Obligation to God

@Farthender,

all moral views for Christians come from the Bible, not man. Man wrote them down, but along with innerrancy, inspritation is really close. God wrote the Bible through men, thats why its innerant. Without a moral compass given to us by God we could not have any morals whatsoever.

@Farthender,

And yet morals are derivable by logic. For example, if I kill a man then his family will feel sad, and wish to kill me. Therefore, by an act of self-preservation, I do not kill. The same could have been said of theft, fraud and as society decided to evolve this expanded into categories such as adultery, as a response to the emotion of anger at a spouse for doing such an act.

@Farthender,

well what about anger, jealousy, pride, lust, homosexuality, worrying, anxiety and premarital sex? cause society has completely forgotten those as sin? actually they have forgotten sin as a whole... no one says sin anymore unless were talking about philosophy stuff...

@Farthender,

Well that's because the only thing determining them as a sin is religion! Anger, we must release it otherwise it can kill us inside however this would be logically unjust to release it in an immoral manner, jealousy and pride, though looked down upon can be replaced by modesty through self-realisation. Lust is merely a by-product of nature, converted by some into some horrible thing that must be avoided. Worrying and anxiety can never be sin, if anything to worry about someone is a sign of love!

Homosexuality and pre-marital sex, on the other hand, are something completely different. These are things that only religion really defines as a sin. Pre-marital sex is, though possibly awkward the morning after, wholly natural. By some definition of religion it is actually less of sin than masturbation, and either one or the other should be done as studies show that not doing so would be physically damaging. Pre-marital sex in a relationship can help bring people together, show the partners the true sides of each other, even determine if one day they will be married or not. Now gays, theres one grudge that I never really got. If you'd like to explain the whole 'dont be gay' ideal to me, that would be just grand.

It seems to me that, though you are complaining society has lost the concept of sin, the only concept of sin they have lost is yours.

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

Pre-marital sex is, though possibly awkward the morning after, wholly natural.

It is only "wholly natural" if you presuppose religion as false.

Kolbe wrote:

By some definition of religion it is actually less of sin than masturbation,

There is a measurement scale of 'bad' to 'very bad' sins? hmmm what definition of religion are you referring to.

Kolbe wrote:

and either one or the other should be done as studies show that not doing so would be physically damaging.

link me please

Kolbe wrote:

Now gays, theres one grudge that I never really got. If you'd like to explain the whole 'dont be gay' ideal to me, that would be just grand.

That is another thing that you have to presuppose religion to be true first.

@click here,

click here wrote:

It is only "wholly natural" if you presuppose religion as false.

True, but someone must presuppose it as false, if only for an alternate view. Even some religious people might see it from the viewpoint of atheists for "it's the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without believing it", isn't it?

click here wrote:

There is a measurement scale of 'bad' to 'very bad' sins? hmmm what definition of religion are you referring to.

To Aquinas' Natural Law theory, the one Catholics seem to abide by to this day. Premarital sex may be wrong in their eyes, but to Aquinas it may lead to reproduction of the species and thus fulfilling the purpose of genitalia, glorifying god.

click here wrote:

link me please

But of course.
Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies
Masturbation Information on Healthline

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

True, but someone must presuppose it as false, if only for an alternate view. Even some religious people might see it from the viewpoint of atheists for "it's the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without believing it", isn't it?

Right, yet just by viewing it from an alternate view you can not come to the concrete conclusion that it is "wholly natural" except maybe from that view. So then your left with proving the validty of that view to back up your ideas associated with that view.

Kolbe wrote:

To Aquinas' Natural Law theory, the one Catholics seem to abide by to this day. Premarital sex may be wrong in their eyes, but to Aquinas it may lead to reproduction of the species and thus fulfilling the purpose of genitalia, glorifying god.

How does it glorify God if God has told you not to do so? God creates genitalia and with it rules. God creates things that could be used as weapons and he still has rules against using them as weapons. Do you have a quote or something from Thomas?

Kolbe wrote:

But of course.
Wiley InterScience :: Session Cookies
Masturbation Information on Healthline

First link doesn't work. I read through the second one and I must have missed where it says: "and either one or the other should be done as studies show that not doing so would be physically damaging."

Maybe it was in the first link but I'd really like to read about how it is damaging.

@click here,

And for the whole worrying about something is loving them, well i see ur point, but if God is in control, and youre worrying about things that you dont know, then what does that say about the person you are supposed to love the most. If shows you insufficiency of God. You dont trust Him enough... God gave us things as already said, genitalia and loved ones, but what sin is is taking the things God gave us and abusing them, going to far with them.

@click here,

click here wrote:

Right, yet just by viewing it from an alternate view you can not come to the concrete conclusion that it is "wholly natural" except maybe from that view. So then your left with proving the validty of that view to back up your ideas associated with that view.

As are you, it seems, which instead gives whoever is reading this article a balanced view.

click here wrote:

How does it glorify God if God has told you not to do so? God creates genitalia and with it rules. God creates things that could be used as weapons and he still has rules against using them as weapons. Do you have a quote or something from Thomas?

Not necessarily, but the general idea comes with the theory. His idea of natural law means that it would be wrong to use something for something other than it's natural purpose, otherwise why would god have given it to us? To use it for it's correct purpose is to follow the path god meant for its usage, thus glorifying what he gave us. If you have qualms with it, don't bring them to me, instead direct them at a dead monk and the catholic church. The analogy of weapons would be flawed because, by natural logic, god did not create a sword, we did. According to Aquinas all that could be used as a weapon has instead another purpose that is meant to be followed.

click here wrote:

First link doesn't work. I read through the second one and I must have missed where it says: "and either one or the other should be done as studies show that not doing so would be physically damaging."

Maybe it was in the first link but I'd really like to read about how it is damaging.

After looking further into the topic it seems I was misinformed by peers (yes, that conversation was as awkward as it sounds, though perhaps not for him....moving on), not masturbating not necessarily being directly harmful, but masturbating having benefits towards health, though the two may be interchangable. The first link indicated a study where it was shown that masturbation helped to prevent prostate cancer, also it is a known anti-stressor thus helping the heart etc. The truth is I never saw the point of the church's opposition to masturbation (Im sick of typing that now) in the first place, as even though it may be the prevention of life, it is the same in that way as me not going out, marrying the first woman I see and having as many babies as possible. The results of doing the first and not doing the second are exactly the same!!

papasmurf wrote:

And for the whole worrying about something is loving them, well i see ur point, but if God is in control, and youre worrying about things that you dont know, then what does that say about the person you are supposed to love the most. If shows you insufficiency of God. You dont trust Him enough... God gave us things as already said, genitalia and loved ones, but what sin is is taking the things God gave us and abusing them, going to far with them.

But god is not in control! Or am I missing the entire point of free will here? I look around seeing tombstones saying "The Lord had need of her", which could show that, if god is in control, it matters not whether or not they are in this life! If anything is cause for concern for your average atheist/agnostic not to trust in the control of the lord on your loved ones life, it would be this. As for the abusing of what god gave us, what would count as abuse? How far would too far be?

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

Not necessarily, but the general idea comes with the theory. His idea of natural law means that it would be wrong to use something for something other than it's natural purpose, otherwise why would god have given it to us? To use it for it's correct purpose is to follow the path god meant for its usage, thus glorifying what he gave us. If you have qualms with it, don't bring them to me, instead direct them at a dead monk and the catholic church. The analogy of weapons would be flawed because, by natural logic, god did not create a sword, we did. According to Aquinas all that could be used as a weapon has instead another purpose that is meant to be followed.

Natural purpose... How do you know what the natural purpose is for something? It is just your assumption as to what seems right. How do you know that masturbation is not an improper use of the sex organs? How do you know that a stones natural purpose is not for stoning people with? You make these assumptions based on your presuppositions which are not proven true. So for you to say something isn't right you make the indirect statement that something is right. But what you think is right only is right under your umbrella. You say that pre-marital sex is a good thing, that it brings people together, wholly natural etc.... I think it is best if you word things so it is understood that these are your opinions and they are not empirical truths.

@click here,

papasmurf wrote:

all moral views for Christians come from the Bible, not man. Man wrote them down, but along with innerrancy, inspritation is really close. God wrote the Bible through men, thats why its innerant. Without a moral compass given to us by God we could not have any morals whatsoever.

There are two issues here: 1) that God wrote the Bible, thus the Bible is without error or contradiction, and 2) that without God-given morals, man could not have any morals.

I'll take 2 first: that, without God, man cannot have morals. This is demonstrably false: we see atheists who have morals.
Morality is simply the way man should strive to conduct himself. God is not necessary for man to investigate and critique his conduct. Personally, I find God useful for this, and so do many others, but we cannot confuse the usefulness of God for the necessity of God.

Now for the first claim. God wrote the Bible through men. Which Bible? The canonical Bible? If so, from which tradition?
We have to realize something: there is no such thing as the book, the Bible. Instead, there are many books which are typically compiled in a single volume referred to as the Bible: the contents of what we refer to the Bible differ.
More importantly: how do we know that the Bible is inerrant? I've never seen a single answer to this question that does not rely on a Biblical passage. If we say the Bible is inerrant because the Bible says so our argument is hopelessly devoid of logic. However, I would be thrilled to hear some other sort of argument for Biblical inerrancy.

@Farthender,

Exactly! That's the problem with Aquinas' theory, that he assumes what is natural. I never said that masturbation was a proper use of said organ, merely that it had positive influences that outweighed what was seen as negative about it. Please at no point assume that I agree with Aquinas, god no, quite the opposite. If I presuppose that life is good, and that stones have purpose better than stoning people, i.e. building things, then how can I not assume that the stone's purpose is not to be used to kill people with? If we accept Aristotle's idea that the acievement of purpose is the achievement of perfection, and that perfection is positive, then surely the purpose of a thing must be that which brings the most positive results.

I would rather state truths as truths, if you wouldn't mind. Whether they are facts is something completely different. Pre-marital sex is definitely known to help bring couples together, it promotes unification between them and helps them make each other, for want of a better term, happy. It is also a way of finding out if two people are compatible, for if they did not have sex until after marriage and found out that their tastes were not in order, per se, then they could slowly realise over time that marriage for them was a mistake. Marriage may not entirely be about sex, but to some it is key, a sign of showing love between the two, and if this compatability is taken then the relationship could fall apart.

(edit: didnt realise there was a fourth page, sorry, this was replying to clickhere. My bad)

Didymos, surely the idea is that god gave man a moral compass before birth? Though this idea is in itself flawed, as if god gave us a moral compass before birth it would point to him, yet all men are born atheist...

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

I would rather state truths as truths, if you wouldn't mind. Whether they are facts is something completely different. Pre-marital sex is definitely known to help bring couples together, it promotes unification between them and helps them make each other, for want of a better term, happy. It is also a way of finding out if two people are compatible, for if they did not have sex until after marriage and found out that their tastes were not in order, per se, then they could slowly realise over time that marriage for them was a mistake. Marriage may not entirely be about sex, but to some it is key, a sign of showing love between the two, and if this compatability is taken then the relationship could fall apart.

When you say that their tastes are not in order do you mean that they would think: "ahh you know Julie really knew how to do things right." The problem with that is that intercourse with Julie was premarital (unless she was your divorced wife) Your argument seems to hinge on differences in opinions during sex will make or break a relationship. "You know Joe I don't really like that position, since I can't ask you to stop doing it because that would make to much sense I'm just going to get a divorce."......

Also I didn't know that sex was a requirement for happiness in a relationship.

Kolbe wrote:

yet all men are born atheist...

No men are not born atheist.
An Atheist: "the doctrine or belief that there is no God"
A child can not have a belief that there is no God without first having heard of God. At best you could say that all men are born agnostic.

@click here,

click here wrote:

When you say that their tastes are not in order do you mean that they would think: "ahh you know Julie really knew how to do things right." The problem with that is that intercourse with Julie was premarital (unless she was your divorced wife) Your argument seems to hinge on differences in opinions during sex will make or break a relationship. "You know Joe I don't really like that position, since I can't ask you to stop doing it because that would make to much sense I'm just going to get a divorce."......

Also I didn't know that sex was a requirement for happiness in a relationship.

I meant more along the lines of "Wow, you're into urination? Like really into it?" kind of awkward moment. I didn't really mean that it was a requirement for happiness in all relationships, but you must admit that in the modern world in which we live, a lot of relationships do go down that road and in most cases if the sex is bad, things go wrong, if it's good then things go better. Couples can also find out what they don't like about each other sexually, and help each other work around it, which can only bring them closer.

click here wrote:

No men are not born atheist.
An Atheist: "the doctrine or belief that there is no God"
A child can not have a belief that there is no God without first having heard of God. At best you could say that all men are born agnostic.

Point taken, you do need to have a definiton of god before you can reject it. Lack of knowledge is basically uncertainty, come to think, and I didn't think of agnostics at the time. Yet surely you see my point there, if god is meant to be the ultimate purpose of life then our moral compasses would naturally point towards him no matter who we are, and yet each of us have different ideals, different natures. Some are natured towards loving, others towards killing, some towards money and others towards looking after sea bass. Surely the end result of all of these can't be the same god?

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

I meant more along the lines of "Wow, you're into urination? Like really into it?" kind of awkward moment. I didn't really mean that it was a requirement for happiness in all relationships, but you must admit that in the modern world in which we live, a lot of relationships do go down that road and in most cases if the sex is bad, things go wrong, if it's good then things go better. Couples can also find out what they don't like about each other sexually, and help each other work around it, which can only bring them closer.

hmmm ok I just read the OP again and I think we got slightly side tracked.
He wants to know why we should obey what God says. So, God says pre-marital sex is wrong, then it is wrong. Remember we are assuming here that there is a God and he has told us morals we just don't wish to follow them.

A couple things: I assume you violate God's moral laws because you feel that you are maybe happier if you do so. So you have situational short lived gratification. You know that God's morals differ yet you did so anyway. Do you not think that God will be mad? He has the ability to give you pleasure beyond what you gained from breaking the morals he set forth. He also has the ability to punish you so that your gratification wouldn't seem so worth it anymore. I'd say then the reason you should initially not break God's morals laws is because you fear him.

@Farthender,

Hehe, fair enough there. Anyway. So it's okay for religion to rule by fear and not dictatorships? Riddle me this and riddle me that, but if anyone should abide by god's rules, then surely god should be accounted among them? As Alan has already posted about elsewhere, there are multiple references throughout the bible of either god killing people (e.g. sodom and gomorrah) or ordering the deaths of others (e.g. the end of the book of numbers). If god is mad at me for doing something that I cannot consider morally wrong, even if he says it is, then let him be mad! I'd have no regrets unless I considered the action wrong. I violate god's moral law simply because I do not consider it law at all! The law in China may be to only have one child, but I consider myself able to have as many as I want.

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

I violate god's moral law simply because I do not consider it law at all!

Ok but the thread was talking about why should you violate it if you consider it law.

Kolbe wrote:

The law in China may be to only have one child, but I consider myself able to have as many as I want.

And in China you will get punished for it. (you have to pay a large tax for extra kids) unless you have twins then your just lucky. I'm not saying that you have no choice other then to obey God's morals. Sure you can disagree well then you have to accept the consequences just like in China.

@click here,

click here wrote:

Ok but the thread was talking about why should you violate it if you consider it law.

Was it? Oh, sorry. If I did consider it law, which at some point I did, then of course I would not violate it. Law would exist for the reason of governing man and keeping him in line, otherwise chaos would ensue etc. etc apocalyptic messages. But why should we consider it law? It's written in the bible, of course, but as are instructions that followers must be circumcised, that being a practice that hasn't exactly carried on for most.

click here wrote:

And in China you will get punished for it. (you have to pay a large tax for extra kids) unless you have twins then your just lucky. I'm not saying that you have no choice other then to obey God's morals. Sure you can disagree well then you have to accept the consequences just like in China.

Indeed you would be, but the fact of the matter is that neither you nor I are in China. We can think we are in China, and must abide by Chinese law, and we may have messangers who say they are from China and that we must obey the laws they bring or China will invade and kill us, but that does not make Chinese law followable for everybody. Is it wrong that typing that only made me hungry?

@Kolbe,

Kolbe wrote:

Was it? Oh, sorry. If I did consider it law, which at some point I did, then of course I would not violate it. Law would exist for the reason of governing man and keeping him in line, otherwise chaos would ensue etc. etc apocalyptic messages. But why should we consider it law? It's written in the bible, of course, but as are instructions that followers must be circumcised, that being a practice that hasn't exactly carried on for most.

You are not questioning outside the OP which is fine just thought you should know. As to your example of circumcision: It is not needed anymore:

1 Corinthians 7:19 "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts."

Galations 5:6 "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

It was once required in the Old Testament though in the New Testament it is not a requirement anymore.

Kolbe wrote:

Indeed you would be, but the fact of the matter is that neither you nor I are in China. We can think we are in China, and must abide by Chinese law, and we may have messangers who say they are from China and that we must obey the laws they bring or China will invade and kill us, but that does not make Chinese law followable for everybody. Is it wrong that typing that only made me hungry?

Right the rules and laws of China are meant only for those living in China. The Chinese lawmakers aren't intending for the 1 child rule to be in stated in the US. It is only to keep the Chinese population from increasing drastically more. But laws in the Bible, if accepted are meant to be kept by every human on earth.

@Farthender,

Farthender wrote:

Assuming there is a god, if I, as a human, have moral convictions that differ from the Word of God in whatever form, why should I change these convictions to fit in with the Word of God?

For love, gratitude, fealty and honor. If you love Him, you'll keep his commandments. Or, if you believe that Word to be of good measure anyway, then perhaps for the good it'll do just because it's 'good'. If that doesn't work, then maybe because you have faith that his Word is what's best (in any context you define it).

If you believe in a God, and you believe that God's issued his word for your living, then whether issued by conscience, scripture and conceptualization, doing what is commanded is probably a good thing.

Thanks

Philosophy Forum

Obligation to God

Quick Links

My Account

able2know