Euthyphro Once More.

[Phillysoul11]

When you say "Without flaw", you are making the same mistake. A flaw is a deviation from the ideal standard. By saying god is without flaw, you simply say he conforms to this standard, which is one of the conditions of the dilemma. I really can't see anyway of describing him as perfect without comparing him to some other standard. As soon as you compare him to some other standard, the dilemma wins, as god is merely conforming to some other standard, and it is not his morals that are objective. If you define perfect as "like god", then we just end up in circles.

I genuinely can't see how anyone could be convinced by this argument, the dilemma has all the bases covered, this argument tries to snake down a gap between the two that is not there.

When I say God is without flaw I am saying God is consistent with himself. A flaw is a deviation from the ideal standard - by saying that the ideal standard is God then I am saying that God cannot deviate from who He is, this is true by virtue of Gods existence. I am not saying that what is good is good because God recognizes good from some sort of external standard, and I am not saying that good is determined by virtue of Gods arbitrary decrees. (the two horns) I am saying that God's goodness which is an essential part of His nature is the standard by which actions can be deemed good/bad based upon their conformity or lack thereof to that standard. If God was God because of the way He chose to be or because of the way He happens to be than morality would be arbitrary. If God is God because of the way He must be than morality is mind independent. Objective moral values can then be derived.

[SSY]

OK, lets work through this.

Let us assemble a list of possible gods, and then try and find the greatest conceivable one, the only real one. As we check through them, we see a load of them all who have the power, the knowledge etc etc etc, but they have different morals. We know it must be one of these ones. However, we know, that it is an essential part of his character that the morals god has, are good ones. Great, now we can work it out, as we know god is the greatest conceivable being, there can be only one thing on our list that is really him.. How are we to check through and find out which one is the real god? Well we need the one with good morals, simple enough, but the only way to find out which of the moral sets are good, is to compare them to some external standard of goodness. We can't use a set of any of the gods before us, as they will all be self consistent (no flaws compared to themselves). Is there any other way to pick out the real god? I can't see any.

This demonstrates, that for the morals of god to be good, they must be compared to some external standard, not only the standard that the god himself sets.

[Phillysoul11]

OK, lets work through this.

Let us assemble a list of possible gods, and then try and find the greatest conceivable one, the only real one. As we check through them, we see a load of them all who have the power, the knowledge etc etc etc, but they have different morals. We know it must be one of these ones. However, we know, that it is an essential part of his character that the morals god has, are good ones. Great, now we can work it out, as we know god is the greatest conceivable being, there can be only one thing on our list that is really him. How are we to check through and find out which one is the real god? Well we need the one with good morals, simple enough, but the only way to find out which of the moral sets are good, is to compare them to some external standard of goodness. We can't use a set of any of the gods before us, as they will all be self consistent (no flaws compared to themselves). Is there any other way to pick out the real god? I can't see any.

This demonstrates, that for the morals of god to be good, they must be compared to some external standard, not only the standard that the god himself sets.

First of all just to be clear (I think you acknowledge this) there can only be one God according to the definition of God as the "greatest conceivable being". I think you agree with this as you state that there can be only one "real" God. You are arguing that the only way to tell which God is the real god we would have to know which God has the "good morals". So we have a bunch of fake posing gods and one real god. You are claiming that unless we have a standard by which to judge the Gods we cannot know which one is good and which ones are fake. Correct? (by the way, please let me know if I am misinterpreting your argument).
You ask how then can we know which God is the real God. I think their is a fundamental problem which you are overlooking. I mentioned in my original post that the idea that objective moral values are rooted in God is a claim concerning moral ontology that is "the foundation in reality of moral values". It is important not to confuse this with moral epistemology "how we come to know what is moral". In your situation I believe that you are arguing that because there is no way for us to know which God is good then that God isn't good which does not logically follow. Even if nobody knew which God was good that wouldn't change the fact that he is Good (consistent). You acknowledge that the one real God is necessarily good, this is essentially all you need to know to defeat the Dilemma. Our knowledge of this God's goodness is irrelevant to the Dilemma. Moral epistemology is an interesting topic by all means but it's not really what I'm interested in.

Your main issue with my argument seems to be the fact that we cannot call God good unless we judge him according to another standard. You have to understand that the theist calling God good is simply saying that God is consistent. Theists use the words good, perfect, moral ect. to describe God's character. We deem actions good/bad, right/wrong based upon their conformity or lack thereof to God's character (nature) which is the way it is by necessity.

Thank you for your insights, I'm enjoying this conversation. Please let me know if you think I misinterpreted your argument.

[SSY]

No, I think you got most of the argument, but you missed a key point.

All the gods in the list have consistent morals, so they all would be equally suitable under your regime, but we know there is only one. When you say god is good, and by good you mean self consistent, there could be multiple gods that fill that description. It still seems to me that your simply saying that because god is the greatest, he must have objective morals, and there is simply too big a gap in-between there for me to fill in.

To me, when I hear that god has to be good, that to me sounds like god has to conform to an external standard, I can't see anyway round this. You can either describe god as conforming to some other standard, or simply conforming to himself, the first is an obvious problem, and the second is simply circular. If a Christian says, "God's morals are consistent with himself", then that's great, but it is in no way objective, when you say "Ah yes it is objective, because we know it is an essential character of God to have good morals", you simply compare him to an external standard. Put another way, if you said it is an essential aspect of his character that he is made of paper, he would be conforming to an external standard of paperyness, not defining what is and is not paper. If you decide to change the definition of paper to "The stuff god is made out of", then an iron god, or a jelly god would still have this essential character ( being made of "paper"), but now, the paper would not be scrunchy and flammable, but heavy or sticky, ie, completely different. When all you require of god's morals is that they are consistent with god, any set of morals would do, ones that advocate rape, or ones that condemn it.

Also, we seem to be the only ones in here

echo

 echo

 echo  

[Phillysoul11]

No, I think you got most of the argument, but you missed a key point.

All the gods in the list have consistent morals, so they all would be equally suitable under your regime, but we know there is only one. When you say god is good, and by good you mean self consistent, there could be multiple gods that fill that description.

Since theists (monotheists) define God as the greatest conceivable being there can be no other beings equal too or greater than this God. If there could, than God wouldn't be God ect. Since the monotheist God if existing must be the greatest possible being no other "fake" gods could serve as an objective standard. Because they would be lesser beings and would have to conform to the real Gods standard. Putting this into perspective lets get rid of all the gods, and substitute humans. I am consistent with myself; however, since I am not the greatest conceivable being I cannot serve as the standard for moral values. Remember that one of my  premises was that "it is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to an external standard". Consistency in and of itself does not make anything the standard of morality. The greatest possible being must be the standard of morality. And there can only be one greatest possible being.

It still seems to me that your simply saying that because god is the greatest, he must have objective morals, and there is simply too big a gap in-between there for me to fill in.

I'm not sure what you mean by "he must have objective morals" I'm saying that God can serve as a foundation for objective moral truths. The original argument's purpose was to fill in the gaps. Reworded/rearranged but essentially the same
1. God is the greatest possible being (must be accepted)
2. It is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to an external standard of morality.
3. Since God must be the standard of morality his nature is necessarily flawless. (He is consistent)
C. Since God is necessarily flawless He can serve as the foundation for objective moral values. (what is good/bad is based on conformity/lack thereof to God's character)

This is a rough version but I think it gets the point across, is their any particular point you are objecting to? Let me know.

To me, when I hear that god has to be good, that to me sounds like god has to conform to an external standard, I can't see anyway round this. You can either describe god as conforming to some other standard, or simply conforming to himself, the first is an obvious problem, and the second is simply circular. If a Christian says, "God's morals are consistent with himself", then that's great, but it is in no way objective, when you say "Ah yes it is objective, because we know it is an essential character of God to have good morals", you simply compare him to an external standard. Put another way, if you said it is an essential aspect of his character that he is made of paper, he would be conforming to an external standard of paperyness, not defining what is and is not paper. If you decide to change the definition of paper to "The stuff god is made out of", then an iron god, or a jelly god would still have this essential character ( being made of "paper"), but now, the paper would not be scrunchy and flammable, but heavy or sticky, ie, completely different. When all you require of god's morals is that they are consistent with god, any set of morals would do, ones that advocate rape, or ones that condemn it.

I think we have already settled that God is who He is by necessity of His existence. He is not the way He is by chance or choice but by necessity. This is a crucial point and If you don't understand it let me know.
Now if we decided that God is essentially made of paper (meaning if He exists he must be made out of paper) and we decided that He for some unknown reason could be made only of paper otherwise he would be different (not God) than worrying about whether or not God was made of jelly, stone would be useless. It's kind of like saying:

P1. If an Apple exists it must be a fruit and cannot be a vegetable.
P2. Apple exists.
C. What if the apple is a vegetable?

If we accept P1+P2 it is impossible that an Apple could be a vegetable, thus worthless to think about.

Putting this into perspective this is why I can say that child rape is objectively wrong. It could never (in any circumstance) be right if God exists. In every possible world where God exists it is wrong because if God exists than it is always contrary to His character. God could not exist and be any different. I'm not hammering the hell out of this point just to be redundant. I'm trying to say it in as many different ways as I can so there is no confusion.

Also, we seem to be the only ones in here

echo

 echo

 echo  

I think we scared everyone else away. Looks like we're on our own.

[Ihateusernames]

Also, we seem to be the only ones in here

echo

 echo

 echo  

I think we scared everyone else away. Looks like we're on our own.

Nono, I'm quite interested in this conversation.  You two most certainly have lurker(s) here. Carry on. : P

[pinkocommie]

Nono, I'm quite interested in this conversation.  You two most certainly have lurker(s) here. Carry on. : P

Super ditto.

[SSY]

No, I think you got most of the argument, but you missed a key point.

All the gods in the list have consistent morals, so they all would be equally suitable under your regime, but we know there is only one. When you say god is good, and by good you mean self consistent, there could be multiple gods that fill that description.

Since theists (monotheists) define God as the greatest conceivable being there can be no other beings equal too or greater than this God. If there could, than God wouldn't be God ect. Since the monotheist God if existing must be the greatest possible being no other "fake" gods could serve as an objective standard. Because they would be lesser beings and would have to conform to the real Gods standard. Putting this into perspective lets get rid of all the gods, and substitute humans. I am consistent with myself; however, since I am not the greatest conceivable being I cannot serve as the standard for moral values. Remember that one of my  premises was that "it is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to an external standard". Consistency in and of itself does not make anything the standard of morality. The greatest possible being must be the standard of morality. And there can only be one greatest possible being. This is the problem though, if we conceive of a list of gods, we know only one of them can be the greatest, but what is the standard we use to decide which one is the greatest in our list?

It still seems to me that your simply saying that because god is the greatest, he must have objective morals, and there is simply too big a gap in-between there for me to fill in.

I'm not sure what you mean by "he must have objective morals" I'm saying that God can serve as a foundation for objective moral truths. The original argument's purpose was to fill in the gaps. Reworded/rearranged but essentially the same
1. God is the greatest possible being (must be accepted)
2. It is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to an external standard of morality.
3. Since God must be the standard of morality his nature is necessarily flawless. (He is consistent)
C. Since God is necessarily flawless He can serve as the foundation for objective moral values. (what is good/bad is based on conformity/lack thereof to God's character)

This is a rough version but I think it gets the point across, is their any particular point you are objecting to? Let me know.You are saying, "god is great,in order to be great, he must have a really kick ass set of morals", this is true, but the morals would be kick ass whether or not he held them, god's word has nothing to do with it in this case.When you say something is morally kickass if it conforms to god's character, you are really just saying that it conforms to the kickassery standards of the morals themselves.

To me, when I hear that god has to be good, that to me sounds like god has to conform to an external standard, I can't see anyway round this. You can either describe god as conforming to some other standard, or simply conforming to himself, the first is an obvious problem, and the second is simply circular. If a Christian says, "God's morals are consistent with himself", then that's great, but it is in no way objective, when you say "Ah yes it is objective, because we know it is an essential character of God to have good morals", you simply compare him to an external standard. Put another way, if you said it is an essential aspect of his character that he is made of paper, he would be conforming to an external standard of paperyness, not defining what is and is not paper. If you decide to change the definition of paper to "The stuff god is made out of", then an iron god, or a jelly god would still have this essential character ( being made of "paper"), but now, the paper would not be scrunchy and flammable, but heavy or sticky, ie, completely different. When all you require of god's morals is that they are consistent with god, any set of morals would do, ones that advocate rape, or ones that condemn it.

I think we have already settled that God is who He is by necessity of His existence. He is not the way He is by chance or choice but by necessity. This is a crucial point and If you don't understand it let me know.
Now if we decided that God is essentially made of paper (meaning if He exists he must be made out of paper) and we decided that He for some unknown reason could be made only of paper otherwise he would be different (not God) than worrying about whether or not God was made of jelly, stone would be useless. It's kind of like saying:No, becuase if we say it is essential god is made of paper, then he must conform to some external standard, namely, he must be scrunchy and flammable.

P1. If an Apple exists it must be a fruit and cannot be a vegetable.
P2. Apple exists.
C. What if the apple is a vegetable?

If we accept P1+P2 it is impossible that an Apple could be a vegetable, thus worthless to think about. This does not address the point I made at all.

Putting this into perspective this is why I can say that child rape is objectively wrong. It could never (in any circumstance) be right if God exists. In every possible world where God exists it is wrong because if God exists than it is always contrary to His character. God could not exist and be any different. I'm not hammering the hell out of this point just to be redundant. I'm trying to say it in as many different ways as I can so there is no confusion.Now we may get somewhere. How can you say child rape is wrong? If there is a real, solid reason it is wrong, (reasons of the type "because god says so", will not do), please give it. Why is god against child rape?

Also, we seem to be the only ones in here

echo

 echo

 echo  

[Phillysoul11]

This is the problem though, if we conceive of a list of gods, we know only one of them can
be the greatest, but what is the standard we use to decide which one is the greatest in our list?

First off it seems as though you agree that only one can be the greatest, I think you also agree that it is
irrelevant as to how we discover which God is the greatest. Your main issue it seems is that you think we need an
external standard to judge God as great for Him to be great. When I say that God is the greatest conceivable being
I am saying that He has the most power, knowledge ect. logically possible. The traditional omni God. If He had less
than what was possible he would be quasi maximally great. If it was possible for a being to have equal or more
power, love, knowledge than God simply wouldn't be God. I have claimed that the theists very definition of God
refutes the dilemma. By claiming God is the greatest conceivable being I am claiming that God is maximally
powerful/knowing ect. and that if any other being was equal to or greater than God than God wouldn't be God.

You are saying, "god is great,in order to be great, he must have a really kick ass set of
morals", this is true but the morals would be kick ass whether or not he held them, god's word has nothing to do
with it in this case.When you say something is morally kickass if it conforms to god's character, you are really
just saying that it conforms to the kickassery standards of the morals themselves.

God is great, and part of this greatness is the fact that He is morally perfect (flawless). When I say that something is morally correct I am saying that it conforms to God's character, which is essentially saying that it conforms to the standard of morality which is God. The standard of morality is not external to God. Moral excellence is essential to God, thus God being the standard of morality is essential to His very existence.

No, becuase if we say it is essential god is made of paper, then he must conform to some external standard, namely, he must be scrunchy and flammable.

Let me try to explain where this analogy fails. Paper is not the standard of crunchy (flammable). Therefore to claim it is crunchy we need to appeal to an external standard. If paper was the standard of crunchiness than crunchiness would merely be a word to describe paper. There are crunchier/more flammable things than paper because it is not the standard of crunchy/flammable. If God was not the standard of morality than to deem him Good we would
need to appeal to an external standard. Because He is the standard of goodness, He is not good because he fits some sort of external standard.

Now we may get somewhere. How can you say child rape is wrong? If there is a real, solid
reason it is wrong, (reasons of the type "because god says so", will not do), please give it. Why is god against
child rape?

In the theological/philosophical sense child rape is wrong because it is contrary to who God is. God is against child rape because it goes against His flawless moral standard. It does not line up with who He is. Now of course there are emotional/cultural reasons that (hopefully) affirm this. By claiming that I know child rape is wrong I am making a claim about my knowledge of God's character. If it was wrong merely because God said so than I would be impaling myself on a horn of the dilemma. Remember that God is who He is by necessity of His existence, not by choice or chance. This is why morality is mind independent (objective). Now, how we come to understand what is good, right and wrong is another very interesting matter entirely, we our concerned about whether or not God can serve as the foundation for objective moral values.

Edit, while we are here, could you define "good" for me?
Edit 2, and "greatest", if you would be so kind  

I'll do my best,
Theologically speaking "Goodness" is a essential part of God's moral character. An action is considered good if it acts in accordance to God's Character.
"Greatest" in reference to God refers to the belief that God is omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent ect. In the same way I that stated is greater to be the standard of morality than to conform to external standard I believe it is sound to say that is greater to possess these attributes than not to ect. I don't feel as though I explained this adequetly but it seems to be coherent. Even if it isn't coherent I don't see why the theist couldn't refer to God as necessarily omni-benevolent. Which would in and of itself be enough to escape the dilemma, unless there lies a contradiction in God's omni-benevolence. As always, I will eagerly wait for your critique.

Also - Note to lurkers: Feel free to chip in. If this was a debate was exclusive to me and SSY it would be in the one on one section. Let me know what your thoughts are.

[Ihateusernames]

Now we may get somewhere. How can you say child rape is wrong? If there is a real, solid
reason it is wrong, (reasons of the type "because god says so", will not do), please give it. Why is god against
child rape?

In the theological/philosophical sense child rape is wrong because it is contrary to who God is. God is against child rape because it goes against His flawless moral standard. It does not line up with who He is. Now of course there are emotional/cultural reasons that (hopefully) affirm this. By claiming that I know child rape is wrong I am making a claim about my knowledge of God's character. If it was wrong merely because God said so than I would be impaling myself on a horn of the dilemma. Remember that God is who He is by necessity of His existence, not by choice or chance. This is why morality is mind independent (objective). Now, how we come to understand what is good, right and wrong is another very interesting matter entirely, we our concerned about whether or not God can serve as the foundation for objective moral values.

As you have requested a chip in or two...

I'd say that if we argue the normal theistic position (as I understand it), child rape (or any rape for that matter) can be considered objectively wrong if only one premise is accepted.  The premise I am speaking of is the premise that humans, by character definition, possess inherent value placed into the during a theistic creation (classically defined as a 'spirit', if you will.)  To violate another human's spirit is to treat the gift God has given them with no respect, or more accurately stated, with grave disrespect.  If we are to accept all of this, then I don't think it would be intellectually dishonest to assign the phrase 'objectively wrong' as "any action (or thought) which is purposefully disrespect toward God or anything valued by God."

Obviously if you do not accept deistic/theistic thought, one can only accept the idea that humans are just another animal, which honestly can't lead to anything but 'all is permissible which isn't discouraged by society'...  and even actions discouraged are technically permissible, I suppose, you'll just end up getting the societal response expected--be it prison, corporal punishment, torture, or death... or whatever.  To sum it up even more succinctly: ethical nihilism, pure atheistic thought's ultimate destination.

-Ihateusernames

[SSY]

I'm sorry, but I think your whole argument tanked, and tanked hard when you explained what you mean by greatness ad goodness.

When talking about god being the greatest. If we are trying to select which god is the greatest from our list, then we must be able to discover which is greatest. Greatest power, greatest knowledge etc are simple to determine, but the greatest morals are not. If we find 2 gods on our list, who are as powerful, as knowledgeable as each other, but one permits child rape, and one does not, how do we tell which set of morals, and therefore, which of these two gods is the greatest? I did say in an earlier post about this point, but maybe this will make it clearer. Saying great=like god, will not work in this instance, as both of them are like themselves, the only way to do it is with some objective, external standard. Please address how you would tell apart a good and a crappy set of morals in this scenario.

I don't think you quite understood the paper analogy. To say, "God is *anything*", like all knowing, all powerful, and moral, you must have definitions of these words that are not dependant on god, otherwise, when describing god, you end up with "God is like God, like God and like God". If I tried to decribe things as "Oh, my feet? they are kind of like my feet" or "The Whitehouse looks a lot like the Whitehouse", I am not conveying anything about the subjects, how are you supposed to glean any information about my feet or the white house from those statements?

As for the child rape, why is it contrary to god? Why is it greater to be anti child rape than pro child rape? If his morals are objective then there should be a way of proving this, other than "It just is"

As for my first statement in this post, I will try and expand it. When you said greatest, in your very first post, I thought it actually meant something, you have clarified for me, that it in fact is tautologous. If we go all the way back, and fill in a new definition for great and perfect, it does not look pretty.

P1: It is more like god to be the standard of morality than to conform to it
P2: If God is the most god-like conceivable being then he must be the standard of morality.
P3: If God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily like god.
C: Therefore since His nature is necessarily like god, God can serve as a foundation for objective moral truths.

As you may be able to tell from the above, that argument, makes NO sense. It seems to me, you started off with the argument, but then we saw that for soemthign to be "great", it must conform to some other standard of greatness. To get around this, the definition of "great" was changed, and it became circular.

[Phillysoul11]

I'm sorry, but I think your whole argument tanked, and tanked hard when you explained what you mean by greatness ad goodness.
When talking about god being the greatest. If we are trying to select which god is the greatest from our list, then we must be able to discover which is
greatest. Greatest power, greatest knowledge etc are simple to determine, but the greatest morals are not. If we find 2 gods on our list, who are as
powerful, as knowledgeable as each other, but one permits child rape, and one does not, how do we tell which set of morals, and therefore, which of these two
gods is the greatest? I did say in an earlier post about this point, but maybe this will make it clearer. Saying great=like god, will not work in this
instance, as both of them are like themselves, the only way to do it is with some objective, external standard. Please address how you would tell
apart a good and a crappy set of morals in this scenario.

You mentioned that it is simple to determine greatest power, knowledge, but not morality. We need to address something here. Recall that I said God's
greatness based on his power, knowledge, morals etc. There cannot be two beings with greatest power correct? that in itself is a contradiction. There
can only be one being with greatest knowledge or none at all etc. If the other being is lacking in any of these two examples than he/she is cannot be the
greatest possible being and therefore is not the real God. Now if it was impossible to determine greatest power, or greatest knowledge I think you might have
a point. I'll elaborate a little farther down. You seem to think it is simple to determine greatest power or greatest knowledge. I would appreciate if you would elaborate for my benefit. Again, my definitions were rough at best but I will hold by them until given adequate reason not to. I will try to explain at the end of this post when I address God's greatness that I think that given who God is it is a logical impossibility that a being could exist outside God's standard of greatness.

I don't think you quite understood the paper analogy. To say, "God is *anything*", like all knowing, all powerful, and moral, you must have
definitions of these words that are not dependant on god, otherwise, when describing god, you end up with "God is like God, like God and like God". If I
tried to decribe things as "Oh, my feet? they are kind of like my feet" or "The Whitehouse looks a lot like the Whitehouse", I am not conveying anything
about the subjects, how are you supposed to glean any information about my feet or the white house from those statements?

I've been stating all along that saying God is good is essentially saying that God is God. To try and break this down you seem to think that it is
uninformative to make the claim that God is good.You claim that we learn nothing about God by making this claim we are merely stating that God is God. I've
said it before but I'll say it again, the theist calling God good is simply naming a specific aspect of God's character. It's like taking a chunk of who God
is and naming it. The process by which we recognize God's nature is a different topic all together. In your example if for some reason the shoe you had was
the standard of shoeness it would roughly be the equivalent of me saying I'm going to call this section of the shoe the heel, and this section of the shoe
the laces etc. I believe It is informative to our understanding of who God is to call Him good. Now depending on his/her beliefs the theist usually depends
on God's Revelation, commands, innate knowledge etc. to discover what these characteristics of God are. To step in the theists shoes it is informative to call
God good because God has told us what good is, He has given us examples of things that display goodness. He has given us innate ideas about right, wrong and
so forth.

As for the child rape, why is it contrary to god? Why is it greater to be anti child rape than pro child rape? If his morals are objective then there should
be a way of proving this, other than "It just is"

I claimed that Child rape is contrary to God, You ask why it is contrary to God and to that I would say because it violates His necessarily perfect standard.
I'm going to address the greatness question a little farther down.

As for my first statement in this post, I will try and expand it. When you said greatest, in your very first post, I thought it actually meant something, you
have clarified for me, that it in fact is tautologous. If we go all the way back, and fill in a new definition for great and perfect, it does not look
pretty.
P1: It is more like god to be the standard of morality than to conform to it
P2: If God is the most god-like conceivable being then he must be the standard of morality.
P3: If God is the standard of morality His nature is necessarily like god.
C: Therefore since His nature is necessarily like god, God can serve as a foundation for objective moral truths.
As you may be able to tell from the above, that argument, makes NO sense. It seems to me, you started off with the argument, but then we saw
that for something to be "great", it must conform to some other standard of greatness. To get around this, the definition of "great" was changed, and it
became circular.

I'm not sure what you thought my definition of greatness was before mainly because I don't think I had defined it for myself. It seems to me that it is crucial to understand what it means when we say God is great. The theist it seems has two options, the first being that God is the standard of greatness and the second being that God conforms to an external standard of greatness. Now the question becomes, well which is greater. It seems as though both answers are plausible but they may have problems. Given the first option it could be said that greatness is not arbitrary to who God is but is  essential to His nature (similar to the claim that God is good) However if this is the case the argument I first laid out may need to be revised which I have no problem with, in fact it was the reason I posted it here, not to try an convince you or anyone else but for criticism. If I didn't make that clear in the original post I should have. The argument would then become: God is the standard of greatness thus he is necessarily perfectly great. It is necessarily greater to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omni-benevolent than not according to God's standard of greatness which is by necessity the standard of greatness by virtue of Gods existence. It would be impossible for any being to not be accountable to this standard of greatness just as it would impossible for any being to be outside God's standard of logic. There is no being that could create a square circle and in the same way there is no being who could lie outside of God's standard of greatness.I think that claiming God is great is the same basic idea as saying God is logical, William lane craig describes what he thinks it means to call God logical. "There must be necessary truths. However, it does not follow from the necessity of the truths of logic and mathematics that "the fundamental truths of mathematics and logic exist in some way (as abstract objects) and God is subject to them,"  Rather, the Theist should say that the necessary truths of logic (and perhaps mathematics) are representations of the way God's mind essentially thinks." It seems as though it could be said that if God exists than He must be the ultimate standard. By stating that God is the ultimate standard we would be claiming that God must be the standard of  logic, morality, greatness, power, etc. Maybe it's our definition of God that needs to be changed which would require P1 to be altered. With this in mind the argument could become - P1 God is the ultimate standard by virtue of His existence. P2 God is then the standard of morality. P3. If God is the standard of  morality then He is necessarily morally perfect. C. Since God is morally perfect He can serve as the foundation for objective moral values. It seems as though this rids us of the fake gods problem. By defining God as the ultimate standard the theist would be claiming that everything is accountable to God's standards of morality, logic, power etc. Asking whether or not a being could exist outside of God's standard of greatness is similar to asking whether or not a square circle could exist or a married  bachelor. It would be logically absurd, and thus irrelevant to think about.They are false by definition of God. Now as to whether or not it is uninformative to deem God good, logical, powerful I don't see why it wouldn't be. When God reveals, commands what it good, great etc. through whatever means the theist believes in He is revealing what His character is like. When we call God good we are essentially saying that God is the ultimate standard of goodness by necessity. When the theist sees an act of goodness on earth he/she can relate that to God's nature. To summarize this first option: greatness is internal to God, greatness is an essential aspect of His nature. To say that any being could exist outside of God's standard of greatness would be as absurd as stating that there could exist a being outside the standard of logic.

Regarding the second option if we are to claim that greatness is external to God, we  must have a standard to which God must conform to. My first thought would be that it is a bad idea to have God conforming to a standard outside of Himself. However it could be said that in both cases God is conforming to a standard and maybe that isn't such a bad thing, regarding the first option God is conforming to the standard of necessity. God cannot act any different than the way He does, and this is a good thing. If God had the power to be inconsistent with His nature than he could decide to step outside the bounds of logic, and create a square circle etc. God conforming to an external standard might be a good thing. This line of thinking is seems similar to the first option. God cannot do certain things, therefor the theists view of omnipotence, omniscience etc. should not be all powerful, knowledgeable, rather it should be maximally powerful, maximally knowledgeable, etc. If God could do anything than he could contradict his nature etc. I don't think this idea is contradictory to what most theists believe (God cannot lie Titus 1:2). God would not be subject to a external standard, rather He would be consistent with His own standards.

The first option seems more plausible, it's almost as if the second option is a misconstrued view of who God is and his relation to his attributes.

Regardless, I think we are making progress. Thank you for your contributions to the formulation (or destruction) of the argument. I hope by the end of all of this   the argument is stronger, or irrelevant.

[SSY]

You keep coming back god being the standard of greatness, but you keep missing my point.

If we had two possible conceptions of god, both of whom were all powerful, both of whom were all knowing, but one of them was pro, and the other opposed to child rape, how would we tell which one is greater? Since we do do not know which one is the "real" god, we cannot appeal to the nature of the "real" god to inform us, we must make a decision ourselves, on what basis do you propose we make this decision? When I asked why it is contrary to his nature, and replied that it violates his perfect moral standard, I was honestly, slightly annoyed. Just before, you claimed his moral standard was a consequence of his nature. S, which is it? Why is it contrary to his nature? Or why is it contrary to his perfect moral standard?

Also, the alternate argument you present at the end of your post

" P1 God is the ultimate standard by virtue of His existence. P2 God is then the standard of morality. P3. If God is the standard of morality then He is necessarily morally perfect. C. Since God is morally perfect He can serve as the foundation for objective moral values."

Starts with the premise of god being the ultimate standard, and ends with the conclusion of him being the standard for morality, surely you see the fallacy in that? If that is the way in which this argument must proceed, I see little point in carrying on, even WLC could prove things like that, if we let him get away with it.

[SSY]

Maybe it would help if I give a broader overview of my problem with this. For morals to be objective, I want there to be an answer to the question "Why is child rape wrong?", an example of an answer I would accept is "Child rape causes suffering, and all unnecessary suffering is wrong" This would be fine for me, assuming we both agreed about suffering being wrong, if you tried to sue this answer to prove that unnecessary suffering is wrong, I would be displeased.. As it stands, your answer goes "Child rape is wrong, because it goes against god, and god determines what is wrong", this is not fine with me, as we are in fact, arguing over the final part of that answer.

[Ihateusernames]

Maybe it would help if I give a broader overview of my problem with this. For morals to be objective, I want there to be an answer to the question "Why is child rape wrong?", an example of an answer I would accept is "Child rape causes suffering, and all unnecessary suffering is wrong" This would be fine for me, assuming we both agreed about suffering being wrong, if you tried to sue this answer to prove that unnecessary suffering is wrong, I would be displeased.. As it stands, your answer goes "Child rape is wrong, because it goes against god, and god determines what is wrong", this is not fine with me, as we are in fact, arguing over the final part of that answer.

I understand that you hate circular reasoning, however take a few seconds to think about what you just said you would accept.

1.Child rape causes suffering, and all unnecessary suffering is wrong.
2.All Unnecessary suffering is wrong because I deem it wrong.
3.I deem it wrong because I think it is wrong.

I hate to say it but whenever your version of morality deviates from nihilism (which is what happens whenever you a make moral judgment), you are also utilizing circular reasoning.   Nihilism might be bleak, but it is all the rational atheist has.  Sure there are pragmatic reasons for saying some things are "good" and some things are "bad" but certainly not rational reasons.

I've always viewed it like a board game.  If you are going theistic-ish, the creator of the board game (God) set up the rules when the game (universe) was created.  Thus any of the players (free-will based beings) deviating from these rules can easily be considered doing 'evil'--'evil' being defined as deviating from the rules established by the creator.  If your going atheistic-ish, there is no rules, so nothing is 'wrong' (even things like child rape or worse)--'wrong' being defined as...... indefinably nonexistent.  I have always found it interesting that us (free-will based beings) seem so strongly to believe that there are rules, if there really aren't as nihilism postulates.

Anyway all of your two discourse really boils down to atheistic thought vs theistic.  If a God exists, obviously it could have established a moral law (basing it of the God's essence, desires, or pure fancy--it really doesn't matter)  Taking the assumption that God exists, On the flip side, if a god does not exist, rationally speaking, ethical nihilism is all that is left.    With the child rape example, it really does leave us with the uncomfortable If God exists, it may be evil.  If a God doesn't exist, it absolutely cannot be evil because there is no such thing as evil.  I'll leave you two to decide which side you really are on.

-Ihateusernames

PS: SSY, you may argue for ethical nihilism, but I would wager quite a bit that you don't actually live like it is true as I've never met anyone who really does.

PPS: If you two wish to continue this, I'd personally suggest focusing on the "greatest" aspect, as it is really the only difference between you two.  The rest is just logical outworkings.  The defining 'greatest' can be substituted with 'absolutely loving'.  'Loving' is a unique verb in that inter-personal love is something that can only be uniquely understood between two free-will based players.  The argument that "loving" is an external standard, imo, doesn't apply here. Obviously I will have to elaborate on this idea, but as I am extremely exhausted IRL atm I will do that at a later point in time ; D