Didn't Epicurus and Plato DESTROY the idea of God with these two questions ?!

I don't have to refute the 'webs' of the Athenians. As our prayers say, Jesus did when He rose from the dead.

 

Adam and Eve lived in such a world as you described. The objective is to return to such a world. But if you get to heaven or paradise will you like it? What will be the point of praying when there's nothing to pray for? Theoretically you couldn't be "bad" even if you wanted to do it for a change of pace. You won't need priests, mullahs, preachers and so forth yakking at you about God so what will they do?

Can you really have morals if there's no reason to be moral? What good are they then?

 

You do know that the one who came to that conclusion was bribed by the Skopjians (who want to believe they are Macedonians) for their own political expediency? I'm not sure, but I think he's in jail.

 

How can 'gods' be the source of morality when they each have different attributes?

 

Maybe the one God had not yet been invented ...

 

Every suffering we encounter is meant to perfect our hearts and bring us closer to God. I'm speaking here as a Christian of course.

 

I completely agree.

Sorry, I should have said a source of objective morality. If God is the source of morality, that would make morality completely arbitrary to the temporal will of God.

 

The Bible does say that God beats the crap out of those he loves.

 

Haplogroup E1b1b1 originated in Eastern Africa and it occurs with greatest frequency in Africa but it does also occur in Greece, Albania and some parts of Italy. The subgroup E-V13 can be commonly found in Greece and it is closely related to the Ethiopian subgroups E-V6 and E-V92.

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_E1b1b_Y-DNA.shtml

 

Good point. Another reason why Plato's question fails, even in the context in which he meant it.

 

True that. However, most theists I've talked to have no problem with that.

 

God's will is not temporal. Can't be, because God is eternal. Often what we temporal humans think God's will is concerning specific morals is temporal.

 

Both these men ignored the first rule of honest debate which is to define terms.

Their foolish questions is seen in perspective once one defends the Christian God as "Truth," in the sense of an ideal.

Truth CAN prevent evil, but men must be able to see it.

Men living piously according to Truth are loved by the god who demands that they adapt to His environment or become extinct.

 

Well of course but the question is being applied to the notion that God exists and that he is benevolent. We are not suggesting that he is or that he should be but rather questioning the idea that he is.

Certainly but how does that God create us in his image? How does that God care and love us so much that he would give his only son for our salvation? Why would that God weep for us as theists suggest whenever something terrible happens? I don't disagree with what you've said but perhaps we are talking cross purposes. These questions are directed at monotheism and their claims about Gods benevolence and morality.

Theists don't throw the idea that God is moral out the window though. They tell us God is good they tell us God loves us and they know this beyond a shadow of a doubt but when we point out the horrible things God does they turn and say, how can we know God’s will. My point is that if we can't know God then we can't know God and there is no more point in trying to figure out why he does bad things than there is trying to suggest that he is good. Also if we can't understand Gods morality then how can we derive ours from him?

 

This thread has been fantastic with great debate and posts !

In the end, I still see it like this - if God determines morality, it renders morality meaningless. And if God is able to prevent suffering but doesn't, then God is not moral.

 

Such is the fallacious ad hom response of the ignorant

 

If God said that murder was moral, that would make murder moral, would it not?

 

the Old Testament is proof that rape, murder, and theft is all made moral when the desert sky god commands it.

pathetic, the thinking of the religious

 

There are some good ideas in this thread. One that I liked is the idea that some God created the Earth, almost as a kind of experiment, and then left it alone to see what would happen. This would not be malevolence.

Another interesting idea is that this realm is a sort of testing arena (think this is similar to Buddhist concepts) where the spirit hopefully learns a few things on the path to enlightenment. Depending on how one fares in this life will determine what level one will be placed in the next.

There are many different ideas and I think it is good and healthy to consider all of them objectively and with as little bias as is possible.

This type of thinking was banned by Christians during various time periods and one risked death to even speak of such things.

The main objective of both Christianity and Islam is to discourage thinking of ideas in relation to God and/or questioning the nature of God and the purpose of our existence.

Both profess "This is the way it is and if you do not believe you will burn in the eternal fire of hell"

Why I reject the aforementioned Abrahamic religions is because if we were not meant to think and question, what is the point of having a brain and the free will to use that brain.

If all God wanted was mindless non questioning robots, then God would have created humans as such.

 

experiments are done by beings who do not know things - God, by definition, is the all knowing so there is no point in him doing this experiment if he knows the outcome.

what becomes evil is that he knows his experiment will lead to suffering and let's it happen anyway - that's what a sociopath does. on the other hand, if God does not know the results of something, that means God is not all power or all knowing which puts his authority and purpose in question

 

I would actually disagree with the last part because as most of us here admit (I think) morality is subjective so God could choose to not prevent suffering and still be moral. I think it's better said that his hands off approach to suffering and the death of children certainly nudges him towards being malevolent and the fact that billions will and have gone to hell because of cultural circumstances beyond their control pushes him over the edge.

Edited to say anyone who could devise the idea of hell and eternal torment cannot benevolent.

 

understanding when a hungry poor kid steals a loaf of bread is subjective, even understandable.
but sitting by while millions die of starvation and famine and claiming that you love all humans beings is an oxymoron.

 

If murder is bad, as you and I and most other people probably assume it is, God did not, does not and will not ever command murder, because God is good.
To quote myself: "As for Plato: apparently he did not destroy the idea of God, quite the contrary: his idealist philosophy has influenced Christian theology probably more any other. For Christianity God is the ultimate "Form of the Good"."

I’m surprised that apparently you did not at least even bother to read the full length Wikipedia article on the “Euthyphro dilemma”. So if you need further explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

 

I could tell all of the kids jumping on the trampoline to stop getting all crazy and to be more careful I could even just make them get off but if I do nothing and one of them gets hurt they all realize the truth of what I was saying in a way I could never just convince them of otherwise. As a parent I can understand letting them learn things the hard or even painful way.

One could make the argument that this is what God is doing just on a much larger scale because he is dealing with life and death and the afterlife.

I’m not saying this is a valid argument or that it justifies anything I’m just saying morality is subjective and so it’s not hard to at least attempt to argue against the idea that Gods hands of approach is immoral. Of course that just creates another paradox whereas if Gods morality is different from ours how could we derive ours from him.

 

What is pathetic is that some atheists so willingly turn into fundamentalist Biblical inerrantists and confuse what an ancient desert tribe (rightly or wrongly) attributed to God with what is God. Of course I can’t speak for every Christian, but I and most Christians I know don’t believe for a second that God ever ordered rape, murder theft and genocide.