Divine Morals

[Kitsune]

I have seen it in discussion and I know some Catholic Church leaders have supported the idea in "Divine Morals"

Basically, the idea that God's morals are above man's and that he cannot be held to the standards of man. A specific example of the idea is that an unbaptized infant will go to hell does not make god immoral while if man did something like that, it would be

What arguments would you use against it?

[Darth Wong]

I have seen it in discussion and I know some Catholic Church leaders have supported the idea in "Divine Morals"

Basically, the idea that God's morals are above man's and that he cannot be held to the standards of man. A specific example of the idea is that an unbaptized infant will go to hell does not make god immoral while if man did something like that, it would be

What arguments would you use against it?

I would pointedly ask whether this person believes that morality is universal. Christianity is all about universal morality; they tout it as one of the great teachings of the church. The idiot C.S. Lewis even tries to use the idea of universal morality as proof of the existence of God.

And guess what: if God has a different moral standard than man, then morality is not universal. Pure moral relativism of the worst sort, where morality is whatever the guy with the biggest stick says it is.

[Darth Raptor]

You can get some honest fundamentalists to admit that the authority of God's law stems from his "sovereignty" (i.e., power). It's not our place to judge him. Not because our arguments have no merit, but because there's not a damn thing we can do about it. While it's refreshing to clear the bullshit, it's still scary that they're okay with such a dictatorial deity (although I guess from their POV there's no point in agonizing over it).

[Darth Wong]

You can get some honest fundamentalists to admit that the authority of God's law stems from his "sovereignty" (i.e., power). It's not our place to judge him. Not because our arguments have no merit, but because there's not a damn thing we can do about it. While it's refreshing to clear the bullshit, it's still scary that they're okay with such a dictatorial deity (although I guess from their POV there's no point in agonizing over it).

Yeah, but once you get them to admit that, you can throw all of their own customary rhetoric back in their faces: "Well, as an atheist, I can still believe in a universal moral code, not like your moral relativist nonsense where morality depends on who you are and how big your stick is". They hate it when you do that. Especially when you copy their modus operandi and keep repeating that as mantra, no matter what they say.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Well, there're a couple of issues I would address, and it depends what type of Divine Ethics type you are talking to. There are at least two versions.


1. Those who claim whatever God says is moral is moral because he's big, and powerful, and has "authority."

2. Those who claim God knows better than you do and you ought to listen to him because he's really smart (some say omniscient), and you just can't comprehend it.

The first boils down to "he's big, you're small. He's an "ultimate" authority figure." This is just an ethical appeal to might/authority makes right. The fact that God is very powerful, and even if it WERE true that he created you, it doesn't logically imply that his power or act of creation gives him some intrinsic moral authority.

It moreover has some bizarre implications they wouldn't really support if they were reasonable people, such as "if the standard is just whatever God says because he says it" then it would also follow that if he said smashing babies against rocks was "ok", it would be ok. This is all very preconventional ethical reasoning if you shoehorn it into Kohlberg's theory of moral development, based primarily on punishment/benefit/authority models.

Note* They will probably counter that God wouldn't order that because he's "all good." But this explanation is insufficient. To claim he wouldn't order something we see as horrendous in the first argument presupposes what he's supposedly providing by dictate. We only have his standard in the first place. Hopefully they can understand the problem with using the individual's standard of Good to judge his standard of Good in order to deflect the problem of Good being whatever he says it is. This argument from THIS particular divine theorist model is self-defeating.

Moreover, if God's definition of Good isn't congruent with what we mean by what we say "Good" and ends up either justifying anything or coming to seemingly diabolical conclusions we just need to accept on faith, then I refuse to slap the label Good on it. We've just gutted the meaning of the term.




2. Then we come to the second version. It's not good because God says so, but because God knows so, and we ought to trust God because he's really smart (some say omniscient) and knows better than you. This has problems.

1. Intelligence doesn't make someone good or honest. Even if we assumed we're all retards and he has access to information far beyond us, why should anyone trust his word inherently if he would be doing what most reasonable people would consider horrendous? There's no independent evidence that God is honest and incapable of lying, distorting. All we really have is his word, which we'd have to take at face value. Even if we assumed he actually had more advanced moral knowledge, it doesn't mean he'll be forthright with it. Knowledge of moral values != adhering to them as studies of preschoolers indicate. He could technically still know and be lying because he's a sadistic monster. But he simply could be mistaken. That wouldn't be a first, given the holy texts.

Moreover, claiming we all just need to bend over and take whatever he says because he claims to be smarter, more knowledgeable about morality is a cop-out. Anyone can say that.

Their explanation really leads nowhere because it makes too many inherent assumptions we just need to accept.

a. The first requires us to just blindly do what we're told because of authority. The fucked up.

b. It also requires us to eventually assume what we're trying to prove or use his own standard to judge his standard, which is self-defeating.

c. The second assumes that God's more advanced knowledge will translate into an accurate transference of moral values and that God's simply not erring. The second also assumes that God's honest, and again (good) such that even IF he knew, he would accurately tell us. None of which ought to be assumed.

[Darth Wong]

No matter how complicated or long-winded their justifications for their particular brand of moral relativism become, it's still moral relativism. You can still throw that in their faces.

[Omeganian]

The example given, about the child, should be noted to belong to Augustine's theory of predestination, and most of its aspects were ignored all the way until the Reformation (usually, a middle ground was taken between that and Pelagianism). The question about babies was disputed, and many believed them to go to Limbo (neither hell nor heaven).

There is a question about morals and God; If he is above morals, what weight do they have, and are they stable, and if he is bound by them, how can God be all powerful? (the simplest solution, I believe, is the one seeing morals as part of the God)

Of course, God does have a certain right to perform deeds that seem immoral, due to his greater knowledge. Or to punish harder those who have greater responsibilities.

[Kitsune]

I was using the Augustine example as just an example. It is not the only argument I have heard.

I heard it last night from a co-worker who was trying to explain why only those who accept Jesus are saved.

[FSTargetDrone]

I was thinking about something related to this a few weeks ago, when I noticed Passover was approaching. God does a lot of seemingly unjustifiable killing (which is bizarrely celebrated as a holiday), among initiating other horrors, yet the standard response to this is that God cannot be held to the same standards that he demands of his creations. Madness.

Of course, God's assassin needed a physical marker on the doors of those to be spared God's wrath so I wonder about God's so-called omniscience. Is it unreasonable to assume that God's will couldn't instantly be relayed to the killer in his employ? Why bother with directing Those To Be Spared to paint their doors with blood. What if someone misses the memo and forgets to mark his door?

[BountyHunterSAx]

Because it's a ritual. A token of your obedience and submission to the divine. Blood on the door was not necessary for God to know whom to spare and whom not to spare, it was another test - "Do this if you believe that We really are capable of coming into every house and killing every firstborn, and you wish to be saved from Our Wrath [tm]."

Those who 'missed the memo' ought not to be punished unless it's their own fault that they missed the memo. I know very little of the Bible though, and so I'm not sure that it isn't written in a way that actually does castrate God and His ability to know who is where and doing what.

I mean, in the Old Testament, Genesis, Adam hides in the Garden and God is incapable of finding him.



-AHMAD

[FSTargetDrone]

Because it's a ritual. A token of your obedience and submission to the divine. Blood on the door was not necessary for God to know whom to spare and whom not to spare, it was another test - "Do this if you believe that We really are capable of coming into every house and killing every firstborn, and you wish to be saved from Our Wrath [tm]."

Those who 'missed the memo' ought not to be punished unless it's their own fault that they missed the memo. I know very little of the Bible though, and so I'm not sure that it isn't written in a way that actually does castrate God and His ability to know who is where and doing what.

I mean, in the Old Testament, Genesis, Adam hides in the Garden and God is incapable of finding him.

Inconsistencies about God's powers as described in the Bible aside, the Old Testament God is a monster. He commands a man (Abraham) to kill his own son Isaac as a test of Abraham's loyalty to him. He commits mass murder.

Anyway, Passover is a Celebration of the freeing of the Israelites by the Egyptians who enslaved them, only after God's Killer Angel wiped out the firstborn of all the Egyptians. So why should Passover, an act of mass murder, a murder of people not necessarily guilty of any crime other than being children of Egyptians, be celebrated? Yes, slaves were freed, but it took the deaths of innocents to do it. Not to mention the plauges and various other horrors that preceded it.

Sorry, but that's not a ritual I'd have any part of.

[Omeganian]

Inconsistencies about God's powers as described in the Bible aside, the Old Testament God is a monster. He commands a man (Abraham) to kill his own son Isaac as a test of Abraham's loyalty to him. He commits mass murder.

Anyway, Passover is a Celebration of the freeing of the Israelites by the Egyptians who enslaved them, only after God's Killer Angel wiped out the firstborn of all the Egyptians. So why should Passover, an act of mass murder, a murder of people not necessarily guilty of any crime other than being children of Egyptians, be celebrated? Yes, slaves were freed, but it took the deaths of innocents to do it. Not to mention the plauges and various other horrors that preceded it.

Sorry, but that's not a ritual I'd have any part of.

First of all, the sacrifice of Isaac was not only to test Abraham, but mainly to demonstrate that the God will not accept a human sacrifice. As for the firstborns - well, the Exodus starts with an infanticide committed by Egyptians. Some years later, they were punished.

[Darth Wong]

First of all, the sacrifice of Isaac was not only to test Abraham, but mainly to demonstrate that the God will not accept a human sacrifice.

Actually, he does accept a human sacrifice elsewhere in the Bible. One guy sacrifices his own daughter after promising to sacrifice whoever walks through his door (and it turns out to be her).

As for the firstborns - well, the Exodus starts with an infanticide committed by Egyptians. Some years later, they were punished.

If the Egyptians had been killing all the male children for decades, how is it that the Tribe of Israel had 600,000 men of fighting age when it left Egypt? And if that's the motivation, why punish innocent children rather than the people who supposedly committed this infanticide?

At Nuremberg, we put German officers and prison camp commanders and guards on trial. We didn't put German babies on trial.

[FSTargetDrone]

First of all, the sacrifice of Isaac was not only to test Abraham, but mainly to demonstrate that the God will not accept a human sacrifice. As for the firstborns - well, the Exodus starts with an infanticide committed by Egyptians. Some years later, they were punished.

What sort of deity has such a mentality that makes such a display of its power even necessary? It was an unethical "test" of a man and a mad act on the part of that man to follow through with that test.

If someone today heard a voice commanding him to hike up a hill, bind his child (no matter the child's age, mind you) and "sacrifice" him, that individual would be facing criminal charges.

If God wants to make it clear that he does not want sacrifices made in his name, it should be a trivial matter for him to make that known to everyone on the planet without delay.

All of these displays of power supposedly possessed by God are nothing but elaborate games. If God wanted to free the Israelites, well, what's to stop him from simply doing it, instantaneously? None of these plagues, none of this fooling around. Just make it happen.

[BountyHunterSAx]

If God appeared before you today - in such a manner as that you were unequivocally aware that you were indeed in the presence of and being addressed by the one eternal omnipotent omniscient God. And He made sure to give you sufficient proofs that it was indeed Him you were speaking to - independently verifiable by others, and not a hallucination, and then gave you an immoral order, would you do it? Would you be immoral to do it?

If this happened to me (and Allah forgive me for the sacrilege of typing as God - it's only for illustrative purposes; and I in no way attribute the following exact words to God - heaven forbid. No - it's just my rationalization of what He might say.) Say the conversation went something like this:

g: "Now you know that I am indeed he that I am, by my will execute this child. [insert crying baby here]"

me: "I..but I...I thought you were the all-loving God of Eternal mercy and compassion."

g: "I am. And I am telling you to execute this baby. Now. My infinite unbounded knowledge far surpasses your puny understanding, and you could not hope to contend with me. I am all-knowing, I know what's good for you and what's good for the baby. Do it."

me: "But it's an innocent baby! For what crime does it deserve to die? Why should I do it?"

g: "Because I'm more powerful than you."

me: "Might does not make right. You have ordered me via your messenger that the person who tells the truth to a tyrant ruler is in a state of Jihad! I say that you are exercising tyranny to try and order me to kill this baby and I refuse to do it."

g: "Do you doubt me?"

me: "Yes. My lord would not be so unmerciful as to ordain I kill an innocent child."

g: "You say that the child is innocent based off of your knowledge of this child and its life. But I am all knowing - I know that if you failed to put this child to the sword then you would be doing it a disservice."

me: "I don't understand why."

g: "Now you're getting it. You *don't* understand why; and you're a pitiful human. Your limited comprehension and knowledge base cannot and *WILL* not understand why. And yet I order you to do it. So do it."

me: "But you must appreciate what a difficult position you're putting me in? You're asking me to - on the basis of your word - commit murder. Not just any murder, but cold blooded murder of an innocent child."

g: "Would you *stop* calling him innocent? You seriously think that the child is pure and innocent? You seriously believe that death is a bad thing? Perhaps in your world as you understand it it may be, but we're *way* beyond that now. I mean, I'm God and i'm standing in front of you and talking to you as we speak!"

me: "Couldn't you set it up differently then? You're all powerful, right? Why don't you *make* this child innocent so that it doesn't have to be executed?"

g: "Because."

me: "Because why?"

g: "Firstly, I don't have to justify myself to you. Secondly, even if I *were* to justify myself, you wouldn't understand the justification because it requires knowledge and intellect beyond your capability."

me: "Then enhance my capability."

g: "So you're saying you want to become a God before you'll obey God?"

me: "....I didn't think of it that way. I'm trying to apply human standards to something that I accept is beyond human understanding."

g: "Now you're getting it - so go kill the baby."

me: "I don't want to. I can't shake the feeling that this baby doesn't deserve to die. I can't willingly do something so terrible."

g: "But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not [[Qur'an 2:216 , about going to war]]"

me: "I guess you're right. . . you know - if this were anybody but the all-knowing all-seeing all-loving God I wouldn't do this. But since you know better than I do and I no longer have any way to disbelieve in you, I'll do it." *goes to slice*

g: "That's all I needed to see *take's baby away before swing hits*. You pass the test."

me: "So ... it was all a game? You were just dicking with me?"

g: "It was a test I knew you would pass; now you've earned paradise as a result."

me: "But why the whole rigmarole if you already knew I'd pass?"

g: "Don't worry about it. You can't possibly hope to understand, it's too far beyond you."





This doesn't lead me to doing immoral acts on a daily basis - but only because in general what God ordains and what is moral don't conflict. In specific . . . I don't really know what to think of myself.

-AHMAD

[FSTargetDrone]

Let's assume this being has proved itself as The One True God. That should happen instantly. It won't exactly have to convince me, because if it created the universe, it follows that it has the power to prove without a doubt that it is what it claims to be. No discussion or outside confirmation should be necessary.

That said, this deity that you describe is being aggressive, attempting to demean and insult me and forcing me to make a choice I do not want to make. It is bullying me, suggesting Baby will potentially turn out to be a Hitler-like figure or some such. Well, I do not believe in predestination, so I cannot possibly kill a blameless child for choices it may make 20 or 30 or more years from now. Further, if it knows with absolute certainty that I will "pass" the test, then it seems I never had a choice at all. It seems to enjoy fucking around with lesser beings.

At the very least, this god is unworthy of praise or worship, asking an impossible choice of a "pitiful" human.

This god reminds me of a typical bad guy character in a mob or cop movie, handing a gun to the undercover cop and telling him to execute the bound man in the chair as a test of loyalty.

[BountyHunterSAx]

And by every earthly standard he is. In fact the only way that you could even hope to redeem him is to say that his actions make sense from his omnipotent point of view. Of course, how can you be privy to his omnipotent point of view without also being omnipotent? So it's a moot point to try to judge god by human moral standards. He will naturally fail the test.

-AHMAD

[Darth Smiley]

One interesting take I read on the whole baby-sacrificing idea was that it was not God testing Abraham, but Abraham testing God. By saving Isaac, God proved that he was a worth deity.

Not to say that that makes it moral, or right. Just an interesting take on the situation.

[Patrick Degan]

If God appeared before you today - in such a manner as that you were unequivocally aware that you were indeed in the presence of and being addressed by the one eternal omnipotent omniscient God. And He made sure to give you sufficient proofs that it was indeed Him you were speaking to - independently verifiable by others, and not a hallucination, and then gave you an immoral order, would you do it? Would you be immoral to do it?

If this happened to me (and Allah forgive me for the sacrilege of typing as God - it's only for illustrative purposes; and I in no way attribute the following exact words to God - heaven forbid. No - it's just my rationalization of what He might say.) Say the conversation went something like this:

g: "Now you know that I am indeed he that I am, by my will execute this child. [insert crying baby here]"

me: "I..but I...I thought you were the all-loving God of Eternal mercy and compassion."

g: "I am. And I am telling you to execute this baby. Now. My infinite unbounded knowledge far surpasses your puny understanding, and you could not hope to contend with me. I am all-knowing, I know what's good for you and what's good for the baby. Do it."

me: "But it's an innocent baby! For what crime does it deserve to die? Why should I do it?"

g: "Because I'm more powerful than you."

me: "Might does not make right. You have ordered me via your messenger that the person who tells the truth to a tyrant ruler is in a state of Jihad! I say that you are exercising tyranny to try and order me to kill this baby and I refuse to do it."

g: "Do you doubt me?"

me: "Yes. My lord would not be so unmerciful as to ordain I kill an innocent child."

g: "You say that the child is innocent based off of your knowledge of this child and its life. But I am all knowing - I know that if you failed to put this child to the sword then you would be doing it a disservice."

me: "I don't understand why."

g: "Now you're getting it. You *don't* understand why; and you're a pitiful human. Your limited comprehension and knowledge base cannot and *WILL* not understand why. And yet I order you to do it. So do it."

me: "But you must appreciate what a difficult position you're putting me in? You're asking me to - on the basis of your word - commit murder. Not just any murder, but cold blooded murder of an innocent child."

g: "Would you *stop* calling him innocent? You seriously think that the child is pure and innocent? You seriously believe that death is a bad thing? Perhaps in your world as you understand it it may be, but we're *way* beyond that now. I mean, I'm God and i'm standing in front of you and talking to you as we speak!"

me: "Couldn't you set it up differently then? You're all powerful, right? Why don't you *make* this child innocent so that it doesn't have to be executed?"

g: "Because."

me: "Because why?"

g: "Firstly, I don't have to justify myself to you. Secondly, even if I *were* to justify myself, you wouldn't understand the justification because it requires knowledge and intellect beyond your capability."

me: "Then enhance my capability."

g: "So you're saying you want to become a God before you'll obey God?"

me: "....I didn't think of it that way. I'm trying to apply human standards to something that I accept is beyond human understanding."

g: "Now you're getting it - so go kill the baby."

me: "I don't want to. I can't shake the feeling that this baby doesn't deserve to die. I can't willingly do something so terrible."

g: "But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah Knows, while you know not [[Qur'an 2:216 , about going to war]]"

me: "I guess you're right. . . you know - if this were anybody but the all-knowing all-seeing all-loving God I wouldn't do this. But since you know better than I do and I no longer have any way to disbelieve in you, I'll do it." *goes to slice*

g: "That's all I needed to see *take's baby away before swing hits*. You pass the test."

me: "So ... it was all a game? You were just dicking with me?"

g: "It was a test I knew you would pass; now you've earned paradise as a result."

me: "But why the whole rigmarole if you already knew I'd pass?"

g: "Don't worry about it. You can't possibly hope to understand, it's too far beyond you."





This doesn't lead me to doing immoral acts on a daily basis - but only because in general what God ordains and what is moral don't conflict. In specific . . . I don't really know what to think of myself.

-AHMAD

Analysing this hypothetical, "God" here is both Appealing to his own Authority as well as implicitly Appealing to Consequence to justify bullying you into committing an immoral act. It's clear he wants you to agree to murder on command, despite his commandments to the contrary, and you "passed his test" when you decided to chuck your own moral sense aside and do it.

Saying the child "is not innocent" is a non-starter toward any presumed justification toward killing it. It is certainly not old enough to have committed any crime or even be aware of right and wrong. If that isn't "innocent", then nothing is unless you assume guilt to exist ex-nihilo.

Basically, you restated somewhat the Old Testament story of Abraham, who was ordered to sacrifice his son Issac and on no more sayso than "I'm God and I demand it of you". Then he pulls the same "gotcha" by having a ram get its horns caught in the branches of a fallen tree and so it can be used for sacrifice instead. Presumably, Abraham passed his test. Well, Abraham was a coward because he simply bowed to authority and trussed up his own son for the slaughter. But this is supposed to be a good thing since the presumed lesson is to trust and obey "God" and everything will work out in the end.

A choice in which there is no real choice involved IS no choice. Therefore, the only real option would be to err on the side of life and refuse. Even if it means your own death on the spot. "I'm not a killer and I will not kill."

[FSTargetDrone]

A choice in which there is no real choice involved IS no choice. Therefore, the only real option would be to err on the side of life and refuse. Even if it means your own death on the spot. "I'm not a killer and I will not kill."

It may kill you anyway, saying by murdering the child, you actually failed the test by going against your own conscience merely on the god's say so. Ultimately, such a being seems to be proving nothing but its own sadism. Certainly, it is not to be trusted at all.

[Patrick Degan]

A choice in which there is no real choice involved IS no choice. Therefore, the only real option would be to err on the side of life and refuse. Even if it means your own death on the spot. "I'm not a killer and I will not kill."

It may kill you anyway, saying by murdering the child, you actually failed the test by going against your own conscience merely on the god's say so. Ultimately, such a being seems to be proving nothing but its own sadism. Certainly, it is not to be trusted at all.

And that's the other reason for not taking "God's" word on anything.

[Lusankya]

Saying the child "is not innocent" is a non-starter toward any presumed justification toward killing it. It is certainly not old enough to have committed any crime or even be aware of right and wrong. If that isn't "innocent", then nothing is unless you assume guilt to exist ex-nihilo.

Isn't the idea that you're already guilty essentially the basis of the Abrahamic religions anyway? Maybe Judaism and Islam harp on it less, but in Christianity, the whole point is that everybody (including babies) is so irredeemably eeeeeeevil that God in His Righteousness could never let them into heaven, and you can only get in because Jesus opens the back door for you.

If the Egyptians had been killing all the male children for decades, how is it that the Tribe of Israel had 600,000 men of fighting age when it left Egypt? And if that's the motivation, why punish innocent children rather than the people who supposedly committed this infanticide?

Ooh, I asked some fundies this question, and they said that it's because God knew that the babies would grow up to be just as evil as their parents, so he killed them so they could die innocent. Except he only killed the babies who were their parents first-born, because being the second-born child makes you somehow less worthy ... or something.

[BountyHunterSAx]

*SNIP*
Saying the child "is not innocent" is a non-starter toward any presumed justification toward killing it. It is certainly not old enough to have committed any crime or even be aware of right and wrong. If that isn't "innocent", then nothing is unless you assume guilt to exist ex-nihilo.

Actually the way I'd written it I intentionally did not have 'g' appeal to consequence. Rather, he simply stated something that was paradoxical - that the baby was not innocent despite being a newborn infant. If you were Hindu you might say 'ah, the baby is to be punished for what it has done in a previous life' and there - problem solved. Is it really so inconceivable and fallacious to believe that a being that is omnipotent (a handful of paradoxes in itself) and omniscient (again, paradoxes galore) could have access to information that we would be incapable of understanding or comprehending? That this information would justify things that we cannot morally justify within our understanding?

A choice in which there is no real choice involved IS no choice. Therefore, the only real option would be to err on the side of life and refuse. Even if it means your own death on the spot. "I'm not a killer and I will not kill."

You'll notice that the 'g' in my argument didn't insist that I do it purely on the basis of me being weaker than Him. He tried appealing to authority, but when that failed to sway me he decided to pull the omniscience card - he appealed to superior knowledge. The reason I chose this debate tack for my hypothetical is because it is consistent with my impression of the Qur'anic God. Granted, not so much the whole revealing himsefl to men part, but the overall arguments used.

You say err on the side of life and do not kill, but why? Are you a pacifist that denies that there is ever a justifiable execution? Are you willing to - after having ample proof that you were in the presence of the omnipotent omniscient god (that is - whatever level of proof could be achieved without you being elevated beyond the level of being a mortal...say you had the same level that the Prophet did) - deny the possibility that g is right and that he's actually presenting you with a baby that you have to kill? The decision is yours to make - just because God knows the outcome doesn't mean you're predestined to do it (yes that's a paradox, the existence of an omniscient omnipotent god is inexplicable without paradoxes).



Anyway, that's my gut reaction, I know it's probably not a popular one on this board. And I'm fully aware that outside the realm of this hypothetical scenario these questions don't really have any scientific merit since the burden of proof for this paradox-inducing super-being is hardly likely to be fulfilled. I guess I just find it interesting since I still do believe in this paradox-inducing omnipotent omniscient and all-loving Lord, though at times more and at times less than others.

-AHMAD

[BountyHunterSAx]

Isn't the idea that you're already guilty essentially the basis of the Abrahamic religions anyway? Maybe Judaism and Islam harp on it less, but in Christianity, the whole point is that everybody (including babies) is so irredeemably eeeeeeevil that God in His Righteousness could never let them into heaven, and you can only get in because Jesus opens the back door for you.

A Rabbi that I heard speaking on a panel with reference to the after-life and Hell - as per Judaic thought - said that Jewish Orthodoxy "...really doesn't have a concept of hell." I can't speak to the subject more than that since I really have no knowledge but a lack of hell would seem to suggest that one isn't inherently guilty or evil.

As for Islam, I can categorically say that their is no concept of original sin. You aren't born evil, quite the opposite actually. The scholarly consensus based (in my opinion) loosely off of the verses in Surah "Al-Shams" give the concept of 'Fitrah' in Islam. The idea is that Fitrah is the inner 'natural' good nature of every person. A Sahih Hadith reads "Every child is born on Fitrah, and it is his parents who make him into a Jew or a Christian". So quite apart from the idea of being born guilty, in Islam babies are born innocent.

Further, despite this 'Fitrah', a child does not accumulate sins in Islam until they've hit the age of adulthood (puberty). We are told that when the Prophet (S) ascended the heavens in the Mi'raaj he saw many children with the Prophet Adam (A). He asked whom they were and Adam (A) said that they were the children who had died before reaching the age of puberty. Theirs was a lesser stature in paradise, but they were still in paradise.



So I'm going to have to reject this idea of 'salvation through the blood of Christ' as somehow translating over to all Abrahammic faiths. Sure, there's a hefty element of prayer and God's compassion and forgiveness in entering paradise, but this does not translate to an unwashed 'evil' status for all non-baptized men and women.

-AHMAD

[FSTargetDrone]

Though this was directed at Patrick Degan and he will doubtless provide his own response, I'd liek to step in with respect to this:

Are you a pacifist that denies that there is ever a justifiable execution? Are you willing to - after having ample proof that you were in the presence of the omnipotent omniscient god (that is - whatever level of proof could be achieved without you being elevated beyond the level of being a mortal...say you had the same level that the Prophet did) - deny the possibility that g is right and that he's actually presenting you with a baby that you have to kill? The decision is yours to make - just because God knows the outcome doesn't mean you're predestined to do it (yes that's a paradox, the existence of an omniscient omnipotent god is inexplicable without paradoxes).

I would ask this being why it simply didn't alter circumstance and see to it that the child never did the horrible thing it was apparently destined to do. And that can be accomplished without bloodshed, certainly without butchering a blameless child.

In any case, this god is not trustworthy. I would consider whatever it told me to be unreliable because I do not see how it can justify killing (or allowing the killing of) the child by giving me an impossible choice when it is certainly within its power to prevent some horrible future without involving the death of a child while simultaneously insisting that it is the Right Thing.

If anything, God should be held to a higher standard of morality. It cannot call itself good or moral, yet allow evil to befall innocents.