if there is a god that is good, it would not condemn people for the crime of disbelieving the unbelievable. if there is a god that condemns people for disbelieving the unbelievable, that is an evil god, and the very bravest way you can live your life is in utter defiance of such a being. amirite ladies? old idea, i know, but worth stating out loud from time to time.
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It is indeed.
I was reading PZ’s latest and thinking similarly. Such as the illogic of giving clothes to cover the shame for a sin. If shame is the punishment for sin, then why let them not suffer that punishment by giving them clothes? If that’s supposed to represent forgiveness, which is not even mentioned, then forgiveness has no meaning because real forgiveness would reset their status in Eden. But it is clear the whole cobbled together mess is an after the fact explanation of what already existed. With an added purpose to cow the populace into following authoritarian rule through fear and confusion.
I think you’re making a good argument that, if there is a god, it is evil. But that’s irrelevant, since there is no sign of a good or evil god.
This morning, I learned that a dear old friend (who is younger than me) is suffering severely from dementia. In the pantheon of gods, and the justifications for gods, how could one come up with such a horrifying thing, and inflict it on people at random? I could understand if it was a just god, smiting evil people, but instead it’s smiting a harmless academic.
I forget where it came up (maybe one of Alan Moore’s Future Shocks??) but if there is a god, we’d be morally bound to hunt it down and kill it with nuclear weapons. It may be humanity’s great purpose to eradicate such a horrific threat from the universe, especially since we clearly created it in our own image.
Marcus Ranum,
As we humans are reducing the habitable area of our home world while increasing our numbers without leadership acknowledging this with clear and effective change it seems inevitable that the evil gods we have created will be eradicated in our own destruction.
Gods and their existence seems like kind of a weird question to me. As far as I can tell, not even the true believers really actually believe in their god or gods. Some of them might say they see an image of the face of Jesus in burnt toast but do they ever suggest they might walk past him in the supermarket or wave to him as he’s driving a big rig on the interstate? No, they do not. And it would freak them out if they did. Because on the most basic level they’re well aware they’re living in the real world where gods don’t exist.
But if they did, then yes, morality would have to apply to them as well. A concept of morality can survive heated debate about whether things are justified. It can even survive a lot of people pushing for everyone to accept an immoral argument as moral. That’s a bad thing to happen but morality as a concept survives this just fine. Later on, those acts can be seen for what they truly are and that’s morality overcoming and outlasting those false premises.
But I don’t think morality can survive any person being automatically good no matter what actions they take. When someone, no matter who they are or what they actually do, gets to be the automatic exception to morality then there stops being a point to it. You might as well just act as if this automatically moral person is the sole authority on what morality is, because they can’t be anything but moral. And being the moral authority gives them automatic control over everything you do because your guiding principles are either in line with their expression of authority… or you’re wrong/evil/immoral. Even worse, the absolute moral authority granted to this person comes with no responsibility whatsoever. They would be telling you how to live your life in a very invasive way but all the consequences land in your lap.
Authority without responsibility is corrupt and immoral. Disrupting this type of setup wherever and however it pops up is the only path that makes sense to me.
Disrupting this type of setup wherever and however it pops up is the only path that makes sense to me.
Right, ho! We’re all agreed about the use of nuclear weapons!