(April 8, 2013 at 11:17 am)archangle Wrote: stupid to blame consequences on choices? Did you just say that? Also, a deity that uses negative consequences to teach? I mean, that sounds totally reasonable to me. Humans do that all the time. Why wouldn't a god that understands everything teach us the best way we can learn?
Assuming you mean me, I do not see why blaming infant mortality on the life style choices of infants is not stupid. Nor do I see that death from contagious diseases like malaria and smallpox should be blamed upon life style choices unless to some extent it is modern times. And in modern times flu, pneumonia, and such hardly make social living a matter of poor life style choices.
As to the teaching, ALL the consequences only appear as modified probabilities which were not identified until the latter half of the 20th c. They say not a single thing about the immediate consequences to the person. If you want to teach with negative consequences you drop a lightning bolt on someone while shouting ADULTERY or whatever for all to hear.
If one leads a "sinful" lifestyle in the opinion of the local priests and has their probabilities shifted towards early death and then dies from being hit by a speeding truck it sort of defeats the whole purpose doesn't it?
