring the delusion of dogma.

Your not making a whole lot of sense. Nor are you pointing out any contradiction. More rigor and less vitriol please, if further response is desirable to you.

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We are told by this God what moral behaviour we are to engage in in order to be holy. Then we are told "be holy for I am holy" he says. Which does give us links into his morality. We are also told that he is good and are given indications as to what goodness entails.

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Actually we are told by writers who say that this God expects certain moral behaviors from us in order to be holy. We are told by writers that God is good; but the tales they tell, by our standards today, don't always show a good god.

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You, as so many others, appear to be conflating God (eg killing with us killing when you suggest a "do as I say not as I do" style. A snack is a snack - a righteous killing is not an unrighteous killing.

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Apples and pears.

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The snack wasn't the point. The point was hidden information, which is what you are implying with God. The parent doesn't want the child to snack because the child won't eat dinner if they snack. The parent knows they themselves will still eat dinner even if they snack. They don't necessarily disclose that to the child. The parent's master plan is for the child to eat a nutritious dinner and grow up healthy. The child doesn't necessarily know this master plan and just wants to snack.The style is the important part, not that it was a snack. Parents don't always tell their children the whys of the rules they implement. That's what you are implying for God. You're saying we don't really know his moral viewpoint or his master plan; so what he does looks unfair or immoral to us because we don't have all the information, just like a child watching his parents' actions.That is the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do leadership style.If the master plan and God's moral viewpoint are unknown to us, we really have no way of knowing if the killing was in accord with a divine or moral law or not. God is responsible whether he orders and supports the killings, or he does the killings himself.Since we don't know the master plan, we have no idea if the salvation you speak of is a good deal or not, or whether it will also change to suit the master plan that is unknown to us. Christians could all be cast aside once the Jews act in accordance with his master plan. We may be expendable. No guarantees.From Message 74

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God takes something belonging to him (a life) we, if we kill unrighteously, take something not belonging to us. The only righteous killing we can do is killing sanctioned by God. Some suppose war to involve righteous killing. They may be right, they may not be. We'll all find out in the end.

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Since God is not self-evident, then one would need to show that all life actually belongs to the God of the Bible. The lives of people who believe in another god would belong to that god, not the God of the Bible. What right does he have to take a life that belongs to another god? That makes the killing unrighteous by your definition.Edited by purpledawn, : Msg 74

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

For sure ... if you're an unbeliever. My argument is;a) assuming God exists and the Bible is his wordb) posing a mechanism of salvation that doesn't require God to be self-evident in the light of those assumptions. It's a given that God instructed the Israelites to slaughter - what we're looking at is whether that is justified in order to decide whether unwavering morality exists (unwavering morality being a piller of the mechanism I'm posing). Where does this occur?Edited by iano, : No reason given.

It is clearly being assumed, for the sake of presenting a mechanism of salvation not requiring Gods self-evidency, that the Bible reveals his will. If God is completely other than (it is assumed) he is revealing himself in the Bible, then of course all of this is moot.The mechanism explains why our standards might vary from his. That doesn't alter him being good. (good being defined as that which conforms to Gods will and evil defined as that which doesn't) I'm saying we do know his morality and his masterplan - when he condemns as evil/unholy certain actions they are so because they run counter to who he is and what he's about. It looks unfair to the unbeliever because ... well because the unbelievers is geared towards running counter to who God is and what he's about. Granted. The argument assumes the Bible isn't a front for some other sort of God. Again, the assumptions on which the mechanism posed is based aren't being taken into account.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

If you bio-engineer another human being you'll have created like order and will have opened up a can of worms regarding rights. If you bio-engineer a very much lower-order creature - let's say an amoeba, then the problem diminishes. How much lower order are we than God? Edited by iano, : No reason given.

HG writes No No this is not what I am asking. What do you think is the MOTIVATION if someone does it on thier ownapart from God. Do you think they think (or you) thier actions are evil or monstorous when they committhese actions against say, animals Do you think God would direct the painful death and sacrifice of his own son? Peter says "Consider himthat spared not his own son, how much greater will be our judgement. " To demonstrate the full circle(absolute nature)of Gods Justice along with his mercy, there will come a time when he will punish fianallyand eternally those unrepented sins of which you speak. Would you say this is philosophically logical andconsistent with absolute principles?now lets examine once again the consistency in our arguments. You say, there is no moral principle inyour actions, yet God is blameworthy or a monster for his. Do you believe the little creatures agony andpain in eradication is deminished by your lack of moral principle? Or there are moral principles that are the same as ours, but which you refuse to acknowledge in yourown action, with regard to the treatment of other creatures. Your logic is flawed or at best terribleinconsistent. In this instance and according to your own words ABOVE, you are now required to givereasons (moral explanation) for your action. You ascribe them to God, why not you? are you a monster,or will you still maintain there is no moral principle. You cant eat you cake and have it. Again my friend we are at present only discussing logical consistency, not the validity of this or thatdocument. In debating this is know as a smoke screen, designed to distract or cause prejudice to alogical position. Your honestly is refreshing, it is my desire that you choose the right path and think about it logically andpray about the matter As a Seminary student the one thing that gave me the most fits was the slaughtering of the innocence, until I realized three things, he spared not his own Son, God is the creator and holds sin in the highest and most ABSOLUTE degree possible as an abomination and that there are PRINCIPLES in his existence that superceed any PHYSICAL condition or painful situation and death is not the end of existence. Now thats easy for me to say because I have suffered nothing, but it makes sense spiritually and morally.Besides as IANO and others have said, that which we see inside ourselves is TOO EASY, to missMore in a minuteEAMEdited by EMA, : No reason given.

Not if the NT is to be believed about the final judgement, I would consider the one in the OLD TEST agentle giant compared to the one in the NT. Its the same God, but there was a need to instruct mangradually in Gods view., ie God instructed Moses not let the children of I to approach the mountain or they
would surely die. , to teach them of Gods holiness. The Law was a schoolmaster to BRING US TO CHRIST.,"IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME GOD SENT FORTH HIS SON INTO THE WORLD, ETC, ETC I agree essentially with what you are saying here, however, the one that determined what Sin is also provides Mercy and forgiveness. Hopefully the mind set of a person that accepts God is not going to be"unrighteous gain" None, it was not for thier sins that this was accomplished but thier parents, who had become dispicable beyond belief God woulndt do anything to others that he wouldnt do to his own, in this respect .Jesus Christ.He sent them Lawgivers, Judges, Kings and prophets, then finally his own self and Son. I can do all this logically but essentially Im going to TRUST that the only Real thing in existence knows what he is doing. I guess we have to choose our own path for our own reasonsI dont pretend to understand it all either, until I think about Jesus ChristEAM More later I look forward to your next responseEdited by EMA, : No reason given.Edited by EMA, : No reason given.Edited by EMA, : No reason given.

I stated,

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There is another distinct possibility here at play, Iano. that I'd like for you to consider. We all know that for centuries certain Muslims have been hiding behind the false justifications that they're doing Allah's will by slaughtering innocent lives. Crusaders have done the same thing in their time. Is it impossible to believe that the Israelites may have used the same false pretense, claiming that God "willed it" when in fact they came to that decision as a failsafe, blanket justification for cold-blooded murder? Perhaps to ease their own conscience?

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That's a tautology and circular reasoning. What you are saying is, assuming that God is real and the Bible is true, everything in the Bible is therefore "self-evident." That's not how things work, as you set up an answer to ANY question a priori. What is unwaivering morality mean?

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So it is God's righteousness to not only smash little babies on rocks, but to "delight" in the savage act as well? What ungodly affront is God "repaying" them for?

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Psalm 137

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"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samual Adams

To plunder their enemies for riches and to rid themselves of competition. Depends on the method. Seems like a self-righteous suicide since God could have simply forgiven all without butchering his son/himself. No, because he forced a perfect being without sin to die on behalf of all sinners. Remember, Jesus didn't want to do it, but did so out of obedience. You keep overlooking one hugely critical factor here. According to your beliefs, God is the Creator of all, that includes our own nature. That logically makes God responsible for our actions since he all but forced man to be sinful and then turns around and punishes man for something he never chose and can't even control! The bible says that none are without sin. If that's the case, then it is impossible NOT to sin. So how then would God not be culpable? I've never said that there no moral imperative, I simply said in response to your quesiton of moral I'm following when I kill an insect, that I am not thinking of any moral when it comes to the life of an insect. I didn't create the capacity for death, suffering, hatred, sin, or any negative connotation you can think of. God did! I am an imperfect being with limited knowledge. He is a flawless, perfect, ominipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Being who has the luxury of knowing everything.At ANY point God could put a stop to all of this misery and suffering and create a perfect world, or simply be content within Himself. But he doesn't do that, does he? He wants it like this so that he can be worshiped.You defend God no matter what. Why? Why can't you question why things are the way they are because theoretically God is perfect? So then we'll assume that the entirety of the bible is infallible. That being the case, how do you reconcile the ordered slaughter of infants with compassion, love, justice, or mercy? Give me any verse in the bible that points to the notion that infants are full of sin, deserving of death.Have to answer the rest a little later.

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"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samual Adams

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It is clearly being assumed, for the sake of presenting a mechanism of salvation not requiring Gods self-evidency, that the Bible reveals his will. If God is completely other than (it is assumed) he is revealing himself in the Bible, then of course all of this is moot.

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The mechanism explains why our standards might vary from his. That doesn't alter him being good. (good being defined as that which conforms to Gods will and evil defined as that which doesn't)

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I'm saying we do know his morality and his masterplan - when he condemns as evil/unholy certain actions they are so because they run counter to who he is and what he's about. It looks unfair to the unbeliever because ... well because the unbelievers is geared towards running counter to who God is and what he's about.

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I don't ever want to step into a church full of people who actually believe that what you just dished out is real.Anything said to be the will of the God of the Judeo/Christian Bible is good. Anything contrary is bad. The problem is that there are other religions who worship other gods and odds are their holy writings imply the same thing.

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Again, the assumptions on which the mechanism posed is based aren't being taken into account.

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Why does the mechanism need to be based on assumptions? Either it exists or it doesn't.With all these assumptions, you're really just writing a back story to fit your story. The story changes to fit the needs of the writer. I don't see anything based in reality.Only in your story are the nonbelievers geared towards running counter to who God is and what he's about.

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Again my friend we are at present only discussing logical consistency, not the validity of this or that document.

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But your arguments aren't logically consistent. If you disagree, show me the logical consistency in your argument.Like Iano, you're basing your whole premise on a very big assumption concerning one book.Let's assume nothing in the Bible is real or true. The stories are all exaggerated and politically skewed.Morals are a creation of humanity. They come from the human mind. They are imposed or followed by humans. Emotions, usually fear, are a big part of creating morals.Looking through history we can see that morals change over time and vary from civilization to civilization.The Bible writers use fear to impose the morals of their time, whether it is fear of physical death, plagues, or eternal death. Our lawmakers today use fear to impose new laws or to gain compliance.Why can people kill non-humans without guilt or shame? Lack of emotion.To imply that your God lacks emotion towards people is contrary to the teaching that God loves all people.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz