Morality without god

RE--Often one hears from the religious side that one cannot have morals without god or holy scriptures, and they seem to be baffled how you just dont run around killing people torturing them and whatnot. --I tend to agree with you somewhat here frako. Morals are an interesting subject, and psychologically much of them are just naturally imbedded within our make up. There is something within our psyche called empathy that is a natural condition that requires zero knowledge of God or scripture to have and be influenced by. We don't like to feel pain and therefore we normally empathize with others we identify with and are usually restrained from inflicting pain.Have you ever wondered why you feel so bad when a dog runs out in front of your car and gets hit, but feel nothing but relief after swatting a fly? This is because of this natural ability we have built in to identify with and feel empathy for others... including other species. The closer we identify with something the more we normally empathize with it. However we do have the mental capacity to over ride empathy, but even then we still have to mentally distance ourselves from the subject. For example during WWII the Nazis had to convince themselves that Jews were really only "non human parasites" in order to treat them so horribly. But on the other hand I once heard a story of an escaped convicted rapist and murderer who had gone on a killing rampage. During his flight from custody he broke into a beautiful woman's home while she was there alone that day. His first inclination was, he planned to rape and kill her, However she had the where-with-all to keep her cool and strike up a conversation with the man. She introduced herself and calmly talked to him for a long time putting him at ease. She made him identify with her and thus he no longer saw her only as "lunch" but as a person. She actually convinced him to in the end, give himself up, and he never touched her. (I won't mention that she was a Christian)The point I'm making is that "Yes" godless people can and most often are just as moral as God fearing people. I'm afraid that my brothers in the faith who claim otherwise are mistaken. But that being said... (you didn't think you'd get by without a 'but' did you?) I'm going to guess that they meant to convey something entirely different. That being that godless people have no solid standard of right or wrong. They can't say..."here is the line of morality and tomorrow it will never change." What's wrong and illegal to them today can be voted out if majority chooses to do so tomorrow. For example yesterday homosexuality was viewed by the majority as wrong, and today it is perfectly acceptable. But for the Christian, God says it is wrong and that will never change. Yesterday gay marriage was viewed as wrong but they redefined the definition of marriage and it will soon be accepted in all of the states. Yesterday abortion was wrong because it was viewed as murder. But then Roe Vs Wade happened... they redefined it from personhood to merely an undeveloped fetus and changed it from murder to merely a "procedure." However to the Christian this is still murder and always will be.So I think what my Christian brothers and sisters mean to say is that the godless can not have a solid standard of morality, not that they are without any morality.

Hmmm. The fact that you cant quote correctly sends up red flags to start with. But beyond that lets look at a similar passage:During war time this is a crime that is punishable up to the death penalty. So if I were of a mind to totally twist and spin this in the way you did the passage in the Bible, I could say: You see how easy it is to take something out of context and give it a shameful appearance. However if you leave the context of the passage where it belongs (The Jews struggling to become a nation of God's people) and come to it with the understanding that any act of treason by worshiping false gods could lead to the destruction of the Jews because God is no longer their protection... then it makes more sense.You probably wouldn't normally want to bind and gag someone just for carving holes in wood. But put yourself into the context of being with other survivors of a ship wreck, lost at sea in a life boat, with an unruly passenger on board who keeps trying to carve holes in the bottom of the boat, and now you damn straight are gonna do what ever it takes to keep you and the rest of the passengers alive. The point is context is everything.

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The Christian? You do realize that you guys don't agree even on the topics you yourself have instanced

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The same can be said for any large organization. Boy Scouts don't all agree on how to start a campfire. Most organizations have basic tenants that the majority do agree with. But I don't care what group your talking about your always gonna find that one in the crowd that doesn't. All true Christians agree that the Bible is the word of God and though there might be some minor variances in interpretation, they all agree on the main and plain things.

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Slave-owners, heretic-burners, genocides, every despicable person you can think of --- they all thought to themselves: "These aren't my opinions, these are the immutable opinions of the one true God.

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You never cease to prove that you haven't got a clue what you are talking about doc. Actually the despicable one's you mention are evidence that the scriptures are true rather than hinder them. It was prophesied by Christ Himself that many would come in His name claiming He is the Christ, but would deceive many. And Jesus wasn't known to exaggerate. When He said "many" He meant MANY. In this, my faith is always bolstered by those who claim to be Christians but are found to be corrupt.

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but I began my arguement on this thread referencing some of the evils in the bible - if ur god given morality is unwavering then can I expect that u go with the following;

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I'll make you a deal here. We'll look at these in their context and see if they really mean what you imply. So you pick one (any one you think to be the worst) and we can examine it together. Truth of the matter is you can make anything look bad if you pull it out of context and give it enough spin.

Sure we can discuss this. As I said previously, context means everything. If you just read this portion of a log: You would think that this rancher was one of the most terrible men you ever heard of. But when you read it in the context below you are going to think he was one of the bravest most loving husbands and fathers you have ever heard of. So you can see "G. Squeaker," how important context is. So in understanding the passage in Numbers 31, I have to give you some context. As the story above shows, even just looking at things from the natural, death is not always the worst thing that can happen. In certain situations living is much worse. And then if you also have knowledge that there is more to life than just "this life," then death takes on an even less severity. The back drop to the story in Numbers 31 is that the people of Israel were seeing the Canaanites and Moabites doing some pretty horrific things. Even to their own children. Often those people, because of their idol worship, would either sell their own children as slaves and sex slaves, or burn them alive as offerings to their gods. (See Deuteronomy 12:31) But even when people fall into this horrific of sin, God always gives them warnings and plenty of space to repent before bringing final and swift judgment. (See Deuteronomy 20:10)You've probably heard the story of Jonah and the big fish. Well that is a story of a similar group of people, the Ninevites, who had gotten in to horrific idol worship. Those people hated the Israelites and the feeling was mutual. But God had mercy on them and sent Jonah the prophet who was also an enemy (an Israelite), to go and warn them to repent. But Jonah wanted the people of Nineveh to be judged by God and die so he went the other way. And... well you know the story. He ended up being swallowed by a big fish (not a whale) and escorted there by God anyways. Those people actually did repent and were spared by God. Jonah wasn't happy. The point I'm making here is that God doesn't just look down at a group or nation of people and go "I don't like them" (squish) and flatten them with His thumb. He is very merciful and long suffering. But there does come a time when He finally brings down hard and swift judgment. This can come in the form of natural disaster, a rival nation's attack and victory, or just a miraculous event. In the case of the inhabitants of Moab and Canaan, God finally brought judgment using the Israelites as His instrument. (See Deuteronomy 9:4) You should also be made aware that the Bible teaches us that there is an age where children are not accountable for sin. (See Deuteronomy 1:39) When a child dies at that age he or she immediately goes to heaven.That was the back drop now let’s look at the prequel (if you will) to the story in Numbers 31, which is Numbers 25. This text tells us that the Moabites where using their women to lure away the men of Israel from the One True God to take part in the morbid idolatry of Moab. The Israelites were commanded of God to exact judgment then but they disobeyed. This led to severe life or death consequences for the Israelites. Numbers 31 is where they finally obeyed God. The young boys were killed because it was known they would grow up and follow they ways of their parents and probably try to bring revenge on the people of Israel. What is more humane to you? To let the young boys grow up past the age of accountability, fall back into sins of their parents and go to an eternal hell? Or take them now and spend eternity in heaven? The women were killed because they had been the ones enticing the Israel men away. However God was merciful and spared the lives of the young girls who would neither be a threat to Israel and could likely come to faith in the True God of Israel.One final note. The young virgins were not taken to be raped as some try to accuse. Rape was and always has been considered an evil sin by God and would repulse any real man of God. Edited by Just being real, : No reason given.

Well I agree. But tell me this, do you consider the death penalty murder? I don't, but perhaps you do. But then here we are just being arm chair quarter backs trying to decide rather the God of creation made good call or not. And many centuries after the fact to boot. I believe that the character of God is one of both love and of justice. Therefore I can by faith trust that whatever He did, does or will do will be vindicated in the end rather we see it now or not. Those areas that I don't understand why, I will just have to trust that my Father knows best.

Seems logical at first until you think, wait a minute, that built in empathy (aka conscience) thing I mentioned previously would kick into overdrive. So its not at all the same thing. If our experience with someone, in everyway has been one of love, tempered with righteous justice, then when we read or hear of something that seems not to sit right with that experience, we can logically give them the benefit of the doubt until we learn the full context. Such is not the case for someone who is a "being of ultimate evil."

Good answer Faith. I like that

-God gives humans time to discover they are completely incapable of keeping His rules.
-God sends His only begotten Son to keep them for us
-Then His Son atones for our inabilities on the cross
-We accept that gift as our own.
-Those rules then are suddenly written on the tablets of our heart and we have a zeal to try and keep the rules out of gratitude only.

...and you also realize that normal people don't feel any empathy for someone they see recieving a punishment they believe they justly deserve... right? Not a lot of people crying at a leathal injection being carried out.

Consider for a moment this question GS. Can an all powerful creative being create a perfectly round square?And here's my point to asking this. Words have meanings and we define what we mean by those words. We define a square as any shape with four straight equal sides all at right angles to eachother. So the question of creating a perfectly "round" square defies the logical meaning of what it is to be "round" and what it is to be "square." This means God cannot do anything contrary to logic. An all powerful God can not create a rock too big for Him to lift, nor can a good God declare an evil act to be moral.

I think my point was that we haven't determined that a single "innocent" life was lost at the "feet of God." In fact consider this. When an Al quada terrorist straps a bomb onto a child and orders him or her to march into a US army base, and a US soldier has to shoot the child to make him stop, who is responsible for the death of that innocent child? Are you going to blame the soldier or are you going to blame the terrorist?

Would you hold a gun to your wifes head and demand she tells you she loves you? And if you would then what real meaning would those words have? You want God to interviene but where do you draw the line? If he stops mass murders, then shouldn't he also stop murderes? And if he stops them shouldn't he stop rapists? What about wife beaters? What about thieves? And to what dollar amount should he stop a thief? A thousand a hundred, or a dollar? And what about liars... should he stop them? What about people who just think bad thoughts?My point here is that love and free will go hand in hand and if you force people to do something against their free will then how can you have true love? If God turned us all into robots that merely run programs then we could not truly feel or express love. But if he wants to create a people with the ability to love, he has to also allow for the ability for us "not love" as well. But if he does that then he must allow for us to make really bad choices as well as good ones.

Okay, let's explore those options. Can you give me a couple that do not in any way violate anyones free will? (and note that if you make the child or the bomb ineffective the terrorist will just "will" to keep trying with other children and other bombs) Neither is God. In fact He's dying to keep you from hell... literally! If anyone ends up there, they have to step over His bruised, beaten and nail scarred body to get there. Of course, and so would God. And here is where it gets really interesting. Let's take for example the twin towers attack of 01. An omnipotant God could have stopped this from happening. But suppose this God is also omnipresent. Then He would also have the ability to see the outcome of each and every life that was lost that day, had He prevented it.There are only four catagories here. Those who had already repented and had faith in Christ, those who were before the age of accountability, those who never will repent, and those who were going to but just hadn't got there in life yet (saved, unaccountable, unsaved, and never saved). Suppose He used his "power" to prevent the ones who were unsaved from even being there that day. But the ones who were saved but had already fulfilled their purposes on earth He permitted. The children who were still unaccountable but would eventually be in the never saved group, along with children who he saw would be saved but face terrible lives in the future, He also permits to be there.Next He also alows some saved who still have a purpose to fulfill and some who are not saved but either will eventually get saved or be the catalyst for someone else to be saved in the future, to also go there that day. These few He does protect with His "powers" as the two buildings crumble down around them.In all of that He hasn't violated anyone's free will (including the terrorists) and He still accomplished His divine plan.

Of course an all knowing God would know the future and that these young men were going to do worse, and therefore it better served His purpose to make an example of how serious He was about the treatment of those who speak for Him.