RagingRev

Russ, a Christian and Minister in the Missouri Synod of of the Lutheran Church, and I have been chatting with a certain frequency…for some reason it always lands on the subject of morality…we hit other subjects some times, but morality is one thing that we ALWAYS end up getting back to. Maybe I am not authoritative enough on the subject of morals (I don’t know why not), but I can’t seem to say things in a way that satisfy Russ…so we chat and I explain my side, challenge his side a tad, try to explain why god is not necessary in the moral dilemma that we face daily…and for some reason it just never gets across, I have no doubt that I am using some sort of logic that seems circular but I just don’t know any other way to put it. The thing is, Russ knows that I am not an immoral person, he admits that…He understands that a godless person like myself can still have morals but that they may not have a basis. Usually after going over this a few times we start to do a bit of name calling and then kiss and make up, because Russ is a really nice guy and I am too if I must say so myself (usually we only prod one another, I think he knows I am just picking with him). I guess I just want to know from the Atheists and the Christians (or anyone else for that matter) where I am messing up my explanation of this thing. So what follows is a portion of one of our more recent conversations (edited to make it easier to read, no other edits made) from Gtalk.  Afterward I am going to try to explain my view (which as far as I know is well accepted, but I base it entirely on my own understanding of history and my observations of the human race) Tell me what I can do to improve my understanding or explanation of this, is there a precedent on this argument that could help me?

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Robert posed a few questions on the Morality and God post that I thought deserved a little attention (actually, all of them from everyone were good, but this is a good easy place to start I think, the conversation that ensued after the post delighted me though, so thanks to those of you that participated, feel free to continue!)

Robert says:

Matt you say God created man and woman imperfect. Is the freedom and ability to do wrong an imperfection or part of perfection?

I don’t really think freedom nor ability to do wrong would be the act of creating imperfection…but creating us in the LIKLIHOOD that we will screw it all up and then planting the device by which we will fail Him in the middle of the garden, then providing the Serpent to tempt man. It’s that the Bible teaches that God essentially SET MAN UP FOR FAILURE that makes HIM the bad guy, that is imperfection.

Regarding God creating evil? I think God IS good (He defines it by his being God). Evil exists when we do that which is not of God. Its not created surely?

Lets take a literalistic view here.

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

The Bible says God created evil. Creating choice is one thing, but creating evil is entirely another. IF god created something (out of nothing or void) that we can definitively say we don’t need (bad things aren’t needed surely?) then isn’t that just setting us up to fail? Why create the unnecessary? And the Sovereign God argument, that God did it so it must be part of his perfect will etc, is bunk because he must know that it is far beyond reasonable comprehension for us feeble minded humans and that our lack of understanding will CAUSE many of us (myself) to go astray. Once again HE is creating the chaos, just like the Bible says.

I know this is brief, tomorrow I intend to bring up the different views that exist regarding God and Satan—one being that Lucifer is the good guy—what do you think?

Adding more information here for Russ:

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