Comments on: Whence Comes God's Nature?

By: Agnostic Universe » Blog Archive » The Nature of God

Agnostic Universe » Blog Archive » The Nature of God — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:52:18 +0000

[...] often look to outside content for blogging ideas. There is an old post on Daylight Atheism called Whence Comes God’s Nature? It touches on some good ideas as to why I can easily reject the religions of my fellow humans. Even [...]

By: Larry

Larry — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:52:05 +0000

No such thing as a "perfect" God. Perfection demands and begets perfection. Everything connected to this "God" is flawed.

By: Kennypo65

Kennypo65 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:12:57 +0000

Great post. It reminds me of a quote: "Men rarely(if ever) invent gods superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child."-Robert Heinlein

By: Thumpalumpacus

Thumpalumpacus — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:35:58 +0000

You can thank Tom Aquinas for that, iirc. Or was it Anselm in one of his proofs that planted this seed?

By: Tolerance

Tolerance — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:21:22 +0000

I would just like someone to explain to me how it came to pass that God is presumed to be perfect, anyway? The first few books of the Old Testament is filled with instances where old Yahweh messed up, changed his mind, etc. Hell, he even admitted once that the whole damned venture of Creation was a bust and decided on a do-over, via the Flood!

Fundamentalists make such a big deal about their literal translations of the Bible; I just think they should be held to their own standard. Any claim you make about God and Jeebus should have explicit backing from your Holy Book; no going off reservation with your own interpretations! (Something about jots and tittles, I think, and not adding or subtracting any of these from the Word, or some such.)

Anyway, if the Bible itself shows that the Old Testament God was not "perfect" by his own actions, why do we define him these days as being perfect?

Just wondering

By: purpletempest

purpletempest — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 21:08:09 +0000

It sucks coming late to the party. :(

Can we vote, like in a poll? If there is a god, then I vote he is C) The Moral Relativist God.

It's been my personal opinion that any being that could qualify as a deity would have a mindset so far removed and alien to our own that it would just not comprehend morality as we do.

By: Nes

Nes — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:59:53 +0000

Arch, I don't know about anyone else here, but Ebonmuse has clearly read Mere Christianity and, well, didn't exactly find much substance to it.

By: OMGF

OMGF — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:07:35 +0000

And those answer the objections put forth how?

By: Arch

Arch — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:14:03 +0000

I highly recommend reading a copy of the Confessions of St. Augustine, which can also be read online: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1101.htm
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis is another good one related to some of the current topics. It can also be accessed online:
http://www.philosophyforlife.com/mctoc.htm

By: Quath

Quath — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:21:56 +0000

I have used this argument before on a Christian web forum to point out that Christians have a fine tuning problem as well. I point out that materialists can at least talk about other possible universes or other pockets of physics within the same universe. Creationists can't go the same route because they are reluctant to suppose many different gods.

But I like how this article focuses more on the "does it make sense" angle. I had not really thought of it in those terms before. (Maybe because I see the whole thing as not making sense.)

So kudos on another great article.

By: Mark C.

Mark C. — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:21:19 +0000

And of course, option 2.ii makes us wonder what the nature of God is and why it happens to be such (and exactly how are believers to determine this, anyway?), which is the subject of Ebon's post. Full circle--excellent.

By: Mark C.

Mark C. — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:17:03 +0000

Just recently I've become somewhat convinced that the Euthyphro Dilemma is a false dilemma and that the true situation is a "trilemma" (if that's even a word)--either that or one of the horns of the dilemma means more than most atheists I've seen talk about the ED think. The horns, fully differentiated for clarity: 1. God acts in accordance with a standard of goodness independent of himself. 2. God acts in accordance with a standard of goodness dependent upon himself (this includes issuing commands): i. The standard is arbitrary and may be regarded as produced by God. ii. The standard is not arbitrary. This option has been presented by Christians as "God's nature is the standard". No matter how many options there are, I nevertheless think there are immense problems in the acceptance of any one of them, not the least of which is that an epistemology and ontology compatible with the existence of this god must be argued for prior to arguing for or accepting any of the horns of the dilemma/trilemma. Without that, I imagine the only argument could be something akin to the severely flawed Pascal's Wager, which, of course, is entirely unconvincing to anyone with any philosophical sophistication who doesn't already believe. (Sorry if some of the text is gigantic compared to the rest... I'm not sure how that happened.)