Regardless - A God that cannot lie cannot also be omnipotent.
According to my preferred definition of the word he can be. And according to your preferred definition he can't be. Lets leave it at that shall we?
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Rationally? Rationally there is no justification for belief in God at all.
We're not discussing belief in God at all. We're discussing the rationale (if any) behind us trying to apply laws God applies to us ... to God.
I made a point...
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So lies are only self serving?
As a starting basis for discussion it would seem reasonable to suggest that self-serving will lie at a lies root. I'd add 'unrighteous' on front of self-serving by edit.
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What about deviation from truth?
Same thing applies. It's not what you call it that matters. It is a lie if unrighteous self-serving. Me telling a gunman who knocks on the door that "No, I'm not iano, he won't be back until next week!" wouldn't be a lie according to this view.
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Is this a "lawyers" definition of the term "lie"? Devised to extricate God from any responsibility for anything that could be construed as a lie?
I suggest the notions presented as to what constitutes a lie applies to everyone - God included. So no is answer to your question.
Normally speaking you enquire whether x, y, z is good and try to pick a standard against which to evaluate it. But if God is the standard against which you need to measure then there is as much point in asking whether he is good as there is asking which way is south when standing on the North Pole.
I understand that God smiting nations appears to render him a genocidal maniac but that is only because folk are not stepping back and looking at the position God occupies. Instead they try to drag God down as if he belongs to the category of "comparable" humans such a Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Surely you must see the futility and inappropriateness - not to say sheer irrationality - of such a response to God.
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Well he is only "not a sinner" if we accept your premise that everything God does is just and good by definition. If morality is absolute and universal then God is a bigger sinner than most.
Either God sits at the top of the heap (so to speak) or he doesn't. He is the source of everything and the standard against which everything else much be measured. There is no other standard that can arise outside of him (even if he permits people to set their own standards for a time). Any attempt to invoke another standard, as if God must submit to it is sheer and utter bootstrappery. You'd need God to agree to submit to it in the first instance
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Fine. I fully accept that I have no right to take your life.
I'll take that as meaning you fully accept that God has the right to issue law regarding what is acceptable (to him, your God) for you to do and what is not. I would repeat that his motivation isn't to play big, bad God.
Rather he
knows full well you will trample all over his law and his true motivation is to use your lawbreaking to prise you from your sin. To save you from your sin by way of utilising your tendency to sin.
It's pure genuis at work. I do hope you come to understand someday, it's blow your mind like nothing else ever has.
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The thing I question is Gods right to treat us as we would treat inanimate possessions. Worse even than pets.
Man wilfully decides to do what he knows to be wrong and is punished for it. Whereas a pet might 'wilfully' resist it's master, it won't wilfully do what it knows to be wrong. It doesn't know what is right and wrong.
Apples v. Pears
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.