is god dependant of morality or independant?
958449
I think that's a really good question. If I accept the premise that God cannot ask us to do anything that is not moral, then that implies there is a morality independent of Him. On the other hand, if I accept the position that I must do whatever God wants me to do, then I have no way to ascertain whether God is asking me to do right or wrong - I must simply do what He says.
752616
Whether I believed in God or not, my behavior would change very little.  I believe that life is more pleasant when we treat each other with respect, compassion and generosity, and demand the same from our leaders.  It is worse when we seek to comfort ourselves to the detriment of others.  Promises of reward and threats of punishment are not necessary.\n\nIt's not a matter to me of whether I believe God exists but whether God, as presented, makes sense.  If God created us to endure a series of tests or a rule-bound game, with an absolute reward/punishment outcome, I'd consider that God unworthy of the concept.  If God is a co-witness and fellow traveller who values experience over obedience, whose concept of justice is based on compassion rather than rules, and who would never consider abandoning one of his creatures, I could buy into that.  \n\nGod is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent.  They say knowledge is power, then they say power, especially absolute power, corrupts.  Not quite true.  As humans, we can never have absolute knowledge or power, only "more" of each.  It is the remaining ignorance and fear that corrupts us because our grasp is tenuous.  Were someone to have absolute control of all power and knowledge in the universe, that person would be invulnerable and would understand everything.  That person would have no needs or threats, and no obligation to "settle" others' conflicts.  That person would be free to either ignore the problems or to objectively show a better way out of them.\n\nIf you are a parent, you may have had an experience of children fighting among themselves, understanding both of them perfectly while realizing that their dispute is meaningless.  Or you may have comforted a child facing a new experience, or cautioned a child incapable of recognizing a danger.  That's what it would be like for God.  Dispassion, wisdom, and patience would be God's attributes.  Anger, revenge and score-keeping just don't fit the picture.  These are the attributes of weak, fearful, childish humans.\n\nThe omniscience we lack is the reason we are in conflict, because we don't understand each other.  The omnipotence we lack means some of us will be stronger than others and we would likely exploit that for the sake of our own security.  God would transcend all that.  Absolute knowledge is understanding.  Absolute power is compassion.\n\nIf God were presented logically, as a loving creator who calls us out of fear into confidence and sympathy, I could go for it. The petty, capricious autocrat painted by Bible-thumpers doesn't make the grade.
562877
The "church" as an institution I think has really used spirituality to hype the political agenda of it's rulers (witness the Inquisition). But the confirmation of rules that really help a society work (don't steal, murder, cop another person's spouse or property) I think would be something that a "God" would be all in favor of.  I think that there are God ordained humans whose life's work is to remind those of a lesser spiritual bent that "to treat others as you would be treated" is the ideal.  These people SHOULD be "the church" but like you say there are those who for milllineums have used the claim that they have a "direct line to God" to control whole populations.  I figure if there IS a God, and He created me, why wouldn't He care what happens to me and if I am living a worthwhile life or not. I'm not sure about a heaven or hell type of judgement, but once again, if there IS a God/Creator then I figure he cares if I am a hurter or a helper and when I go back to Him He will care about an accounting that I have for my actions while I passed through his Creation.
310896
1. If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.\n   2. If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.\n   3. If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.\n   4. If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.\n   5. Evil exists.\n   6. If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.\n   7. Therefore, God doesn't exist.\n   8. If God doesn't exist, hell can't exist either.
8231
Not sure what you mean by principles..many religions agree on basic aspects of morality, like murder is wrong..lying is wrong...they may feel they share the same God, but they may not. Example the Hindus believe in many gods, the jews believe in only one God, so this is not the same idea of god - one is multiple in nature and the other is singular. For those that believe in only one god, there could still be characteristics that distinguish the single god.  Compare Jewish Jehovah to Jesus to Allah.  There are differences in the "personality" of God.  This is a very broad topic. Best to read descriptions of each faith and see the differences in concepts....I personally am a Christian...
1174475
I believe that worshiping God is worshiping good. \n\nAs a hypothetical, I love the spirit of your idea, but who would decide what good is?\n\nHaven't you ever known well-intentioned people who really have no appropriate sense of boundaries?  They think they're doing good.  They're going to help you if it kills you both....\n\nThe problem, as I see it, is that what is good is largely subjective.  That's one reason we need law.  \n\nAnd then there's the issue of enforcing "good."   Who would do that?\n\nIf everyone were moral and good, this world would be a better place.  We wouldn't need saving if we could reach perfection on our own.
1085413
No Gods\nOnce, flipping through a book on child psychology, I came across a chapter about adolescent rebellion. It suggested that in the first phase of a child's youthful rebellion against her parents, she may attempt to distinguish herself from them by accusing them of not living up to their own values. For example, if they taught her that kindness and consideration are important, she will accuse them of not being compassionate enough. In this case the child has not yet defined herself or her own values; she still accepts the values and ideas that her parents passed on to her, and she is only able to assert her identity inside of that framework. It is only later, when she questions the very beliefs and morals that were presented to her as gospel, that she can become a free-standing individual. \n\nI often think that we have not gotten beyond that first stage of rebellion. We criticize the actions of those in the mainstream and the effects of their society upon people and animals, we attack the ignorance and cruelty of their system, but we rarely stop to question the nature of what we all accept as "morality." Could it be that this "morality," by which we think we can judge their actions, is itself something that should be criticized? When we claim that the exploitation of animals is "morally wrong," what does that mean? Are we perhaps just accepting their values and turning these values against them, rather than creating moral standards of our own? Maybe right now you're saying to yourself "what do you mean, create moral standards of our own? Something is either morally right or it isn't-morality isn't something you can make up, it's not a matter of mere opinion." Right there, you're accepting one of the most basic tenets of the society that raised you: that right and wrong are not individual valuations, but fundamental laws of the world. This idea, a holdover from a deceased Christianity, is at the center of our civilization. If you are going to question the establishment, you should question it first! There is no such thing as good or evil. There is no universal right or wrong. There is only you... and the values you choose for yourself. \n\nWHERE DOES THE IDEA OF "MORAL LAW" COME FROM? \n\nOnce upon a time, almost everyone believed in the existence of God. This God ruled over the world, He had absolute power over everything in it; and He had set down laws which all human beings had to obey. If they did not, they would suffer the most terrible of punishments at His hands. Naturally, most people obeyed the laws as well as they could, their fear of eternal suffering being stronger than their desire for anything forbidden. Because everyone lived according to the same laws, they could agree upon what "morality" was: it was the set of values decreed by God's laws. Thus, good and evil, right and wrong, were decided by the authority of God, which everyone accepted out of fear. One day, people began to wake up and realize that there was no such thing as God after all. There was no scientific evidence to demonstrate his existence, and few people could see any point in having faith in the irrational any longer. God pretty much disappeared from the world; nobody feared him or his punishments anymore. But a strange thing happened. Though these people had the courage to question God's existence, and even deny it to the ones who still believed in it, they didn't dare to question the morality that His laws had mandated. Perhaps it just didn't occur to them; everyone had been raised to hold the same beliefs about what was moral, and had come to speak about right and wrong in the same way, so maybe they just assumed it was obvious what was good and what was evil whether God was there to enforce it or not. Or perhaps people had become to used to living under these laws that they were afraid to even consider the possibility that the laws didn&#
230180
God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition against eating "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. \n\nHow did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man". By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.\n\nBy his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all human beings.
683149
It is their foundation.  I sometimes wonder if arguing with someone about their core beliefs is moral.  if I ever convinced someone that they aren't going to Heaven, and the most powerful thing ever (God) doesn't love them, they would probably not feel good.  Of course, there are psychiatrists all over the world trying to convince people they are not God, or Jesus, or Napoleon, so I am immoral with company.
994228
You have an interesting view. I think I would agree with a lot of it. Ultimately anything about God comes down to relationships. Our relationship with God and how we treat those around us.
345720
Isn't it better to blame God than to take responsibility for your own actions?
852738
God.is God. It's our relationship that's important to him not a religion.
1096673
Morally? No-God permit this with the people. Until he changes things to a new way people were allowed to judge of earthy things just not the heart. it was a protection to the people.
1161767
I do fully agree with you.\nPeople do not understand that God can not be attributed the qualities of his subjects.\nHe cannot have a son as man does. That is a human characteristic which can lead to vile deeds. God is above that nature.\nTherefore there can only be One God, Who cannot have a son (What for? To inherit him?!!) That is why we say God is the Supreme and Everliving Being.
314678
First of all: I consider it really important to base your faith upon something that is reasonable, because if you do not do so, when faith is replaced by doubt, it would be really difficult to sustain. according to this, I consider that God is evident because: if we, the world we live in, and the whole universe surrounding us exist, then we could say that "Emptiness" (understand this as the lack of everything  doesn't exist), therefore Everything (understand this as the total lack of Emptiness) exists, therefore God (or something that could be considered to be infinite and eternal exists.=)
93923
Well...  What religion does is make morality an objective idea instead of a subjective one; people obey the tenets that a certain religion sets forth.  Morality without religion is subjective; it is every individual's own perception of right and wrong -- which often differs.  Very similar is the difference between Christianity and humanism; one sets God as the absolute of all reality, and the other sets humankind as the absolute of all reality.  \nSo, do people need "god" to be morally "responsible" to their own concept of morality?  No.  Whether their idea of morality is correct, on the other hand -- take Hitler's morality for instance; he may very well have been responsible to his idea of morality -- is a totally different question.
438024
Good Question, although you got a little lost in your typing there. \n\nI have to agree with your premise though. All in all, I think, and remember this is just my opinion, that you're on the right track. I think it's how a person lives and treats him/her self and others, that really matters. \nIf God really wants everyone to be one religion or another, there has to be some wiggle room in the end for those who just didn't know the difference or who were simply confused over the enormity of it all. \nPersonally I'm a God fearing Agnostic. Meaning I believe in God, but I don't believe in any one specific religious view of God. I know my actions towards others is a reflection of Gods' plan and if I'm cruel then I'm doing evil. \nIf I help someone out of my own kindness then I'm doing God's work.\nI don't believe God watches each of us individually, that's why He gave us free will. \nWe as individuals must look inward to find peace, love and goodness. Each of us must reach that place to pull out the goodness and extend it to our neighbors.