Why do we exist,GOD or BIG BANG theory?

[Sri Lumpa]

DélioPT said:

It`s not that i don`t understand what you are trying to say with moral relativism, my problem is that you think that putting men and God in the same God is ok even though they are in two realities apart

That you have a problem men and god together does not mean that you are not a moral relativist. You obviously believe that there are good reasons to be a moral relativist but the questions "is that person a moral relativist" and "does that person have valid reasons to be a moral relativist" can be answered separately (though the latter makes no sense unless the former is answerable by yes).

Hell, I will go as far as saying that I am a moral relativist when it comes to animals as I do not hold them up to the same moral standard as humans but I do believe that I have excellent reasons to be (their lack of enough intelligence to make moral judgements).

and man vs woman is not the same as men vs God, when the first one is stil men vs men.

Just because men and women are different is not enough to justify using a different moral standard; you also have to demonstrate that the differences warrant using a different moral standard. You have given as much reasons to apply a different moral to god (he is different, we cannot understand him...) as you have to apply a different moral standard to women (they are different, we cannot understand women...).

More, you think that people deciding who lives and dies is the human equivalent to God deciding who lives and dies. Which is not the same even if both sides can do the same.

Morally it is. God as no right to take a person's life because he is god. If he take a person's life without cause it is as much murder as if any human took another person's life without cause. If you want to argue that it is not so then you need to have a better argument than "because he is god" as that is just special pleading.

Your view is that because in appearence we work the same way, we are to be read in the same way.

My view is because both humans and god are beings capable of reason we both are able to make moral judgements (that is judgements about what is good and what is bad) and thus we both can be held to the same moral standard.

And here is where we disagree.
I can either bring God to my level, but that wouldn`t be fair; i could put myself in God`s level and it stil woudn`t be a fair attitude; or i could look at both sides see and understand/respect what makes us different.

Even if there are things in which we are not equal to god it would not follow that there are no things in which we are equal to him. Simply saying we cannot use the same moral standard because he is different is no different to saying that we cannot use the same moral standard to other cultures because they are different; you also have to explain why those differences justify a different moral standard. Like I said earlier superior power and creating life do not justify the different standard any more than a man's superior power (in the form of strenght) over (most) women or a woman's giving life justify giving them a different moral standard. 

As i said, it`s not that i reject moral relativism, it`s that i reject your interpretation of things.

Glad you finally admit to it, now we can concentrate on whether your reasons for being so are valid.

So whatever you seem to find in God as immoral, is to me an incomplete view of God because God has the right to decides who lives and dies

No he doesn't. Murder is murder, no matter who commits it. If there are circumstances that mean a death is not murder (self-defence, possibly execution of a death-row prisoner...) then they apply equally to men as to god and if there are not such circumstances then the lack of circumstances to make it not murder apply to god as much as it applies to men. You want to say it is different? Fine, Justify it.

 and this you do not accept if it`s applied only to God because, i presume, you feel like God was either bad or just didn`t care.

Not quite. I am arguing that if god kills someone (or commits other immoral acts) because he had no reason (was bad?) or didn't care then merely being god is not a reason to not view those acts as moral. Your view is that merely being god is justification enough (which is what "god defines morality" means).

If you are arguing that those are not immoral not because god did them but because we do not know everything and thus there might be extenuating circumstances then you are not arguing that "god defines morality" as if "god defines morality" then he doesn't need such excuses.

 You don`t know God`s heart or God Himself to see how different it is from a human doing the same - not that i do better.

And a judge doesn't know an accused man's heart but he still can judge on the evidence provided. In cases like Jericho and Job we have enough evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard of evidence for murder).

Therefore you say this "I do not need to understand him in an absolute way any more than a judge needs to understand a suspect in an absolute way to determine if he did an immoral thing." Here you put God and men in the same level.

And I will continue until you properly justify why he should not be on questions of morality.

I understand your inversion. The problem with it, is that you just invert one thing: killing being moral. But to be fair you would have to change everything in regard to that.

Then it is not a problem as I do not invert just one thing but everything. I just use murder for emphasis as it is an act we are both likely to think of as not only immoral but als one of the most immoral acts possible. If god can make even murder moral then there is no problem with him making other things moral too.

This was actually the point of the Lucifer as god thought experiment as in that case all the immorality you associate with lucifer would be moral.

That`s like some people reading about Mary, not believing it or her attributes and still "trying" to read for what it is.

I do not understand what you are trying to say with this sentence.

The only thing that i can`t say about people`s actions is that i know in an absolute way what motivated them. But i can read their "reality" in light of God. And by doing that i assume that either something is good or bad giving the source for the above reading.

Good, we are making progress. You can indeed assume it is immoral, but you can't know that it is or isn't as you would need to know god's mind for that (in your system of belief).

"Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still doing the wrong thing."
But by neglecting the reasons you neglect/reject the beggining of that action. But that would be taking us to the morality issue.

A person doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still liable for their actions.

You can use the reason of the action to try to improve the person as if they thought they were doing the right thing then you have a better chance to reform them than if they did the wrong thing for the wrong reason (their personal gain for example, or god's glory); but when it comes to sentencing what matters most is what they did, not why they did it.

Good actions is not what saves you. Your good heart and your actions is what saves you - in the case you don`t believe in God.

Combined with Jesus's sacrifice of course, although we can ignore itin the context of our discussion as we have no control over it.  

It goes back to the thing right above. It is doing good things for good reasons that saves you and doing the wrong thing for the right reason damns you too (unless you repent).

Where we disagree is that you seem to think that lack of belief is a bad action that deserves everlasting torture whereas I totally disagree.

That`s why i said that life is more than morality and therefore you always are judged for more than morality.

I don't see the reasons for an action as being separated from morality but as part of it. It is just that you need both the right action and the right reason to be moral so even without knowing the reason you can still judge on the action alone.

You confused me a little: you say the sidewalk is a neutral point but you also clame that it is the same as good behaviour, but this is not neutral.
But that`s not the point as it seems you and i are using it in different ways.

The sidewalk and the street are not good behaviour and bad behaviour they are the paths that lead to heaven or hell (life or death). You believe that when people are born they are on the path to heaven (sidewalk) and by their good or bad actions they stay on the path of heaven (sidewalk) or hell (street).

If they go on the path of hell through their actions then they need to be redeemed to go back to the path of heaven by believing in Jesus.

If you tell them about god then they also need to be redeemed by believing in Jesus even if their own actions did not put them on the path to hell. That is, simply by knowing of god they now are on the path to hell (the street) and need to be redeemed to go back to the path of heaven.

it is the telling them about god that puts them from the path to heaven to the path to hell which is the equivalent of pushing them from the sidewalk to the street. Of course, as you do not know all their actions , you do not know if you are pushing them from the sidewalk to the street or from the street to the street but that is no excuse to put them in a place that you know is the path to hell.

It is not too surprising that you would be confused though as I saw the analogy as self-evident and thus didn't elaborate on it but since you do not see it as self-evident then I have to refine it to try to make you understand why I see them as similar. It is the problem of translating what is in your brain in words (especially in a foreign language) 

 This is what matters to me:

You are in point A and to reach point B you need to do something, right? To get an reaction you must first have an action.

Right. The action is the telling of god, the reaction is the change from being on the path to heaven (the sidewalk) to being on the path to hell (the street).

So, and this is where i don`t agree with you, is that you claim that because i, in this case, told you about God you consider yourself in danger, which would mean that you jumped to the reaction point.

In my case it is actually because my parents told me about god, so I was already put on the path to hell by them if your belief is right (though they don't believe in hell).

But if your belief is right then simply telling me does put me in a place where I am definitely in danger until I take a specific action (believe in and accept Jesus as my saviour) and given that this is not due to an action of mine then it is not jumping to that point but being pushed there.

What you don`t see is the importance of something: you were the one who went from A to B.

And the person pushed onto the street is also the one that went from A to B. In neither case was that person the actor that cause their going from A to B but they were the person acted upon by the one doing the pushing/telling.

 The reason why you are in a safe or dangerous position, given what was told to you, is that you chose, for whatever reason, that way.

No I didn't. I wasn't asked if I wanted to know about god and the person pushed on the street wasn't asked if it was ok to push them. Unless you tell the person of the risk before proceeding further then they can't give you their informed consent. If you proceed further without their informed consent then they are pushed on the path to hell by virtue of being told of god.

It was not me who bumped you to either side, it was you who went this or that way.

How can you say that when the person who did not know about god did not do any action? If they had gone in a bookstore, bought a bible and read it then it would be their action that would teach them about god and put them in danger but since it is you who told them then it is your action that caused them to go a certain way.

That`s why i keep saying that it doesn`t matter the starting point, it doesn`t matter where you stand, you are not saved or doomed, it doesn`t matter the what is the risk or possibilities, what matters is your actions.

Only when you are born. Once you tell them it changes from 'their actions only' to 'their actions plus belief' and that change is due to your action of telling them, just like a person living on the sidewalk or dying on the street changes from 'their actions only' to 'their actions plus getting back to the sidewalk' when someone pushes them.

Saying that them believing is their action is no more an excuse than saying them getting of the street is their action is an excuse for the act of deliberately pushing them on the street.

Those actions are what makes you go from point A to B, to go heaven or hell`s way.

But the action that put the person's hell's way (the street) is not their action but yours when you told them as simply telling them puts them on the path to hell (from which they can get off by believing but it doesn't excuse putting them on that path in the first place).

You are reversing cause and effect. The sequence is like that:

Be born.

Cause: Your actions

Effect: path to Heaven or path to Hell

Cause: Telling about god

Effect: path to Hell

Cause: Believing or not

Effect: path to Heaven if belief, still path to hell if not.

You are saying that if they are on the path to hell then it is due to a cause (lack of belief) that occurs after the effect (path to hell) whereas I am saying that the effect (path to hell) is due to an action prior to it (telling them about god).

Note that while they did not believe before you told them about god it was then neutral but after you told them about god that same lack of belief is fatal, due entirely to your action.

With all due respect, you cared too much for hell or the situation of risk - which is inherent to human life.

What I care about is the consequence of one's actions, not hell as I also care for the person physically pushed onto the street which doesn't change their salvation status.

Also I don't believe in hell so it is not so much the action of telling that I have a problem with but the action of telling while believing that the telling sends them to hell if they fail to believe afterwards. This is also why while I think that morally a christian believing in hell should refrain from telling people about their god unless they are informed of the danger and agree to it I would not advocate for it to be illegal as people are not really going to be tortured because of your actions. I am just trying to explain what is the logical conclusion of your belief combined with those actions and advocating that in the context of your belief the moral thing to do is to warn people of the danger before giving them knowledge that puts them in additional danger.

I don`t see a contradiction there, honestly. Men can see right from wrong, can feel it - since we were made good in nature - but that doesn´t mean we have it all to be saved. It seems to make a merger between that knowledge and Jesus' coming.

The contradiction is that one one side the bible says that you can be saved even without believing by being a law unto themselves but on the other side you need to believe to be saved and that god is self-evident in nature, which means that no man can claim not to know god (as it is self-evident) and thus all men need to believe in him to be saved. To come back to the above analogy the bible says that nature itself tells us about god so it is nature itself that does the pushing in the above analogy.

For example, people still rejected Jesus in His time (when their nature combined with Jesus would be the culmination point).

To be able to reject them they needed to know of him first.  Romans 1:18-20 argues that everybody knows god through nature and if it true then nobody is in the situation where they can be saved while not believing by being a law unto themselves because they know god through nature and if they don't believe it is because they reject him.

"Could you, if you wanted, choose not to believe in god? Of course not, because you believe in him and choosing not to believe in him when you do is impossible."
You are still seeing this in the eyes of reason.

Of course. To see it through the eye of belief i would need to believe first, wouldn't I.

It`s not like you sit down and say: "i choose to believe". It`s not how it works. You don`t choose to have faith because it is a gift given to you.

And that's the problem. You don't choose to have it given to you so if somebody doesn't believe because god chose not to give faith to him he gets tortured because of god's decision not to give him faith. How is that fair? How is that moral?

What you choose is to open your heart or not. In the other end, you lose faith because you closed your heart.

I didn't lose faith because I closed my heart. I rejected (but still believed in) god because I opened my eyes to the immoralities commited by him.

I do agree that "opening your heart" is part of belief in as much as while you do not control whether you believe something or not you can choose not to consider something at all and ignore it instead (the equivalent of closing your heart which is really closing your mind).

God is only there if you want them there.
So yes, faith is opened to anyone because that is something anyone can do.

Except that you said that it also had to be given to you by god. This means that while anyone has the potential for faith, not everyone will be given the opportunity to fulfill that potential by god and if they are not then they will be punished for not being given that opportunity.

Your starting point for salvation still remains in morality, but it isn`t because it can`t be. When you are more than morality, you are judge by more than morality and that is only fair.

Sorry, but torturing good people is not in any way fair or moral.

That`s why at first i used the girl in love to explain why you get heaven or not. She will only give herself to you in the - implicit - condition of you loving her aswell. And with God it`s the same.

The girl in love giving herself is not a moral decision so if you analogy is correct then neither is god's decision for salvation. Given that it entails torture, it means that you are torturing because of something not based on morality and that is immoral.

"Faith is belief."
No, faith is belief, love and trust. So, the question is what does it mean to open your heart or why some do and others don`t?

Even if you want to add things to faith beside belief you still need belief fro faith, and belief is not something you choose, so my point stand.

Not always does God punishes you but He also guides you.

What you are bound to do is read in light of God what happens in your life. Sometimes you get it right away sometimes you get it later.

But that is the problem. When my dad would punish me only saying "you know why you were punished" I could also try to read in light of the rules I knew he laid but given that I did not know which rule led to the punishment I could not know how I broke it and thus I could not know how to improve.

Same with god's so-called punishments. You read them as a catholic and huaxiong90 reads them as a muslim and I read them as "shit happens" but if either of you is right then it doesn't help me and the one of you who is wrong in their belief as we do not know that the punishment is due to a wrong belief.

Worse, in the case of the Florida tornadoes/Lisbon earthquake the logical conclusion goes against what most religions teach so you get the wrong message.

So we are back to square one. God does not give punishments with clear explanations why you are punished. That is really lousy parenting.

 But that would be something that would take forever to talk about in detail. Sometimes, for our mistakes we are guided and not punished.

The guidance, not being explicit either, has the same problems as what you interpret as punishments.

The important part is understanding what God is and wants for and from us, and with that we guide our lives (by acting accordingly and knowing what was good and bad).

The explicit part is still lacking and thus he still is a lousy parent.

During the marian apparitions, Mary said that if people didn`t repent God would punish the world with another war. What this meant was that, although HE gave peace to the world if the world didn`t change we would be punished, or in other words, He wouldn`t saves us now.
Our prayers helped because, even though we didn`t deserve, those prayers acted as water in a fire - not literally - and God, through Mary interviened. 

So why was Lucia only allowed to reveal the second secret in 1938? If the goal was to prevent another war through prayer it should have been revealed soon after Mary told it to her instead of wasting time and revealing it so close to the war, after Hitler had remilitarised Germany and tested his weapons and tactics in the Spanish war.

Also note that while it was predictable that a war was very likely to happen it would be harder to predict when it would happen and with that harder prediction the second secret falls flat on its face as it says the war would break out during the pontificate of Pius XI... who died months before WWII broke out. He died in february 1939 and the war broke out in september 1939, during the pontificate of Pius XII. Not a big mistake for a mere human but a huge one if coming from Mary who presumably got it from god.

Thing is we get what we deserve. If we "love" Him we get love from Him, if we don`t we don`t get that "love" from Him.

It is not the 'not getting that love from him' that I have the biggest moral problem with but the 'getting that torture from him' if you don't love him that is odiously immoral.

Although this is true, He stills wants us to help save those who don`t deserve (one of the parts of the apparition was to pray for sinners so they wouldn`t go to hell).

Should a human judge release a criminal because some people supply him to do so or should said criminal be released on the merit of having paid for his crime and/or for good conduct (his actions). Why should it be different on the supernatural level?

This is our world. We decide the outcome. What God does is, one way or another, helps us/guide us so we can be with Him, but it`s still our call to do so or not. We can save ourselves and we can help save others. That`s the power that God gaves us from the start.

Like I said earlier, he does a lousy job guiding us.

Yet, you call it ego. God loves us to the point where, in no way, we are not alone, even in our walk to salvation (the intended result), becasue God doesn`t want to lose us.

God loves us so much that if he decides not to give us faith he wil torture it for us.

Yeah, I know that the bible claims that god's love for us is unbounded but you have to look not just at its bare claims but also how it goes about expressing that "love" and when you do it is obvious that said unbdounded love is disfunctional and abusive.

Actually, there`s a part in the Bible that says: "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. " "... there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" and continues " "You know a lot about God, but if you don't know this, you don't really know the heart of my Father."

Why wouldn't he rejoice about that? The problem is not that he rejoices about that, the problem is that he is willing to torture good people for frivolous reasons like lack of belief.

You can't argue why god is good by cherrypicking the good part of the bible, if you want to argue that god is good you must do so by explaining why the obviously horrible parts of god's personality and actions are not actually horrible but are indeed good.