God right by virtue of being the creator ?

[Frozenwolf150]

When confronted with Euthyphro's Dilemma, religious people of my acquaintance won't see it as a dilemma at all. They will unhesitatingly say that it's the first. It's good because it is commanded by God. God is the ultimate arbiter of what is good and evil. He gets to do that because he's God.

My response to that is, if God can arbitrarily decide what is good and evil, then there is still no objective moral standard because it's based on God's changing whims. God can, and HAS, made murder illegal on Friday but legal on Saturday (e.g. stone the Sabbath breakers to death). Sure, it's a commandment that you shall not murder, but how shall you not murder when God says you shall murder in so many other places and times? If God is this consistent, there's no reason to follow such a capricious monster as a moral exemplar.

This is the point of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was perfectly ready to kill his son, just because God told him to. Since everything that God does is good by definition, there is no evil in killing your own son if it is done at God's command.

Interestingly, the Jewish interpretation of that story is that it was written to mark an end to the practice of human sacrifice, which was quite common among tribal cultures of the time. God wasn't so much telling Abraham to sacrifice his son as he was demonstrating the new custom of sacrificing animals instead. Had Abraham been following the existing customs, he would indeed have killed Isaac. It's analogous to the Mosaic law of "eye for an eye" and how it was intended to limit punishment and retribution to fit the crime, as opposed to the previous practice of escalating violence until everyone ends up dead.

 

[tsig]

This is one of the horns of Euthyphro's Dilemma:

What is good and just is good and just because it is commanded by God.

The other one is that

What is commanded by God is commanded by God because it is good and just.

But both are unsatisfactory because if the first is true then morality is simply arbitrary. If God told you to, say, murder your own son or massacre your neighbours or hand over your daughters to be raped then obviously it is good, despite what we may think, purely because God says so.

If the second is true, then there must be an independent standard for morality outside of God's will suggesting that God is unnecessary for morality.

The beginning of all Abrahamic religions.

 

[tsig]

I suppose this is similar to Nick Bostrom's idea of the simulation argument.

If it was discovered that that advanced computer simulations could accurately make new worlds in which conscious beings indistinguishable from us in many ways lived, and I happened to be the creator of such a world, could I be justified in saying, "Right, I'm bored now and I'm going to switch off my laptop!" Or would I be ethically bound to keep the programme running ad infinitum?

If you created such a world would they let you shut them off?

 

[angrysoba]

If you created such a world would they let you shut them off?

They couldn't stop me.

 

[MontagK505]

If you created such a world would they let you shut them off?

Unless they had some control over the machine their simulation was running in, how could they stop you? And if you did shut them off, it would be like they never existed.

 

[angrysoba]

If you turned them off, they would be unaware. It's if they never existed.

How's that different from killing them?

You could restart the program and they would be unaware they were ever off. I don't see any ethical problem.

Not if the shutting down of the program necessitated their ceasing to exist. You could restart the program and begin with more artificial life-forms but they will not be the ones you switched off any more than the next time you played Sim City or whatever the latest similar type of game is around these days, is the same city as the one before.

Of course the issue gets more complex when you create artificial beings that are acting in our world.

I think you are making an arbitrary or even a false distinction. A conscious being that has been created by a computer is "in our world".

 

[MontagK505]

How's that different from killing them?

Not if the shutting down of the program necessitated their ceasing to exist. You could restart the program and begin with more artificial life-forms but they will not be the ones you switched off any more than the next time you played Sim City or whatever the latest similar type of game is around these days, is the same city as the one before.



I think you are making an arbitrary or even a false distinction. A conscious being that has been created by a computer is "in our world".

If you restart your sim-city at exactly the same point you left off, then as far as the sim is concerned it's as though nothing happened. If you restart the simulation, you are correct, it is not the same one as before.

 

[arthwollipot]

Well, I am sure that like just about every other thing connected to religion there are bound to be competing interpretations about this.

Other interpretations would be that the other horn of the dilemma applies and God was testing Abraham's loyalty as a mafia boss might. Or the fact that God later says he was joking might suggest that killing Isaac would have been wrong.

Interesting that you consider these ideas to be incompatible. Believers are perfectly capable of rationalising both thoughts into one single worldview.

They tend to get a bit uncomfortable again when one then points out that it was therefor perfectly moral to split your daughter's skull open with a rock if you caught her in bed with her boyfriend, and that the reason they don't have to do that now (according to the standard "new covenant" apologetic) has nothing to do with such an act being cruel and hateful, but rather with an arbitrary decision by God to change the rules. If God later changes his mind again and demands such bloody violence against one's own children, then, by God, it must be perfectly moral to do so.

Pffft. No they don't get at all uncomfortable with this. That was Old Testament Law, which no longer applies because Jesus.

 

[arthwollipot]

My response to that is, if God can arbitrarily decide what is good and evil, then there is still no objective moral standard because it's based on God's changing whims. God can, and HAS, made murder illegal on Friday but legal on Saturday (e.g. stone the Sabbath breakers to death). Sure, it's a commandment that you shall not murder, but how shall you not murder when God says you shall murder in so many other places and times? If God is this consistent, there's no reason to follow such a capricious monster as a moral exemplar.

When God orders it, it's not murder. How could God - a maximally good being - order someone to do something that He has already said is evil? It's absurd.

 

[punshhh]

You appear confused.

Where in my post did you read anything ressembling that ?

In the following quoted passage you put yourself in the position of god; "there is nothing in existence but me" and "I have the power to create universes". Now where does the morality you are using ("I have the right of arbitrary life and death over them? I would think not") come from?

I realise that it comes from you, as you are the only thing that exists and you have human values. Its natural that you should adopt human morality in that case. But if the only thing that exists, is an unknown and it creates universes, what morality would it adopt? Or would human morality apply? As it would if it were absolute or universal.

Let's say I wake up one morning and realise that I have the power to create universes. I create one and watch what happens, and play around with it a bit. Then I realise that some of the creatures in it have developed consciousness. Do I have the right of arbitrary life and death over them ? I would think not. Now, assume that instead of waking up in my bed in this universe, I do so in the void because there is nothing in existence but me. Do I magically gain that right, now ? I am, by any definition, god at this point, but the only parameter that changed is that there is no universe prior to me. I don't think I have that right, and I don't think god, if he existed, would.

I disagree. I think we are more than justified to judge even our creator if he steps outside of what we consider to be the bounds of morality.

You are applying human morality to our creator, which may not be relevant, unless it is a universal morality.

 

[punshhh]

That doesn't make them rational answers, it just makes them the logic of fanfic.

They are answers for why believers hold those opinions. Not of course, answers about the morality of any gods that might be out there.

 

[Belz...]

Then you missed my point. You want an answer to a meaningless question because the belief didn't evolve from any kind of rational contemplation. The belief didn't arise from a philosophical point of view which is the question you are asking.

It's like asking if child who is throwing a temper tantrum because he is overly tired if really wants the toy you just took away from him. The tantrum is not a reasoned action about the toy.

Isn't it ? I hear a claim from you but little else.

 

[Belz...]

We might think so. But the designer might not care.

That's true but totally irrelevant to my point.

Again.

You could restart the program and they would be unaware they were ever off. I don't see any ethical problem.

I do.

 

[Belz...]

You are applying human morality to our creator

No, I am not. Again you are confused by simple sentences. I am saying that we have the right to judge others based on our own moral values, regardless of whether those others respect those values. That is the OPPOSITE of an absolute.

 

[HansMustermann]

I've heard variations on this argument before. If you say, "Suppose I created a life form, does that give me the right to kill it?"

The religionist would say, "No, you didn't create that life form, God created it through you. God is still the prime creator."

Feel free to substitute child, or world, or universe.

This of course begs the question, and ruins the whole analogy by way of special pleading. Parents do not have the right to murder their children. An architect does not have the right to burn down the house s/he built. I would even argue that it's questionable whether an artist has the right to destroy a work s/he has just created, because once that work is released, it speaks to and belongs to the whole world. It is no longer solely the property of the artist.

Well, somewhat in religion's defense, back in the ancient times you did have such rights, to various extents. E.g., yes, a pater familias pretty much owned his children, and was well within his rights to even kill one or sell one or two into slavery.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I recall Kierkegaard having an unusual take on this; he held that following divine command was an imperative by virtue of coming from the creater, but that it was above or beyond mere "morality", and not about "right" or "wrong", which was up to the person themselves to decide.

 

[GDon]

I'm curious about why some theists (many, in fact) believe that god's laws are just and good by simple virtue of being written by god, presumably because, as the creator of the universe, god knows best, or at least, being powerful enough to kill anyone who disagrees, should be obeyed.

No, it is because the definition of the Abrahamic God is "omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent". If God wasn't all-good, then He wouldn't be God. An all-good God's laws would be just and good, by virtue of being written by an all-good God.

 

[GDon]

This is one of the horns of Euthyphro's Dilemma:

What is good and just is good and just because it is commanded by God.

The other one is that

What is commanded by God is commanded by God because it is good and just.

But both are unsatisfactory because if the first is true then morality is simply arbitrary. If God told you to, say, murder your own son or massacre your neighbours or hand over your daughters to be raped then obviously it is good, despite what we may think, purely because God says so.

If the second is true, then there must be an independent standard for morality outside of God's will suggesting that God is unnecessary for morality.

If the second is true, then why must there be an independent standard for morality? If God is all-good (which is part of the traditional definition of the Abrahamic God), then the standard of morality would be within God Himself. I.e. What is commanded by God is commanded by God because it is good and just. God knows that it is good and just because God Himself is (by definition) the standard of all that is good and just.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I would have to question the sanity of a God who creates reality and then expects his creations to deny it.

 

[aggle-rithm]

No, it is because the definition of the Abrahamic God is "omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent". If God wasn't all-good, then He wouldn't be God. An all-good God's laws would be just and good, by virtue of being written by an all-good God.

It's all good. We know it's all good because the all-good God said so.