In Paul Copan's terrific new book,
Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament, Copan responds to many of the criticisms regarding God in the Old Testament by the New Atheists. Copan quotes Yale theologian and Croatian born Miroslav Volf regarding the "wrath" that is often called into question of a loving God.
...Volf... lived through the nightmare years of ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia that included the destruction of churches, the raping of women, and the murdering of innocents. He once thought that wrath and anger were beneath God, but he came to the realization that his view of God had been too low. Here Volf puts the New Atheists' complaints about divine wrath into proper perspective:
I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn't God love? Shouldn't divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That's exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, a region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed, and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalize beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.
Is God a Moral Monster?
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47 comments:
"Is God a Moral Monster?"
No, he's not...because he doesn't exist.
I'm shocked that the writer didn't question the fact that his god did nothing at all to help the people of Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
'How did God react to the carnage?"
by doing absolutely nothing at all. Not one solitary thing.
Why didn't he? If he couldn't that means he's not omnipotent, if he chose not to that means he's either disinterested or a sadist.
Either way, he doesn't look good.
To be fair, I don't remember the US doing a whole lot in Rwanda either.
Does that make America a moral monster?
It makes America (or at least the people in power) disinterested. But America has the following excuse: We are not all-powerful, although sometimes we might like to imagine ourselves as such. We could easily find ourselves dragged into a war with no way out and without putting a dent in the slaughter.
Also, the description of the biblical god is that of a moral monster. He commands the slaughter of little children. The babies didn't hurt anyone.
So it isn't actually a moral question. It is a question of whether these people's lives interfere with one's other plans.
How many wars has America started or supported by supplying arms and advisors? Who is the only country in the world to have actually used nuclear weapons against civilians?
The babies in Hiroshima didn't hurt anyone either.
I suppose there is an excuse for that too. You can't be expected not to kill if you're not omnipotent?
The other argument here was that God did do something. he gave us free will. Some people's free will allowed them to do such things. Others who could have done something's free will told them to open another beer and change the channel when they heard about it. Not many who's free will caused them to actually do anything.
There is confusion here between a description written in a book you dismiss and a modern situation where the entire civilized world collectively shrugged and said they didn't care. If you make excuses for why no one need have done anything to save real lives, I don't see where there is the moral high ground to judge someone else for not appearing to be doing anything.
Sitting by and watching something happen and then complaining later that someone should have done something, doesn't make anyone look good. Especially an Atheist who says God should have done something. You could dismiss a Christian as being deluded in thinking that, but an Atheist making the claim is just dismissing the lives as worthless. If they are worthless, why would it make any difference if God saved them?
"Does that make America a moral monster?"
I think America has enough problems with it's global image right now. The US has committed some atrocities, and certain presidents (Bush Jnr for example) should be facing war crime charges (as should Tony Blair in the UK) for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
However, that has nothing to do with the fact that a supposedly all powerful and all loving deity has consistently sat back and done nothing to alleviate the suffering of millions of his supposedly created people.
Where was your god when the US bombed Japan? Where was he went Hitler caused a war that killed millions (including a HUGE number of your gods 'chosen' people!)? Where was he when millions were being raped and murdered in Rwanda? Why didn't he step in during ANY of the wars that have ever happened?
As Epicurus said "Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"
I think the answer comes from Isaiah
Isaiah 45:7 -“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.”
Basically your god makes EVERYTHING happen, he's the source of all good AND all evil. There is no devil, as Satan is merely another face of your deity.
Again, I can only be grateful that no gods exist, and that, though the world is full of pain and suffering, there isn't some all mighty being cruelly allowing it all to happen.
God was allowing mankind to exerercise free will.
It is an important question, but the answer is easy in my mind. Whether you are a christian or an atheist or something else, all these things that man does to man are a free choice to do. Man could easily not have done any of it.
Regardless of your point of view Man is to blame.
The argument that it is incovenient and I'm not God doesn't cut it. All this argument does is reinforce the doctrine of the total depravity of man.
"God was allowing mankind to exerercise free will."
So your god was allowing people to exercise their free will to be murdered, raped, displaced?
They were being 'allowed' to chose to become innocent victims of the ambitions of others?
I'm sure that was a real comfort for the Jews gassed in Concentration Camps! 'Oh no, I'm being murdered, but on the plus side at least I'm being allowed to exercise my free will in being gassed....against my will!'
Brilliant argument, Trent, brilliant.
Just because you don't like the answer, doesn't make it the wrong one.
Not believing in God put's you back in the same place. Where were the so-called moral people who sit in judgement of God? "Knowing" there was no God, what did Man do? Exactly the same thing God is being condemned of doing.
Actions have consequences. Allowing free will, has consequences. Namely some people will use it to do things you don't like.
This is my view. You can go back through the archives and see Jim's answer, as this is his site and he has given his answer.
Alex B - Am I correct in understanding your position that the idea of God intervening (with respect to the Canaanites) and not intervening (for every other evil) is morally reprehensible?
"Alex B - Am I correct in understanding your position that the idea of God intervening (with respect to the Canaanites) and not intervening (for every other evil) is morally reprehensible?"
My position is that gods don't exist. Any discussion of theology is purely to meet you on a level field so that I can explain why the concept of gods is so completely lacking.
Trent, so you claim that innocent victims of violence are exercising their 'free will' by being killed? You don't think a kind, loving god would step in to prevent these things happening? Why not?
Not to interfere with the discussion going on... But it might be beneficial to sort out what definition is being applied to "Free Will".
My position, if it wasn't clear, was Man as a group was given free will, and this was what Man as a group has done with it.
Just because one person exercises his free will and limits another does not mean that God steps in and overrides free will any time someone decides to do something evil.
Since I take from earlier posts that morality is relative and based on culture, and our culture has decided that allowing genocide is acceptable if it requires you to do something to stop it, then allowing genocide is not considered morally wrong in our society. If that is the case then it is not morally wrong for God not to intervene.
As Pvblivs says, not acting to prevent slaughter, in our culture, is not morally wrong. It merely shows that you are disinterested.
"Since I take from earlier posts that morality is relative and based on culture, and our culture has decided that allowing genocide is acceptable if it requires you to do something to stop it, then allowing genocide is not considered morally wrong in our society. If that is the case then it is not morally wrong for God not to intervene."
but for that to be the case god has to not exist. You can't use an argument that depends on the non-existence of your deity to plead for his existence.
Allowing genocide is absolutely wrong, but there is very little individuals who are not in positions of power can do about it. Your god, on the other hand, is supposedly loving and absolutely in a position of power. Using the inability of humans to stop genocide as an excuse for god not to is nonsense.
Not at all.
I do not believe morality is simply culturally based. My point is if you hold to that point of view, my argument follows. It does not follow that God does not exist. I simply assert that if you make the assumption and act as if morality was merely culturally dependant then certain other things must be true. I'm not using it to plead that God exists. I believe God exists. Others don't. Many of them use this definition of morality and act on it. It may be the de facto morality that people use daily, but just because people believe something doesn't mean it is true. I'm sure you'll agree with that.
I don't remember massive waves of people begging their governments to intercede in Rwanda. If people found it morally wrong, and it was just a few government officials that stopped intervention, then I would expect it to have been at least as big a topic and a pressure on elected officials as whether welfare should be extended to undocumented Mexicans. Since it wasn't, I assume if it was a moral issue it wasn't a big one.
Already on this blog article, we've seen that the non-intervention was more of an issue of it being inconvenient. It was inconvenient for the government, and the population didn't care enough to force the issue. Hence, our culture didn't see it as an issue. So, it doesn't make sense to blame God for not doing something we couldn't be bothered enough to make a fuss about ourselves.
"
I don't remember massive waves of people begging their governments to intercede in Rwanda. If people found it morally wrong, and it was just a few government officials that stopped intervention, then I would expect it to have been at least as big a topic and a pressure on elected officials as whether welfare should be extended to undocumented Mexicans. Since it wasn't, I assume if it was a moral issue it wasn't a big one. "
A better example would be the second Gulf War, where millions of people thought it was morally wrong, and took to the streets to protest it. I marched in sub zero temperatures at the Montreal protest, whilst back home 3 million people took to the streets of London. People DO protest when they think they can prevent something from happening. With Rwanda the news came out so slowly that the damage was mostly already done by the time it became well known - and a lot of people protested about that as well.
None of that explains why your god did nothing to protect the innocent victims. In fact the ONLY thing that explains why he doesn't do anything is that he doesn't exist (that he's evil isn't an option that you are willing to accept it seems)
Empirical evidence seems to go against people really caring. Anecdotal evidence of you doing something about a completely different war, which was a US invasion of a foreign country that was condemned by a lot of the rest of the world, isn't relevant to Rwanda. Neither is the fact that the media didn't do enough to whip people up about it
This merely shows that people are apathetic about such things, unless they see how it can affect them personally or people that look like them, and God is being used as a scapegoat to help with their consciences after the fact.
You look at this and say it proves there is no God. I look at it as say it proves that mankind can't be trusted to work out it's own morality. People care more about the fact that an undocumented immigrant may get a job than a few thousand Africans being slaughtered, and they think they have earned the right to sit in judgement of anyone?
Your unstated premise is: if God did exist, he would wipe out evil from the world. This allows you to conclude that there is no God, as you rightly point out the presence of evil.
Unfortunately for your argument, the premise is false. God has adequate reasons for not stopping evil - specifically, his conclusion that free will is more important. You may reject that conclusion, and it may cause you to reassess what God's attributes include, but concluding that there is no God, based on your observations, is irrational.
I agree. As long as God allows free will, such things say more about us than it does about him.
Trent - "People care more about the fact that an undocumented immigrant may get a job than a few thousand Africans being slaughtered, and they think they have earned the right to sit in judgement of anyone?"
All completely irrelevant to whether your god can prevent evil or not. In fact not a single thing you've brought up alters the fact that your god does nothing.
Al - "You may reject that conclusion, and it may cause you to reassess what God's attributes include, but concluding that there is no God, based on your observations, is irrational."
No, I conclude there are no gods due to biology, history, geology, archaeology, astronomy, medicine, botany, practically every science really, directly contradicting the Bible (which is internally contradictory anyway) and every other holy book out there. In fact to conclude that there IS a god, based on YOUR observations, is irrational.
I wasn't arguing whether God could or could not prevent evil, so there is no wonder why you felt the comments were irrelevant to that argument
My argument, based on the statement that God must be a sadist, was to argue that humanity has no moral grounds to judge what was or was not done based on the track record of how we have used our free will.
My point was even those who believe there was no God to intervene didn't feel the need to put themselves out, making them just as guilty as the God they simultaneously accuse and deny.
Trent, I'm sorry I wasn't clear. What I should have said was "regardless of whether you think man has a right to judge your god or not, the answer has nothing to do with whether god SHOULD or WOULD prevent innocents from suffering. In fact to continue to return to the point is a straw man argument distracting from the issue at hand"
....all in the interest of clarity.
Comparing man's action or inaction to the inaction of your god is irrelevant. If your god wants to prevent innocent people suffering, then you say he has the power to do so...if he then doesn't theists are unable to come up with an explanation (and, no, your 'exercising free will' argument wasn't an explanation at all). Usually Christians eventually fall back on 'he moves in mysterious ways' or 'everything happens for a reason' or even 'who are we to question god?'
From the discussion here, Trent, it seems you think that victims of violence are somehow to blame for their plight, through nothing more than being human - they are guilty just because they exist. I put it to you that that is a morally bankrupt position to adopt, the kind of moral bankruptcy that can only be caused by a believe in a sadistic, disinterested deity.
I never once said the victims were to blame.
I asked you (amongst other things) "So your god was allowing people to exercise their free will to be murdered, raped, displaced?"
to which you replied
"Just because you don't like the answer, doesn't make it the wrong one."
I've checked the context, and I don't see you meaning anything other than what your post appears to say.
Then you've missed my entire point, and this is a waste of my time.
Are you saying that I didn't quote you in context answering the question I asked?
Alex,
Let's stay on one issue at a time. You say that science supports your conclusion, and we can get to that argument.
However, for now, I take it from your response that you concede the illogic of concluding that there is no God from the presence of evil, and that you instead want to rely on other arguments. Is this correct?
I don't concede that at all Al. I find any argument in favour of a god to be utterly lacking. It is is not illogical to deduce that gods don't exist when one considers 'evil' in the world.
Alex,
You're simply setting forth your bias. You've already concluded that no argument could ever convince you. So, this is rather pointless.
To know "evil" in the world, one would have to have a source of good against which to compare it. Otherwise it's simply a dislike and nothing that you can label "evil." Consequently, if you recognize evil, and you conclude there is no source of good (i.e. God), you are embracing a contradiction. That is illogical.
You will note I've put 'evil' in quotes.
"To know "evil" in the world, one would have to have a source of good against which to compare it. Otherwise it's simply a dislike and nothing that you can label "evil." Consequently, if you recognize evil, and you conclude there is no source of good (i.e. God), you are embracing a contradiction. That is illogical."
We have an evolved base level morality. Over aeons we've slowly hard wired a simple 'don't kill, don't steal, don't rape, don't commit incest'. The incest one is interesting, and the clear evolutionary advantage of not committing incest is obvious when we look at DNA bottlenecking. Nobody consciously thinks 'I will not commit incest due to the increased likelihood of any offspring being unviable' yet we almost all have a natural strong aversion to it. The processes that have hard wired that are no different to the ones that cause us not to murder each other, or rape each other.
We can recognise the actions of others as 'evil' (or horrible, or morally repugnant, how ever you want to word it) without there having to be a god to hand down a version of 'good' to us. We already have that base level morality remember, we don't NEED to acknowledge any supernatural beings in order to understand that some actions are despicable.
So your claim that I have to embrace an idea of a god to be able to recognise 'evil' is entirely false.
That is one assertion.
OK, answer me this -
Which is more important to your god, free will, or the life of a child?
"So your claim that I have to embrace an idea of a god to be able to recognise 'evil' is entirely false."
Then move beyond the "base level morality" that you posit in your response. Martin Luther King stood against the "evolved" standards of his day to argue that "separate but equal" was "evil." His argument was based on a recognition that all men, because created in God's image, are entitled to equal rights and equal treatment. The evolved group morality supported a notion that different races could, and should, be treated equally. Which was was right?
Your "evolved morality" may get you to a loose baseline, but it won't help in more nuanced situations, nor will it allow for societies - such as Nazi Germany - to be judged for violating rights they choose to ignore.
Without being able to root morality in something transcendent, you are left with preferences and opinions only, not objectively based recognition of good and evil.
"Without being able to root morality in something transcendent, you are left with preferences and opinions only, not objectively based recognition of good and evil."
So?
I don't see what the problem with that is, considering that we've built the 'morality' that you claim to have come from some supernatural being around it.
Anyway, that question - Which is more important to your god, free will, or the life of a child?
So?
You have mo problems with morality model that allows Nazism as acceptable?
You have no problems with a god who allows Nazism as acceptable?
Didn't see him doing much to prevent the murder of millions of his chosen people....
I believe you have concluded my worldview was moraly bankrupt, though.
I never said Nazism was moral. My point was that people being immoral was a natural consequence of free will.
But Trent, people are also moral...in fact the vast majority of people are, even without religion breathing down their necks.
The bulk of stuff that theists class as 'immoral' are things to do with sex, who is doing what to whom mostly. The big things, murder, theft, rape etc AREN'T done at all by most people, ever. Despite this Christians have this obsessive belief that the world is intrinsically evil, when it isn't.
Yes, there are some bad people, but they're still in the minority.
Christians are swift to condemn 'the world' for its 'sins', but they are the ones imagining up these 'sins' in the first place.
Aren't most people, at least nominally, a member of a religion which offer punishment fo not being moral?
Would that not skew your staistics?
Trent, do you honestly think that even nominal believers consider whether they'll be punished or not for a 'sin' before they go ahead and do, or not do, something?
Do you think most decisions are made consciously with deliberation?
No, I don't. Even the ones that are important are (I'll wager) made by the majority of people without worrying whether some non-existent sky friend will be displeased or not.
Rather limited view. I doubt most decisions are made with conscious deliberation of anything, other than it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I suspect many criminals simply assumed they'd never get caught.
"Rather limited view. I doubt most decisions are made with conscious deliberation of anything, other than it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Er, unless I've typed completely the opposite of what I meant to, isn't what you're saying here pretty much exactly what I said?
You were very specific about sky fairies.
I believe that people generally don't think things out, or are apathetic about the consequences unless it will affect them personally in the near term.
You seem to believe, that except for a small minority, people will behave morally without any coersion, and see the general population of non-religious our semi-religious as proof. I see people who are very religious paying close attention to moral taboos and those less religious being affected less but still directed consiously or unconsiously by living in a culture that has historically been saturated by religious beliefs.
When one looks at history, even if you strip religion out of it, people have a long track record of being very cruel to each other. I do not think we have changed.
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