What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Rob, what it boils down to is "Whatever gawd says is moral is what I believe is moral."

I can't really agree. I think what really goes on in that process is "whatever I think is moral is going to color the way I read the Bible so that I will find support for it."

Look at Randy's pretzel logic about God's approval of rape. Here we have an all-powerful deity perfectly capable of abolishing the practice of rape through means both mortal and immortal, and yet not only does he not do that, he gradates rape into different varieties, some of which are clearly more acceptable than others. The subtext of all those verses is that women are the property of men, and that rape constitutes a devaluation of property, and that in those cases, men are to be compensated. If there is any opprobrium attached to rape in those passages, it is due to economic damage, not moral considerations.

Yet Randy is arguing that his god detests rape, and that is because his god is the basis of morality. His entire argument is a non-sequitur, and Randy might even be smart enough to have known that as he set about constructing it; but he went right to the passages, hammered them into the argument even though they aren't apt, and struts away smug in his belief that the god he worships is not a monster.

And that leaves us with, "Whatever I believe is moral is what God says is moral."