Wait a minute. Here is your first mistake. Without a moral lawgiver there is no moral law, therefore then we have no knowledge of how to differentiate between good and evil.
Why does my point elude you? If there is no moral law, then we must
make one. If there is no moral lawgiver than we must
figure out what good and evil are for ourselves. We're intelligent, rational beings, see. For the most part.
Can you not differentiate between "truth" and a "lie"? I know you have the ability too. There is only one truth.
Do you have any concrete evidence that your belief is the Truth? If you don't, than you don't Know it to be Truth. You can have a firm Belief, but you lack Evidence and thus lack Knowledge, and in lacking that you have no right to tell people what they can and can not believe. I don't delude myself into thinking that there is more than one Truth (for that is logically impossible); there is just no way of Knowing Which Is Right. However mindblowing accurate or consistent the different Bible books may seem, that's no excuse for intolerance. And, besides:
"But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.
Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." - Luke 6:27-38
So there: a Biblical reason for tolerance and respect for other people's opinions and belief,
from the mouth of Jesus himself.
I did not say you had to dive into religion to be able to differentiate between bad and good. However, you need to give credit where credit is due. There is a moral lawgiver of course, because we know there is a Moral Law.
If I wind up facing God as a hellbound unbeliever when I die, I'll be sure to do that. Otherwise, He'd have to open the clouds and vacation on Earth for a while, because unless I see proof of what the Truth is, there are far too many "Truths" to choose from to tell "truth" from "lies." So how do I know for sure that I'm giving credit to the right lawgiver?
No. That affects our judgement, however, that is not where our Moral Law comes from. Where did you parents gain that insight on how to differentiate between bad and good?
Does one need a Divine Presence to know that Happiness is good and Pain bad? And once one knows that, does one need an I. Q. of 2,000,000 to know that Causing Happiness is good and Causing Pain evil? My parents were Christians, true; and I was raised as a Christian; but now life has taught me not to blindly let instructions prevent me from Causing Happiness and Preventing Pain Where Prevention Is Called For. It's really nothing
but judgement. We just divide that judgement into the two categories, which we call Goodness/Morality and Evil/Immorality.
I agree. We all have the ability to do so, because God gave us free will.
Whether God exists or not, there's no denying we have free will. My friend down the street insists that God writes down our lives in some kind of book, but that's codswallop in a can: you only need put your hand up in front of your face and wiggle your fingers to see the level of control you have.
No matter what we believe? First, you have to have knowledge of how you can differentiate between good and evil. If there is evil than there is good. To be able to differentiate between good and evil is something that we call free will, which was given to us by God.
An interesting question would be how God would know good and evil, just like that, if there was no one to give it to
Him.
No matter what we believe, we still have free will, and thus the capacity for goodness. No matter what we believe, we still have animal instincts that can override our empathy, thus the capacity for evil. Maybe it was God that gave us this free will. Maybe not. I don't know, and never claimed to, all I'm doing is questioning the logic behind it.
Here's an alternative chain of logic that is pure speculation but probably far from original:
Phase 1 - Prehistoric humankind lives only by instinct, but without reason and without natural weapons such as claws, or without armor of any kind, it is difficult for humans to live securely. There is no free will here: only blind pursuit of survival and pleasure.
Phase 2 - In response to the difficulties of the previous phase, the human mind has adapted by becoming more curious and looking at the world around it for tools it can use to make life easier. Reason is beginning to develop, the first spark of free will.
Transitional Phase - As reason develops, the first forms of communication and primitive technology are born and become more advanced as time goes on.
Phase 3 - As reason and free will develop, curiosity expands from the here and now to include the Great Unknown. Humankind begins to ponder the meaning of its own existence. Finding no evident meaning, humankind uses a new aspect of its budding intelligence--imagination--to invent its own. Religion (and in effect the humble beginnings of the fantasy genre ever written) is born and humankind begins worshiping various invisible gods. Mental illnesses in which voices are heard may have contributed at some point.
Phase 4 - As the question of where we come from and why we are here becomes more persistent in the ever-growing minds of the human race, one person invents a god/set of gods that includes the newborn concepts of good and evil, because the god(s) will punish you for hurting your own kind, etc. This concept is born of an instinct to pretect your fellow humans to preserve your race, but the idea of religion turns it into something a little bit more than that. Good and evil concepts at this stage are simplistic and the line between them is blurred. Such concepts as a fixed destiny may have begun to emerge at this time.
Phase 5 - By this time the ideas of good and evil have evolved into more complex concepts, encompassing wisdom and ideas accumulated over the transition between the previous phase and this. The line between is thinner, and humanity generally has a more focussed idea of what "good" and "evil" are. It is during this long period that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all born.
More Recent History and the Present - During past phases there have undoubtedly been conflicts between the different ideas of religion, but it erupts into chaos here. As the opposing natures of the different religions come into light, and the origin of them all is lost, the religions clash against what they consider to be evildoers and false gods. As this stage has progressed, there have been many that have come to the realization--not neccesarily forsaking their faith in the process--that whether there is a God or not, or even a meaning or not, we've somehow ended up in possession of exceptional free will and must follow the concept of goodness out of pure responisibility and desire to make the world a better place. Author Philip Pullman writes
His Dark Materials to expose the dangers of pig-headed zealotry and calls the concept of unimposed goodness "the Republic of Heaven." Many readers of his books, both religious and not, except this belief and adapt it to their own.
Possible Future of Absolute Religion - Religion has overthrown atheism, and many people ignore the warnings of people such as Pullman against pig-headed zealotry. Conflict abounds. The world is chaos because of blind faith and religious theocracy.
Possible Future of Absolute Atheism - Atheism has overthrown religion, and many who cling to religious belief are persecuted and ridiculed for it. Concepts of good and evil soon die out. The world is chaos because of blind faithlessness and atheistic theocracy.
Possible Future of Intolerant Balance - People have used the warped reasoning of one fundamentalist I've been in e-mail contact with--that "tolerance is a joke"--and the world has become a clash of beliefs and disbelief. The world is chaos at times and quiet at others because of blind intolerance and disrespect for the beliefs of others on the part of most people.
Possible Future of Tolerant Balance, "The Republic of Heaven" - Both religion and atheism, accepting ideas of tolerance and goodness whether God exists or not, have succeeded in keeping each other reasonably in check. While the world is not that impossibility known as perfection, it is still much better than the other three. Idealistic, I know, but not quite impossible.
Those last three apply whether there is a God or not. All I want to show you is, 1) We must accept that goodness is possible whatever a person believes in God or not, if they are willing to go the extra mile and, 2) there is another possible way religion and good/evil ideas could have come about.
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Topic: Where did God come from? (Read 12235 times)