24 Mar 06
Originally posted by 667joeif you haven't, read plato's dialogue "euthyphro." it has some interesting things to say along these lines. the question there is: "is something beloved by the gods because it is good, or is something good because it is beloved by the gods?" i get the feeling that this is more or less what you are asking. if something is beloved by the gods because it is good then goodness is apart from divinity and divinity is subject to it. if something is good because it is beloved by the gods then presumably there must be some sort of criteria that the gods use to jduge it, and by this criteria we should be able to tell if something is good without a god to tell us.
Is god good because he is good, or is god good because he is god?
24 Mar 06
no, but some apparently find it helpful. the problem is that religions tend to be so internally inconsistent, telling you one thing on one page and the opposite on the next, that if one is looking for a guide as to how to live, there are any number of contradictory guidelines that one could follow.
24 Mar 06
Originally posted by 667joeNeither is true. If you are Christian then God is good because the Bible tells you so.
Is god good because he is good, or is god good because he is god?
In my opinion the Christian God is not good.
If you have a look at the thread The Attributes of God, you will see that FreakyKBH is quite ready to redefine the meaning of words so long as the word sounds nice and he wants it to apply to God.
God cannot be good nor just nor a whole long list of similar words for the simple reason that the words do not define specific attributes but general ones and have slightly different meanings for different people.
For example some may say that Angelina Jolie is beautiful and some may say she isnt. Beauty is not an inherant property of a person or object but more a perception of that person/object that we the observer have. Similarly nothing can be good nor just, they are perceptions or judgements that we make about them and will difer between observers.