Is morality keeping you away from God?

[Rostos]

http://player.subsplash.com/bedd998

[Questions11]

Can you give a summary?

[R3]

Can you give a summary?

Listened while working out. From what I remember it's Frank Turek talking about how some people reject Christianity because they believe the God of the bible is immoral or that some of his laws/actions were. Frank doesn't like this because he assumes that firstly God is all good, and secondly that he's the standard for morality so the person's moral objections don't make sense to him.

But of course they make perfect sense to everyone who doesn't just assume God is omnibenevolent or choose to define God this way seemingly arbitrarily.

He also mentioned people who reject God because they don't want to follow the moral law, e.g. they recognise God's laws as correct but want to have sex before marriage anyway. As far as I can tell though that number of people with those ideas are very very small compared to Frank's perceptions.

[Moot]

Turek is not a very impressive apologist IMO.

[R3]

Turek is not a very impressive apologist IMO.

Agreed. His debate with Hitchens was almost comical.

[aleph naught]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

[Questions11]

I can see both sides here, I think.  I think it is fair to evaluate deity claimants on their morality so long as one is equally careful and critical in evaluating one's own morality, and allowing the possibility that one's moral compass needs to be readjusted.

Thus, it can be that someone unfairly and incorrectly rejects a deity claimant because they evaluated the morality of that claimant against their own faulty ethical and metaethical rule - and no doubt some atheists fall into this camp - or it can be that someone accepts an immoral deity claimant when their conscience should know better - and no doubt some religionists fall into that camp.

[alex1212]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

I would say a moral argument against God could also be something formal like:

1. If God exists, he must be the standard of morality
2. But God cannot be the standard of morality
3. Therefore, God cannot exist

[aleph naught]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

I would say a moral argument against God could also be something formal like:

1. If God exists, he must be the standard of morality
2. But God cannot be the standard of morality
3. Therefore, God cannot exist

Yeah, that's something Craig seems committed to (I'm pretty sure he has argued for (1) because he thinks being the standard of morality is a great-making property).

[alex1212]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

I would say a moral argument against God could also be something formal like:

1. If God exists, he must be the standard of morality
2. But God cannot be the standard of morality
3. Therefore, God cannot exist

Yeah, that's something Craig seems committed to (I'm pretty sure he has argued for (1) because he thinks being the standard of morality is a great-making property).

Right. Craig himself and most theists are already committed to premise 1. A version of the Euthyphro dilemma would be the evidence for premise 2. Or it can be argued that God cannot or is not plausibly the standard of morality by other reasons. There are many ontologies of morality, why would God occupy a special place? What makes God so special or plausible?

Theists offer some reasons, but I don't find them convincing. It's not a simple 50/50 on whether God is the standard of morality. On the contrary, given the various metaphysical groundings for morality, the prior probability that God is the grounding is not very high; thus, the evidence, the posterior probability must be pretty high, but the evidence doesn't seem to be very high. Therefore, we have at least prima facie reason to doubt that God is the grounding and that he isn't in fact the grounding because of the prior probability

[aleph naught]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

I would say a moral argument against God could also be something formal like:

1. If God exists, he must be the standard of morality
2. But God cannot be the standard of morality
3. Therefore, God cannot exist

Yeah, that's something Craig seems committed to (I'm pretty sure he has argued for (1) because he thinks being the standard of morality is a great-making property).

Right. Craig himself and most theists are already committed to premise 1. A version of the Euthyphro dilemma would be the evidence for premise 2. Or it can be argued that God cannot or is not plausibly the standard of morality by other reasons. There are many ontologies of morality, why would God occupy a special place? What makes God so special or plausible?

Theists offer some reasons, but I don't find them convincing. It's not a simple 50/50 on whether God is the standard of morality. On the contrary, given the various metaphysical groundings for morality, the prior probability that God is the grounding is not very high; thus, the evidence, the posterior probability must be pretty high, but the evidence doesn't seem to be very high. Therefore, we have at least prima facie reason to doubt that God is the grounding and that he isn't in fact the grounding because of the prior probability

Well it's not difficult to just refute every attempt to explain moral ontology in terms of God, and give the evidence for ethical naturalism (more parsimonious and best explains the supervenience of morality on nature).

We should try putting together a strong argument, or as strong an argument as we can. I'm very confident I can defend the second premise, but not as confident in the first. I'd like to see what theists might say about the first.

[alex1212]

If God does not ground morality then there is something outside himself that determines how he behaves, but then God is not a maximally great being and thus does not exist. God does not exist because all theistic accounts of morality fail.

I would say a moral argument against God could also be something formal like:

1. If God exists, he must be the standard of morality
2. But God cannot be the standard of morality
3. Therefore, God cannot exist

Yeah, that's something Craig seems committed to (I'm pretty sure he has argued for (1) because he thinks being the standard of morality is a great-making property).

Right. Craig himself and most theists are already committed to premise 1. A version of the Euthyphro dilemma would be the evidence for premise 2. Or it can be argued that God cannot or is not plausibly the standard of morality by other reasons. There are many ontologies of morality, why would God occupy a special place? What makes God so special or plausible?

Theists offer some reasons, but I don't find them convincing. It's not a simple 50/50 on whether God is the standard of morality. On the contrary, given the various metaphysical groundings for morality, the prior probability that God is the grounding is not very high; thus, the evidence, the posterior probability must be pretty high, but the evidence doesn't seem to be very high. Therefore, we have at least prima facie reason to doubt that God is the grounding and that he isn't in fact the grounding because of the prior probability

Well it's not difficult to just refute every attempt to explain moral ontology in terms of God, and give the evidence for ethical naturalism (more parsimonious and best explains the supervenience of morality on nature).

We should try putting together a strong argument, or as strong an argument as we can. I'm very confident I can defend the second premise, but not as confident in the first. I'd like to see what theists might say about the first.

I think premise 1 can be defended to theists who subscribe to it. It would be question-begging to many other people, unless we give reasons.