Do morals come from God?

James R

James R

Just this guy, you know?
Staff member
Suppose God came down to Earth tomorrow, revealing his reality to all humanity, dispelling all doubts about his existence once and for all. Suppose the first thing he says is: "I am changing my Commandments. From now on, everybody must each kill one member of his or her family. It is right and good to do so, and wrong and evil not to."

Would you do it?

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God says you should kill your brother. He will not punish you if you don't kill your brother (i.e. you can "get away with" disobeying God), but He might be very displeased with you for disobeying Him.

Is it now right to kill your brother? As a moral person, you should do what's right - right?

If, despite what God said, it ISN'T right to kill your brother, then it seems that morality depends on more than God's say-so.

What do you think?
 
But what if it is a pretender who comes along and says all those things, eh? What if it's not a real god?
Annnyways....
In other words, is something morally right because god said so, or is god merely teaching us what's morally right? Well, if god is only teaching us what's morally right, that means there's a law above god's word, a law by which god himself abides. If something is morally right just because god said so, and if the situation you described indeed took place, then yes, we are in trouble. Although a religious person may say that we must trust god's will, and what is death after all if we have afterlife, etc.
But, you see, if we all went about killing each other with no second thought about it, the human race would ceise to exist by now or at least wouldn't be as advanced as it is; therefore, god couldn't have possibly said that chaotic behavior is morally right (since we are the ones who made god). All really depends on the definition of god.

I personally would follow my own judgement; then, I'd bear whatever consequences I deserve. I would not raise my hand against someone I love merely because someone told me to do so.
 
Morals, what really are morals any way??they seem like a pretty dogshitty subject wouldnt you say?
 
If you have any balls you will kill your brother. But I'm afraid that most religious people just are religious because it easy. But then again a small group will be willing to go to extremes in the name of religion. It is not so difficult to find examples of this (suicide bombers).

But then again. It could just be a test. Just like King Salamon ordered a baby to be cut in half.

Maybe god's test would contain the moral that it is better to be loyal to your brother than to a God who you have just met for the first time (equals stranger).

Maybe God likes fucking with your mind.

And maybe he doesn't.
 
Would a god that said something like that worth worship or belief anyway? I have always wondered why muslims and christians think Abraham [who was willing to cut his son's throat on god's orders] is admirable.
 
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James R said:
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God says you should kill your brother. He will not punish you if you don't kill your brother (i.e. you can "get away with" disobeying God), but He might be very displeased with you for disobeying Him.
?
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Suppose God, in his all seeing wisdom, knows that tomorrow your brother is going to rape and torture an 12 year old girl. You do not know this, but if you obey god, kill him today and and commit a seemingly immoral act - you actually save a little girl from a horrifc ordeal. (just for arguments sake).

How does this stand morally?
 
James R said:
Suppose God came down to Earth tomorrow, revealing his reality to all humanity, dispelling all doubts about his existence once and for all. Suppose the first thing he says is: "I am changing my Commandments. From now on, everybody must each kill one member of his or her family. It is right and good to do so, and wrong and evil not to."

?
Click to expand...

Suppose an entity called capitalism came to earth and the first thing he says is "I want everybody in the western world to really fuck over a couple of dozen families in the third world". Everyone who does this will live a life of relative luxury and pleasantness, anyone who does not obey will be rejected from society and will be forced to live in poverty and distress.

What would ya do then? go on what would yer do?
 
Wasn't there a passage in the 'ole bible that talks about God testing the faith of someone with the request that he kill his only son? I can't remember who it was, but it like many other situations mentioned in the bible certainly raised many concerns when I was exploring religion many years ago...

The spanish inquisition and crusades were also a sad inditement of listening to what you "think" is Gods will. Not to mention our recent problems with religious fundamentalists.

Personally i think all our morals are essentially steeped in the common wisdom of "do unto others as you would have done to yourself"

All ethics and morals seems to stem from this simple piece of reflective reasoning.

BTW Light travelling: interesting point!!
 
On a more serious note, the main "plot" of the bhagavad-gita is about krishna telling arjuna to go kill his cousins, because it's the right thing to do.
 
Is it now right to kill your brother? As a moral person, you should do what's right - right?
Click to expand...

If it doesn't feel right, then God hasn't changed the law, so of course I wouldn't do it.
 
Yorda said:
If it doesn't feel right, then God hasn't changed the law, so of course I wouldn't do it.
Click to expand...

And if it does feel right, we could continue htis on the canibalism thread.
 
If God did something like this to people, he would simply no longer be my God. I will always believe in God, but if his view of morality were different than mine, I would not follow it. This is true for anyone. If someone listened to God, and went against what they thought were their morals, than those weren't really their morals anyway. A lot of people say that God is perfect, but he made a big mistake by creating us in the first place.
 
But what you (not me) think as moral, since you're a god believer, is what you've been taught is right. How else do you know what's right. And if God comes and says that what you have been taught all along is wrong, that your teachers and parents have been lying (or were ignorant), then how would you decide which is true. In fact, up till now, you only knew what others told you about god, and what he dictated. But now, God himself appears and says this. And suppose that 20 years from now, all people who didn't accept it have been killed, and those who accepted it survived, and had kids, and taught them what god had said. then, this new generation would have a different set of morals than what you have. And they would believe in this as strongly as you believe in yours. So how do you decide which is true?
 
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Suppose God came down to Earth tomorrow, revealing his reality to all humanity, dispelling all doubts about his existence once and for all. Suppose the first thing he says is: "I am changing my Commandments. From now on, everybody must each kill one member of his or her family. It is right and good to do so, and wrong and evil not to."

Would you do it?

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that God says you should kill your brother. He will not punish you if you don't kill your brother (i.e. you can "get away with" disobeying God), but He might be very displeased with you for disobeying Him.

Is it now right to kill your brother? As a moral person, you should do what's right - right?

If, despite what God said, it ISN'T right to kill your brother, then it seems that morality depends on more than God's say-so.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Well it depends, lol. And this is the funny part why. In Revelations, the devil is supposed to show himself before God ever does. So anything that may be said that appears to be God, it'll actually be the words of the devil. So since God is saying to kill people, it'll most likely be obvious that it's the devil. However, imagine if God actually DID show up yet was saying things like love each other. Will people actually follow God's good, loving rules or will they think that the first showing is really the devil preaching those good things so instead everyone winds up doing the opposite of loving one another so they kill everyone instead as they don't wanna do as the devil says. Now that's really a problem because they'll never know who is who. If the devil talks about loving one another, then that means God is evil. But if the first visit is actually God, and not the devil, who's speaking of love, then the Bible lied saying that the devil would show himself first so that's bad too. Talk about one helluva Catch 22!

- N
 
If the traditional god exists, i.e. all knowing, all good, all merciful, all just, yada,yada,yada, Then by definition, whatever he says to do is the right thing to do, regardless of how it seems to you. Either he is right or you are right.....He's God! You're going to disagree with him??

God punished all the decendents of Adam & Eve for t their sins in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, I think we should jail the all the children of criminals. If it's good enough for God's justice system, it should be good enough for our's.
 
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