A Divine Conundrum

[Abacus]

I have a question to pose to those people who feel that they are suitably informed to give me a rational and clearly explained response concerning a certain aspect of the claimed divinity or being that is called God.

In practically every theological essay or paper written on the subject of what exactly God "is" always say that he is "hyper-good" (hyper taken from the greek word meaning "beyond" or "greater than"). By this it is meant that God is beyond all reproach for evil, misdeeds, etc. He is beyond such petty things as are described in that small, but all-encompassing word "evil."

Now, just to set the playing field, let us define evil. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was a famous French theologian who wrote a fascinating book called The Historical and Critical Dictionary where he gives definitive explanations that go into defining evil by equating evil as the source for "sickness, pain, hunger, and criminal undertakings."

A much more famous theologian and philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) added to this list of Bayle's by including "war and tyranny."

And then of course we have the 'word of God' itself to look into, such as the Ten Commandments as a list of sins (or evils) that are not to be committed. Some of them are grouped together to form one specific commandment, but ultimately these are all that are listed in both the Talmudic scrolls, Orthodox bibles, and Protestant bibles. Pretty much universal.

I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.


So added to the list above we have murder, adultery, theft, lying, jealousy (that's what coveting is, right?), cursing, and keeping the sabbath.


So, where my question ultimately goes, is this:

If God is all good, and hence possessing of not one iota of non-good, what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

[Hillary]

The bible contradicts itself in several places, not just here and I suspect that this is not exactly news to anyone who visits here on a regular basis.

How do Fundies explain it? By the usual handwaving bullshit they normally employ when they get called out. I suspect the answer in this specific case would revolve around the definition of the word "jealous".

Non-Fundies don't believe the bible is inerrant, so it's not an issue for them.

[Surlethe]

If God is all good, and hence possessing of not one iota of non-good, what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

Well, context would seem to indicate that God was referring to Commandment 2 whenever he used this term in the Old Testament. I know the Church often uses an analogy comparing the relationship between Israel and God to the relationship between a patient husband (God) and an impetuous, unfaithful wife (Israel) with respect to the various 'spiritual wandering' Israel does during the Old Testament history.

Perhaps more pertinently, why is God is being jealous a relatively strong argument against God being good or God existing? There are scads of other Old Testament incidents you could point to that have greater impact.

[Channel72]

If God is all good, and hence possessing of not one iota of non-good, what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

It just means he doesn't want Israel worshiping other gods. As for God being defined as "all good", that is not really a concept to be found in the Old Testament. The Old-Testament God is more like a personification of the Universe. As it says in Exodus, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." In other words, Yahweh just doesn't give a shit what you think: it's his Universe and he'll do what he wants with it and anyone in it.

The idea of God being "all-good" is more of a Platonic idea, which is more evident in the New Testament. You also need to remember that most early Near-Eastern conceptions of Diety were very tribalistic or nationalistic in nature. Usually the god in question was zealously concerned with a particular tribe. The Hebrew god was really no different, although like his pagan counterparts, the tribalistic nature of Yahweh was often in tension with his role as the Creator of everything. Suffice it to say, the fact that Yahweh was "jealous" of his worshipers was considered a good thing.

[Jeremy]

what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

The phrase was a psychological ploy intended to keep the Hebrews in a "good" puritan lifestyle instead of being distracted by other "bad" lifestyles. The leaders must have thought keeping people concerned only with the values of their nationalist religion they could transform into a great nation instead of being absorbed by those around them.

So God's jealous wrath is the very real result of the Hebrew nation not being entirely devoted to the task of keeping their nation alive and instead embracing the cultures of others, despising their own, becoming lazy in thought and deed, and accepting the time wasting things like whore cults, superstition, idolatry, and witchcraft.

[Darth Wong]

I have a question to pose to those people who feel that they are suitably informed to give me a rational and clearly explained response concerning a certain aspect of the claimed divinity or being that is called God.

In practically every theological essay or paper written on the subject of what exactly God "is" always say that he is "hyper-good" (hyper taken from the greek word meaning "beyond" or "greater than"). By this it is meant that God is beyond all reproach for evil, misdeeds, etc. He is beyond such petty things as are described in that small, but all-encompassing word "evil."

I think you need to keep in mind that religious people think God is beyond judgement because all morality flows from his power. Therefore, he is Good not because he meets some universal standard of morality, but because everything he does is Good by definition. Even when he contradicts himself by saying something is evil and then doing it himself, it's Good when he does it, and Evil when someone else does it. This sounds idiotic and preposterous to a rational person, but that's because the rational person thinks it's bad to self-contradict or to promote moral standards which are based on power instead of objective rules. Take away those premises (ie- take away rationality, which religious people are wont to do anyway), and you have a Perfect God, because you can simply define him that way.

Now, just to set the playing field, let us define evil. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was a famous French theologian who wrote a fascinating book called The Historical and Critical Dictionary where he gives definitive explanations that go into defining evil by equating evil as the source for "sickness, pain, hunger, and criminal undertakings."

A much more famous theologian and philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) added to this list of Bayle's by including "war and tyranny."

That's not a very good definition. Nature is the source for sickness, pain, and hunger, so three of Bayle's four criteria result in Nature itself being evil. "Criminal undertakings" are not a very good example either, since there are such a wide variety of criminal acts. Some of them (eg- stealing food) are hardly what one would call "evil", while others range up to genocide. For that matter, one can probably argue that war and tyranny are caused by simple biology, so this definition tends to lead to the conclusion that biology is evil (not that some creationists wouldn't make that argument, mind you).

A better definition of evil is probably much simpler: cruelty. To a lesser extent, one might say "selfishness", although there's such a sliding scale on that one, and everyone has it to varying degrees. But cruelty is what distinguishes the truly evil to me, if one must use the word "evil" in an adult context at all.

And then of course we have the 'word of God' itself to look into, such as the Ten Commandments as a list of sins (or evils) that are not to be committed. Some of them are grouped together to form one specific commandment, but ultimately these are all that are listed in both the Talmudic scrolls, Orthodox bibles, and Protestant bibles. Pretty much universal.

I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

So added to the list above we have murder, adultery, theft, lying, jealousy (that's what coveting is, right?), cursing, and keeping the sabbath.

Keep in mind that these are rules for the little people. God never says he has to obey them himself.

So, where my question ultimately goes, is this:

If God is all good, and hence possessing of not one iota of non-good, what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

Your question is really not difficult for the true Bible thumpers to answer. There are two kinds of answers you will get:

1) A boatload of disseminating bullshit, filled with various Bible quotes speaking of God's goodness and going round and round in circles until you've forgotten what your original question was. Basically, the strategy is to wax poetic about how wonderful God is, as if you can cancel out evidence of his misdeeds by breathlessly emoting about how much he loved us because he sent his only son yadda yadda yadda.

2) The honest truth, which is that Bible thumpers think morality flows from power, and God is Almighty so therefore he is always right.

[Samuel]

Yeah, that is how they think. It is rather disturbing actually and lest you think there aren't a good number of Christians who think like that...

http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2010/03/re ... cular.html

It gets creepy when you realize that the same justifications they use for defending God's usage of genocide work equally well for the Nazi's or anyone else. And the comment section gets worse and disturbingly hilarious at times.

[Witch]

In practically every theological essay or paper written on the subject of what exactly God "is" always say that he is "hyper-good" (hyper taken from the greek word meaning "beyond" or "greater than"). By this it is meant that God is beyond all reproach for evil, misdeeds, etc. He is beyond such petty things as are described in that small, but all-encompassing word "evil."

I think you need to keep in mind that religious people think God is beyond judgement because all morality flows from his power. Therefore, he is Good not because he meets some universal standard of morality, but because everything he does is Good by definition. Even when he contradicts himself by saying something is evil and then doing it himself, it's Good when he does it, and Evil when someone else does it. This sounds idiotic and preposterous to a rational person, but that's because the rational person thinks it's bad to self-contradict or to promote moral standards which are based on power instead of objective rules. Take away those premises (ie- take away rationality, which religious people are wont to do anyway), and you have a Perfect God, because you can simply define him that way.

I have significant doubts whether religious individuals believe God to be beyond judgement because all morality flows from his power, as that assumes that God can arbitrarily set moral standards. If you can provide substantive evidence that religious people acknowledge the arbitrariness of morality, then I'd urge you to provide it. However, it would be intellectually dishonest to provide examples of common people acknowledging this; it would be tantamount to dismissing quantum physics by finding the many errors found into the popularized versions of it. Do academical and ecclesiastical theologians acknowledge that the moral rules flow merely from God's perfection? They might - but until I see evidence of this, I'm sceptical and consider it highly likely that this is a straw man. The more common position I am aware of is that God does not create moral rules, nor that he is extrinsically bound by moral rules, but that, by his intrinsic nature, he cannot but act in accordance with it. That is to say, it is God's own nature which compels him to be perfectly good - and this is something entirely different from the claim that everything that God does is good by definition.

I also take issue with the notion that an act being acceptable for God while unacceptable for humans leads to a contradiction.

[Witch]

I should clarify: I am by no means denying that large swathes of religious people - in fact the great, great majority - are irrational. I am denying that all religious people are irrational, i.e., that religion on itself automatically implies irrationality.

[Formless]

He's speaking from personal experience, Witch. Take a look at the hatemail page of his creationism vs science site. Almost everyone who has debated with fundamentalists has come across exactly that belief. Its the underlying assumption of the argument "how could there be morality without god" for example. How many times have we all seen that one bandied about, not just by fundies, but by christians in general? I think you might want to look around a bit more.

And yes, religion in itself implies irrationality. To take anything on faith alone and to deny that all other religions but your own has all the answers is essentially to delude yourself. To assume the belief system of anyone else unquestioningly, even when the evidence says otherwise, is irrational and childish. Yet that is what all religions would have you do.

[Channel72]

I have significant doubts whether religious individuals believe God to be beyond judgement because all morality flows from his power, as that assumes that God can arbitrarily set moral standards. If you can provide substantive evidence that religious people acknowledge the arbitrariness of morality, then I'd urge you to provide it.

Are you kidding me? The problem with the arbitrary morality of a supreme being goes back to Plato, with the Euthyphro dilemma. The dilemma can be summarized by the question: do we call God good because he conforms to some external standard of goodness, or do we call God good simply because he is God? In the former case, then God is subject to a higher standard (something unacceptable to most Christians), in the latter case all morality is arbitary because we are basically defining "good" as "anything God does." It's an ancient dilemma which theologians have wrestled with for millenia. Plato tried to solve the dilemma by identifying God with some abstract standard of goodness, but this really doesn't solve anything.

Worse yet, Judeo-Christian monotheistic theology basically demands that we resolve the Euthyphro dilemma in favor of defining good to mean "anything God does", or at least acknowledging that God is above morality. That's really the whole point of the Book of Job, as well as numerous other passages in the Bible. In Exodus 33:19, God says "And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy." Consider also the passage in Romans 9: "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" In other words, God is above human judgment. So this is not merely some common belief that certain Christians ascribe to: the theology of the Bible basically demands it.

That is to say, it is God's own nature which compels him to be perfectly good - and this is something entirely different from the claim that everything that God does is good by definition.

As I mentioned above, this is basically how Plato tried to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma: by identifying God and "goodness" as the same thing. This entails that God's is simply compelled to be good by his own nature. Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve anything, because it implies that we really have no way to distinguish "good" from "evil" since anything God does is simply "good" by definition. This reduces the definition of "goodness" to nonsense. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that the Judeo-Christian tradition is wrought with examples of God behaving in ways which are obviously NOT good by any reasonable definition of the word, such as ordering genocide (Numbers 31, Samuel 15:3).

[Witch]

He's speaking from personal experience, Witch. Take a look at the hatemail page of his creationism vs science site. Almost everyone who has debated with fundamentalists has come across exactly that belief. Its the underlying assumption of the argument "how could there be morality without god" for example. How many times have we all seen that one bandied about, not just by fundies, but by christians in general? I think you might want to look around a bit more.

I'm not arguing that the creationists argue in such a form - if one takes creationism (in the sense of anti-evolutionism) as a benchmark, it is certainly the case that their arguments are very inconsidered. However, this shouldn't carry over to all forms of religious belief. In general, the populace is not trusted to reach a truly informed conclusion - their irrationality can be perceived both by political movements (e.g. fascism, the Cultural Revolution, the Tea Party, ...), in their lack of acceptance of scientific theories (evolution, climate change, ...). It should not be surprising that they would also be generally irrational concerning religion. Evaluating the rationality of religious argument in the general populace does not necessarily tell us something intrinsic about religion; it tells us something about how the general populace understands religion. These two cases are different things, and it would be wrong to condemn religion as a whole based only upon how the general populace understands it. In order to deny religion rationality entirely, it would be necessarily to investigate it on its most highly developed level, i.e. by considering advanced theology.

[Formless]

I'm not arguing that the creationists argue in such a form - if one takes creationism (in the sense of anti-evolutionism) as a benchmark, it is certainly the case that their arguments are very inconsidered.

And yet, they aren't the only one's who believe you need God to be moral, and that belief is a major part of the bible-- see the Book of Job.

However, this shouldn't carry over to all forms of religious belief.

Of course not. No one said it does-- only the Abrahamic religions, and perhaps a few others. Which were what Wong was talking about in context. What, did you think he was talking about Bhuddists and Hindu's, who believe in Karma?

In general, the populace is not trusted to reach a truly informed conclusion - their irrationality can be perceived both by political movements (e.g. fascism, the Cultural Revolution, the Tea Party, ...),

Notice that two of those examples have a definite and noticeable religious component.

in their lack of acceptance of scientific theories (evolution, climate change, ...). It should not be surprising that they would also be generally irrational concerning religion.

Religion being a symptom of human irrationality rather than a cause is not in contention. That does not, however, speak well of religion.

Evaluating the rationality of religious argument in the general populace does not necessarily tell us something intrinsic about religion; it tells us something about how the general populace understands religion. These two cases are different things, and it would be wrong to condemn religion as a whole based only upon how the general populace understands it. In order to deny religion rationality entirely, it would be necessarily to investigate it on its most highly developed level, i.e. by considering advanced theology.

However, we CAN evaluate the rationality of religion based on its insistence that people base their beliefs on faith and gullibility rather than on evidence. It is this test that all religions fail. There is no need to waste time and effort comprehending any theology as long as it is based on unsupported, untestable faith based claims of fact.

[Witch]

That is to say, it is God's own nature which compels him to be perfectly good - and this is something entirely different from the claim that everything that God does is good by definition.

As I mentioned above, this is basically how Plato tried to resolve the Euthyphro dilemma: by identifying God and "goodness" as the same thing. This entails that God's is simply compelled to be good by his own nature. Unfortunately, this doesn't resolve anything, because it implies that we really have no way to distinguish "good" from "evil" since anything God does is simply "good" by definition. This reduces the definition of "goodness" to nonsense. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that the Judeo-Christian tradition is wrought with examples of God behaving in ways which are obviously NOT good by any reasonable definition of the word, such as ordering genocide (Numbers 31, Samuel 15:3).

The rightness or wrongness of the will's choice is determined by whether it accords or does not accord with the divine law. (...) For Scotus, on the other hand, an action could be wrong simply because God has forbidden it, whether or not it had any relevance to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of human nature. (...) St Thomas had held that all of the Ten Commandments belonged to the natural law: it followed that God could not dispense from them, could not give permission for humans to act against them. Scotus agreed that no exceptions could be permitted to commandments belonging to the natural law; but he disagreed that all ten Commandments formed part of that law.[/i]

(Source: Medieval Philosophy, by Antony Kenny, p. 273)
In other words, orthodox Catholic theology, in the form of Thomism, effectively holds God to be bound to the Ten Commandments, and God is unable to dispense of them by his very nature. In fact, while this does define God as a good creature, it does not define the good in terms of God.

[Samuel]

effectively holds God to be bound to the Ten Commandments,

Those are God's orders to the Israelis. How they could remotely bound God is beyond me. Or does God have parents he needs to respect, idols he needs to avoid and women he needs to avoid coveting?

[Witch]

I'm not arguing that the creationists argue in such a form - if one takes creationism (in the sense of anti-evolutionism) as a benchmark, it is certainly the case that their arguments are very inconsidered.

And yet, they aren't the only one's who believe you need God to be moral, and that belief is a major part of the bible-- see the Book of Job.

It should be noted that the acceptance of revelation is not required to be characterized as religious.

However, this shouldn't carry over to all forms of religious belief.

Of course not. No one said it does-- only the Abrahamic religions, and perhaps a few others. Which were what Wong was talking about in context. What, did you think he was talking about Bhuddists and Hindu's, who believe in Karma?

It may be possible - I don't presume to know what Wong means when claims that religious people are wont to take away rationality. It might be that he is considering only a subgroup of religious people, but I have found it a general issue with the New Atheism that its adherents consider all religion to be irrational. Clarification would naturally be helpful.

However, we CAN evaluate the rationality of religion based on its insistence that people base their beliefs on faith and gullibility rather than on evidence. It is this test that all religions fail. There is no need to waste time and effort comprehending any theology as long as it is based on unsupported, untestable faith based claims of fact.

There are many things that one does not take on evidence, but rather on faith and gullibility. One of the fundamental assumptions I make is that mind exists in an external reality which causes all phenomena, although I have very little objective reasons to do so - it is one of the fundamental concepts by which I understand reality. Other people approach reality by other different concepts, and when those different concepts do an equal job of describing phenomena, despite the metaphysical differences, then those concepts are neither more nor less rational than my own, despite my utter lack of belief in them.

By the way, it should be noted that many elements of contemporary scientific ideology are also based on unsupported, untestable faith based claims of fact - such as the belief that biological theories can, in the end, be reduced to descriptions on the level of micro-physics, or that the world is deterministic. There is no proper empirical evidence for these claims - though they are very useful heuristic tools -, yet I rarely see them criticized as irrational.

[Witch]

effectively holds God to be bound to the Ten Commandments,

Those are God's orders to the Israelis. How they could remotely bound God is beyond me. Or does God have parents he needs to respect, idols he needs to avoid and women he needs to avoid coveting?

I wouldn't know; I suspect it's described in detail in the Summa Theologica.

[Formless]

I'm not arguing that the creationists argue in such a form - if one takes creationism (in the sense of anti-evolutionism) as a benchmark, it is certainly the case that their arguments are very inconsidered.

And yet, they aren't the only one's who believe you need God to be moral, and that belief is a major part of the bible-- see the Book of Job.

It should be noted that the acceptance of revelation is not required to be characterized as religious.

But revealation is an integral part of all religions. So... actually, yes, it is a requirement to be considered religious.

Of course not. No one said it does-- only the Abrahamic religions, and perhaps a few others. Which were what Wong was talking about in context. What, did you think he was talking about Bhuddists and Hindu's, who believe in Karma?

It may be possible - I don't presume to know what Wong means when claims that religious people are wont to take away rationality. It might be that he is considering only a subgroup of religious people, but I have found it a general issue with the New Atheism that its adherents consider all religion to be irrational. Clarification would naturally be helpful.

I can't speak for Mike, but in the context of this thread he is obviously talking about Christianity, whose entire belief system rests on the assertion that credulity is good.

Also, if you have a problem with the fact I and most other atheists/skeptics/rationalists do not believe in:

• Reincarnation
• Karma
• Thor
• Brahma
• the Noble Eightfold Path
• Dharma
• the Bavarian Illuminati *
• observing the rules of what is and is not Kosher
• Fairies
• Cthullu and the Old Ones
• Ghosts
• Voodoo rituals
• the Firmament
• the Four Classical Elements
• Ragnarok
• Zeus
• Seances
• the Luminous Aether
• Xenu
• the Force (Light Side or Dark Side)
• Feng Shui
• either the eastern or western systems of astrology
• animal spirits
• genies
• the Masons *
• alien abductions
• Shiva
• spontaneous generation
• Nirvana (and the importance of obtaining it)
• Nature Spirits
• Gaea (the deity, not the ecological theory)
• Prophets
• Seers
• Tarot readings
• divination in general
• making spiritual pilgrimages to Mecca at least once a lifetime
• Allah
• ancestor worship
• Atman
• any kind of immaterial soul outside and apart from the human mind/brain for that matter
• the Tooth Faerie
• the Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Aryan Supremacy
• Dragons
• that wishing on a star means the wish will come true
• numerous other forms of superstition, and, or yeah, Jesus...

would you mind explaining why?

* yes, I consider conspiracy theories to be a form of contemporary folk religion. What else would you call the insistence that there are no such things as coincidences?

However, we CAN evaluate the rationality of religion based on its insistence that people base their beliefs on faith and gullibility rather than on evidence. It is this test that all religions fail. There is no need to waste time and effort comprehending any theology as long as it is based on unsupported, untestable faith based claims of fact.

There are many things that one does not take on evidence, but rather on faith and gullibility. One of the fundamental assumptions I make is that mind exists in an external reality which causes all phenomena, although I have very little objective reasons to do so - it is one of the fundamental concepts by which I understand reality.

Oh, yeah, I forgot you were a solipsist.

I'm sorry you have never heard of either Occams razor or Pragmatism, but not all of us consider these operating assumptions to be without evidence.

Other people approach reality by other different concepts, and when those different concepts do an equal job of describing phenomena, despite the metaphysical differences, then those concepts are neither more nor less rational than my own, despite my utter lack of belief in them.

Except Occams Razor. Make no mistake, God and all those other supernatural ideas are testable claims, but until the test comes back positive, no rational person should accept them.

By the way, it should be noted that many elements of contemporary scientific ideology are also based on unsupported, untestable faith based claims of fact - such as the belief that biological theories can, in the end, be reduced to descriptions on the level of micro-physics, or that the world is deterministic.

First of all, science is a METHOD you weaseling little moron. It is NOT synonymous with the body of knowledge gathered through that method despite the confusion of the lay public. Second of all, you know absolutely fuck all about that method if you think evidence based claims = faith based claims. Third of all, your ignorance of the evidence is not my problem. Last of all, if you knew anything about the workings of quantum physics, you would know that according to the evidence the world is NOT deterministic-- its based on probability. In fact, it is religion that believes the world is deterministic-- all those prophets, all those soothsayers, all those astrologers, and numerous other diviners seem to agree with me.

There is no proper empirical evidence for these claims - though they are very useful heuristic tools -, yet I rarely see them criticized as irrational.

If it is a useful heuristic tool, then that by itself IS evidence of the claim, dumbass. That's the whole idea behind pragmatism and all those other philosophies of science you so fail to understand.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, I see "Witch" has turned out to be a classic irrationalist.

Tell me "Witch", what do you think "rational" means? Your characterization of science as a largely faith-based enterprise marks you as a flaming idiot, so I hope you can say something intelligent to redeem yourself.

[Channel72]

The rightness or wrongness of the will's choice is determined by whether it accords or does not accord with the divine law. (...) For Scotus, on the other hand, an action could be wrong simply because God has forbidden it, whether or not it had any relevance to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of human nature. (...) St Thomas had held that all of the Ten Commandments belonged to the natural law: it followed that God could not dispense from them, could not give permission for humans to act against them. Scotus agreed that no exceptions could be permitted to commandments belonging to the natural law; but he disagreed that all ten Commandments formed part of that law.

(Source: Medieval Philosophy, by Antony Kenny, p. 273) In other words, orthodox Catholic theology, in the form of Thomism, effectively holds God to be bound to the Ten Commandments, and God is unable to dispense of them by his very nature. In fact, while this does define God as a good creature, it does not define the good in terms of God.

We shouldn't really care about orthodox Catholic theology, since the Bible itself teaches that God is above morality. Regardless, since God does violate the 10 Commandments by regularly ordering genocide, the definition presented by Antony Kenny is useless. In order to avoid defining "good" as "anything God does", you need to provide an objective method for determining whether any particular action performed by God is "good" or "bad." If your proposed method is to test the action against the 10 commandments then it's easy to demonstrate that God is not good. But surely that is not the outcome the Catholic Church desires, so Thomism is useless.

[Samurai Rafiki]

If God is all good, and hence possessing of not one iota of non-good, what then does it mean if God himself claims to be a "jealous God?"

Well, not to divert from what may very well be a coming smackdown, but I think it would be relevant to note that at this point in history, religious claims were significantly less exclusive. This has changed in the intervening centuries but when the Bible was being written, it wasn't so much that other gods did not exist as that whatever your tribe's god was, that god was superior to that of other tribes. That's why the wording of the first commandment says "you shall have no other god before me." Also tellingly in Exodus, Moses and the Pharaoh's priests have a bit of a "magic-off," and the Bible doesn't say that their magic was fake, it simply says that Moses' magic was better. In this context, describing god as 'jealous' makes more sense.

Furthermore, Dan Barker's book "Godless" notes that until the rise of capitalism, the Decalogue was not a particularly important point of theology. Instead, the seven deadly sins were the moral standard (luxury, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride). The Decalogue was instead a sort of foundational document for Judaism, like the Declaration of Independence.

[edit: fixed quote]

[Surlethe]

The more common position I am aware of is that God does not create moral rules, nor that he is extrinsically bound by moral rules, but that, by his intrinsic nature, he cannot but act in accordance with it. That is to say, it is God's own nature which compels him to be perfectly good - and this is something entirely different from the claim that everything that God does is good by definition.

If God is extrinsically bound by his nature to act in accordance with an objective universal code of morality, then any action which God does is in accord with this morality. As a consequence, everything God does is good. It is not hard to see the converse - if an action is God, then God may do it. In other words, "Good is defined by God's actions" is equivalent to "God is intrinsically compelled to be perfectly good."

[Darth Wong]

The idea that God is "compelled to be perfectly good" is disproven simply by showing that God ever did something bad. The problem is that when you actually try to test this, Christians invariably start making up excuses for why those actions were not bad, using reasoning that would never be acceptable for anyone else. Reasons like "the victims go to Heaven anyway" or "he doesn't have to explain himself to you" or "the victims probably deserved it anyway, even the babies".

[Surlethe]

The Christian arguments you cite also invariably (implicitly) assume that we cannot discover morality on our own. Which brings us back to square 1: how do we know X accords with the "universal moral truths which God is compelled to follow"? He told us so. Naturally.

[Surlethe]

It occurs to me that Witch's argument on the irrationality of religion is subtly changing the goalposts. Religions are social movements composed of the common people. If we can't dismiss the irrationality of a movement based on the arguments (or lack thereof) of its adherents, but instead have to answer the erudite philosophers of the movement, then we're disaggregating it to the point of ignoring its existence as a movement altogether. Mind, that doesn't mean you can ignore the erudite philosophers' arguments, but it's not fair to characterize the movement as a whole based on those arguments unless the average person in the movement makes them.

Similar arguments would apply to other social movements, notably (in my mind) libertarianism. I may have to rethink how I approach those arguments.