If God went away, would his laws still be just?

[DetlefK]

If God's laws are just even when God is not around, won't that mean that God's laws come from a higher/different authority than God?

Won't that mean that God's laws are a separate entity from God himself?

[Croney]

1. "When God is not around" makes no sense.

Where would she/they/he/it go, to Vegas for the weekend?

[qazplm135]

3. What if God was one of us?

Just a slob like one of us.
Just a stranger on a bus, trying to make His way home,


...because he blew his airfare on a bad craps roll (God DOES play dice with the universe...but he never cheats!).

[Voltaire2]

13. replace 'not around' with 'doesn't exist and never did'.

Now back to these laws....

[Newest Reality]

2. That question

only comes into prominence when one conceives of a God that has a separate existence rather than an immanent presence as a complete and unified whole containing all that is and is not and potential.

So, once you move from away from that, then the concept of God becomes an idol, in a sense--an anthropomorphic projection subject to interpretation. When you go by the Western notions of the Ultimate God, then the criteria claim omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. You could include transcendent, (yet all inclusive) and non-dual as in a unified whole, (one thing only) that then comes down to paradoxical descriptions.

In that case, there it is rather contradictory to imagine a God that comes and goes or is subject to unity vs. separation because those are all relative, conceptual terms relating to the abstract imaginings of the mind and its habits, patterns and perspectives, which are limited in scope and capacity. Those limits include the rather narrow, linear constrictions of thought in its temporal unfolding where cause and effect, (or Karma) appears to be true. Yet, you could easily say that, all in all, we are here right now and this is the way this is because of the entire Universe itself.

In that case, the question is moot. While you could say that people can intuit those "laws' and trust them to be inherit in the nature of reality itself, they are subject to context, tradition and interpretation. The Tao Te Ching falls in along those lines without positing a personage of God and referring to the dynamics of nature itself as evidence of the basic, primal, dual relationship of yin and yang of the Watercourse Way, or flow of it all.

The implications of the transcendent Beingness of the Universe not only puts God in the very hear and now as direct experience, but also, as in some Eastern methodologies, as the very core and nature of our own being as in Tat Tvam Asi: That thou art! That could be called Presence.

[Cartoonist]

4. Who said God's laws were just?

Worship me!
Don't eat shellfish.
Worship me!
Don't eat meat on Friday.
Cut your dickskin off.
Worship me!
Do not kill!
Kill everyone who doesn't worship me.

Social laws are universal and preceded the imaginary being called God. For people to live together, the ills of murder, theft, violence, dishonesty, and greed, among others, need to be treated.

[SCantiGOP]

8. And you may be the most righteous person in the world, but

if you happen to live in Sodom, or are alive at the time Noah is building his big boat, you and the rest of the innocents are going to be smitten.

[TlalocW]

5. If the laws are just without God

Then God is not needed. If not, then whatever laws God issues are just and to be a Christian you must follow them - even if you disagree with them. If God somehow made it 100% known that to be a Christian, you have to punt a kitten everyday, you, as a Christian, must do so, whether you find it reprehensible or not. In the latter case, you are exactly like the dog with the duck in his mouth. An amoral agent who only follow rules so he won't get booped on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

There aren't objective-by-themselves morals. There are subjective systems of morality, and the morality in them would be objective in that system. One example would be a system that placed well-being as the goal of morality. I don't like having X done to me by other people so I (and others) shouldn't be able to do X to other people, where X is murder, steal from, etc. etc. etc. This is a very simplistic system and would need more to shore it up so we don't get people saying, "I don't like hearing Nickelback so others shouldn't hear Nickelback," but it would form a basis for a system of morality better than anything in any holy book.

TlalocW

[Major Nikon]

7. Laws, regardless of origin, are a means of control

In the case of divine laws they are not subject to interpretation or arbitration. In other words if god commands your disobedient children must be put to death, then that's what has to be done regardless of whether or not you agree with it. Anything else is heretical.

Fortunately god allows us a way out. If we don't like a particular rule, we just declare it emblematic so regardless of what was said, we are free to interpret it any way we want.

[guillaumeb]

18. Are you aware that your two? arguments contradict themselves?

[Major Nikon]

6. ...

[NeoGreen]

9. The 'Laws' were never god's in the first place...

...and they lack the capacity to be 'just'.

'Justice' was never part of their purpose...ever.

Magic based superstitions proffered by Bronze Age goat herders and recorded by Iron Age scribes is not a good basis for a system of morals to sustain humanity in an age of global overpopulation and nuclear armaments.

People, just let it go...let the magic go...if you're over 12 years old, there is no Santa Clause living in a cloud above the north pole forever handing out gum drops and cotton candy smoothies when you die.

Grow the eff up.

[Karadeniz]

10. There is a place/dimension called the world of the Source. The Source never leaves its

Domain; souls must go there. A soul can approach according to its composition (energy, frequency) and no closer. If close enough, the soul can absorb the Source's radiance, heightening its energy. If the soul is not ready to join the Source, it will leave its station. As the soul leaves, it can transfuse its acquired radiance into those lesser souls so that they can experience the nature of the Source and learn.

This same transference of Source nature has occurred at all levels of the spiritual realms. Each realm is governed by Source nature. At the earth level, the Source nature is contained in the souls in varying strengths depending upon how well the soul's host bodies have exemplified and manifested its Source nature throughout its many incarnations.

Hard to believe that this knowledge is contained in Jesus's parables, but it is.

[Cartoonist]

11. Even harder to believe

is the stuff some people believe.

[Voltaire2]

12. "A soul can approach according to its composition (energy, frequency) and no closer."

Please elaborate: what are the expected energy and frequency values for a 'soul'?

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. This should to be good.

[edhopper]

14. Yes, very hard to believe

some would say impossible to believe.

I prefer Jack Kirby's version of The Source.



:large

[Act_of_Reparation]

16. At least the dogs have very good reasons to believe in Dave.

[Iggo]

19. Good Two-Legs Who Feeds.

[guillaumeb]

17. Do you only obey the law when you are being observed? eom

[NeoGreen]

20. It's not a simple binary condition...

...
1) You know you are being observed because you are also observing the observer.
2) You expect you are being observed but are not aware of an observer
3) You might be observed
4) It is doubful you are being observed
5) You are being observed, but within a multitude and your actions are likely to go unnoticed
6) You are being observed, but you are aware that the observer is indifferent and doesen't care.

Would you not steal bread to feed a starving child if someone else was watching?

What if the 'law' was intrinsicly inconsistent, or in error, or incomprehensible or injust?

'Binary' can be a useful tool in simple systems like computer code, but it is simplistic if one tries to apply it to solve dynamic, complex, organic problems.

[guillaumeb]

21. It was a binary question. eom

[NeoGreen]

22. Yes it was, and just as...

...simplistic, leading and missing-the-point as intended, I'm sure.

A mere rhetorical tool, designed to do no more than set the stage for a straw-man rebuttal.

Upon edit, I should have written '...set the stage for yet another straw-man rebuttal'.