Moral Argument for God

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To look at the universe from a human persepctive is the same as looking at it from an asteroid's perspective. Both are of equal insignificance....Gods perspective lends to purpose, organization, fundamental rules and truths, a plan, utility and reason.

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Why is God's perspective so different from any human's perspective? Why is the purpose and order that comes from God's perspective any more real than the purpose and order that comes from my perspective?

If you look at at the formation of the universe as the baseline starting point, there was no reason for it to happen. No purpose, no design, no guiding. It just happened. So to imply that in a universe with no reason or purpose for it's existance, an almost infintesimally small insignificant portion of it can have reason and morality and consiciounce, is not logical.What we are is just a sputtering micro second jumbling of a combination of the 4 forces as they have mixed themselves randomly. To imply that there is a cerebral reality that can be deduced outside of the randomness of what is, is implying that there is purpose and design to us. This is impossible without grand design and a designer, so we cannot take ourselves serious enough to believe that reason is actually a real concept. It's just anouther very very temporary phenomena created by energy, time and chance.

Let's look at these two from the perspective of European Rabbits. Because of Hitler, 60 million humans were killed which freed up that much more water, food and land for the other animals. It ment that less heating fuels would be used over the next 30 years for home heating because of a decreased population, which reduced personal polution. Many of the soldiers that were killed were hunters which means that there are less humans trying to kill the rabbits. Much infrastructure was destroyed so hunting clubs took a back seat to rebuilding roads.Mother Thereasa on the other hand has done much to help the humans which has ment that many are still alive today because of her, using up natural resources and polluting the Earth. So from the rabbit's perspective, Hitler was good and Mother Thereasa was evil.Also, within the ranks of humans, good and evil are all over the board. Good to one guy is luring a married woman into bed and having sex with her but the same act to her husband would be considered evil. And since I work with a guy who does this, he justifies it as good because he gives the women the pleasure and excitement that they deserve. But the extreme pain and anquish because of the aftermath are not good to those involved, except it is very good to the lawyers who profit from it.So from an atheist perspective, universal good and evil are useless concepts. Instead, it is better to tag behavior as specimen specific beneficial or specimen specific detrimental and then further catagorize via long or short term consequence.The only way to have a universal right and wrong for even a part of the universe, it must originate from outside the boundries of the universe. Random energy and chaos cannot produce reason and order. The only way for something like that to appear from outside the boundreis of our universe is if it comes from the designer.

It's perfectly logical. Just because we have reason, dosn't mean there has to be some sort of greater reason.Have you ever thought of the idea that we are the reason the universe poseses?Asuming we are the only inteligent life in the universe, effectively we lend it reason. Thus, the universe is a thinking entety. i.e. If I took your brain away and put it in a vat, your body would cese to be conscious, but your brain would continue to "run" your personality, thoughts and so on. You (your brain) lend your body reason. No it dosn't. It simply implyes that the universe can create inteligent thinking lifeforms. Yes it is temporary, it is also real. Liz, life is short on a cosmic scale, but to us here on earth, its a pretty long time. We like to live and be happy. Our consciousness is REAL, we experience it don't we?If there is no god and it is all random cosmic phenomena, does that make you any less real? Any less conscious?Does morality disapear if god does not exist?I say it dosn't.

You've got to be kidding me. Wow, apparently you aren't kidding. The rabbitt's don't HAVE a perspective. They aren't SENTIENT! They aren't able to grasp those concepts. Your argument is a false analogy.The fact that mass-murder may somehow help other species is irrelivant. Human beings have inalienable rights simply by the virtue of being self-aware. Violating those rights (ie, the wanton slaughter of millions) is evil, pure and simple. No belief in an all-powerful deity is necessary to inspire horror and revulsion at mass murder! Congratulations, you know an immoral person, who doesn't think very hard about the consequences of his actions. I do not cheat on my girlfriend or seduce married women because it is wrong, and hurts the other party involved (actually, cheating usually hurts everyone in the end). I don't need a deity to TELL me it's wrong - by using my rational human mind, I can comprehend the consequences of such actions, and choose to follow the path that causes no harm. The fact that you know an immoral idiot who rationalizes his immoral actions so that he can sleep at night in no way proves that God is necessary to define morality. Please leave your strawman arguments at the door. False. Many atheists have a pretty good grasp on the concept of good and evil. Many of them have a better grasp, in fact, than certain Christians. The concept is certainly not useless. Bull. Any ordinary human being can determine whether an act is right or wrong with just a little though and consideration as to the consequences of his actions. Adding your deity into the mix is a violation of Occam's Razor, since morality can be totally defined without His inclusion.I think you need to provide some evidence that, without God to tell people what is right and wrong, evil runs rampant and no distinction is made between good and evil acts.I can certainly provide evidence to the contrary. As I mentioned previously, atheists are not immoral monsters. They have reasoned out morality for themselves without God's intervention. I'm not saying that all atheists are moral people (that would be as stupid as saying that all Christians are moral people, and Hitler and various Popes disabuse that theory). I am saying that many atheists reason out their own moral code without any deity to do it for them.

You assume that there has to BE a reason. All that can be ascertained from evidence is that it DID happen. "Why" is not the job of science.Logical. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.The fact that it doesn't make sense to YOU doesn't make it illogical. It IS illogical to assume that God is necessary to define morality, because atheists demonstrate that humanity is perfectly capable of doing that for itself.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of people we have to deal with:Those who can formulate a moral code of behaviour for themselves and others with whom they form a society from their own natures. That is those who actually possess what we may call a conscience.Then there are those for whom any moral behaviour must be given to them. Not only that but it must be given as an absolute. In addtion, it must be backed up with significant external rewards and punishments. This group seems to lack that which we may call a conscience.

PaulK-You say that this passage: I don't think it does. It say that we have become like god in that we know good and evil but we are not the same as god, especially if he is omnscient. Its like a square(god) is like a rectangle(us) but a rectangle is not like a square, totally. make sense?Rahvin- Note, the argument is not that it is the BELIEF in god that allows you to define good and evil, it is the EXISTANCE of god that allows you to do that. Your definitions exist with or without your beliefs, but they don't exist without god, says the argument. Right, this is an example of the fundamental morality that exists in humans that, to me, suggest there is a god. An off topic side note that needs no reply.
"I’ve just seen too many examples of Occam’s Razor being misused" Do you realize that you, yourself, are misusing it? Occam’s Razor does not say that the simplest explanation is typically the correct one. And it DOES refer to the explanation with the fewest words AND even the explanation easiest to understand. check out this website: Occam's Razor which says:

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It admonishes us to choose from a set of otherwise equivalent models of a given phenomenon the simplest one.

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bold added for emphasis..Occam's razor is not about chosing the correct model, its about chosing the "fewest words" or the "simplest" model.Liz- I agree with this statement, but IMHO the "everything just is" part is wrong. From what I've experienced there is much more to our existance. Realize that both, the human and asteroid perspective, are of equal insignificance to the universe, but both are NOT of equal insignificance to US. This difference, puts us at some place above the asteroid.
and as Yaro says: forget the amazonian indians because they don't fit in with this quote: But unlike the indians, the others cannot. This is the difference between humans and animal that, to me, suggests there is a god. But, if you take the position that man is just another animal, then we are just acting natually and this planet has made its own cancer. Its not or fault, we've done nothing wrong. I don't deem us superior to the rest of creation, I scientifically observed it. Well, for me, when I look at th universe from the asteroids perspective then nothing matter, but when I look at from my perspective everything matters. I believe that my perspective is like god's perspective but with the same square/rectangle analogy. His is greater, but mine is like his.ssorry for tis but, I've been juming to and from the computer typing this up,and I'm startin gto get drunk, I had more I wannted to say but i just don't have time and I'm getting tired so I'm just gonna copy and paste what I have and hit the button.see ya tomarrow

So essentially your argument is about egotisml not morality. You want to assume that there is a God or a grand design because it gives you an excuse to pretend that you are important on the universal scale.If you were really concerned with morality you would consider the human scale instead of scornfully rejecting it as inadequate. If being human isn't good enough for your ego then I am afraid that that is your problem.

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You say that this passage:

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;...

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does express the idea that human knowledge of morality is the same as God's

I don't think it does. It say that we have become like god in that we know good and evil but we are not the same as god, especially if he is omnscient. Its like a square(god) is like a rectangle(us) but a rectangle is not like a square, totally. make sense

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Trying to parse this it seems that you are saying "I don't think that it says what it says because it says what it says not something else".I didn't say that it said anything about omniscience, only "knowledge of good and evil".

Yes, universal morality disappears if there is no God. And if there is no God then subjective morality disappears everytime a human dies because they take their own specific morality with them when they leave.Without a God, any type of exhibited morality is just another behaviour tool that is employed by humans to aid in survival. It's just another playground rule that pops up to make the game better for most of the players, but it is not a fundamental fact that must be present for the game to be played.Some of you take offense to this because it reduces your concept of humans but I don't see how you can look at yourself as a meaningless accident of fundamental forces of energy, and then apply significance and meaning to yourself because you experience the phenomena of self awareness.The only thing that I see is apparent or universal about humans from the aethistic perspective is that we are very very temporary, we are only here by accident and chance, we have no universal purpose except to run the course that the energy in us pushes us. Once the essence of the human/energy configuration runs dry, there will be no memory or difference in the sum of the universe because of us.

Before you say that 'universal morality' would disappear, how about showing that it exists to begin with?

Ya, so? Does it make it any less relevant to our experience of the world? No. Morality helps us get along, thank goodness for the 'playground rules of survival'. I don't see it as a reduction, it's a statement of fact. And It is not offensive at all. We have meaning because as conscious beings we have the ability to ASIGN meaning. The man on the moon would be nothing without us.Further, have you ever looked at the pretty patterns in the colidoscope? Are they less pretty because they are the result of random forces?

The definition I found was:

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one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything

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As in, if 1+1=2, and if 1+1+x=2 then x=0. The extraneous term, x, should not be added, because it has no bearing on the outcome.So, if morality can be defined in wholly human, logical and reasonable terms, then God is simply an exreaneous entity that should be left out of the discussion because His existance or lack thereof is irrelevant to the argument.The definition you pose would allow such explanations as "God did it," because it contains the fewest words and is the easiest to understand. This does not make it right - it's not even an explanattion. It's a sidestep. Jump in logic. You are assuming that God MUST exists for morality to exist at all, and then using the existance of morality to prove the existance of God. This is a circular argument based on a false assumption. For it to be valid, you must prove that God must exist in order for morality to exist. Since morality can be defined without bringing God into the discussion, it cannot prove his existance.Your personal beliefs are your own concern, and you are by all means entitled to them. But to claim in a debate that the existance of morality proves the existance of God requires evidence that morality would not exist if He did not exist. Yes, says the argument. A circular argument. "God makes morality, so morality proves God." "The egg becomes the chicken, so the chicken proves the egg." See the problem with your logic?In order to prove that God creates morality, you have to prove that God exists. To prove that God exists, you say that the existance of morality proves His existance.

Huh? Atheists, for whom there is no God, prove you wrong every day by being good, moral people. An atheist can wrte down rules of morality just as easily as a Christian - if the ten commandments and the bible are your only source of morality, then an atheist could provide morality just as "universal" by writing it down in a best-selling book. Morality is an abstract concept created in the human mind by empathizing with other people. Yes, it likely was brought about via natural selection, where moral societies remained while immoral anarchies tore themselves apart.What you are saying is that you don't WANT to believe that morality could be something so simple, you WANT to believe that morality is divinely created because it somehow makes you feel "special." This is a logical fallacy - you have created a hypothesis and are ignoring evidence to the contrary becasue you really LIKE the hypothesis. Why not? I rather enjoy being self-aware. Sentience makes me more significant than a bacterium, or a rat, etc. I can define morality for myself, and I take pride in taking a stand for those moral ideals. Yet again, you are choosing to believe otherwise because you don't LIKE the idea that humans have no grand purpose. You haven't proven that we HAVE one, you just don't like the alternative. This is fine for determining what you choose to believe in, but in a debate it just doesn't fly. It's not a logical argument.