Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

Yahweh and Allah. Are they moral and ethical Gods?

Some say we cannot say or know, because it is all myth.

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

I think they are wrong as men can judge actions.

I think we can at least know if Yahweh and Allah, and the religions they spawned, are good or evil.

Since God is a Man interpreting God’s words, believers all following a Man.

We invent our Gods and put them above us. But ultimately get all we know of God, and his morality from others around us. Priests and imams interpret and are the spokes in the religious communication network. Those priests and imams are teaching violence against their neighbor instead of love. I do not see that as ethical behavior for any moral religion.

From what you know of Yahweh and Allah, and the religions they have spawned, would you say that those two War loving Gods, as we also love it in their image, good Gods, or would you say they are something else?

Regards
DL

 

I can't help but think that this has been brought up before. Is there anything about this thread that makes it more likely to generate constructive discussion than previous, similar threads?

 

I don't know but it seems that no theist is willing to say that their God is moral.

And the answer is so obvious to the non-theists that they are waiting for some theist to argue with.

I think I win this one by default of the theist side.

Regards
DL

 

Are parents moral if they punish their children for bad behavior. Answer that question correctly and you may have answered your own question as well.

You see, I suspect that the problem you have is not with the morality of God, but with your own understanding of what morality is.

 

Excuse me, when did a priest speak violence against another? Or better yet, when did a Christian priest speak violence against another since it would go against the doctrines and teachings of the faith he professes to follow?

 

God in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are pretty different from each other but this is too subtle for casual observers to notice.

In the most general terms, the Jewish God values creativity and initiative and appeals to a single bloodline. The Islamic God values submission and appeals to anyone who will submit. The Christian God is somewhere in the middle.

There's also the interpretation of God, the Jewish texts sometimes refer to God as "we", Christianity has the Trinity which says that God manifests himself in certain ways and Islam is strictly monotheistic.

Whether God is "moral" is a silly question if you really understand what God is said to be. Lots of liberal people have fundamental misunderstandings about the state of nature, they think that their assertions of how the world should be can "trump" how it really is if they whine hard enough.

 

If it's been brought up before, then he has some very crazy concepts of Christianity. First of all God is Pure Creative Love, and He cannot negate from Himself or He wouldn't be Pure Creative Love. When God in the Old Testament punishes, it's not because He is really doing the punishing, no more than a mother is the one that will burn her child if she tells him not to go near the fire.

But just like a mother who commands her child because she can't explain, God commands because He can't explain. We simply would not understand the consequences that take form because of our actions. That's why Christianity is considered a mystical faith. Everyone in this world is interconnected, so that the love within one's hearts proceeds and touches everything and everyone, and by the same token so does evil. Simply put, everything we do or say affects others in some way.

As for immorality, it comes from a weakened and fallen state, so the outward projection of an immoral person's heart is bound to have bad consequences...but not just for themselves, but for others as well.

 

The God of the Bible is angry, hateful, vengeful. Not really much of a role model for humanity.

Jesus? a celebite pacifist who hates money.

 

I believe it was Christopher Hitchens who quipped that the Old Testament reads exactly as you'd expect it to read if it came from the mind of primitive Middle Easterners. Yahweh is a violent nationalistic god who punishes his people's enemies and demands animal sacrifice. Kinda silly when you think about it.

 

Good people will look for good in their religions and their prophets. Bad people will do likewise. Warmongers will see war among the tactics for spreading the faith. Pacifiists will reject war as a sanctioned tactic. Any religion that lasts over a century will develop a series of allegories, quotes and models to accommodate either depending on the needs of times. Its all about prioritizing some of those allegories, quotes and models over others or spinning them to support the interests of the religion and its members during times of stress, growth, and hibernation.

 

They are jokes. I would rather worship my favorite fictional character (Drizzt Do' Urden anyone?).

 

Well, it's not really about "winning", is it? I'd much prefer a undecided dialogue than a walk over. The issues in the religious debate today lies much more in the failure to communicate than in the actual issues, in my opinion. We've come to a point where theists are unwilling to make statements for no reason, because they are used to words being turned against them, and that is a problem. Whether or not it's justified to turn their statements against them is beside the question. Only dialogue will improve the situation, and most of today's debates serve to stifle dialogue more than it resolves issues or deals with the disagreements (for some definition of debate and dialogue).

I'm a bit drunk, so we'll see if I'll stand by these words in the morning.

 

Where do you stand? Are you a religious person?

 

No, the phrase I most often use to describe myself is non-religious. However, most of my arguments are detached from the theist-atheist spectrum, I find myself addressing arguments from both sides, to the extent that I see them and find them interesting. They're mostly things like "how do we deal with the fact that we believe different things" (although I can't deny that I drive the odd "prove it" too). I have found that classical argument brings nothing, so my arguments, including this one would be much the same if I was religious.

 

If you start with scientific materialism you'll have a better shot at having reasonable arguments with others, at least the non-religious. I find that most of my issues are with those who are either religious or believe things that are similarly supernatural. For instance, I often have disagreements with liberals because they have merely replaced religion with equally unjustifiable premises about reality, namely egalitarianism. The best they have is John Rawls, which isn't too difficult to get around, though I'll admit his "veil of ignorance" is quite ingenious.

The primary obstacle to reasoned debate is herd instinct, in any form. Unfortunately, very few people are immune to this effect.

 

I strive to communicate with people in whatever way they need to be communicated with. You yourself point out that your main focus is on the religious, but your argumentative style of choice seems to be aimed at the non-religious. Can I hazard a guess that this tends to result in people not really getting your points or simply stop talking to you?

I suppose the problem can be phrased in terms of herd instinct, but I think there is more to that than just identifying it and giving up. People with herd instincts need to be convinced that you're not just out to hurt their herd, and as you can see on this forum, the religious are often quite convinced that atheists are just in it for humiliation or power struggle. Herd morality can't be addressed by those in it, so it has to be addressed by those who're trying to have a dialogue with them.

 

Well one could argue its god so he sets the moral tone of the cosmos, therefore any action he does is moral even if cruel. I would argue if god is moral then it should radiate out and be seen as moral regardless of how one looks at gods actions which is not the case to me he is immoral if one goes just by his actions in the Torah and OT and NT (he never did in Christ openly condemn slavery).

 

Gods are Gods, nothing to do with ethics or morals.
If you assume some Gods created the universe and you want to test their morality then try this:

Fact: There is endless accounts of injustice, suffering and cruelty and madness in the world.
If Gods are 'all capable' and 'ethical' they should have stopped all that.
If the Gods are 'all capable' but don't care, their are cruel and unjust and should not be worshiped.
If the Gods are ethical, but cannot stop this, they are not 'all capable' therefore not gods.
There is also the possibility there are no Gods, therefore the whole argument is void.

 

It is a silly question to people who realize that "god' in the Bible means Reality.
His son is Truth.

Our "morality" is the only thing to speak about, when you recognize that it concerns whether we, as a species, will survive by acting properly in the world that unfolds before us.

 

Worship of Mammon and attention to charity seems to have made the reality of other peoples' needs a modern consideration.
America spends $1 Trillion dollars on Welfare annually today.

 

The Reality has been that slavery is one of the twelve ways an economy can work satisfactorily.
The Serfs were able to survive for centuries during the Middle Ages.
India feeds 1 billion Untouchables by using them for something valuable enough to feed them.

 

Reality is the issue here, for sure.

Regardless that most religious people have founded their beliefs upon irrational ideas they (or their predecessors came up with), their opposition to sexual immorality supports the truth that it is destructive to human societies.
The act properly in Reality, in spite that their basis for accepting the correct behavior is erroneous.

Liberals, on the other hand, act improperly sexually, and use the claim that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities even when they damage families, hurt fatherless kids, drive up Welfare to $ 1 Trillion dollars annually, and see all the social institutions crumbling.

 

I can't argue with them because they reject most of my starting premises. I can certainly understand the utilitarian value of some of their ideas, but there are just so many points of contention. Even those who aren't religious, perhaps most, are guilty of doing the same thing. Most people develop an ideology based on what makes them feel good, and very few people are willing to accept uncomfortable truths, whatever they may be. I can't argue with the value of maintaining good psychological health, even at the expense of truth, but I think people take it too far and create other problems.

This is exactly how I feel about it. They may not understand the basic premises, at some level, but they somehow get to the right conclusions, at least with respect to this issue. This is the value of tradition, and it shouldn't be dismissed lightly. We don't always know why something is valuable until it disappears.

 

No they're not. Using aggression against your own children makes you immoral. That raises adults who believe violence is completely fine if the other person is weaker than they are. Why? That's what their parents passed to them.

 

I was talking about punishment, you're talking about aggression and violence; two different things.