Is it moral for God to punish us?

Greatest I am

Greatest I am

Valued Senior Member
Is it moral for God to punish us?

Is it moral for an all-knowing and all-powerful God to set in motion a history that he designs and then condemns others for?

We live in a history that God has set up and is fully responsible for. God, punishing man, who can do nothing but follow God’s plan and the nature God has put in us, is having innocent people suffer for the wrongs God himself has pre-destined and which cannot be altered.

For example.
God chose to have Jesus sacrificed. God, in his planning book would also have decided who would kill Jesus. There would be no way for that man to not kill Jesus or God’s plan would fall off the rails and in this case, we would not have a messiah or scapegoat to ride into heaven.

Some will say we have free will but as shown in the example above, Jesus’ killer could not refrain from killing Jesus without derailing God’s plan. Further, to pre-destine any one action or condition within a history changes all other conditions and pre-destines all conditions within the plan. Think the butterfly effect.

Having said the above and having shown that we have no free will if anything is pre-destined, I think it would be quite immoral for God to judge or punish us for being and doing exactly what he pre-ordained for us in his plan. We have no choice and to punish us is immoral.

Do you agree?

If not, why not?

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Is it moral for God to punish us?
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The question has no meaning, because if there is a God his actions will have nothing to do with morality as we understand it. Morality is only really valid when you understand the relationships between people/entities - and even within human society we can't agree on what is moral.
 
billvon said:
... even within human society we can't agree on what is moral.
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That is because it is only collective opinion within some realtively closed group - not any law of math or physics.
 
billvon said:
The question has no meaning, because if there is a God his actions will have nothing to do with morality as we understand it. Morality is only really valid when you understand the relationships between people/entities - and even within human society we can't agree on what is moral.
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I do not agree as most people do agree on what is moral or not. In a general way that is.

Note that almost every religious and legal system recognize that reciprocity is fair play.

That is that we should do unto others.

As to God existing. I agree that his morality would not apply as he would not have a standard of morality. Thaose are only developed by entities living in groups and it is said that there is only one God.

Regards
DL
 
Billy T said:
That is because it is only collective opinion within some realtively closed group - not any law of math or physics.
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I f morals are subjective, you would be right.

If morals are objective, then that would be as good as math or physics.

I think that most morals are subjective except for the only two I cannot refute and that would be that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and the Golden rule.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
I do not agree as most people do agree on what is moral or not. ...
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That only reflects your limited knowledge. Some societies encourage lying, stealing, if well done, so as not to get caught.
http://www.gor-now.net/delphius2002/id93.htm said:
The entire Spartan way of life for male Spartans was directed toward keeping their military at its peak strength and efficiency. The training and education of Spartan boys structured toward this objective as well. And the regimentation they underwent during this education would continue throughout their adult life as well. This regimented training though did not begin until a Spartan boy was seven years old. ...
When a boy turned seven, he would leave his home and go to live in a communal barracks within a type of military school. The system of training they received was called the "agoge." One of the intentions of the agoge was to weaken family ties and to strengthen a boy's identity with the city. This was meant to instill a greater loyalty to Sparta than one's own family.
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The boys were taught to call all older men "father" to emphasize that their primary loyalty was to the group and not their actual families. ... When the boys turned twelve, their training changed and become more oriented toward military prowess. Most of their time was now spent exercising, hunting, and in weapons training. ... The boys also learnt about Spartan values and the laws they must follow. At the common meals, the boys would be regaled with tales of Spartan courage and heroism. ... The boys learned toughness, discipline, pain endurance, and survival skills. ... They were also intentionally underfed so that they would be hungry. The boys were thus expected to steal food, developing skills of stealth to allow them to accomplish the task without being caught. If they were caught, they would be harshly punished and shamed. Punishments were often painful and also intended to toughen up the boys.
Any boy who could not survive the difficulties of the agoge would fall into social disgrace. He could not become a Spartiate and would thus be denied the full rights of a male Spartan. Such failures lived their lives in shame.
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Plato in his Republic also recomends children be taken from their parents at quite an early age and communially raised - This more to prevent a privliged class from coming to power - no one knows who is their blood relative so special favors are not given - youth advance on their skills and merits.
Also very common in the ancient world was "exposure" of weak babies. There were ritual spots on hill sides where they would be left to die. Not uncommonly, by being picked apart by vultures, which knew the locations well.

Still think there are universal morals?
 
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timojin said:
We punish ouself. We are under free will We human create our own evil and our own good . So don't blame others ,
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So we created hell.

Thanks for your idiocy.

Lets see if you are to retarded to understand the following.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."
But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

Regards
DL
 
billvon said:
OK. Is it moral to kill six million people to save sixty million? If most people agree, that should be easy to answer.
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That is an unfortunate circumstance but, yes it is.

It is much more moral than allowing the sixty million to die.

If you disagree then you are not a moral man.

Regards
DL
 
Billy T said:
That only reflects your limited knowledge. Some societies encourage lying, stealing, if well done, so as not to get caught. Plato in his Republic also recomends children be taken from their parents at quite an early age and communially raised - This more to prevent a privliged class from coming to power - no one knows who is their blood relative so special favors are not given - youth advance on their skills and merits.
Also very common in the ancient world was "exposure" of weak babies. There were ritual spots on hill sides where they would be left to die. Not uncommonly, by being picked apart by vultures, which knew the locations well.

Still think there are universal morals?
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Where one has finite resources and must maintain a strong fighting force for the society to survive, yes.

Regards
DL
 
Greatest I am said:
Where one has finite resources and must maintain a strong fighting force for the society to survive, yes. Regards DL
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That would be true of the Spartins - why weak babies were exposed, (left to die on hillsides), why youth were taught to steal, but do it well, so as not to get caught, made to endure pain without crying out - all to make the best fighting force the ancient world had - make Sparta survive in the war with Atheans.
 
Those were hard times and without hard laws, they would have died out sooner rather than later.

Things are getting hard in Europe thanks to immigration. Watch the laws change and harden up if Islam is not brought to heel.

Regards
DL
 
spidergoat said:
Where does the Bible mention free will?
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Greatest I am said:
So we created hell.

Thanks for your idiocy.

Lets see if you are to retarded to understand the following.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.


If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

Regards
DL
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First , sin is a word . The word sin is just a word . in order to be a sin there have to be a physical action against a person. So a new born baby can not commit a sin , therefore he is not sinful.
Now as I grow up and my alders teach me on how to obtain things by force without respect to the other fellow being , that sinful nature is passed down the line ,
As example , you have committed sin against me , by insulting my personality . I am sure when you ware a recent born you were not capable to do so.
 
Greatest I am said:
That is an unfortunate circumstance but, yes it is.
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OK. So if you killed six million people of one religion because you thought they would make the world a worse place in the future, and result in the deaths of sixty million later through some mechanism you imagine, you are a moral man? If you constructed facilities to collect and kill them more quickly, you'd be proud of how moral your actions were?

Or, on a smaller scale, you simply murdered six abortion doctors so they could not kill 60 "unborn kids" - you'd consider yourself a moral man?

Glad I am not like you. The world has enough religious extremists who kill for their religions, because their "morality" encourages it.
 
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Gods perfect virtue is non-violence. Pasive is wise is perfect is safe is passive. Pacifism is practical.
 
Greatest I am said:
Having said the above and having shown that we have no free will if anything is pre-destined, I think it would be quite immoral for God to judge or punish us for being and doing exactly what he pre-ordained for us in his plan. We have no choice and to punish us is immoral.

Do you agree?

If not, why not?
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Assuming that a deity knows all, there's no evidence that he interferes with free will. If I could experience time of both past and future, that doesn't necessarily mean I alter its outcome simply because I am aware of it. I could toss a stone in a pool of water, the resulting ripples are relatively simple to predict.
 
Bowser said:
Assuming that a deity knows all, there's no evidence that he interferes with free will. If I could experience time of both past and future, that doesn't necessarily mean I alter its outcome simply because I am aware of it. I could toss a stone in a pool of water, the resulting ripples are relatively simple to predict.
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Knowledge is just as bad as free will. It has a bunk creation it just kinda had to go to hell with a third of all things. 2 corinthians 11:12 Satan masqurades as an angel of light. It's not really knowledge being the devil it's the pessimistic context the good word is in that is bad or evil. More like knowledge the fallen angel of light.
 
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