DescentBB

Lothar wrote:If God shared His system and you decided you didn't like it, nothing I can say could convince you otherwise.

I think God is in position to have the best value system, and I think (based on my understanding of the real God) that God's value system is going to necessarily, logically be best. But of course it's hypothetically possible to have some other God that had a wacky not-best value system.

Of course, there's no way to ethically evaluate either Gods' value system without first comparing it to another value system, which, in the context of individually choosing whether or not to follow a God, I believe is apt to be our own, personal value system. So when we say that one possible God has a best value system, aren't we really saying something like this God has a value system that agrees with mine? And when we say that another possible God has a "wacky not-best" value system, aren't we really saying something like this God has a value system that does not agree with mine?

I mean, you seem comfortable with the Christian God's value system, but you've also stated that your understanding of the Muslim God's value system leads you to believe that his value system shouldn't be followed even if He exists.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that religion, even if it does exist, doesn't seem to offer any viable ethical objectivity, because even if God does explicitly outline his value system to the world, it'll still be everyone's prerogative to first personally evaluate that value system for goodness based upon their own value system. And even then, I don't see any reason why anyone should have to either choose to follow all or none of God's value system. It's imaginable that somebody would just like the first half or the second half, etc. So now you have something that seemed to ethically have some objective purport devolving right back to individuals deciding what is right and wrong based upon their own standards all over again.

Lothar wrote:From what I know of Allah, I don't believe he'd deserve following. But if Allah came down and it was clear I had wrong ideas about Allah, sure.

see, that's the same way i feel about YahWeh; knowing what i know i'd rather serve a hypothetical Satan. But saying such controversial things in response to Drac's sermon* would have derailed the thread even more.

* which was quite controversial itself. if this isn't apparent it's because "majority rules" (<- Politically Correct translation of "circle-jerk", huzzah )

Thx for the split, thread makes more sense now.

If a creator god came down to earth (eg: the christian god YHWH) and said he created us all, then he'd be expected to be wise and all knowning about the human condition.

Woudln't he be wise enough to convert anyone and eveyone regardless? Even those who resist - thanks to his knowledge of how the human psyche works he would understand WHY they are resisting and be able to construct a perfect strategy to win them over.

So if an immortal creator god came down to earth, i don't see how he would cause any conflict. If he IS the creator god then i'm sure his philosophys (and ability to convince people of them) would be absolutely watertight. No-one can possibly resist infinite wisdom, love and patience. To suggest that anyone could resist him, would be to admit god's falability no?

with the right inside knowledge you can coax/manipulate people to do or think anything. God should have infinite ability in that regard.

God could probably do that if he wanted to, but most religions hold that God values free will very highly, and I think that it could be argued that God using his infinite charm to coax us into embracing a certain value system would violate free will to an extent. So if God partially resembles the one of most popular religions, then this probably wouldn't be an issue.

If we aren't talking about a God all that similar from the one described in popular religions, it's also possible that he would be apathetic beyond just telling us his value system. There's no reason to think that God would even really want us to follow it. It'd be like if we were discussing an ethical issue like drugs, and I said that only soft drugs are OK, whereas you said that hard drugs are OK too, and then we both just said, well whatever, that was what I think is right, but you do what you think is right. God could have a live and let live type mentality too.

So I think that God probably could do what you're describing, but it depends on what his value system is on whether or not he would given the hypothetical situation I've described posts ago.

But if it IS the absolute truth, is it really a question of free will?
It seems to me just a question of how good God is at explaining his (absolutely perfect) ideas. If he explains them well, then we'll all believe him thx to logic and reasoning. If he sucks at explaining them then his ideas will have to rub shoulders with all the other poorly explained ideas/philosophys out here - would you be able to pick it from the frey of all the other high minded ideologys?

If his ideas were perfect, then we would all have essentially been DESIGNED to react to them. The issue of Free Will is murky when you're talking about simple cause and effect. Logic is logic afterall, pure. If what he was saying was perfect - we'd know it when we see it. We all have B.S. meters that function at least plausibly well enough, we'd be able to feel something from absolute truth when we see it, surely.
Or not - if we wouldn't know it and would have trouble picking it from any other ideoogy - so it'd be destined to be lost in the noise - then what was God's point in comming down to earth in the first place? An experiment of the interaction of purity (his devine philosophy) with chaos (the unlikely probabaility of us paying attention)?

So it's Cause and Effect, it's all just maths. If you ask me, religious faith seems more a psychological test in gullability. Which makes me question the whole notion of an all knowing God in the first palce - why would an all knowing God be playing such games with us, he's assured to know the outcome. And what's the point in judging us for our reactions to it? If we don't think it's true - God should be able to understand why. It'd all be his fault, because before him we are surely as predictable as open books. Just as i'd blame myself if i triggered an ego defence reaction in someone i was counseling - i should have predicted it and gone about things differently. I wouldn't say my psych knowledge was subverting their free will. Hmm, but maybe it is? Big question that - i prefer to avoid it by trying to educate them about psych as well, so that i can't be said to be holding anything over them.

Jeff250 wrote:...but most religions hold that God values free will very highly

I keep hearing that all the time. What else could they say to explain the horrific events that happen to good people. Its a meaningless term used to explain away the things that don't seem to fit in a God world.

But, the only difference between a world with free will and a world without a God is personal, unproved, belief.. or faith to use another word.

Bettina

Roid wrote:It seems to me just a question of how good God is at explaining his (absolutely perfect) ideas.

In the context of God's values, you're going to have to decide by what standard are they perfectly good.

If God is the ultimate good, then God's values are only perfect insofar as they are self-consistent, so there's really nothing special about that, and it would lead to possibilities like God's values, and thus the ultimate good, consisting in things like human sacrifice, which seem intuitively wrong.

(This is, of course, why everyone in the thread agreed that we first have to use a different value system, such as our own, to first see if God's values are worth pursuing in the first place. But this also flushes out ethical objectivity and opens the door to relativity.)

Bettina wrote:But, the only difference between a world with free will and a world without a God is personal, unproved, belief.. or faith to use another word.

I never thought about it like that before.