Who Do You Think You Are, to Criticize God? (genesis, Israel, worship)
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Perhaps you should have told us this premise in the OP, then we could have avoided wasting our time answering.
Why does ownership exempt him from the rules? You can not simply assert this, you need to explain why.
So you keep asserting.
You don't believe ownership gives you the right to do what you will? It doesn't matter if what is owned, can think and feel. It is still that person's property. As to establishing rules, we can look at it in this way. If I own a company, and I set the rules for how I want others to operate in that space, I myself don't have to follow the rules. I own the joint. If I say don't put your feet on my couch, it doesn't matter if I put my feet on it, you're still not allowed to do it. In the same way, if our creator says don't kill, you don't kill. Yet if he kills, he's simply doing to his property what he wills. It will be like the insect analogy everyone keeps ignoring, except in the creator's case, he would be in his actual right to squash a bug he created.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bungalove
If the creator tortured his creations, s/he would be a pretty lousy creator, morally speaking. It almost seems like slavery.
We would actually be his property, vs other humans claiming us as property. It would be legit if the creator called us slaves.
You don't believe ownership gives you the right to do what you will? It doesn't matter if what is owned, can think and feel. It is still that person's property. As to establishing rules, we can look at it in this way. If I own a company, and I set the rules for how I want others to operate in that space, I myself don't have to follow the rules. I own the joint. If I say don't put your feet on my couch, it doesn't matter if I put my feet on it, you're still not allowed to do it. In the same way, if our creator says don't kill, you don't kill. Yet if he kills, he's simply doing to his property what he wills. It will be like the insect analogy everyone keeps ignoring, except in the creator's case, he would be in his actual right to squash a bug he created.
We would actually be his property, vs other humans claiming us as property. It would be legit if the creator called us slaves.
The fact that you can conceive of thinking and feeling beings as the disposable "property" of a capricious Being reveals the dangerous evil hidden within God-belief. There is no defensible merit in such a belief, IMO.
The fact that you can conceive of thinking and feeling beings as the disposable "property" of a capricious Being reveals the dangerous evil hidden within God-belief. There is no defensible merit in such a belief, IMO.
I've been accused of having a closed mind. Yet I would say based on the responses of this thread, most of us are closed to the thought of this kind of reality. You are not willing to humble yourselves. As I mention again with the insects, generically speaking, they have a right to criticize us of wrongdoing by killing them. Yet we would either disagree or disregard their concern. However when it comes to our creator, "NO! He has no right to do what he wills! He must follow the rules"! Those rules being what we feel like it should be based on our limited understanding. This is very contradictory thinking.
Now, if an advanced alien race came to earth and decided to make this planet their home, would it be immoral for them to wipe us out or crush us like insects? Would they be wrong to do so? They could be like us in this aspect, seeing us as insects wondering about in their house. Do they have a right to take us out? Would they be considered murderers? It probably wouldn't bother them much either. However they are not our creator, and in this example we could criticize them in that aspect. This brings me back to something I said in the OP. In the case of our creator, all of us are on equal playing field and status. We all belong to him. Yet again, I don't believe I'm the one with a close mind. Y'all just can't humble yourselves.
I've been accused of having a closed mind. Yet I would say based on the responses of this thread, most of us are closed to the thought of this kind of reality. You are not willing to humble yourselves. As I mention again with the insects, generically speaking, they have a right to criticize us of wrongdoing by killing them. Yet we would either disagree or disregard their concern. However when it comes to our creator, "NO! He has no right to do what he wills! He must follow the rules"! Those rules being what we feel like it should be based on our limited understanding. This is very contradictory thinking.
Now, if an advanced alien race came to earth and decided to make this planet their home, would it be immoral for them to wipe us out or crush us like insects? Would they be wrong to do so? They could be like us in this aspect, seeing us as insects wondering about in their house. Do they have a right to take us out? Would they be considered murderers? It probably wouldn't bother them much either. However they are not our creator, and in this example we could criticize them in that aspect. This brings me back to something I said in the OP. In the case of our creator, all of us are on equal playing field and status. We all belong to him. Yet again, I don't believe I'm the one with a close mind. Y'all just can't humble yourselves.
I've been accused of having a closed mind. Yet I would say based on the responses of this thread, most of us are closed to the thought of this kind of reality. You are not willing to humble yourselves. As I mention again with the insects, generically speaking, they have a right to criticize us of wrongdoing by killing them. Yet we would either disagree or disregard their concern. However when it comes to our creator, "NO! He has no right to do what he wills! He must follow the rules"! Those rules being what we feel like it should be based on our limited understanding. This is very contradictory thinking.
Now, if an advanced alien race came to earth and decided to make this planet their home, would it be immoral for them to wipe us out or crush us like insects? Would they be wrong to do so? They could be like us in this aspect, seeing us as insects wondering about in their house. Do they have a right to take us out? Would they be considered murderers? It probably wouldn't bother them much either. However they are not our creator, and in this example we could criticize them in that aspect. This brings me back to something I said in the OP. In the case of our creator, all of us are on equal playing field and status. We all belong to him. Yet again, I don't believe I'm the one with a close mind. Y'all just can't humble yourselves.
I believe I have some grasp of what you're getting at. It pretty much boils down, or so it seems to me, to Paul's question as to whether a pot has the right to question the potter. The ultimate expression of this is five-point Calvinism: We are all pots deserving of destruction, and it is to God's glory that He has graciously elected to save anyone at all.
Although I am not theologically a strict Calvinist, I am sympathetic to the Calvinist perspective. It actually does seem to me, on the basis of experience and observation, that some minority of people are blessed with the capacity to believe and respond to God's call while others simply are not. The large majority of people actually do seem to me to be "vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction." No, it's not a particularly appealing theology, but it does match my experience and observation.
The point being, God can do whatever He wants. We, as finite created beings, are no position to evaluate, judge or criticize His motives or methods. If 90% or more of humans are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction - OK, enjoy the gift of life you have been given.
The fact that this is not an appealing theology arises out of human pride. We all want to believe that we have intrinsic value and dignity. But as you point out, we don't believe that insects have intrinsic worth and dignity (well, I do - but I guarantee you, I am in a miniscule minority). We think God owes us something, a recognition of our instrinsic worth and dignity. No, He doesn't; He doesn't "owe" us anything, any more than the creator of a puppet family or digital virtual family owes them something.
This view does bump up against some Christian teachings, such as that God wishes for all to be saved or that the vessels of wrath will suffer eternal torment. Those teachings make strict Calvinism especially unappoealing. But there is nothing fundamentally troubling about the notion that a creator can do whatever he wants with his creation. Keeping this notion in mind is, even for a non-Calvinist, a good reminder that we as created beings are in no position to judge what an eternal, transcendant God "should" do or "ought to" have done or what we would have done if we'd been God.
If we decide we simply can't believe in or accept a God who doesn't recognize the intrinsic worth and dignity of humans - OK, fine. If God is the God of Calvinism, it won't make any difference one way or the other. The chosen elect will believe. The fallacy is in thinking that God "can't possibly be" like this when He most certainly can.
As I say, this isn't my theology (to the extent I have any theology at all), but I recognize that it is a legimate perspective and that all the arguments against it flow from the entirely human perspective that there is some special worth and dignity in being human - a perspective that most of us don't extend to our fellow creatures.
I believe I have some grasp of what you're getting at. It pretty much boils down, or so it seems to me, to Paul's question as to whether a pot has the right to question the potter. The ultimate expression of this is five-point Calvinism: We are all pots deserving of destruction, and it is to God's glory that He has graciously elected to save anyone at all.
Although I am not theologically a strict Calvinist, I am sympathetic to the Calvinist perspective. It actually does seem to me, on the basis of experience and observation, that some minority of people are blessed with the capacity to believe and respond to God's call while others simply are not. The large majority of people actually do seem to me to be "vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction." No, it's not a particularly appealing theology, but it does match my experience and observation.
The point being, God can do whatever He wants. We, as finite created beings, are no position to evaluate, judge or criticize His motives or methods. If 90% or more of humans are vessels of wrath prepared for destruction - OK, enjoy the gift of life you have been given.
The fact that this is not an appealing theology arises out of human pride. We all want to believe that we have intrinsic value and dignity. But as you point out, we don't believe that insects have intrinsic worth and dignity (well, I do - but I guarantee you, I am in a miniscule minority). We think God owes us something, a recognition of our instrinsic worth and dignity. No, He doesn't; He doesn't "owe" us anything, any more than the creator of a puppet family or digital virtual family owes them something.
This view does bump up against some Christian teachings, such as that God wishes for all to be saved or that the vessels of wrath will suffer eternal torment. Those teachings make strict Calvinism especially unappoealing. But there is nothing fundamentally troubling about the notion that a creator can do whatever he wants with his creation. Keeping this notion in mind is, even for a non-Calvinist, a good reminder that we as created beings are in no position to judge what an eternal, transcendant God "should" do or "ought to" have done or what we would have done if we'd been God.
If we decide we simply can't believe in or accept a God who doesn't recognize the intrinsic worth and dignity of humans - OK, fine. If God is the God of Calvinism, it won't make any difference one way or the other. The chosen elect will believe. The fallacy is in thinking that God "can't possibly be" like this when He most certainly can.
As I say, this isn't my theology (to the extent I have any theology at all), but I recognize that it is a legimate perspective and that all the arguments against it flow from the entirely human perspective that there is some special worth and dignity in being human - a perspective that most of us don't extend to our fellow creatures.
I hear ya! And when it comes to Yahweh in particular, I would argue He loves everyone and His desire is for everyone to return to Him. If we ultimately do not return to Him, it is 100% our choice. We have to remember how He created everything in the beginning. Then we have to also remember how grieved He was when men rejected Him during the days of the flood. All of this is in discussion according to the Bible. Yet generically speaking, yes, the creator has the right to do what he wills. For most of the comments here, it just illustrates the prideful aspect of life we have. Not many are willing to humble themselves. If we truly consider these thoughts in aspect toward a creator, then we would truly see each other as equal. Because no matter who we are and what we accomplished, we all belong to the creator.
In this way, I wouldn't commit crime against someone, because that someone belongs to the creator. I wouldn't knowingly and willingly harm another person, because they belong to him. I wouldn't harm myself, because I belong to him.
... the creator has every right to do what he wills to his creation. Even to torture his creation. Its all about ownership.
That's exactly what Satan would be about; what he would want and do. You've officially crossed over to the dark side.
Wake up Man. Listen to where you've taken yourself. You've dug in so deep into the muck of an indefensible position, that you've completed blinded yourself.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 11-16-2023 at 12:31 PM..
That's exactly what Satan would be about; what he would want and do. You've officially crossed over to the dark side.
Wake up Man. Listen to where you've taken yourself. You've dug in so deep into the muck of an indefensible position, that you've completed blinded yourself.
I see the value of the discussion as being in the abstract. In the abstract, a creator can rigfhtfully do whatever he wants with his creation, up to and including destroying it. In the abstract, the God of Christianity owes precisely nothing to a fallen creation that has disobeyed His commands. As I suggested in my response to Heavenese, to think that He does owe something flows from human pride and the human notion that human life has intrinsic worth and dignity which God "should" recognize. Calvinism says no, there is no intrinsic worth and dignity; fallen humanity deserves only punishment. It is by saving anyone at all that God expresses His love and mercy and glorifies Himself and His Son.
Only five-point (TULIP) hyper-Calvinism is anywhere near this harsh. Where I believe the discussion is valuable is as a reminder that we are created beings who answer to an eternal, transcendent God. He doesn't answer to us. Again and again on these forums, the discussions are in the vein of "what sort of God" we can or can't believe in, what we think God "should" or "shouldn't" do, or what we would do differently if we were God. Such discussions are fundamentally misguided and ultimately lead to a revisionist Christianity that simply isn't what Christianity has always been understood to be. It loses the wholly transcendent Creator and substitutes an entirely anthropomorphic (manmade) God who answers to His creatures.
Truthfully speaking, for the purposes of this discussion, the creator has every right to do what he wills to his creation. Even to torture his creation. Its all about ownership. That is what makes him exempt from rules he established, if he wished to be exempt.
If we torture each other, he could criticize us because we don't own each other. We could criticize each other for harming one another. Yet if he did it, he is within his right.
Oops, God torturing his creation just for grins goes directly against the concept that God is Holy and "good". Which he is also supposed to be.
And if we are supposed to strive to be "Godlike" in our behavior... if God can torture people for grins...then we should be able to as well in our quest to be "Godlike".
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