Why Secular Morality is Superior

[Esquilax]

What bare assertion have I made Esq? You're clutching at straws now. I only assert what is provable. I haven't asserted anything about the text quoted that supposedly proves the evil nature of God. I am challenging your empty claims of the opposite.

You asserted that the Amelekites would all have ended up doing something worthy of being executed, and therefore executing them before they could commit those acts was just. That's actually two bare assertions; one is that the Amelekites would have committed sufficient evil to warrant execution to begin with, and the other is that executions for pre-crime is ever just. Please provide evidence for these things.

Funnily enough, I detailed what claims you made without evidence in the post you responded to, you just sort of cut out the parts of my posts that said so, and asked me for something I'd already told you.

Break free from this trap and admit that you don't know. That's a respectable position.

Actually, I do know, insofar as one can "know" anything about morality. You're the one making claims you can't back up to support a doctrine you'd find immoral in any other setting. In fact, let me detail the only line of reasoning you could possibly use, here:

1: God is just.
2: The bible has immoral things in it, commanded or executed by god.
3: Those things were moral, because god is just.

Circular reasoning is all you have, that's why you're so unwilling to explain the rationale behind the claims you've made, to the point where you'll just ignore that they've been pointed out to you, both by myself and Ryantology.

You claim that the ending of a life is immoral. Please support that statement.

Sure: it all comes down to knowledge, ironically. We know of precisely one life that we are assured to get, and it's the one we're living. Since nobody to date has been able to demonstrate the existence of an afterlife, we cannot simply assume that one exists. What you believe is beside the point; objectively, we can confirm a single life, with a single body in which to experience it.

Knowing only this, and living in a physical universe that, for all intents and purposes, ends when we die, we can state some objective truths about the universe. One of those is that life is preferable to death, because we can only confirm a single life with which to... well, live. Therefore, the ending of life, the cutting short of our single confirmed chance, is immoral by definition.

And you already know this, because you behave in ways that preserve your life, don't you? You might have your belief in an afterlife, but however sure you are of that, you don't just walk through traffic whenever you need to cross the street, nor do you keep driving right into whatever happens to be ahead. You properly prepare your food to avoid getting sick, you take care of yourself, you probably have insurance, too, right? And you don't go around murdering good christians, even though you know that they'll go to heaven when you do, right?

So you do understand. You might be sure of your next life, but you do see that there's an intrinsic value to this one that outweighs any other considerations. I know you'll be tempted to say that god, being all knowing and all, knows things we don't and is then justified in whatever he does, that it's just beyond our understanding... but if it's beyond our understanding then it's beyond yours too. How do you know you aren't stepping on god's will by preserving your own life? How do you know it's not god's will that you act like your life doesn't matter, but that for some esoteric reason he's unwilling to correct your behavior in line with what he really wants?

Don't say his will is beyond our understanding, because that just gives us both a free license to make shit up.

I believe that human judges cannot decide to end life in justice because they simply lack knowledge. Considering a knowledgeable judge, as God is defined, I believe ending life justly is completely possible.

Including before the crimes for which the person is being judged have been committed? Why doesn't he just kill everyone, in that case?

I didn't say that God doesn't tamper with free will. God knows everything you do through your life. Before you were born, all if your life is known. Does that affect your freedom as a being subject to linear time? Not from your perspective, no. You are completely oblivious of anything other than your own reality.

Yes it absolutely does affect my freedom, in that it means I don't have any, because that freedom has been taken away from me before I've had a chance to exercise it. What you're essentially posing is a choice like this: "You have free will! Yep! You're free to exist. You're free to be a baby. And right now, you're free to die. You're free to be a corpse..."

How am I free if the only choice I have is to obey the influence of an external force?

God manages reality, so God will make changes. He sees something that counters his purpose and corrects it. He sees a life that has chosen evil and effects it's surroundings so badly the only just thing to do is prune out the bad wood. Gardeners see this as nurturing, yet you see it as evil.

Gardeners don't destroy the entire tree and every other tree in the garden because a branch was askew.

That, and you're opening up a whole host of new questions you can't even begin to answer. Where's the consistency here? Why does god allow evil people to live at all, if he has no problem with destroying them before they can do evil? Why did he let Christopher Hitchens live long enough to speak out against him? Why did he let Hitler live- not to Godwin- given the damage he would inflict on god's chosen people? Jeffrey Dahmer? Ted Bundy? Every murderer, abuser, sinner of any shape or form?

Why has he seemingly made a one time exception, here? Or are you saying that everyone who dies early dies because god has seen the evil in their future and sought to correct it, and he's just got bad aim? If so, how will you demonstrate this?