Why Secular Morality is Superior

[DeistPaladin]

That's actually a very good question. Why did he not destroy Hitler--and massacre every single person in Germany--in retaliation for attempting to annihilate his chosen people, when that is precisely the crime for which he commanded the massacre of every Amalekite, only about a billion times worse?

[fr0d0]

Esq:
What happened to the Amelekites according to the bible is what I repeated. I made no claim of anything new. I have nothing to support. I merely pointed out the difference in what you were saying.

Next... you repeat that God killing is immoral, but provide no good reason to support that. You only support reason why humans should not kill.
Now I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to know for certain the guilt or innocence of anyone, or what measure of punishment is deserved. You and I are both tied by the current fashion in secular morality. Our (UK) legal system is limited to removing a persons freedom for an entire lifetime. But what you're failing to address here, is the fact that God knows exactly what the person is thinking, and how their whole life pans out. Exactly what they will do in the future. He knows enough to judge fairly if that life deserves to continue. Ours is a plea to emotion as we cannot object rationally. Our only justification for letting a person live is the lack of knowledge of that persons ability to reform. It is a Christian principle that everyone has the potential to change their minds. That can't apply to God. He does know.

1. God is just
2. The bible has nothing immoral in it committed by God

Those are the facts as they stand. Until someone can disprove them.

Is secular morality (as I've explained) correct? I believe so. On the grounds that people lack knowledge. Does that secular morality apply to God? No. His knowledge is not limited.


Freedom to choose: so because God knows how your life pans out, he's taking away the freedom you would have had in the choices you would have made after you died.
You're talking about Gods decision here to justly terminate your life right? You made choices to oppose good that would justify that. In your natural lifetime you wouldn't do anything to change that. Your choices to carry on doing evil are denied you, justly.
You aren't free to defy the laws of nature. In Christianity, you aren't free to escape justice.


Gardeners destroy a whole garden if there is a disease bad enough to threaten other gardens.


My stance is fully consistent. God is just. Christopher Hitchens was a good bloke giving people reason to think and challenge their preconceptions. Evil comes in degrees. So does punishment for evil. We may wonder why a just God would let a particularly vile criminal live. But then we don't know what that criminal might do in the future. Only God can know and fairly judge.
To children the world is mostly black and white. Stuff is either right or wrong. This seems to be the reasoning you're asking us to adopt here. As we mature we appreciate the shades of grey. I'm always up for a raunchy read. Joke!

[Ryantology]

1. God is just
2. The bible has nothing immoral in it committed by God

Those are the facts as they stand. Until someone can disprove them.

Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind assertions!

Is secular morality (as I've explained) correct? I believe so. On the grounds that people lack knowledge. Does that secular morality apply to God? No. His knowledge is not limited.

There is no correlation between amount of knowledge and purity of morals. God can know everything and still be malicious and evil.

Freedom to choose: so because God knows how your life pans out, he's taking away the freedom you would have had in the choices you would have made after you died.

Then, you had no freedom to choose in the first place. This introduces a paradox: if God kills you because you were going to commit a sin, this means you are never able to commit that sin. Yet, the punishment remains in effect.

You're talking about Gods decision here to justly terminate your life right? You made choices to oppose good that would justify that. In your natural lifetime you wouldn't do anything to change that. Your choices to carry on doing evil are denied you, justly.
You aren't free to defy the laws of nature. In Christianity, you aren't free to escape justice.

Paging John Calvin. John Calvin, you have an appointment with a disciple.

Gardeners destroy a whole garden if there is a disease bad enough to threaten other gardens.

Gardeners are not omnipotent, omniscient beings who could save all of the gardens without any destruction. If they were, any act of destruction would be malicious because it would be unnecessary.

To children the world is mostly black and white. Stuff is either right or wrong. This seems to be the reasoning you're asking us to adopt here. As we mature we appreciate the shades of grey. I'm always up for a raunchy read. Joke!

God says all sins deserve death, so everything is wrong, and God designed it that way on purpose. Or, more accurately, the savages who created this nonsense didn't think it through very well.

[Esquilax]

Esq:
What happened to the Amelekites according to the bible is what I repeated. I made no claim of anything new. I have nothing to support. I merely pointed out the difference in what you were saying.

You do have something to support; your claim that when god kills, it is just. The fact that you went out of your way to point out you felt the Amelekites were being executed for pre-crimes shows that you understand that this is the issue at hand, you just opted to defend your claim with another by fiat assertion, rather than evidence.

Next... you repeat that God killing is immoral, but provide no good reason to support that. You only support reason why humans should not kill.

Your mistake is in treating god as something separate and above his own laws. That's not the way morality works; if something is immoral it's immoral for everyone, or vice versa. Otherwise, you're just following an opinion, divorced from any form of morality.

Secondly, you haven't given any justifications for why god would be above an actual objective moral claim with regards to the sanctity of life, beyond that he is just- again, unevidenced- and that he's omniscient and knows something we don't, which aside from being a license to make shit up, s I said earlier, is also a "might makes right" situation, which is in itself immoral.

Now I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to know for certain the guilt or innocence of anyone, or what measure of punishment is deserved. You and I are both tied by the current fashion in secular morality. Our (UK) legal system is limited to removing a persons freedom for an entire lifetime. But what you're failing to address here, is the fact that God knows exactly what the person is thinking, and how their whole life pans out. Exactly what they will do in the future. He knows enough to judge fairly if that life deserves to continue. Ours is a plea to emotion as we cannot object rationally. Our only justification for letting a person live is the lack of knowledge of that persons ability to reform. It is a Christian principle that everyone has the potential to change their minds. That can't apply to God. He does know.

God can know anything he wants, but the idea that he can punish you for crimes you haven't even had a chance to think about is inherently immoral; if I'm going to commit a murder in future, and god kills me before I get to that point in time, then have I committed the crime that I am being punished for? No. So, is that not indistinguishable from being murdered blamelessly? Besides, whatever happened to reformation, or rehabilitation? And if god has so little regard for free will that he's willing to stifle it from the outset, why murder me at all? Why not just alter my future so that I don't commit any of the acts that would get me killed? Why is the first option this omnipotent being goes to, killing?

Besides, none of that matters; ending human life is not a punishment that should ever be inflicted. The death penalty is a fucking travesty, and I don't care who's pulling the trigger on it.

1. God is just
2. The bible has nothing immoral in it committed by God

Those are the facts as they stand. Until someone can disprove them.

We have. Murder is unjust, no matter who commits it. All you're doing is covering your eyes to that fact, blocking your ears, and then saying that this hasn't been proven. It's an inherently dishonest tactic, and since we know murder is, at it's ground state wrong, it's incumbent upon you to tell us why god should be exempt from this judgment. And no, "might makes right," is not acceptable justification.

Is secular morality (as I've explained) correct? I believe so. On the grounds that people lack knowledge. Does that secular morality apply to God? No. His knowledge is not limited.

So then he also has the knowledge of what he could do to, surreptitiously and without our knowing, alter events so that the person committing crimes considers and follows a different life path, all while keeping his free will intact. Unlimited knowledge, and all.

God just doesn't use that knowledge, he resorts to a murder he could easily avoid.

Freedom to choose: so because God knows how your life pans out, he's taking away the freedom you would have had in the choices you would have made after you died.

No, he's robbing me of the ability to make the choices which contributed to his decision to kill me. It's like how self defense is a good excuse for violence in our court system, but that needs to be predicated on actual actions that would require self defense. If I shot you right now, I wouldn't be able claim self defense at all; you wouldn't have made me need to defend myself.

The cause is not present, and hence the reaction is unjustified.

You're talking about Gods decision here to justly terminate your life right? You made choices to oppose good that would justify that. In your natural lifetime you wouldn't do anything to change that. Your choices to carry on doing evil are denied you, justly.
You aren't free to defy the laws of nature. In Christianity, you aren't free to escape justice.

Your religion is supposed to be a really great transformative one, right? Turning sinners into good christians? Your god couldn't get his people onto a real rehabilitation program?

And, again: justice requires that there be a reason for it to occur.

Gardeners destroy a whole garden if there is a disease bad enough to threaten other gardens.

Kinda wrecked my metaphor there

My stance is fully consistent. God is just. Christopher Hitchens was a good bloke giving people reason to think and challenge their preconceptions. Evil comes in degrees. So does punishment for evil. We may wonder why a just God would let a particularly vile criminal live. But then we don't know what that criminal might do in the future. Only God can know and fairly judge.

However, we do know what Hitler did, the entirety of his life, because his life is over. There is no possibility that he will commit some redemptive act, and yet he was allowed to live out a life that caused incalculable suffering. Once again, you're falling back on god's mysterious ways and special knowledge, and that's a two way street; for every justification you pull out of thin air, the same concept allows me to counter it.

This time, however, you made it real easy; there's actual demonstrable arguments to go to here.

To children the world is mostly black and white. Stuff is either right or wrong. This seems to be the reasoning you're asking us to adopt here. As we mature we appreciate the shades of grey. I'm always up for a raunchy read. Joke!

I have a deep and abiding hatred for fifty shades, both as a writer and a pervert (and a bunch of other things, but it'd take too long.)

I'm aware of the existence of moral grey areas, my issue is that your god isn't; there's simply no way that every last Amelekite would be worthy of the execution they got. People work in shades of grey too; the irony here is that you're asking us to take a black and white stance, not I. God= good. Everyone god strikes down= bad.

It doesn't work that way.