Obligation to God

[Farthender]

As we all know, holy wars about who is right about God and creation and all that have been going on for centuries. There have been many debates as to the existence of God or a God-like figure, and much citation of the Bible, Qur'an, and other holy books for moral systems has happened. In the midst of all this, I have not seen much discussion about, if God does exist, why humans must obey what he says.

This has mainly come up as a question for me because I have quite a few moral convictions that are in direct contrast with much of the old religious teachings, such as homosexuality being OK, women being equals of men, etc. (Man, I love "etc."...it makes life so much easier.).

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? 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?

[Aedes]

The first task is to get beyond the issue of "assuming there is a god", which is a conclusion that can only be reached individually.

But then remember that even if you believe according to the western religious traditions, remember that God's moral dictates have been directly given only to a select few -- like Abraham, Moses, etc. The rest has been written down in scriptures, or interpreted from that which is written down in scriptures. It's not hard to believe that traditional morals (according to scriptural traditions) are not exactly how God would feel on the issue were you able to ask him.

I don't particularly believe in God, but if I did I would never be able to believe that he had as many arbitrary prejudices that humans do. In fact I think people's prejudice towards others is frankly godless.

[Farthender]

Well said. I don't see how God could deserve our undying love and worship and all that if He (or it, or she, or them, or whatever) had some of the seemingly pointless positions that many Christian and Muslim religious authorities claim he has. I'm speaking mainly of these Western religions because I know even less about eastern ones.

[Aedes]

In my opinion, for what it's worth, it's not about the religion. It's about the culture, and the cultural mores get absorbed into religious tradition.

[midas77]

Originally Posted by Farthender

Well said. I don't see how God could deserve our undying love and worship and all that if He (or it, or she, or them, or whatever) had some of the seemingly pointless positions that many Christian and Muslim religious authorities claim he has. I'm speaking mainly of these Western religions because I know even less about eastern ones.

I go with Aedes. With the claim religious fanatics labelling Words of God I doubt God will ever call himseld God the same way Marx shuns branding his philosophy Marxist.

[Holiday20310401]

Yes but how do we get society do deviate the culture from religion. And I believe the bible not to be an account of what God would actually be like so a self belief in God is wrong is it were to parallel human literature.

But at the same time, since there is no God, history is important, as there is learning, and we realise that morals and rights are not constant, and can't be. So as we can't have an outside reliance on God's account there is relating to the past for wisdom which brings us closer to what God is truly about, I think anyways.

We are obliged to read some literature but not to ever assume it is something no created other than by the human hand.

[GoshisDead]

The first task is to get beyond the issue of "assuming there is a god", which is a conclusion that can only be reached individually.

Agreed with the above.
If you end up assuming there is no God, then you question is moot. If you end up assuming there is a God, then work with him/her/it yourself. If there is a religion that has doctrine that feels right do it.

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?

The answer is obvious after you have "assumed there is a God" with different dictates than that which you believe and practice, God by his/her/its nature and power is right and you are wrong. It ends up being beneficial for you to change your ways. So it would make sense that if you really don;t want to change your opinions you should assume there is no god, because any established "God" will differ somehow from what you want to do.

[Farthender]

I think I see a miscommunication, perhaps: just to clear it up, when I say, "assuming there is a God", I meant for the sake of this conversation; I myself am agnostic and just wanted to examine this issue from a Christian/Muslim/Jewish perspective.

Originally Posted by GoshisDead

God by his/her/its nature and power is right and you are wrong.

But why is God right? I'm not familiar with a good, sound reasoning for following what someone believes to be God's will, other than "if we do, we go to Heaven, and if we don't, we go to Hell", which seems to me to be more a selfish reason than a moral decision.

Well, I suppose one could say that since God created us, we owe him big time. But I think that if God created beings (AKA us humans) that could establish their own views on certain moral issues, then he should allow them to, rather than demanding they follow his moral system. It's similar to giving humans flight but demanding they do not fly or they get damned to Hell.

Once again, I'm using the "God created us" perspective for this conversation, I myself am undecided as to whether God exists. I'm doing this because I'm mainly interested in man's obligation to God in this discussion; if we didn't assume God existed for the sake of the discussion, the discussion would be meaningless.

[GoshisDead]

I could have been more clear myself, If you assume there is a god with an agenda for his/her/its creation, given most traditional views of God, any fault in life direction would lie in his/her/its creations.

[Didymos Thomas]

Because God's moral dictates make sense. 'Love thy neighbor as thyself'. That's not so bad, huh?

Aedes brought up the central issue here - culture. Religious strains develop in cultural contexts. The morals of the Koran were written specifically for the Arabian people who were moving from a nomadic lifestyle to an urban lifestyle and were in need of a new system to match their new environment. What's cool about this is that we can study the moral teachings of people from many cultures and incorporate the teachings useful to us in our own environment.

God is a human idea - morality is a human idea.