RE: What God's justification for eternal torment?
October 8, 2020 at 9:32 pm
(This post was last modified: October 8, 2020 at 9:34 pm by runewell.)
(October 8, 2020 at 7:12 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I don't personally believe that a god or human beings get to determine right or wrong. That would make the terms fundamentally arbitrary.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that if god declared rape to be good, that rape would be good?
Why should there be consequences for murder if we cannot maintain that moral agents are responsible for the consequences of their actions? On what theory does god carry out justice? God does what god wants, justice is just some word that we use for things that we can't force god to do, as I recall.
I would agree that multiple sources would not be able to determine standards of right or wrong; I agree that would be arbitrary. However, for a single God to determine right or wrong would work - there would be no confusion then.
I'm not going to answer the hypothetical question about rape. Let's change it to genocide, why would that be inherently bad? From a man vs man point of view, there are going to be wars and capital punishment but in general sure killing is bad. But now if God orders Israel to wipe out other people why would that be different? Well, I imagine they were carrying out his punishment on other countries that were disobedient - indeed their ability to do so typically depended on their own obedience to God. I know this opens up a whole can of worms, let's just say in the New Testament we don't see this approach being carried out any longer. I'm not pro-genocide, but God can wipe out whichever countries are deserving of that justice.
God does what God wants, justice is carrying out punishment for disobedience.
