tim@unc.UUCP (Tim Maroney) (01/11/84)
This is the second in a series of replies to Dave Norris' attempt to refute points raised in my essay "Even If I DID Believe ..." As with the previous, I am using a style of quoting in which the name of the person being quoted is vertically placed on the left-hand margin. T "You can't judge God by the same standards as man." In that case, I why is it that I keep getting told that God is good? Are there M two meanings of the word "good", one of which forbids murder, . deliberate starvation, infecting people with disease, and so on, T and another which allows these things? I suggest that there is I already a word for the second meaning. That word is "evil". If M you think that it's OK to worship an evil god, that's your . business, but you can't expect me to do the same. D Good and evil are absolutes in Christianity; God is absolute A good. "Judging God", on the surface, sounds like a good V intellectual thing to do. But to Christians, this argument is E illogical (and we are told not to judge, lest we be judged). [By . the way, Dave himself repeatedly violates this in his repeated D personal attacks on me elsewhere in his article -- Tim] Are you A asking God to put Himself on trial? But comparisons of good and V evil depend on some sort of standard of good and evil. And since E God is the ultimate standard of good, we end up comparing God . with Himself. And I would be a poor Christian if I did not point D out that, when comparing man to the same standard, we all fail. A And from a Christian point of view, it is you who are worshipping V an evil god. First, it is not true that I would fail the tests I have set Yahweh. I have never killed anyone, much less hordes of civilians. I have never had food and kept it from a starving man before me. And so on. However, this is not the biggest flaw in Dave's argument. On the face of it, Dave's may sound like a valid argument. God is defined to be good, so there is no way to judge him, no higher standard of judgment. The fallacy becomes obvious when the issue is viewed in the light of the existence (not accuracy, just existence) of multiple religions. I will show that it is not just possible but absolutely neccessary to judge any god. 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. Now assume that this hypothetical non-member feels the need to join some religion. He will obviously try to evaluate the various religions available to him; in particular, he will try to avoid falling into the clutches of a religion which worships some evil god or spirit. However, every religion claims to be good by the very nature of religion; even the worshippers of a manifestly evil god will claim that their god is good. Therefore, it is neccessary to use some standard which is independent of the claims of any one religion. Otherwise, one would not even be able to start. If one investigates religion A and religion B, both claim to be the best, and by their own standards each one is; the person who is outside both must resolve these conflicting claims by means of some external standard. 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. 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. 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! 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. -- Tim Maroney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)
spear@ihuxm.UUCP (Steven Spearman) (01/11/84)
Hey, unc!tim, you say that both the God of the old testament and Jesus do not meet your compassion test. I can see where you might get that on the old testament view of God, but could you be more specific on your allegations against Jesus? When do you feel he showed a lack of compassion according to new testament records?