Friday, April 13, 2007

The Parable of the 'Good God'

And the Lord spake unto the philosopher, ‘I am the Lord thy God, and I am the source of all that is good. Why does thy secular moral philosophy ignore me?

And the philosopher spake unto the Lord, ‘To answer I must first ask you some questions. You command us to do what is good. But is it good because you command it, or do you command it because it is good?

Ur,’ said the Lord, ‘It’s good because I command it.

The wrong answer, surely, your mightiness! If the good is only good because you say it is so, then you could, if you wished, make it so that torturing infants was good. But that would be absurd, wouldn’t it?

‘Of course!’ replieth the Lord. ‘I tested thee and thou hast made me pleased. What was the other choice again?

You choose what is good because it is good. But that shows quite clearly that goodness does not depend on you at all. So we don’t need to study God to study the good.’

Even so,’ spake the Lord, ‘you’ve got to admit I’ve written some pretty good textbooks on the subject …

(Source: Euthyphro by Plato, 380 BCE)

7 comments:

Arena Green said...

Good Lord! That's pretty good sense! Happy weekend, Mave :-)

Anonymous said...

Buddha said: "Avoid Evil, Do Good...but doing good will not free you from the cycle of life and death. Cultivate wisdom!"

Wisdom is like a knife that cuts through the thick veil of ignorance.

Be careful, grasping religion is like grasping a snake, grasp at the wrong end and you will be bitten.

Anonymous said...

If I may continue the thesis:

And the philosopher spake to the politician: "Why thou always mixing kerosene with fire? Don't thou know it's dangerous a mix?

The politician replied: "Oh! You mean religion and politics? Simple...if not, how the hell can I cook? If not, this world there will be no cooking lies, and explosions. That's my pot of power. That's why my profession cannot live to our word, we cannot live by word alone. You know very well, my honorable philosopher!

Anonymous said...

yar man..happee weekend. but God bless ;D

Maverick SM said...

AMoi, you always fantastic.

FL, happee weekend.

Dear Anons, I love your thesis.

Anonymous said...

Close to the bone my dear..,:-))

Hilarious nonetheless.

I hear:-)
NvdV

Maverick SM said...

Nina,

nice to hear from you.