LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

Although "God says so" isn't a particularly satisfying reason, and one to be avoided if any better arguments are available, it's not inherently a bad one. Provided there is an omnipotent, omniscient creator-deity, such a Being strikes me as the only reasonable yardstick of right & wrong. Genuine omnipotence and omniscience, rightly considered, pretty much carry omnipresence, omnibenevolence, omnirectitude, and omniregience in their train by necessary implication. Arguing with such a Being's ideas of morality strikes me as somewhat like arguing with an inch that it really isn't an inch long.

Now, the existence of such a Person is a definite if for many reasonable people. And even should He exist, it's far from certain that our understanding of His wishes and opinions is correct, unfiltered, and uncompromised. But if His existence and intentions were universally clear and acknowledged, not deferring to them would be dimwitted, to say the least. There's legitimate authority for you, if legitimate authority there ever was.

My main complaint with the "God says it, I believe it, that settles it" argument is that it's usually wielded by the people least knowledgeable and sophisticated in analyzing what little He may have vouchsafed us of His will. So while the argument couldn't be stronger in a theoretical "black body" environment, it's something of a loser in real life.

...Actually, even if I did believe that the Abrahamic God existed, I would still not accept "Because God said so." I would require reasoning and an argument for doing so even from him, just as I wouldn't worship him just for existing. I don't consider "Because God said so" any more legitimate than I would consider "Because your father said so" or "Because the President said so."

But what if God also has omnievilness?! D:

Yeah, this always bugged me too. Even if you take it as logically sound that an omniscient, omnipotent being could exist, nothing indicates that this being is in any way moral or benevolent. That's just wishful thinking. The only thing we can objectively say about such a creature is that it is powerful.

Precisely. If the Abrahamic God appeared before me, proved he was real, and commanded me to do something, I'd ask him why I had to do that, and I wouldn't do it unless he gave me a satisfactory and logical reason,

And then he's probably set you on fire or something.

And then I'd call him a dick and, like, tweet about it, or something.

I think you're misunderstanding Jhimmibob's basic point. To think of an omniscient and omnipotent being as a creature that can be argued with is missing the point on a titanic scale. The entire universe would be framed in its terms absolutely. One might as well attempt to bargain with Azathoth.

That such a being would care about who sticks what where is, of course, a different conversation altogether...

edited 8th Dec '12 2:32:18 PM by pagad

Actually it rather sounds like the one we are supposed to be having.

And whether or not it can be argued with is beside the point. We were expressing objection to Omnipotence and Omniscience necessarily leading to omnibenevolence. Jhimmibhob, I would appreciate it if you would explain your reasoning there because I'm just not seeing it.

edited 8th Dec '12 2:39:51 PM by Elfive

...No matter what, I would never follow any command without reasoning behind it. If the Abrahamic God wants me to do something, he better convince me to do it. I don't care if he's omniscient or omnipotent or omnipresence, I will never accept just cause he said so.

Also, I think God wouldn't like me to blindly follow his orders and wants me question them! I'm sure he promotes being skeptic, because naively following orders can do plenty of harm!

edited 8th Dec '12 3:20:32 PM by kay4today

Defying the orders of an omniscient being would be doing what it wants, because it would know exactly what to say to you to get you to further whatever plans it had. If you defied it, it would know you would that and tell you to do something other than what it actually wanted you to do so you would do the thing it wanted you to do instead.

I don't think God would do that to me! That would be pretty mean!

Then how come the Appeal to Authority is listed under the Logical Fallacies section of this wiki (aka You Fail Logic Forever)?

The mere existence of the God Is Evil (as opposed to God of Evil) and Above Good and Evil (all hail to The Lord of Nightmares!) as tropes suggests that not everyone thinks that way, even if only as an abstract exercise. Which suggests a mixture of Appealto Tradition and Appeal to Ignorance. (Aka That's how everyone's done it and I can't think of any alternative). Maybe some Appeal to Nature as well.

So no, even then your arguement is based on unfounded assumptions, shoddy logic, wild leaps of wishful thinking and blind adherence to traditions.

Edit: Fixed a pothole.

edited 9th Dec '12 3:02:49 AM by KnightofLsama

Beyond Good And Evil is a video game. Not a trope.

I think you're looking for Above Good and Evil.

IIRC, Jewish people don't necessarily believe that God is omnibenevolent. Really, I see no reason why omnipotence and omniscience would inherently mean omnibenevolence.

Well having two without the third brings up a lot of potential fridge horror.

If god is evil, why would your first plan involve pissing him off?

Not making an argument, just an observation.

Bear in mind that it should be literally impossible to argue with God. Not only is God far more intelligent than you are, and already knows how you will respond ahead of time, and presumably the design of your brain (including your capacity for skepticism) is already a part of any plan he has... but if Christian folk belief has any validity, he doesn't typically engage people on an intellectual level anyway. Instead you 'feel God' within the innermost spiritual part of you. Rejecting God should feel like rejecting part of yourself.

Or omniscient for that matter. I mean, Abraham and Moses both made him back off.

Because edgy people on the Internet.

edited 8th Dec '12 6:30:57 PM by Pykrete

Because you don't think It exists so why give It any thought whatsoever? It makes perfect sense for atheists. If you do believe in It...well I guess you just hate authority or something and don't care about Hell.

edited 8th Dec '12 6:34:50 PM by Kostya

Because any merely human authority is, by definition, fallible, and best taken with a smidgen of reservation, however exalted the authority. That's not so applicable in the case of unique Deity. A rightfully wielded, absolute authority might be appealed to without fallacy.

The mere existence of a trope doesn't mean that said trope is logically consistent. The "God Is Evil" trope takes it for granted that there's some distinction between good and evil independent of this omniscient, omnipotent Being. If so, however, that Being couldn't be omnipotent, for He would be judgeable by a standard outside Himself. By definition, being subject to such a standard falls short of omnipotence. Ergo, any genuinely omnipotent Being isn't rightfully subject to outside moral evaluations by definition.

edited 8th Dec '12 6:57:50 PM by Jhimmibhob

You are very eloquent.

However, not everyone buys into your, or Aquinas's, opinion on what God Thinks.

Some people remain unswayed by appealing to God's judgement for a similar reason you would be unswayed by my appeals to a higher power you did not believe in.

Because arguments are meant to persuade others, or at least defend your viewpoint, that one fails.

God cannot be proven to exist. Therefore, you cannot actually use him as a scapegoat or reasoning alone. Unless you can explain why you think his word is law, and be able to even question it(second part not required), you can't actually use it as a legitimate argument.

Appeal to Tradition, and other appeals are all fallacies that have no meaning unless you can explain why it makes sense.

"Because [anyone] says so" is not an actual argument. An argument consists of substance, most of all, reasoning. That argument lacks any. I don't care what God supposedly thinks. Or any deity you say. You need to explain why, or it's not an argument. Reasoning matters, not authority, when it comes to any law. Our laws, many human laws, in fact, have some kind of realistic reasoning behind them. While it's true, some have no reasoning, you can find some with some thought. Even with the Ten Commandments, of which God made(and Jesus showed to us), each one can be picked apart with some good reasoning beyond "Because God said so." In fact, if you read every verse in the Bible, it's possible to find a reason, if it was interpreted correctly, that is.

Everything in Leviticus, for instance, all are found under health-based reasons. Whether morally healthy, or physically healthy. None of it has anything to do with anything beyond cultural taboos, and it's one of the misinterpreted sections of all time. Homosexuality is as bad as eating shellfish? If that's the case, neither are an issue at of this age at all. In addition, that area, as it was talking about the specific culture, has no meaning to everywhere in the world but that culture. I've had shellfish before, and homosexual sex.(I myself am bisexual) I even do Lent and Easter stuff. I am technically disobeying some of those rules but not others. Am I suddenly a bad person for doing that? No. Because none of those are actually problems in this day and age, although they might apply to a select few people.(allergic to shellfish, for instance) It is not my culture to do all that. Likewise, when it's translated correctly, having sex with a male temple prostitute would be the thing that would be breaking Leviticus' cultural rules, not having gay sex in general.(well, male on male, as it specifies about anyway) Note, I am still in a male body, so the context does make sense here.(as in, yes, I had sex with a male as a male, etc.)