david@ssc-vax.UUCP (01/12/84)
> Tim Maroney's second response: > Assume that there exists some religion of an evil god. It is clear that the > worshippers of the religion will not see him as evil, but as good. Someone > who is not a member of the religion might say "But your god has ordered the > slaughter of innocents! How, then can he be said to be good?" The reply of > a worshipper of the religion is likely to be "Our god is the source of good; > he is defined to be good; it is thus nonsensucal to judge him." This is the > only way to wriggle off the hook, since ordering the slaughter of innocents > is a prima facie evil act -- you have to get your god outside the normal > standards of good and evil if you are going to withstand this criticism. Tim's whole argument in this article is based on three words: "slaughter of innocents". I have been showing that the Midianites were NOT innocent. The rest of Tim's article tells us how to judge religions; but it returns to the idea that God is evil. This is, in effect, what I have trying to disprove. Tim's argument is logical, but based on a faulty premise. At any rate: > Dave denies the validity of any such external standard, but it is now clear > that if we do not have some such standard, we cannot resolve the claims of > conflicting religions. The devil defines himself to be good no less than > does Yahweh. For that reason, this self-definition is insufficient; we need > to be able to evaluate the definitions by some other standard. > > What standard is available? The only one that comes to mind is the presence > or lack of compassion in the god under investigation. A god should not > commit the mass murder of civilians, torture babies, etc. if he wishes to > pass the evaluation. Of course, you could use some other standard, but I > can think of none that surpasses the compassion test. This is due to my > inherently compassionate internal moral code; compassion is my ideal of > good. A being that fails to display compassion towards innocents is evil by > my moral standard. Can you think of some other external (that is, not bound > to the dogma of some particular religion) moral standard which should be > used? I confess that I can see none, and I further state that the Bible > shows that Yahweh and Christ DO NOT PASS THIS TEST! There are occasional > acts of compassion, but the fact that Charles Manson was nice to his girls > doesn't wipe away the murder of Sharon Tate. Compassion is a nice yardstick, but certainly it cannot be absolute. A court judge who is "compassionate", in your terms, might first compassionately release a petty thief. Eventually, though, he would end up releasing murderers, rapists, accept bribes (in compassion for the offender, of course) and would end up a cruel and treacherous man. So compassion must be tempered by other "virtues"; Justice, for example. > In summary, then, Dave says "You can't judge God", but I point out that it > is absolutely essential to test any religion before you join it. Otherwise, > you could easily wind up in the cult of an evil being. Satan will use the > same excuse that Dave puts forth, that he is above moral judgment. Actually, Tim said this first, and I tried to explain its meaning. I think Tim is twisting my argument around, saying that "God is above moral judgement". This I did not say, nor was it the thrust of my argument. Tim is correct that we should examine a religion before "joining it" (I would not use this choice of words for Christianity). I think that people can draw their own conclusions about God, given the facts that we are able to present from our experience and the OT. Shouldn't we stick to this subject, then, and let net readers draw their own conclusions? > By > encouraging people to accept this excuse, Dave is actually making it more > likely that people will join some evil religion, since he leaves them > without any way to tell a good one from a bad one. Apparently, he wants us > to just cross our fingers and hope we made the right choice! Again, I am not encouraging people to accept this excuse. > Thank you, Dave, for forcing me to explain in detail just why it is that any > god must be able to pass a morals test. You can rest assured that there > will be a section in the next edition of "Even If I DID Believe ..." devoted > to just this point, echoing the arguments above. It's the old 'token sarcastic thank-you' bit again! (:-) -- David Norris -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david