Only God determines what is right and wrong

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Who do you think should guide our ethics?

  • God
  • Athiest Philosophers
0 voters

I have to write a paper on that subject, So is anyone willing to contribute any quotes, thoughts or rants on the subject?

So if we firmly place all belief on scriputers that relate to divine revelation as a source of our moral compass what possible disasters do people see apperant? Is there something better then merely having philosophers debate on the subject of ethics to determine Good vs Evil. How as a society should we allow God to determine our social standards. Did Moses and Jesus or Muhammed (pbut) set a standard that has yet to be challenged or do Marx and Plato have the solution we desperatly seek?

2

I think philosophers should guide our ethics not god.

god should guide our morals.

moses may have been inspired by god to write the rules and ethics in leviticus, but he (or whoever wrote leviticus) was clearly writing his own POV into the book. which creates a controlling religion that controls your ethics.

the same way church and state should be seperate, church and ethics should be.

3

If god inspires or shows a revelation then that is the will of a supreme being controlling man and teaching man what he does not know. And thus it is God choosing our ethics. Philosophers debate and cannot fully comprehend the consequences of say “torture”. Is torture okay against terrorists but then who is a terrorist. This is only one example of many but ultimatly torture can never be acceptable since it becomes a slippery slope in which justified injustice becomes the norm. But Church and State is not what I am trying to debate, its whether the fundimental basis of Western Society “Christian Law” should be taken and stripped from the foundation and replaced with Athiest Laws. Where perhaps abortion for all retarded childeren is acceptable.

If you really think Philosophers are the “God” sent then why not have all laws debated upon. Why shouldn’t we allow Gays to marry each other. Were does their right supercede social morals and ethical boundries? Why not allow incest either? I mean if your saying that God should effectively be taken out of the equation to what point does society say ‘NO!’ this is ethically or morally irreprehensible? Who dictates our laws if not God?

4

I don’t know that abortion for all retarded children would be acceptable. philosophy would bring about debate of the law, not a set law.

atheist religion on the other hand would.

I think that if they find a way to fix the DNA to make kids not be born retarded that woud be ideal. as for abortion, i’d rather the young girl do that than have a baby in the toilet, or throw the baby in a dumpster.

which would you rather have?

edit:

why shouldn’t gays be allowed to marry? it’s their god given right.

Incest is simple, it creates defects thus should not be allowed. and incestual behavior is usually brought out through some type of child abuse, where as homosexuality is there from birth.

5

It doesn’t matter what is scripture, divine revelation, God, philosophy or laws. None of those determine for us what ethics is or the definition of good and evil. It’s the I that determines the ethics, morality and standard and principles of life and living. Generalize this I to all - humans, insects, birds, animals, germs and ocean-life, etc. We experience life and so we must take our examples FROM life. Nothing in life is bigger than life itself - no God, no messenger, no philosophy and no law. Therefore we decide what our ethics will be since WE experience life individually. God does not experience it for us, messengers don’t experience it for us, philosophy doesn’t experience it for us and no law in the world experiences it for us. So the I decides and determines what is right and wrong and not God, that is why every I has its own mind and a heart too. The only thing others like God, messengers, philosophy, laws and people like Murphy, do for us is put things in perspective, but the DECISION should be ours alone.

6

Hmm scythekain you do raise a good rebutle but what about things humans cannot be certain about. It is said that “no society that chooses Women leaders will prosper” and I honnestly believe that. Again this is something God has dictated to humans, a seemingly unjustifiable notion but what if God controls everything and refuses to let that happen. What if there is a heaven and hell are we to think that actions in this life don’t have concequences sometime in the future?

But leaving heaven and hell out of it, ethically speaking who distinguishes what is right an wrong. If philosophers believe its okay or nessecary to have slaves then should it be ethically right? Or if no slaves is it ethically right to use horses. I mean some Buddist philosophers would be opposed to the notions of the use of horses as transportation of plowing a field.

Hmm I know i’m grasping but let me rephrase my arguemnet… Where do our ethics come from in the treatment of Blacks, Animals or Terrorist even? Is there some finite codes that humans widely accept? Should God’s laws not be our supreme guide?

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BeenaJain if I understood you correctly your argument is to take examples from nature. But as human beings as a society we must concede we are superior to natural law. Social Darwinism is probably the most frightening idea of that concept. I fail to so how societies prosper without adhering to the basic concepts laid out by Divine Law. I have yet to see any society that could disprove the notion that it is only by God’s will that any society can prosper. If everyone was homosexual in this culture or engaged in very vulgar sexual acts at what point would God not allow us to prosper or even destroy us if need be. Idealy there have been such cultures in the past, Greek culture for one instance and many more. Yet these cultures in their entirety have not been able to survive. Sure they have Greek culture to this date, but its not the same one as say 1000BCE. Although idealy no culture is the same but one must concede the same moral characteristics are apparent in these cultures today. So should adherence to God’s law not be the supreme aspiration of any society?

8

Hahaha! That’s downright funny! We don’t know there is anything called God or Divinity but we DO KNOW that life, nature and natural law exists, we see it in motion all the time. There’s the earth, it goes 'round and 'round. You didn’t create it nor did I. We don’t know the force that controls it and sustains it and WHY? But we do know that it’s all nature and natural law and is beyond and above all our human power. And after all this you have the guts to say that, “if I understood you correctly your argument is to take examples from nature. But as human beings as a society we must concede we are superior to natural law.” How the hell can we EVER be “superior” to natural law? What kind of logic is that?

The truth my dear is this, “Life has a way of taking care of itself,” therefore I can say life is its own God because it is its own justice system. Therefore I took NATURAL LAW to be supreme, why wouldn’t I? It’s something I’ve seen but I haven’t seen God. Besides, life or natural law has all the attributes that we say God must have like, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. Then why wouldn’t I say that nature is God when it seems to be. And since we are products of that nature so we get to decide anything individually in our life and not any UNSEEN God!

You also forgot something else. It’s this very natural law that creates the concept of God in our midst or how would we envision it? Then how can God be greater than natural law and if even God isn’t greater than natural law then how can we ever be greater than the same natural law when we are below God? My dear, NATURAL LAW IS THE SUPREME GOD! All this prophets, messengers, holy spirit, word of God, etc., is something determined by natural law to bring order where there is chaos. This means natural law is not only self-sufficient but complete so you can’t argue with it. NATURAL LAW is the mind of the universe you can say. I don’t know which world you live in. Try walking in space upwards and go to the top of your house, see how successful you’ll be because you believe that you are more supreme than the natural law. Or you know what try flying like a bird to the moon, better still go to one of those galaxies or stars - close, very close! :wink:

All the beauty of nature and life that is ordained to us that is nothing in your eyes when you yourself are life, a natural life form? How can you put down nature like that? Just because you think there is a God? But this God even if it’s there will always be below the natural law or what we call life!

9

you don’t honestly believe that do you?

peoplespot.com/features/wome … eaders.htm

plenty of societies have prospered from woman leaders.

as for god dictating that? where in the koran? not everyone believes in the koran so why should it be the absolute justification for ethics and or morals? because you deem it god given? (we’ve been down this road.)

blacks should not be treated any differently skin color is not a justification for different treatment. (if you believe christ we should have “agape” unconditional love of all including terrorists.)

Terrorists imo (I’m only human) are completely evil.

not everyone believes in god, so gods laws cannot be our supreme guide. if they were atheists would have no guide.

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i dont understand your reasoning here… how does “natural law” (whatever that is) create god in our midst? i dont personaly believe in god, but i dont see why noticing patterns in something that someone created means that the person who created it was created by the patterns… I must be missing something…

what have you seen exactly? I havnt been able to visualy grasp many of natures patterns without various technologies and abstractions and conceptual devices…

are you saying that you’ve seen the earth go “round and round”? I sure havnt, but I’ve employed that linguistic construct because it best accounts for the thousands of periphery observations that I have made (or more often have been made for me via books and tellevision and other people speaking to me about the topic).

but i certainly didnt walk outside one day and open my eyes and “notice” or “observe” the world spinning. that level of perception sounds rather god-like to me.

I don’t think that “society” is “superior” to “nature” however… I wouldnt even know what that means… it sounds like a very odd way of describing things…

but the same goes for it’s opposite… i mean what is “natural law”? I’m aware of some “laws” of nature… as in some descriptions of our world devised by humans to accomplish certain goals (explanation, control, prediction etc.). is that what you mean?

if it is I hardly see how that could be “supreme” to any other useful descriptions of things… why would descrbing the earth going “round and round” be “superior” to descriptions of a novels worth or the best way to build a house or the type of society you’d like to participate in or the reasons why you adore a lover etc etc…

I mean, the earth spinning (and I’m just taking that one example because you brought it up) is only really a useful description for physicists and engineers or those who wish to share their vocabulary… it certainly doesnt aid me in deciding how to act with regards to other people (morality)…

11

I’ll make the long story short for you, ok?

Life proceeds according to THE NATURAL LAW but our actions should have God’s thinking behind them.

Therefore we cannot argue with, “life and death,” “change is the law of nature,” physical and chemical laws in nature which govern us, essentially nature because the natural law controls it. But our actions are not governed by natural law and they must be governed by God’s thinking behind them. So life is an amalgamation of natural law and God. I don’t know more.

12

CyruxMafia,
Can I borrow that pic of Christ in your post for putting it on my site? I don’t have any others.

13

This is a confusing (or confused) thread. There are laws, ethics, and morals being thrown around as if everyone know’s exactly what that means. Could someone please lay out some specifics including definition of term to facilitate intelligent conversation?

JT

14

Only God decides right and wrong

This is an strange question, giving strange results, neither of which are good for theists. Well, to start off, there are two options that I see (please let me know if this is a false dichotomy concerning this question)

God decides what is right and wrong

If God decides what is right and wrong, then that means that for God, there is no right and wrong. The statement, God is good, would become moot. Because if God decides right and wrong, then he himself is above right and wrong. And if someone is above right and wrong, they can’t be either, or neither for that matter.

Right and wrong are independent of God

But, if someone wnats to say that God is good, like mosts theists would, then right and wrong would have to exist independent of what God does. They would probably have existed prior to Him if they existed outside of him, seeing as morals don’t really age.

Just thought I’d throw that out there. :smiley:

But, for my honest opinion in the matter, I feel that humans are capable of designating right and wrong without God (simply for the fact that our morals have changed drastically, and heaven would look weird with only people from the 20th century up there lol), but the instrument of religion helps keep people in line. People are apt to stray from goodness without the religion whip cracking them now and then. Santa’s watching, right? :slight_smile:

I will raise my kids religious, but if they have any questions, I will give them the truth about what I feel, and try not to indoctrinate them any more than extreme atheists or sunday school teachers would.

15

your just chanting slogans at me… why dont you try and answer my questions?

you can keep using the phrase “THE NATURAL LAW” untill your blue in the face but if your not willing to explain how you came to believe in these laws then I’m not going to accept their validity…

what if I was just to sit here typing “THE EARTH IS STATIONARY”?

Would you expect me to justify that statement, or at least explain by what means I had justified it to myself?

I listed my concerns with the concept and you’ve just restated your intitial comment. come on… honestly…

16

rob-

I brought up some objection, what are your thoughts? I’d like to hear them while you wait for his reply.

Sincerely,

Floyd

17

saw a great ep of family guy last night that covered this exactly.
stewie wanted plutonium from santa, santa in the mall told him to be good, so he did for fear of not getting his plutonium. (of course mary made a great snide remark about “being a virgin”) that’s how I think the religious GOD, is depicted. The big bad parent up in the sky who when you die and don’t do all his rules to a T, will kick you to the curb (hell in this case), and if you somehow DO manage to follow all the rules, you get to goto heaven. here’s the big question.

What the hell is heaven? do you believe what some guy in the bible, koran, book of mormon says about it? is that why you follow religious doctrine to a T? or do you fear god kicking your proverbial ass?

god is an undisciplined discipliner (peck). he’s great at doling out what to do, what not to do, but as soon as we land in a spot of trouble where is he?

18

scythekain-

Congratulations, you are now my favorite user. Family Guy is the best show, period. That was a hilarious episode. :smiley:

do you believe what some guy in the bible, koran, book of mormon says about it? is that why you follow religious doctrine to a T? or do you fear god kicking your proverbial ass?

If I asked someone why they were religious, and they gave either (or both) of those answers, I would conclude that I stand a better chance of getting into heaven than them. Or, at least, the world God made which would reward ignorance and irresponsibility is irrational.

Some people I have talked to simply believe in God because they do not want to risk hell. Is this sort of attrition and false belief going to fool someone as smart as God? I doubt it, but I never let them know how obtuse that seems.

But, as a thought to your first question, the reason most people believe in God is because they have been taught to do so from a very young and impressionable age. I would be interested in hearing any Chrsitian’s reasoning for concluding they would still be Christian if they had been born in Iraq, or vice versa. Religion itself is a social institution, perpetuating itself by the indoctrination of small children, much like the episode of Family Guy you mentioned.

Sincerely,

Floyd

19

Socrates demonstrated that god or the gods can only declare something as good if it is good to begin with. Things arn’t good or bad because god declares them, rather god declares them as good because they are good to start with.

It is wrong to pose the question of authority about our ethics between “god” and “athiest philosophers”. Right and wrong is independant of both, and through reason we can discover what is good and what is bad. You mention Plato but have you read him --if you haven’t you should for your paper.

20

your points all seem fairly reasonable… given the question, which I find kind of incomprehensible… like asking do squiggles or do dots decide pictures?

i just wanted to make that natural law guy face some of the epistemological difficulties with the ridiculous crap he was saying…