RE: How would you respond to a person killing someone else because God told him to?
July 17, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Minimalist -
Exactly. There are people who believe that god goes around telling people to start wars. And there are people who believe that the war is justified. What GWB was doing was appealing to those who fall into both categories. Of course, by saying "god told me to start this war", he's not going to persuade people who don't believe that god tells people to start wars (that the war is justified), and he's not going to persuade those who don't think that the war is justified, that it is. His statement that god told him to start the war is useless. It doesn't persuade anyone of anything, neither of god's existence, let alone god's telling him to do it, nor that the war is justified. I don't know why he said it. I don't think god told him to do it, I think he just said it to sound justified. He could have just as easily used some other excuse, all you need is enough people to believe whatever the excuse is based on. Religion is often used to justify wars. But within a religion, there are 2 very distinct "paths". One is where everything in the religion's scripture is taken literally (and let's not forget that meanings and contexts can be read into scripture, even if the writer of the scripture never intended it to be such), and the other is where it isn't all taken literally. To confuse one with the other is to miss the point. This is why GWB, with such a statement, will only receive the support of those who either believe that the scripture and the religion justifies the war (a tiny minority), or those who care not about any of that but who simply agree with the war on any number of other grounds (ie they'll just go along with what he said about god commanding him even if they don't really believe it...you know what some people (americans) are like).
Exactly. There are people who believe that god goes around telling people to start wars. And there are people who believe that the war is justified. What GWB was doing was appealing to those who fall into both categories. Of course, by saying "god told me to start this war", he's not going to persuade people who don't believe that god tells people to start wars (that the war is justified), and he's not going to persuade those who don't think that the war is justified, that it is. His statement that god told him to start the war is useless. It doesn't persuade anyone of anything, neither of god's existence, let alone god's telling him to do it, nor that the war is justified. I don't know why he said it. I don't think god told him to do it, I think he just said it to sound justified. He could have just as easily used some other excuse, all you need is enough people to believe whatever the excuse is based on. Religion is often used to justify wars. But within a religion, there are 2 very distinct "paths". One is where everything in the religion's scripture is taken literally (and let's not forget that meanings and contexts can be read into scripture, even if the writer of the scripture never intended it to be such), and the other is where it isn't all taken literally. To confuse one with the other is to miss the point. This is why GWB, with such a statement, will only receive the support of those who either believe that the scripture and the religion justifies the war (a tiny minority), or those who care not about any of that but who simply agree with the war on any number of other grounds (ie they'll just go along with what he said about god commanding him even if they don't really believe it...you know what some people (americans) are like).
