Some religious evidence is based on the assumption that divinity = good?

I'm writing an essay and I want to bring up the point that when some people are asked to defend their religious beliefs they show how much their religious texts promote equal rights and 'good' values and morals and principles.

My essay is about the idea of going beyond the evidence to accept conclusions. Does my point make sense that this is an example of going beyond the evidence since we do not have any evidence that if a divine power or god existed that they need to reflect absolute "good" (not sure how to word this?) Like, it's just an assumption if that makes sense?

what if there is a god and he does not reflect what we deem or is the general consensus of goodness?

Does this make any sense to anyone? XD Like do you think it makes sense if I say this argument?

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 1

username4280702

@Jesus is God @salimyasin10 @Professional G I am really interested in what some people like you guys who are somewhat devoted to religion have to say.

Also @Cryoraptor and @Notoriety I feel like you guys would have a really interesting outlook on this as well (or you probably will just shatter my argument to pieces) XD

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Reply 2

username3941996

I think this makes somewhat sense. We believe what we think is good is based on our assumption that God is good. We don’t know for sure if God is good or even if He exists but we believe based on our holy books.

Reply 3

username4280702

Original post by Professional G

Oh ok good good when I mentioned it to my friends they got a bit confused which is why I had my doubts.

Thank you!! :smile:

Reply 4

anosmianAcrimony

It's interesting to note that the God depicted in the Old Testament probably isn't considered a good person by our standards today.

Reply 5

LifeIsSoHard

You should look into morality.

Who or what defines what is moral (I.e. what is right/good & wrong/evil) and where do we get this from?
Is morality subjective or objective?

This should help you develop ur ideas

Reply 6

chazwomaq

You might want to look into ideas such as Marcionism and Gnosticism, both of which have ideas of supernatural beings that are not that good which people mistake for the supreme God. So you're quite right it's perfectly possible to assume a God who is good but not wholly good, or evil, or neither good nor evil.

You are also touching on the issue of how we define what good is: is something good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is good. If that latter, what makes it good - it must be something outside God. You might like this saying of Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Reply 7

jamesbarry17

Original post by LegallyJasmine

(...) we do not have any evidence that if a divine power or god existed that they need to reflect absolute "good" (not sure how to word this?) Like, it's just an assumption if that makes sense?

what if there is a god and he does not reflect what we deem or is the general consensus of goodness?

I would argue that is a category error. How could God be God if He did not reflect the ideal (or 'goodness')? To move away from the ideal is to move away from God as God is, by definition, the ideal. I think that is what the main religions would say, though I'm not sure. If God is the essence of the universe, but God changed His idea of goodness so that it did not match ours (or never had the same idea of goodness as us in the first place), then what basis would there be for us to hold our own idea of goodness? I think your argument would require an explanation of that problem.

Reply 8

gjd800

Perfect Being Theology necessitates that God is inherently good. It is a great-making property.

Reply 9

username4280702

Original post by jamesbarry17

I was thinking of the idea of god as a creator of the universe and as the ‘author’ of the holy texts. I think that’s a thing I need to establish in the essay like what is our definition of god or the definition I am attempting to address. I’m thinking mostly about the Abrahamic religions

Yes that is what I was trying to address as well. But for me the theme you could say of the essay is the question of using evidence to justify the legitimacy of ones religion. So, I’ve seen people show for instance verses from their religious texts that show how forgiving and fair their god is and how he fits our consensus of good. So, I think this evidence would be faulty since it is based on the assumption that our idea of goodness would match our God’s idea of goodness. It doesn’t prove or disprove the legitimacy of a religion or the existence of a god is where I’m trying to get at.

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Reply 10

username4280702

Original post by gjd800

Perfect Being Theology necessitates that God is inherently good. It is a great-making property.

But in terms of defining him solely as the creator, what if what we think is good isn’t necessarily ‘correct’? What if our human minds cannot begin to fathom and understand what the creator of this universe deems as good (of course if there is a creator) since we are limited by our human brains?

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Reply 11

gjd800

Original post by LegallyJasmine

Then you'd probably either have to admit defeat, stay silent, or approximate truths whilst recognising that as things stand, we cannot comprehend any ultimate truth (Pseudo-Dionysius, Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa).

Reply 12

jamesbarry17

Original post by LegallyJasmine

Hmm. Yeah, I can see a problem with using religious texts as objective "evidence" of God. I personally reject any idea that religious texts are inherently divine and true in themselves. If religious texts are actually just human interpretations of the world as I think they are, then they could, in theory, have gotten the idea of 'goodness' completely wrong.

But again, you would need to give a rational argument to say why the evidence provided in religious texts could actually be wrong.

I'm just going to ramble here in a counter-argument. What does "evidence" really mean when discussing God? Obviously a bit of writing on some paper cannot serve as true "evidence" for something divine like God. But what I would argue is, it's the thought that counts. Okay, religious texts may not be inherently divine in themselves, and so you can say the truth they claim to hold is not self-evident. But they have been written as nothing but an attempt to establish what God is. They attempt to establish the concept of God in a way that is accessible to humans. You said in the original post, 'we do not have any evidence that if a divine power or god existed that they need to reflect absolute "good". But let me ask you, what would this evidence constitute? If religious texts are not evidence of God, then what is? Is it possible to give satisfactory (empirical?) evidence of concepts?

Reply 13

username2950448

Original post by LegallyJasmine

What you're talking about sounds somewhat akin to the Euthyphro dilemma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

Reply 14

username4280702

Original post by Palmyra

What you're talking about sounds somewhat akin to the Euthyphro dilemma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

Yes! The Euthyphro dilemma is perfect, it describes my thought processes exactly, thank you! I’ll definitely look more into it

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Reply 15

Cryoraptor

First off, sorry for not noticing this earlier.

If you read through my responses on that mess of a thread, you'll see that I do speak against religion, but I never say anything about god. That's because I'm an agnostic. The human brain is very limited and we don't have the capacity to understand what caused everything to occur. We will simply never know what started everything or if anything ever started. It's a sad fact of life. In our limited universe a logic system of cause and effect works brilliantly, but once we take it to concepts like these, everything breaks down. We will never comprehend the timeless nothingness of what there was "before" the big bang (see what I mean, we can't think beyond time), thus we are never going to understand it. Have you noticed how every solution to how the big bang started poses another question of 'where did that come from'? That's because we can't think beyond cause and effect. One scientific cause of the big bang is quantum fluctuations. But then that brings the simple question of 'where did they come from'. We don't know. They may have always existed in a timeless infinite space. That will make anyone's brain including mine mind-eff every time you read it, simply because we can't comprehend it.

But anyway, back to the point of god. I don't dismiss the possibility that there is intelligence behind the universe. I however dismiss the possibility of any divine intervention on this planet or in our formation/evolution. At most, this deity just set the universe in motion and nothing else. We are completely natural outcomes down to chance. Like I've said before, even our observable universe is a microscopic speck compared to the smallest estimate of the true size of the universe, so I find it absolutely insane that anyone thinks they are in contact with this deity or that it's listening to them pray to it.