(November 8, 2013 at 4:12 pm)ronedee Wrote: My answer is the same. No. And what I would say to God, is that I'm adhering to His 7th commandment. Thou Shall Not Kill. Not to mention: Love Thy Neighbor...and Love Each Other As I Have Loved You."
Interesting. Thanks for playing along. Keep in mind the conditions of our thought experiment. While I appreciate your honesty in your description of the type of communication you have with God, I'm sure I'll get no argument from you when I point out that The Bible, and Christians all over the world often tell of a more direct communication.
Assuming you're still game here, and willing to continue running with this-In this scenario, God is literally speaking to you, and is doing so with your unmistaken clarity. I'm sure you believe this to be a possible thing for God to do should he feel it necessary. I'll get back to it in a moment.
Before I forget, I am curious about something you said. You graciously acknowledged your role in the scenario, and you said that if you were certain that God was telling you to kill, you would tell him "No", and the reason you would offer God for defying him was that God told you not to? Are you saying that the two instructions could somehow be orders given by separate Gods?
Secondly, I found the defense you were prepared to give God should he take issue with you defiance puzzling. The 7th commandment. You wouldn't feel morally compelled not to comply with that order?
For example, following the outline given in the aforementioned scenario.Let's say you and I are sitting on a bench together, in the quad of a university campus. We both watch a young boy walk up and sign his name on something. We notice he uses his left hand. We're sure of it. So we follow him into his dorm building, and into the bathroom. And, let's say I go along with you because you seem sincere and I too want to carry out God's will. So we follow him to the bathroom. I smash him over the head with a fire extinguisher. He falls down. I give you a knife and tell you to slit his throat while he's down and I run to the door to be a lookout. You cut him open because you're following God's will. Now, you really mean to tell me while he bleeds out that the only thing you'd see wrong with that was that the 7th commandment said not to do that? What I mean is, the same God you believed wrote the 7th commandment had just given you an instruction that superseded the previous one. You don't think you'd feel the slightest bit of internal remorse for taking a kids life? Even if you were doing what you believed God told you to do?
Does God determine what's right?
Or, does God approve of that which is right?
Even more simply put, Is something holy because God deems it so, or does God approve of that which is holy? I'm sure you've probably already considered the answer to this question. But, like I said, I don't have the answers to questions such as these. I must defer to you here. Thank you again for taking the time to discuss this with me. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
