The Morality of God

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

This is expressly for a particular member here who refuses any words used to explain morality, “because they are just words”.

So to discover the morality of God without using words, one can simply do the following (although of course he will still need to have someone sign this to him. So if you see him, try to relay the message).

To discover the Morality of God “down here in his Dasein dilemma world” without using words, first take off any glasses or contacts that you might be wearing. Then place your finger very close to your eye as though to examine it very closely, even though you probably can’t focus on it.

Then very quickly and sharply poke that finger into your eye.

At that moment, you will sense the true Morality of God, without having to hear a single word, although a few might follow. You won’t see God, but you will definitely sense his presence.

[size=150]The Morality of God[/size] (for those who can read words), is simply this;
“There are things which you don’t bloody want to do to yourself, so don’t do them or suffer the consequences.”

Or perhaps in moral elegant language;
“Thou shalt not do unto thy self what thee want not to suffer the consequences thereof.”

Of course there is a corollary to that moral involving poking someone else in the eye;
“Thou shalt not do unto others what thee want not to suffer the consequences thereof.”

Feel free to gather scientific evidence supporting “The Objective Morality of God” theory.

2

Note to others:

If there is anyone reading this who [in turn] subscribes to James’s flagrant distortion of how I speak of the relationship between dasein, conflicting goods, objective morality, God and language, please try to reconfigure his words above into an argument that is a bit more, say, intelligble.

What things, James? Suppose, for example, a woman is pregnant and does not want to be a mother. She chooses to abort her baby. Now, there are actual flesh and blood folks who subscribe to any number of actual conflicting religions [Gods] “out in the world” who go to one or another of their “scriptures” in order to obtain a perspective that is deemed to be a “transcendental” font upon which to base their decision. In other words, to predicate their behavior on what they construe to be in accordance with the will of one or another denominational God. Or of a God as they think of Him “spiritually” inside their head…or of a God they have experienced “personally”.

Now, with respect to the manner in which you construe the Real God, how would such a decision be made? How would it be judged?

And what of the consequences suffered by the unborn baby – the shredded fetus? How is the good perceived by some here [that it be allowed to live instead] reconciled with the good that others derive from a world in which women are not forced to give birth?

Or is your "the Real God’ irrelevant here because what that is is contained only in the manner in which to define it/him/her into existence?

And how is this post related to the points I raised on the other thread:

[b]There are any number of folks here at ILP who claim that they “believe” in God. And that is based largely on how they have come to think and to feel about God. Thus, as far as they are concerned, they have had their own “personal experiences” with God and that is good enough for them.

Or they give arguments regarding the existence of God in which the “truthfulness” of the argument is based almost entirely on the meaning they give to the words IN the argument. Words pointing basically to other words for confirmation.

And if [emotionally and psychologically] this comforts and consoles them [I know that it once did me] okay, fine, whatever works.

But that [to me] is not the same thing at all as being able to demonstrate the actual existence of this God – other than in their head.[/b]

Or:

[b]Me, I always prompt folks to examine all of the particular elements of their life that predisposed them to believe in one particular rendition of God rather than another. Then to note that there are hundreds and hundreds of other folks who were predisposed existentially to put their faith in a different God.

Then to ask themselves: How can I convince others to share my own rendition of God? Especially given that Salvation itself might be at stake.

Finally, I ask them to probe honestly the extent to which having faith in God might be linked to the emotional and psychological comfort and consolation that one can obtain from a belief in God.

But then, eventually, we get down to the part where just having a belief in God is not the same thing as demonstrating the actual existence of this God. It merely denotes the fact that you happen to believe in this or that God.

And, again, if that is as far as you want [need] to take it, fine.[/b]

Can you discuss these things substantively, James? Or is yet more twaddle on the horizon?

3

I’m just going to ignore iambiguous at the moment. The problem that I’ve found, James, is that some people don’t mind poking themselves in the eye. I know you were using that metaphorically and so am I. While you or I may be comfortable doing one thing, another person may not be. We each have our specific hang-ups based on certain things in our lives. True morality has been defined already as the concept of God based under the old saying ‘I Will Be What I Will Be’, known more as ‘I Am What I Am.’

If God is everything, then moralistically he is even the immoral. On some level, an immoral person may know they’re immoral and just not care enough to do anything about it; this doesn’t note a lack of morality on their part for they know what they do to be immoral; they just don’t have a reason to care. On some level, an immoral God knows he’s immoral and is obviously working to do something about if that God exists; which includes the addition of extremes to fight each other into a more neutral balance favorable to himself.

As you see individual to individual the indecisiveness in them and the choices they make taking them to alternating ends of the spectrum; the true morality of God currently remains in doubt at the present moment; though that’s not to say there’s not a part of him distant from that and looking on with true impartiality in the matter. I can say this with certainty because it’s a part of myself to be able to do so; though it isn’t a perfect thing in my opinion, which may be faulty due to lack of information. I’m willing to make that bet than to think that I have all the information already when I know there’s information nobody can truly give through the channels we have available to us in modern society.

Which is why I went old school and reconnected inside my own mind. I’m connected with countless people and we do trade thoughts and emotions and converse on that intimate level subconsciously. I don’t think all of them are quite fully aware of this, yet. If not, those who have begun to sense this inner connection do need to wake up.

The question of God’s morality is a question of balance. No matter what we do, the balance must be kept. It will always be kept. These moments like this only determine who has the upper hand. Over the past countless eras of our known history, it hasn’t been the good guys. We are hitting an alignment; or have hit one. It’s well known astronomically, I guess; I could be wrong on that. It was something floating around; anyway.

It’s a matter of who is going to fight hardest for it and at this point, it’s becoming quite embarrassing that they flaunt it so openly and nobody is doing anything about it and they know it. It shouldn’t be as easy as it has been for them and they’re coming to realize that the system they corrupted was actually trying to serve their better interests. The recent generations, at any rate. They’ve become lax and lazy without true opposition for a long time because most just let it be.

They shouldn’t be allowed to have their way all the time because it ruins what they love the most about life, too. When people become too smart for their BS and stop playing their games. And really, that’s what it’s all about. If people aren’t having fun, what’s the point? Stop people from living; make rules to keep them safe and protected and they’ll never understand and will never remember just what they need to be wary of in their fellow man. They know it, now. They just don’t want to admit it; they’re going to force it to come to a head and they’re just sitting there with bated breath as everything goes to shit. And, I hope it doesn’t come to them.

The simple fact is that if you had something I needed to survive and you were doing fine while I wasn’t; I would steal it. I might steal something from you even if I didn’t ‘need’ it just because I wanted it if I knew it was something you wouldn’t miss. You want to call me on it? I’ll feel like shit about it and we’ll become better friends for it and I’ll respect you more for it. I won’t steal from my best friends, though some times the random impulse snags me up.

I would kill a man if he came at me threatening my life. If I needed to, I would kill a man to survive. I’ve thought about killing people just because; that’s there. I will never do that, because it serves no purpose for me. I do not want to fight; I do not really want to kill. I just want people to try to do things more reasonably instead of having their emotions completely dominate them. It’s a respect thing, for them to be able to respect themselves more; not for me to respect them. I would respect them so long as they honestly admitted that was their problem and that they were trying to work on it. If they were serious, I would help them because I would understand.

If I didn’t understand their pain, I wouldn’t be moved to try to help them with it. I know that in the past people have told me to seek counselors to which I denied because I didn’t trust counselors based on past experiences. And, I knew I could do it myself given enough time. So, I know that on some level people want to do things on their own. On another level, I would have appreciated it if people could have given me some help and support at times and so I try to give the help and support that I lacked, in careful moderation.

I know that I’m an angry person. I have a lot of hurt inside of me and it’s hard to contain, especially when people rile me up. I don’t like being petty because I’ve had people be petty and vindictive to me and didn’t like it one bit. I would rather be up front and settle the matter with some honor; which is a somewhat faulty concept given what honor leads some men to do in their ignorance. I try to temper my anger around people that have yet to deserve it and to greet them as equals and with respect until they show me otherwise because that is what I expect from others.

When I’m wrong, I want someone to call me on it. I’ve noticed that when people do bad things, they mostly want attention and it will keep presenting itself through their subconscious until they’re completely confident in what they do and parade it out in front for everyone to see. I don’t want people to beat around the bush because if they know something that could help me, then it sure beats doing something harder than it needs to be done. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but prove it to me, because I’m a stubborn asshole. Don’t just have false confidence because that pisses me the fuck off and I will tear you a new one. Know what you’re talking about and actually use reason and logic. Otherwise you do nothing but piss me off and that goes back to the earlier paragraph I wrote about my anger; to which you’ve seen.

I’ve got no problem being lazy, but over time I’ve seen the value of hard work and simple work and working for what I want instead of trying to scheme or manipulate or bullshit. I always want more, but to appreciate what you have is even better; especially if what you want would be wasteful. To do things right breeds respect in others, even those who aren’t as moral as you.

I make friends because no matter what you are or what they are or what your opinions and beliefs are or what theirs are; if you make a good and solid friendship, it doesn’t matter whether you’re right or wrong because they will get your back even if they tell you when you’re right or wrong. Not everyone is a good friend and a lot of people will fuck you over if you let them in this era; I’ve noticed seems to be the going trend. Stupidity, because all they do is cause people to be smarter; eventually they will get caught in their own traps, every single one of them, no matter how good they are. Even the ones who take their secrets to the grave and were never seemingly caught up were caught up all the same in the various emotions and everything else that came with.

The true morality of the world is.

4

Likewise…

True. But God didn’t say to be the hedonist and “do what thee like”. God “said” (metaphor) “don’t do what thee want not to suffer the consequences thereof”.

God formed an extreme variety of intelligence as decision-making life, and basically said to all, “go forth, make your own decisions and suffer the consequences”. He didn’t say, “if it is fun, do it”. He said to make your decisions based upon the consequences, not how much you like doing things.

The challenge has been about who/what can make the decisions that lead to their own preferred consequences. Everyone and every living thing guesses. That is what a life is, a guessing entity. And no one truly knows the consequences. Thus the entire world has unfolded accordingly.

God doesn’t stop people from doing dumb things. God doesn’t stop people from helping others not do dumb things. God doesn’t stop people from tempting others into doing dumb things. The only thing that God does, is bring the consequences.

That is why some “bad people” seem to do quite well while many “good” people suffer greatly. People don’t really know the consequences of their actions. They have to guess. And it isn’t an easy calculation. Thus many, in trying to help others, have given advice, “God wont like that”, meaning of course, “That is going to bring bad consequences for you”. Some listen and some don’t. That is their decision. They don’t know who to listen to. That too is their decision. God merely said, “give it your best shot and gauge by the consequences”.

That makes it even more difficult for everyone because many are guessing that making it more difficult for everyone ELSE, will bring the best consequences for themselves. That is their guess. Some realize that reacting negatively to others who make “bad” guesses, is their best guess. Of course those make it difficult for others too, because they first try to guess at what is “bad” before they compound their error by guessing at who is doing it. They were advised against doing that, but oh well…

Temporarily bad consequences are often followed by extraordinarily good consequences. Often the reverse.

God can deal with the consequences of his own actions. The challenge is whether people can deal with them.

My guess is that it is more an issue of “how” one fights, not so much “how much”. But everyone makes their own guess concerning both.

Watch for and predict the consequences.
How else could one guess what they are going to be in order to avoid those one doesn’t like?

“Praying to God” doesn’t mean, “Wish for what you want”. It really means, “Consider the consequences of what you do to get what you want and thus what it is that you really want to do.”

5

Right and there you go: If you can’t man up for the consequences of what you do; you shouldn’t do it. Even if you can, you shouldn’t just do something because you can. That can be a reason, but should never really be the sole reason unless its harmless fun. It’s not just about consequences to our selves, though there is that, too; but the overall consequences to everything and even if it is all just momentary; I’d rather see people raised up in a world that makes better sense.

And some people think they can do that up until that crucial moment when it comes time for them to do so. Not true. Most people would rather try to avoid the short-term consequences without thinking much into the long-term. They panic. And, even if someone faces the consequences for something big, it doesn’t mean that they always will, though it’s a good sign.

A lot of the problems in society have been caused by people no longer wanting the consequences of what was happening. We’re a fickle lot to keep happy, from what I understand so far.

6

God is both the Cause and the Consequence (“Alpha and Omega”). Consider both when you “pray”.

7

Common experience makes it clear that things happen to people without in the least having been the cause in any way or not in any way they’re aware of. It becomes an Act of God which in principle would seem to renounce any morality on God’s part.
…but maybe you mean something else by it.

8

What are called the “Acts of God” are not the responsibility of one’s morality. That is why they are forgiven in court.

Morality is about what one should be trying to do, not about what happens to a person regardless of what they chose.

As far as God’s own morality, it should be clear that God can handle whatever consequences God brings. Thus God is following exactly that same morality. Do you hear God praying to Man to not punish him?

9

True! One side of morality would be its outward manifestation in how one treats others while doing good unto oneself is the obverse of the same principle.

We invariably extent to God our moralities, beliefs, etc. which to me is like sending an email to place that doesn’t exist. It sinks into the void but the message remains with the sender as testament of his own wishes and ideals…which are not always particularly moral.

10

By all means, ignore the points I raised above. I’m quite used to it. You and idioticidioms can then predicate your arguments on the assumptions you make about the existence of God and discuss the consequences of human behaviors down here as though they don’t revolve around the subjective assumptions that individuals make regarding punishments and rewards meted out for behaviors that are said to either reflect or transgress conflicting goods.

11

Social morality is derived by how one should treat others for sake of oneself. The simple minded version of that thought would imply that one should never sacrifice anything for anyone else. But the more intelligent version requires that everyone participate in a degree of risk so that everyone is better off. So the individual is required to take risks that are not directly associated with any benefit to that individual (somewhat like paying taxes). And by everyone being willing to take such risks, the average amount of risk required becomes minimized, far less than what an individual would have to have faced on his own. That is why it is important to get a lot of people participating in the same kind of way, so that they can benefit by each others sharing of the risks.

That is how social ethics or morality is derived (by those who derive it rather than merely presume it). The manner in which the risks are taken varies by the structure of the society, so social morals are subjective to the social structure or type. Social morality/ethics is not universal. Some societies drive on the right side of the road, some on the left. And some don’t drive at all.

It is exactly like telling Reality how it “should” behave. Quantum physicists, Secularists, and liberals love doing that, but it gains nothing but argument and conflict since Reality couldn’t care less. The major religions know that and “worship” their guess as to how Reality really works, whether their guess is justified or not. When they proclaim a “sinful act”, they are saying that the person is doing something that they recognize as bad for himself. When they say, “God is angry”, they are saying, “Reality is about to kick someone’s ass”.

12

I don’t get why God has to be a part of this. Why is the silver rule not enough without God? Confucius didn’t need to invoke God and he stated it several hundred years prior to Jesus’ golden rule.

13

The standards for different societies are different. That includes their language.

If you don’t want to call the underlying principle(s) of the universe by the name “God”, I’m pretty sure they/it won’t mind.

Just keep in mind;
“Thou shalt not do unto thy self what thee want not to suffer the consequences thereof.”

Because the underlying principles of the universe WILL kick your ass concerning that one.

14

That’s pretty well how it used to be when there were more villages and towns compared to the mega cities we have today. It was a matter of necessity whose “duty” requirements were usually not considered optional.

Within the main urban areas today this shareholding of risk exists mostly in ethnic enclaves still practicing a degree of reliance on each other. Aside from that the “simple minded version” is now in control.

Those who are really and involuntarily “sharing the risk” these days are those who are collated into economic tiers as for example the middle class which by definition is flanked by upper and lower layers. The former shares the least amount of risk operating more as parasites on the middle class when they screw up while what the lower layers of society have to share is mostly their misery because very little “risk” is taken on their behalf.

15

Our groupings would have succeeded if we had kept them to small towns and villages where everyone knew each other. As much as one can measure success, anyway. If we had done that while building the greater society around it, with that ideal at its core; our societies would be a thousandfold better.

16

That’s all very true. But what you are saying is “watch out for how your particular environment reacts”. How people actually react is the “real” structure of their society. At the moment, the higher governors of the Western world are dictating a change in structure and thus are quite intentionally making it impossible to discern how others might react. They promote confusion of every type. Thus expect that because right now, that is how society will react - unpredictably. They want you insecure and feeling it.

Such a structure (or lack thereof) makes any morality tougher to follow. But the “Morality of God” is still the same, regardless of what they do because all it is saying is “make your best guess in not doing anything that will bring nasty consequences”. The fact that you can’t do that because others are ensuring that you can’t, doesn’t change the moral. It merely forces “sin” upon everyone, including those in charge, due to later consequences. No one can keep track of what will work best at any one moment, because of the degree of confusion and deception. And that is why it isn’t nice to deceive other people.

But it is much like weathering a storm. Once they redefine America, instill their New World Odor, and begin to make it clear as to how they want everyone to behave in their utopia, the Morality of God will be easier to follow. But right now, they intentionally don’t want you to be moral, but rather making mistakes, getting arrested, gaining bad reputation, anything and everything that keeps you weak so that you are not a challenge to them. They respect the Morality of God to the degree they understand it. They believe that it isn’t going to come back on them.

And a form of that is the distant future (after “they” fail).

17

I don’t believe that God has to be part of a moral narrative itself. After all, any number of human communities have concocted one without him. One or another rendition of “humanism” in other words. Some more rather than less “ideological”.

I am myself a moral relativist – a moral nihilist. But lots of folks claim this is tantamount to embracing the belief that everything is permitted. But, of course, that is not the way the world works at all. Historically, there have always been a number of factors that motivated us in creating functional social interaction—relationships in which behaviors are both prescribed and proscribed. Moral codes are, after all, only partiuclar rules of behaviors embedded in particular historical and cultural contexts.

And, sans God, they can be predicated on many factors. For example:

• Genetic/biological predispositions What are these? Well, of course, no one really knows for certain but it is obvious from cross-cultural ethnological studies that all people seem to have built-in capacites to experience and express a broad range of emotional and psychological states: compassion, empathy, fear, agression. We have a survival instinct. We have sexual libidoes. We have primitive impulses that stem from the reptilian part of the brain. The naked ape parts, as it were.

• Cultural predispositions Each of us is born into a culture that shapes and molds these biological/genetic tendencies into a veritable smorgasbord of actual brehavior patterns; indeed, for 10 to 12 [or more] years, all children in all cultures will become thoroughly indoctrinated to view right from wrong just like Mommy and Daddy do. Many in fact will literally go to the grave understanding little of how this works. Even fewer will make any significant changes in it. Though that seems to be less and less applicable in our “post modern world”. Here, increasingly, “lifestyles” seem to be all the rage. And that often revolves around pop culture, crass consumption and celebrity.

• Individual autonomy And yet despite receiving all of this deeply engrained acculturation as youths, we all become adults eventually and have to make our own way into and out of the moral labyrinths. In other words, we all come to intertwine these many, many existential variables into our own individual sense of reality—encompasing, in turn, own own individual moral compass. No two are ever exactly the same however. Each being the embodiment of dasein.

• Rewards and punishments These play a huge role in how we come to see the moral circumference of the world around us. We act so as to be rewarded by those we love and respect and admire and depend upon. We act so as to avoid sanctions from those we don’t. But this can becomes one contingency laden psychological mishmash of ambiguous and ambivalent frames of mind. Often revolving around the personas that we employ and games that we play.

• Political economy Marx was right. Human social interaction revolves fundamentally around the need to sustain biological existence. We need food and water; we need a roof over our head and clothes on our backs; we need a relatively stable environment in which to reproduce; we need folks who are able to defend us from enemies—inside and out. This is why men and women have always agglomerated into communities throughout history. And that revolves ultimately around power. It matters little what you believe is right and wrong if you don’t have the power to enforce and defend it. So, human moral agendas have always reflected the basic interests of those with the most political and economic power.

• Death A particularly tricky component here. In order to understand why we act as we do above the ground you always have to factor in how folks regard the fact that sooner or later they are going to be six feet under it.

And all the other factors I missed.

Bottom line: God is not necessary here. But God [an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent point of view] is necessary [in my view] if we shift the discussion to objective morality.

After all, without God who [what] is there to turn to when we do have conflicting value judgments about conflicting goods?

Anyway, here are two sites that at least make the attempt to tackle the relationship between morality and God

blog.talkingphilosophy.com/?p=1595

christianunion.org/publicati … r-morality

No mention of RM though.

18
19

Is there or is there not an extant God able to make the final determination regarding which human behaviors are moral or immoral?
If there is no God then “right” and “wrong” is relevant only in particular historical and cultural contexts. And each and every individual can only grasp these relationships from his or her own particular existential vantage point.

On the other hand, some argue that science and/or philosophy is able to make the determination [sans God] by grappling with conflicting goods rationally [deductively, inductively] and deriving a moral obligation through Reason.

That’s where I come in. I ask folks who believe in objective morality [even if not applicable universally] to bring their thoughts [their arguments] about this “out into the world” of conflicted flesh and blood human interaction so that we can discuss/debate their conclusions more substantively.

Something you have always refused to do, James. At least with me.

20

Is there or is there not truth?
You have stated that you believe in an “objective reality” (aka “truth”), although by your ranting, it wouldn’t seem that you believe in truth. Which is probably why you never recognize when someone is agreeing with you.

…which has a lot to do with: