Where did god get his morality from?

Question

The one thing we would all agree on is that morality is about how individuals behave towards other individuals, and the consequences of that behaviour for each person. Christianity (as an example) tells us that only one god exists, and that he existed alone for all eternity until he decided that he needed to make some humans to love and worship him. Now, how would such an entity ever come up with ideas about how to interact with other individuals, if there is only one of him? How could he be the origin of moral views about relationships if he never had a relationship? How could he be the origin of rules about theft if he never lived in a society, or about how to interact with parents if he never had any? If you try to ascribe the origin of morality to a creator god then you end up at a loss to explain where it came from in the first place. The idea is clearly nonsense.

On the other hand, morality *does* make perfect sense if it is an evolutionary survival strategy - Part of the phenotype which has made us such an enormously successful social species. The 'function', then, of morality (if you can call it that) is simply to enhance the propogation of the genes which cause this kind of behaviour, which it has done extremely well. That's no different to observing that the 'function' of wings is to facilitate flight and that it has contributed to the evolutionary success of birds and beetles and other flying creatures.

So morality makes perfect sense as a product of our evolutionary origins but no sense at all in the religious worldview.

Answer 1

Interesting question. In more simplistic terms, on the basis that he was man-made and his views moved to the good side of human nature, then the devil who was also so created moved to the opposite view as a reaction to moral goodness. That would then question who is the abiter of good and bad.

Answer 2

I would guess it's because he's, um, "omniscient"; that He is the source of and provider of what is and isn't morality. That is, if it is in keeping with His perfection and absolute standards of such.

To think that morality "does" make sense as an "evolutionary survival strategy" for social beings fails on many levels, chief of which is the fact that what one society (take South American Indians who still practice the fine "art" of headhunting) would call morals, another maybe would'nt, although there is an almost universal notion among all people of what absolute standards are (except, of course, the headhunters). As for God not having a "relationship", His perfect understanding of what morals are is not contingent on any such "need" in the sense that He would somehow have a better understanding of what they are if such a "need" was neccessary in the first place. He was quite self-sufficient long before He designed and created our kind, and wholely without need of our input.

Oh, and one of Him is the reality. sorry

Answer 3

"how would such an entity ever come up with ideas about how to interact with other individuals, if there is only one of him?"

Once God created moral agents, He would know how they should act towards Him and towards other people. Actions that reflected a proper relationship (e.g., actions that treated God as God, people as people, and objects as objects) would be moral, those that did not would be immoral. For example, the first commandment forbids worship of idols because then a person is treating something or someone that is not God as if it were.

Answer 4

God has NO stinkin' morality!

Here, look:

How about you about reading the whole bible( spend 15-30 minutes each day, and you'll be finished within a year) and really, begin from Exodus. I want you to understand the cruel, despotically -overpowering ,blood thirty being Yahweh is. I want you to read about what happened to the freed Israelites once Moses had been commanded by God to tell the Pharoah to liberate them. I want you carefully scrutinize this sonorous line-reiterated after almost every passage in the beginning of Exodus, "but I will harden Pharoah's heart, so that he will NOT let the people go" God ordered the Pharoah to let them go- so then why was he hardening the kings heart so that he will adamantly REFUSE to let them go? I would especially like for you to carefully read the book of Job, and to really obtain a more profound insight upon Yahweh's diabolical nature. Read upon what happens to Job, a noble God- fearing man from OZ who bore 10 children and cared for plenty of animals. Read and meticulously observe how God made a pact with Satan by unsuspectingly slaughtering all his children and animals- only to see if this respectable man would curse him once in return.

To really comprehend the genuinely sadistic, insidious character of God, read Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, and Job. Those books are extremely compelling.

- A girl who doesn't pick and choose which verses to study, evangelize or commit to memory

Answer 5

You have a very good point speaking as a humanist. All one needs to do is make their God like a human being and all will be just fine and it will make sense.

If there is a God and creation or as you think evolution is the system which a supposed God owns, who are humans to tell God what to do? Likewise who are humans to say all must make sense to them in respect to what God does or what takes place in evolution?

Is not the owner free to do as he well pleases with what he owns and controls?

I am sorry my friend all the humanists I read about seem to think they are free to do and way what they want and they expect others to accept it. If that is the case why can not God and/or evolution do the same?

I see a double standard maybe! That is fine for here on Yahoo all can have double standards if they desire for opinions are free to express for everyone thanks to Yahoo and their single standard.

Answer 6

Sure, God existed alone in the beginning (disregarding certain trinitarian aspects), but if God could create what we know to be existence, which resulted in relationships and the like, then don't you think that God could also know what proper interactions (morals) would be for that creation?

However, I don't think that God necessarily 'created' morality. Because I figure that morality and ethics is our struggle to be like God--which implies that it wasn't God who decided about those things, but defined them in God's own nature.

We get into trouble when we start applying our logic and rules to a being that is so far beyond our understanding. It works sometimes (maybe), but often it doesn't.

Answer 7

If I may play the advocatus dei in this case, you could argue that god was bored. Therefore he set up a big simulation game and put independently acting puppets inside. And then he made rules for them (out of thin air), and watched what happened.

Let's hope that god's mother will not show up, she'd probably pull the plug and call him to dinner.

Answer 8

God's morality is based on eternal principles that never change. They are how the Universe naturally works. I don't think we can say that God created them--it is just the way things naturally work. There are some laws that even God himself must live by.

Answer 9

God has ALWAYS been a God of relationships.

That's why the Trinity makes wonderful sense. God has always existed in three persons. Within the Godself is a perfect relationship, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Answer 10

I read, 'God is no respecter of Man'. He does not respect our morality either. Charity, love, and hope are not moral issues. I get these three from God.