• Gregory
    4.6k
    The fact remains, for there to be a God he would have to have the power to forgive sin. For is he not everywhere? Whenever he applies his power, which is identical to his goodness, to a soul the soul is cleansed. But this is contrary to the knowledge we have of the conscience and imperatives. How can moral responsibility be taken away from a human who has wronged, without his complete consent to the change? And would not the change in itself change the person, without God removing anything? So with this power taken from God, we have no God at all.

    We also know that when we trie hard for something good, we have acted good. This shows the impossibility of a God who merely possesses the good, without effort or trying. For how can God be effort or trying in it's essence without having ever to try? Any grain of effort is greater than any merely possessed good. So God would have to be something of a god (lower case) like the Greeks thought, in order to make sense according to reason

    So it seems we can know that classical theism is false
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    So it seems we can know that classical theism is falseGregory

    Well, at least that the classical 'God' is unlikely, due to self-contradictions. It's hard to sit on a fence, so we would like to know, but all we have is probability to go on.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Very few people ever get much certainly about things in life through their own intellect

    Kant quoted with approval the words of poet Haller: "The world with all its faults/Is better than a realm of will-less angels." I would add a God who doesn't have to strive to that list.

    "And what a sigh of relief men will breathe when they suddenly discover that the living God, the true God, in no way resembles Him whom reason has shown them until now!" Lev Shestov
  • frank
    14.5k
    So it seems we can know that classical theism is falseGregory

    The classical God lived in the firmament, aka the sky. They thought the sky was a hard dome. It isn't a dome, so classical theism is false.

    To the oppressed, the inability to forgive is a curse. Bitterness mangles the soul and transforms the innocent heart into that of a monster. This is the oppressor's final victory: that he turned you into something just like himself.

    The way out is through love, and by love, forgiveness. How does one come by this love? Through divine grace. This is Christianity.
  • Valentinus
    1.6k

    "Classical Theism" is only what you decide it will be. It is not a thing delivered to a person with an instruction sheet.
    If it were, then we would not have to talk about it.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Christianity doesn't just say that God helps you with grace to forgive yourself and others. Many say that Jesus's death washes the sin away (is the "prime mover" in this). Catholicism in particular say the words of a priest wash away sin. This is an immoral position to hold. Guilt is personal, so only something personally done can wash it away. Forget placing it all on someone innocent
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    If someone can commit murder and God can step in and wipe it clean, that's evil. I don't want to hear excuses like "he repented and so God wiped it clean". If it is true and complete repentance than it would wipe one clean by itself and what even is left after that for God to wipe clean? God is irrelevent to this, except as a helper. We all need help, but forget asking "God" for it. Many of us swim in Kantian ether all day. No chance of something coming from another dimension. No elephants walking through my area from dimension 11
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    If someone can commit murder and God can step in and wipe it clean, that's evil.Gregory

    Yes, so easy to erase. One can also say an act of contrition, avoiding the confessional and the hundred Hail Mary and Our Father prayers. And to think of the time wasted hearing about mortal sins sending one to Hell and more. No dinosaurs living on my Ark.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Christianity has also hijacked the idea of a family friendly culture. It use to be Church law in the dark ages that children of priests were to be enslaved. Instead of getting to know their father, they were made slaves.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    The old testament says teaches that God can order you to slay your family. This was never revoked in the new testament. Christians allegiance is to someone besides their families, if you are to follow the Bible
  • PoeticUniverse
    1.3k
    Christians allegiance is to someone besides their familiesGregory

    Worship 'God' over all else, all the time. That's why humans were created on Earth.
  • Fine Doubter
    200
    "The old testament says teaches [sic] that God can order you to slay your family. This was never revoked in the new testament."

    The incident with Abraham seems to reflect a moon worship sort of situation. The meaning of the story was to show that a better way of worshipping was replacing that.

    There is no Bible teaching without its meaning, despite what Pat Robertson says.

    As for your earlier question I think that the contrast will become clearer when times become appreciably harder than they were in Kant's day bless 'im.
  • Christopher
    53
    I find this quote by Richard Dawkins to be insightful: "An existing god therefore would not be a being greater than which a greater cannot be conceived because an even more formidable and incredible creator would be a god which did not exist."
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    Dawkins is taken by many theists as spouting nonsense. That the quote from Christopher seems in line with what the East says actually matters in ontology. I want to read Evola's book East and West next, as soon as I order it
  • Bartricks
    6k
    I don't follow your argument. Indeed, you make some claims that seem incoherent to me. You say that God's goodness and his power are the same - but that's confused. God's goodness is going to consist in his approving of himself. God's power consists in the fact he can do anything.
    Anyway, I don't yet see a problem - forgiving someone involves adopting a certain attitude towards them. Doing something wrong involves doing something God doesn't want you to do (more than that, no doubt, but at least that). What's incoherent about the idea of someone doing something that someone else doesn't want them to do, and then that person forgiving them? I'm not yet seeing the problem.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    God's forgiveness is completely external to the sinners soul. Christians most often think God can remove the sin. Calvinist think God's does this against the sinners will. These are all immoral doctrines. My other point was the work is good because doing something hard is wholesome. A God who was forever and is forever in eternal bliss knows nothing of this. So although all objects or even natures could be reflected by God nature, not all actions can. Therefore he is not the greatest being
  • Bartricks
    6k
    I still don't see what problem you're highlighting. God is good just if God approves of himself. So he can do what he wants, as long as he approves of himself he will be good.
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    If you want to make stuff up (faith) and believe in your lazy God, that's on you
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Any grain of effort is greater than any merely possessed good. So God would have to be something of a god (lower case) like the Greeks thought, in order to make sense according to reasonGregory

    I'm confused. Why would you criticize God and then be open to a god? If you don't like "G"od then why stop your attack at "g"od?

    Wouldn't it be better to say that there are no gods but only humans, some more powerful than others and everyone knows how that plays out - the weak/poor suffer and the rich/powerful have fun?
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    As I pointed out, to strive for goodness is better than merely to posses it. This certainly must apply to "God", and even to us if we are God in some way. We become better by work and virtue, not by the grace of an idolized divine nature
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    As I pointed out, to strive for goodness is better than merely to posses it. This certainly must apply to "God", and even to us if we are God in some way. We become better by work and virtue, not by the grace of an idolized divine natureGregory

    Oh ok!

    Better the tree that stands in the storm
    than what's inside it, the cozy worm
    but...some say
    to bend and flex to the wind is the way

    there is grandeur in blood and sweat
    yet Sisyphus will always lose the bet
    roll the rock to the peak
    always the valley the rock will seek
  • Gregory
    4.6k
    2 Corinthians 11:30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

    This is the consequence of playing responsibility on some perfect "nature". "The Lord worketh in me" they say. 2 Corinthians 10:17 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

    And then there is the temptation: 1 Corinthians 3:21 "So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours"
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    The fact remains, for there to be a God he would have to have the power to forgive sin.Gregory

    That is an assumption to a power that we all have.

    In fact, as victims to sin, we have the first right of forgiveness and not some god who cannot possibly be hurt by us puny humans.

    You seem to have put restrictions on god by saying he would have to have some power.

    How do you happen to know what a supernatural being can have and cannot have?

    7th hand hear say or a book of myths?

    Regards
    DL
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    Whenever he applies his power, which is identical to his goodnessGregory

    Goodness??

    Do you see a lot of good in Yahweh and others who would use genocide and kill when they could just as easily do what Jesus said he came to do, --- which was cure and not kill?

    Show the goodness in genocide or a god who would use it please.

    Regards
    DL
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    So it seems we can know that classical theism is falseGregory

    If by classical you mean the mainstream garbage religions we now suffer, I agree.

    That is caused by the literal reading of myths.

    I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

    https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

    Further.
    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

    Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."
    Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

    "Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

    Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

    This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&list=PLCBF574D

    Regards
    DL
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    Through divine grace. This is Christianity.frank

    True, while Christians ignore the fact that their free will is being manipulated and denied by a god whose scriptures say decides in all of us who will believe or have faith or not by god's hardening of our hearts, or not, with his grace.

    That is how stupid and immoral the Christian ideology is. A vile slave making, homophobic and misogynous ideology.

    Regards
    DL
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    This is an immoral position to hold. Guilt is personal, so only something personally done can wash it away. Forget placing it all on someone innocentGregory

    Have you ever tried to talk morals to Christians?

    They always run for the hills as they cannot justify their genocidal god, let alone his vile and immoral ways.

    Regards
    DL
  • frank
    14.5k
    That is how stupid and immoral the Christian ideology isGnostic Christian Bishop

    What moral framework are you employing here?
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    What moral framework are you employing here?frank

    All morals are subjective and I am using the system prescribed in scriptures which is basically the Golden Rule, even though that rule is a lot older than Christianity and Judaism.

    Gen3;22 Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;
    1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

    If you allow others to set your morality, especially Christianity with it's immoral genocidal god, then you should wonder what in hell are you doing?

    Especially given their record of immoral homophobia and misogyny.

    Regards
    DL
  • frank
    14.5k
    All morals are subjectiveGnostic Christian Bishop

    You mean all moral statements are subjectively true? Are they also objectively true?
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    You mean all moral statements are subjectively true? Are they also objectively true?frank

    For the one individual, I guess we can say that his moral decision is subjective and once his decision is made, it might become objective to him alone.

    Since it is individual and subjective at the beginning of the evaluation process, I don't think I would say it has become objectively true.

    Objective to me means that there is always only one answer to a moral tenet and I do not know of any tenet that does not begin it's evaluation from a subjective POV.

    What would you say is an objective moral tenet?

    Regards
    DL
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