Why Can'T We Talk About This Topic?

[Honorentheos]

First, I think you need to philosophically justify a claim that all killing is, by definition, morally equivalent.

Since you suggest this should be first, Loran, let's ask - is all sexual activity before marriage morally equivalent?

[Nathair/|\]

Since you suggest this should be first, Loran, let's ask - is all sexual activity before marriage morally equivalent?

I can't speak for Droopy, of course, but I think that any bishop would tell you that they are not. A slightly passionate kiss is at a far different place on the moral continuum than non-consensual intercourse, for example.

[bluebell]

There are so many problems with this, it's hard to know where to begin. First, it is not Mormon doctrine that we were created by God.

Of course that's mormon doctrine.

We are physcially created by God. He retains ultimate control over His physical creations.

Ergo, he does not own us, to do with us as he pleases.

It is His plan of Salvation and no one elses. He "owns" the plan and can do whatever He will to bring it into fruition.

Second, God supposedly respects our free will.

To a point, of course. But our free will cannot dictate the consequences of our choices.

God is so conscientious about non-interference with free will that he won't even stop natural disasters, but not conscientious enough to stop him from committing mass murder whenever he feels like it?

This isn't an arguement.

All you've done here is string two opinions together as if 1) they are fact and 2) they prove something.

While your opinions are obviously valid to you, they don't invalidate my arguement.

Third, either this life matters, or it doesn't.

It matters.

Either human life on earth is something sacred to be protected, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.

It's not whether or not human life is sacred that matters, but why it's sacred.

Human life is sacred because everyone has to have a chance to fulfill their 'mission' while they are here. It doesn't matter how long someone lives, what race they are, whether they are rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, as long as they have the chance to do what God wants them to try to do, or to learn what God wants them to try to learn, while they are here.

Murder is when someone takes that chance away from someone else. God, knowing all, does not remove that chance from people, even when His will takes away their physical life.

It can't be one thing for one group of people, but the opposite for those who have power. That's called unrighteous dominion and a double standard.

Not in the least. It's not the power that is issue, but rather the knowledge and the right.

It CAN be and IS one thing for one group of people, but the opposite for those who have the knowledge and the right of dominion.

It is similar (though not exactly the same) to the difference between a babysitter and a parent. A babysitter has rights over the child they care for, but the rights come from the parents and are limited in ways that a parent's rights and priviledges aren't. Something can be wrong for a babysitter to do but right for a parent to do.

It's not a double standard and it's not unrighteous dominion for that difference to exist. It's logical and valid.

The differences between the things that we can do to each other and the things that God can do to us is also logical and valid in a similar way.

[bluebell]

I sort of agree, but I don't think that's the whole picture. God may have created us, but did He create our will? Warning: that is a tricky question.

Furthermore honestly I'm not sure I believe that creating something gives one the right to cause it to suffer--at least needlessly. In other words, I'm not so sure that God derives His moral authority over us simply because He created us.

I agree. His creatorship is only one reason that He has authority over us.

[Libs]

The problem with this is sometimes God does ask people to do such. Example being Nephi.

Thus, II worry less about who God ordered, more about defending myself, knowing that I will be let know if I am supposed to be doing anything different, no?

I think it's difficult to know, if God actually ordered anyone to kill. I tend to believe he did not. I'm sure the 9/11 terrorists thought God wanted them to kill all of those people in the Twin Towers, but did he? It's obvious to us that he didn't, but not obvious to some of those who share those beliefs. I just don't have any kind of Holy Spirit witness that God has ever ordered anyone to kill.

[TAO]

I think it's difficult to know, if God actually ordered anyone to kill. I tend to believe he did not. I'm sure the 9/11 terrorists thought God wanted them to kill all of those people in the Twin Towers, but did he? It's obvious to us that he didn't, but not obvious to some of those who share those beliefs. I just don't have any kind of Holy Spirit witness that God has ever ordered anyone to kill.

That's because I don't think there are a huge many cases where he does. Rarities... and yet he can do it... but I'm not sure... you should probably talk to God about it yourself... about... why he may command a man to take a life away.

In any case... I think... God would have certain requirements on that man... remember Nephi's hesitance... I think that may be something that God wants... a reluctance... and yet obedience.

Not sure though. =\.

Somber Wishes,

TAO

[Chris Smith]

Of course that's mormon doctrine.

Is it? One interpretation of Mormon doctrine suggests God organized the spirits, but I'm not aware that he is thought to have created them. Another interpretation isn't even willing to go that far, instead seeing the spirits as eternally self-existent entities who were "organized" only in the institutional sense, into pre-existent councils and quorums.

It is His plan of Salvation and no one elses. He "owns" the plan and can do whatever He will to bring it into fruition.

I guess that whole pre-mortal council was just to give us the illusion of collective ownership, then?

This isn't an arguement. All you've done here is string two opinions together as if 1) they are fact and 2) they prove something.

Actually, I'm pointing out that your argument is inconsistent with the common Mormon answer to the "problem of evil". That argument maintains that God resolutely refuses to interfere in human affairs lest he compromise free will, whereas your argument implies that God has no qualms about routinely cutting short people's free will by wiping out whole populations.

Human life is sacred because everyone has to have a chance to fulfill their 'mission' while they are here. It doesn't matter how long someone lives, what race they are, whether they are rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, as long as they have the chance to do what God wants them to try to do, or to learn what God wants them to try to learn, while they are here.

Murder is when someone takes that chance away from someone else. God, knowing all, does not remove that chance from people, even when His will takes away their physical life.

Frankly, I think your view of why life matters utterly cheapens life. Life isn't just a test. Life is an end in itself. Taking life is wrong because of the value life has to the living. When you deprive someone of life, you rob them of the thing that is most important to them.

Furthermore, your argument raises more questions than it answers. Why does God bother testing people in the first place, if he already knows they'll fail? If giving them a chance is important enough to send them to earth in the first place, isn't it also important enough to let them finish the race? More importantly, are we really supposed to believe that none of the Canaanites could have been "saved" if the Israelites had adopted a missionary strategy rather than a massacre-and-take-their-land strategy? I don't believe that for a second. If God really cared about these people and wanted them to be saved, he'd make a little effort instead of just dismissing them as a lost cause and relegating them to the gas chambers.

It is similar (though not exactly the same) to the difference between a babysitter and a parent. A babysitter has rights over the child they care for, but the rights come from the parents and are limited in ways that a parent's rights and priviledges aren't. Something can be wrong for a babysitter to do but right for a parent to do.

I disagree. Taking someone's life cannot be anyone's right or privilege. All authority has limits. There are lines of right and wrong that even a parent can't cross.

The differences between the things that we can do to each other and the things that God can do to us is also logical and valid in a similar way.

It's easy to think genocide is "logical" when you're discussing it in the abstract, but no one who has ever read firsthand accounts of the horrors of mass-murder could be so callous. This is from Sam Kadorian, a suvivor of the Armenian genocide:

They took us from Hüsenig, to Mezre, to Kharpert to Malatia and then, after a couple of days walk, to the shores of the Euphrates River. It was around noon when we got there and we camped. For a while, we were left alone. Sometime later, Turkish gendarmes came over and grabbed all the boys from 5 to 10 years old. I was about 7 or 8. They grabbed me too. They threw us all into a pile on the sandy beach and started jabbing us with their swords and bayonets. I must've been in the center because only one sword got me… nipped my cheek… here, my cheek. But, I couldn't cry. I was covered with blood from the other bodies on top of me, but I couldn't cry. If had, I would not be here today.

When it was getting dark, my grandmother found me. She picked me up and consoled me. It hurt so much. I was crying and she put me on her shoulder and walked around.

Then, some of the other parents came looking for their children. They mostly found dead bodies. The river bank there was very sandy. Some of them dug graves with their bare hands—shallow graves—and tried to bury their children in them. Others, just pushed them into the river, they pushed them into the Euphrates. Their little bodies floated away.

If you think the Hebrew genocide of the Canaanites could have been any less horrifying for the victims, you're mistaken. Furthermore, genocide frankly poisons the souls of those who carry it out. They have to suspend their moral convictions and systematically dehumanize their victims through rape and brutality to be able to carry out those terrible acts. It deadens their sense of the sacredness of life, and they often remain violent and desensitized to violence for the rest of their lives. They also have to punish any of their comrades who refuse to participate, because any abstention is an implicit moral condemnation of the group, and could lead to a wave of others doing the same.

Do you really think God could condone (much less command) this sort of thing?

Bull.

-Chris

Edited July 12, 2011 by Chris Smith

[Libs]

That's because I don't think there are a huge many cases where he does. Rarities... and yet he can do it... but I'm not sure... you should probably talk to God about it yourself... about... why he may command a man to take a life away.

In any case... I think... God would have certain requirements on that man... remember Nephi's hesitance... I think that may be something that God wants... a reluctance... and yet obedience.

Not sure though. =\.

Somber Wishes,

TAO

Yes, I agree, hesitance and reluctance on this issue, are good things. It's a difficult issue, considering all of the killing that is in our sacred scriptures.

[Storm Rider]

I am still trying to understand how there is so much discussion about a topic we are not supposed to be able to discuss. What exactly does this mean to the OP?

[asbestosman]

His creatorship is only one reason that He has authority over us.

Would you say that creatorship is a necessary condition, or a sufficient one? Or would you say that's neither necessary nor sufficient in and of itself, but is either itself necessary, or needs an alternative condition as a replacement?

-----------------

By the way, I think I hear Euthyphro's dilemma in this thread. Is God's command good because he's God, or does God make the commandment because it's morally good?

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

So it's OK for me to murder someone, because they'll remain alive in the afterlife? After all, the afterlife is no less available to my victims than to God's. So why is killing OK for God, but not me?

I love God Chris, I don't pretend to always understand him. If ever allowed in the afterlife, I have many questions I need answered. But it is man who does there things to each other and God who mourns.

[bluebell]

Would you say that creatorship is a necessary condition, or a sufficient one? Or would you say that's neither necessary nor sufficient in and of itself, but is either itself necessary, or needs an alternative condition as a replacement?

I think it's a necessary condition, but not one that stands on it's own. Simply being a creator of something doesn't automatically give someone the right to do whatever they want with it, however, i don't believe that anyone has any right to do what they want with something/someone, without being the creator of it in some way.

That sounds odd and cold in such clinical-ish terms but i'm thinking again about the inherent rights that all people accept and believed to be valid that are given parents specifically because their 'ownership' over their children. Those rights obviously are not without limits but they do exist.

Abortion, which many people believe to be a right for women to have, is probably the best example of someone having complete rights and dominion over another life based completely upon 'ownership' through creation.

However, i think that God has rights that even pregnant women don't morally have-the right to end life-because of His knowledge coupled with His dominion.

-----------------

By the way, I think I hear Euthyphro's dilemma in this thread. Is God's command good because he's God, or does God make the commandment because it's morally good?

My philosphy professors would definitely be interested in this thread, that's for sure.

[David T]

I've been developing a huge admiration for Rene Girard's concept that violence attributed to God (including sacrifice) is simply a collective scapegoat, and that one key aspect of the significance of Christ's murder was the revelation that it is not God who incites violence - it is the justification of men who are in violent opposition to the will of God. That the scapegoat is, in fact, innocent. This is a key part of the great Revelation of Christ.

Edited July 12, 2011 by nackhadlow

[bluebell]

Is it? One interpretation of Mormon doctrine suggests God organized the spirits, but I'm not aware that he is thought to have created them.

Another interpretation isn't even willing to go that far, instead seeing the spirits as eternally self-existent entities who were "organized" only in the institutional sense, into pre-existent councils and quorums.

I guess that whole pre-mortal council was just to give us the illusion of collective ownership, then?

You're ignoring or missing a very important distinction here:

We're not talking about God ending spiritual life. We're talking about God taking away physical life, which mormon theology teaches He is the creator of.

Actually, I'm pointing out that your argument is inconsistent with the common Mormon answer to the "problem of evil". That argument maintains that God resolutely refuses to interfere in human affairs lest he compromise free will, whereas your argument implies that God has no qualms about routinely cutting short people's free will by wiping out whole populations.

Where is this 'mormon answer to the problem of evil' located?

I think at this point references would be great so that we can both come at it from the same place.

Frankly, I think your view of why life matters utterly cheapens life. Life isn't just a test. Life is an end in itself. Taking life is wrong because of the value life has to the living. When you deprive someone of life, you rob them of the thing that is most important to them.

Frankly, i think your view of why life matters is shallow and cheapens our true existence and who we really are. Life isn't just this physical existence. It's part of a much bigger picture. Physical life has value because of it's role in the eternities.

Saying that physical life is the thing that is most important to someone is like saying that high school is the most important thing to a 16 year old. Obviously it's very important, but only because of how it fits into the bigger picture. When that perspective is lost, we get things like teenage suicide.

Furthermore, your argument raises more questions than it answers. Why does God bother testing people in the first place, if he already knows they'll fail?

I won't pretend to have all the answers but to this arguement i would say there are two reasons:

1) tests aren't just given so that someone can pass or fail, they are about learning and growth. Failure isn't really failure if it lead someone on to success that they would not have been able to achieve otherwise.

2) A man isn't honest just because he's never had the chance to steal. The eternal principle of justice isn't like the movie 'the minority report'. You don't get sent to prison because you were going to do something, you don't get to be free because you weren't going to do it. You prove who you are through your actual choices. Once you're proven that, then it's just for the consequences to follow and, maybe most importantly, you'll know it's just.

If giving them a chance is important enough to send them to earth in the first place, isn't it also important enough to let them finish the race?

If God ends your life, then you have finished the race, you're just messing up other people trying to finish their's and need to be removed from the track.

More importantly, are we really supposed to believe that none of the Canaanites could have been "saved" if the Israelites had adopted a missionary strategy rather than a massacre-and-take-their-land strategy? I don't believe that for a second. If God really cared about these people and wanted them to be saved, he'd make a little effort instead of just dismissing them as a lost cause and relegating them to the gas chambers.

This is actually a completely different issue then the one i'm addressing.

I would not be surprised if the accounts in the Old Testament are corrupted and that God did not command the wholesale slaughter of the Canaanites.

My first post to you was not a defense of those biblical accounts. It was a response to your claim that if something was wrong for people to do, then it HAS to be wrong for God to do as well.

I don't think that's at a valid arguement to make. I think if someone is going to argue against the OT, that that is the least logical arguement to attempt to use because it is atheistic in nature and therefore fails when addressing issues of man and deity.

I disagree. Taking someone's life cannot be anyone's right or privilege. All authority has limits. There are lines of right and wrong that even a parent can't cross.

Did you miss the part where i said that the analogy is obviously not perfect, or are you purposefully ignoring it because you can only make your point if you do so?

Either way, the existence of the legality of abortion proves that your conclusion is not an accepted given and that some people believe very strongly that under certain conditions, ownership through creation gives someone the right to take someone else's life and that under certain conditions, authority has no limits.

If, a mortal under certain circumstances can end another being's life, then surely God, who has more rights than the mortal, can do the same.

It's easy to think genocide is "logical" when you're discussing it in the abstract, but no one who has ever read firsthand accounts of the horrors of mass-murder could be so callous.

I'm not unaware of that. Death is often horrific, whether it's through war, disease, or natural destruction. Horror is no arguement against it's use by God however, because death is just birth to Him and in many circumstances is probably less horrific than continuing to live.

If you think the Hebrew genocide of the Canaanites could have been any less horrifying for the victims, you're mistaken. Furthermore, genocide frankly poisons the souls of those who carry it out. They have to suspend their moral convictions and systematically dehumanize their victims through rape and brutality to be able to carry out those terrible acts. It deadens their sense of the sacredness of life, and they often remain violent and desensitized to violence for the rest of their lives. They also have to punish any of their comrades who refuse to participate, because any abstention is an implicit moral condemnation of the group, and could lead to a wave of others doing the same.

I think this is probably the best and only real arguement against the genocide depicted in the OT. It's the arguement that i personally believe to be correct.

Do you really think God could condone (much less command) this sort of thing?

No, i don't.

Edited July 12, 2011 by bluebell

[Chris Smith]

Bluebell,

I'm glad you at least recognize that God commanding others to carry out mass-murder is unacceptable. I wish you could see that it's equally unacceptable for him to carry it out himself, but I suppose I'll take what I can get. Peace,

-Chris

[bluebell]

Bluebell,

I'm glad you at least recognize that God commanding others to carry out mass-murder is unacceptable. I wish you could see that it's equally unacceptable for him to carry it out himself, but I suppose I'll take what I can get. Peace,

-Chris

I agree.

There are many things that i wish you could see as well Chris-things that i pray you'll be able to see someday-but we have to be willing and able to meet each other where we are in life, not where we wish each other would be.

[Kevin Christensen]

If only I could get God to look at things from my perspective. Then he'd see how morally wrong he is and that consequently, he'd succumb to the irrefutable logic, and stop existing. Of course, the violence and atrocities in human history would not stop existing, and then I couldn't blame God for not doing more, or less about it, depending on whether I'm the victim or the beneficiary.

Oh wait... seeing things from my perspective...that is what the Angel described as "the condescension of God," the life, and violent death of Jesus. Wasn't that God looking at things from my perspective?

I wonder what difference God's perspective might make? If there was a God that I had not annihilated via my own omniscience and unfailing moral insight.

In Mormon thought, God may or may not interfere with human affairs, depending on what it expedient from his perspective. Even unpleasant experience may be instructive. And Jesus claims to be able to wipe all the tears from our eyes.

There is this essay, by Hugh Nibley:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=53&chapid=482

A few passages to note:

The telling points we shall note here are (1) God's reluctance to send the Flood and his great sorrow at the event; (2) the peculiar brand of wickedness that made the Flood mandatory; (3) the frank challenge of the wicked to God to do his worst; and (4) the happy side and beneficial outcome of the event.

The stock reply to the charge of cruelty against God has ever been that man with his limited knowledge is in no position to judge the wisdom or charity of what God does or does not do, the extreme example of the argument being set forth in the Moslem Chadir stories. But this argument significantly is not emphasized in the apocalyptic writings. There God does not say to the holy man who is afflicted by the fate of the wicked, "Who are you to question what I do?" He does not blast Enoch or Abraham or Baruch or Ezra or the Brother of Jared or Job on the spot for daring to question his mercy, but on the contrary commends each for his concern for his fellowman (cf. Moses 7:45), and he explains in effect, "I know just how you feel; what you fail to understand is not that I had good reason for doing what had to be done, but that I feel much worse about it than you ever could!" "For thou comest far short of being able to love my creation more than I!" he tells Ezra,7 and commends the prophet for taking his part (cf. Moses 7:44): "But even on this account thou shalt be honourable before the Most High; because thou has humbled thyself,"8 even as did Abraham in pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah. In the same spirit he replies to Baruch: "Dost thou think that there is no anguish to the angels in the presence of the Mighty One? . . . Dost thou think that in these things the Most High rejoices, or that his name is glorified?"9 When Enoch is distressed beyond measure at the cosmic violence he must behold (cf. Moses 7:44), Michael comforts him: "Why art thou disquieted with such a vision? Until this day lasted the day of His mercy; and He hath been merciful and long-suffering towards those who dwell on earth."10 Mercy is the keynote, not vengeance; God has not hastened to unleash the forces of nature but holds them back as long as possible.

3. In contemplating these terrifying events, Enoch never allows us to forget that the real tragedy is not what becomes of people but what they become.

It is the ultimate foundation of all theodicy: we are in no position to judge what is going on because we see things from literally only one angle, and we therefore have no conception of reality. In Enoch, it is not only God who sees things from different levels, but holy men as well are given that privilege—and that makes everything different.103

Though science has conceded an infinite number of possible viewpoints for describing any object, in practice it has always insisted that there is really only one valid viewpoint: the down-to-earth, no-nonsense reality of everyday experience. We see everything, as it were, through a long, thin tube set up at an immovable point and welded in position to face in one direction only. What do we know of reality?

But if death is the ultimate disaster, then God is cruel to all creatures. At what point does justice become a serious matter? Always. God is always just. At what point does pain? There we are dealing with a very relative matter. This is not the same thing. What does it take to frighten a child? All creatures experience fear and alarm, unpleasant sensations, as a basic prerequisite to survival. And we can take God's word for it to Ezra: "You come far short of being able to love my creation more than I love it."106

And of course, we have the interesting discussion in Moses 7 that begins here:

28 And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?

And culminates in this:

And that which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins [notice, who is pleading for the victims of God's cruelty, who is suffering for their sins? Who is extending them every opportunity even after this life?]; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment;

40 Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands.

Jedediah Grant famously saw a vision of his infant daughter who had died crossing the plains, and whose grave had been desecrated by wolves. He saw her intact, happy and whole, as though, notice, that the circumstances of her mortal death were not eternally defining.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited July 13, 2011 by Kevin Christensen

[bluebell]

If only I could get God to look at things from my perspective. Then he'd see how morally wrong he is and that consequently, he'd succumb to the irrefutable logic, and stop existing. Of course, the violence and atrocities in human history would not stop existing, and then I couldn't blame God for not doing more, or less about it, depending on whether I'm the victim or the beneficiary.

Oh wait... seeing things my my perspective...that is what the Angel described as "the condescension of God," the life, and violent death of Jesus. Wasn't that God looking at things from my perspective?

I wonder what difference God's perspective might make? If there was a God that I had not annihilated via my own omniscience and unfailing moral insight.

In Mormon thought, God may or may not interfere with human affairs, depending on what it expedient from his perspective. Even unpleasant experience may be instructive. And Jesus claims to be able to wipe all the tears from our eyes.

There is this essay, by Hugh Nibley:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=53&chapid=482

I often wonder how horrible and terrifying birth must be to an infant. The act of giving birth is terrifying enough to the mother, who knows what is happening and why, but, having had two children, i wonder if they found it cruel and horrific when they went through it. It must be painful in it's own right, but the emotional and mental trauma must also be great going from one environment to another in such a violent way.

I have a three year old neice who believed the fireworks this year were the most frightening thing she had ever been exposed to while my 6 year old felt they were the most awesome thing he's ever seen. It's interesting how a little perspective and knowledge can cause the same experience to be seen in completely different ways.

It's my experience with children that teaches me most, i think, about how to have trust in God despite the things that happen in life that i see as horrific. As a parent, you only have to hold a screaming infant down once so that a doctor can do something to it that is painful but essential to understand that really loving a child means doing what is best for them even if it causes pain.

Every parent who's ever shed tears while having to help a doctor cause pain to their child in order to save their child more or worse pain later can also appreciate the anguish that God must feel at having to do the same to His children here.

[Uncertain]

Is it possible an all knowing perfectly moral God will command or perform what seems to be depraved acts but given his correct perspective are actually for the greater good? Certainly it is possible does this mean we cannot use our moral judgment to help determine if a given command or action is likely from a moral God? No, of course not. In fact Mormons do this all the time when they argue the unconditional election of Calvinism is not moral or they argue God will never condemn a person to h*** simply because they did not have the chance to accept Christ in this life. Mormons are making an argument about what a moral God would or wouldn't do. This is perfectly fine, when my neighbor claims God told him to kidnap and torture to death young girls. We don't automatically assume God really did tell him to torture girls to death for some unknown but higher purpose. Because a moral God rarely if ever command such actions. Most acts of depravity and barbarianism are just that. Now suppose my neighbor writes down in a book how God told him to torture young girls to death and this book was found 1,000 years later does the fact his acts were written down and are very old mean he really was commanded by God to torture young girls to death? The argument is simple, if someone commits an act of depravity we assume God is not responsible since a moral God will very rarely if ever command or commit such acts. This is why we send murders and rapist to prison regardless of whether or not they claim "God told me to". This applies to the Old Testament just as well as it applies to modern day perpetrators of genocide. Sure it's logically possible any act of depravity was in fact commanded by a moral all loving God for some "greater good" but this is by far not the most probable reason why depraved acts are performed. Hence, if someone commits a depraved act this is in fact very good evidence they are not receiving communication from an all knowing, loving God. Sure the 911 hijackers may have been convinced God wanted them to kill all those people but the fact they did kill many innocent people is indeed quite good evidence God did not approve of their actions. Because God in general does not command acts of depravity.

The argument that God did not command or approve of the depraved acts depicted in the Bible is simply an argument to the most probable explanation.

Best,

Uncertain

Edited July 12, 2011 by Uncertain

[Libs]

I've been developing a huge admiration for Rene Girard's concept that violence attributed to God (including sacrifice) is simply a collective scapegoat, and that one key aspect of the significance of Christ's murder was the revelation that it is not God who incites violence - it is the justification of men who are in violent opposition to the will of God. That the scapegoat is, in fact, innocent. This is a key part of the great Revelation of Christ.

That's a very insightful observation.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Bluebell,

I'm glad you at least recognize that God commanding others to carry out mass-murder is unacceptable. I wish you could see that it's equally unacceptable for him to carry it out himself, but I suppose I'll take what I can get. Peace,

-Chris

Chris, I have often wondered if when this life is over, we will wake up and realize our deaths (no matter how they came about) were indeed our release from h*** itself.

Edited July 14, 2011 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[Loran Blood]

Since you suggest this should be first, Loran, let's ask - is all sexual activity before marriage morally equivalent?

Are you implying that sexual sin (the "taking" of virtue by two people from one another by mutual consent) is analogous to the taking of life from one by another against the will of another? To do so would seem to allow one to confute mutually consented to fornication with forcible rape.

Are you also implying that the Church has taught a doctrine of the moral equivalency of all sexual sin, within which masturbation or passionate kissing before marriage are morally equivalent to adultery, homosexual activity, or sexual fetishism?

[Loran Blood]

So it's okay to mass-murder men, women, and children as long as there are bad things in their hearts and no one has the power to punish you for your actions?

God cannot commit mass murder. Zeus could, but not God as understood in the gospel and in the Judeo-Christian world generally. For God to ever commit murder:

1. His motives would have to be venal and self serving.

2. His knowledge of the consequences, as well as his power to control/channel those consequences relative to each individual affected by a large scale "demortalization," shall we say, would have to be pretty much as limited as our own. He would not, in other words, have either the purity of motives or the authority, as God, based upon both his omniscient knowledge of all the consequences and ramifications of such action, and upon his omnipotent power to channel and mold those consequences to the greater good of all those involved, to make such determinations.

In short, for Chris' point to stick here, one must ascribe to God essentially human motives, limitations, perceptual barriers, and power to oversee the long term effects of any action taken, which, given the fundamental concept of God, as understood in the gospel, is disallowed at the outset. In other words, when talking about the "problem" of God's taking of human life, by any means and upon any scale, we should talk about God as God, not as a kind of superhuman mortal with cosmic powers, but with motives and limitations in foresight and perception little different than our own. Chris, like many secularists before him, relies on a projection of his own mortality, and that of others, onto God, at which point he finds God as immoral as he or I would be in taking the same actions. But clearly, there are a great many things God can do that we cannot, both as to moral authority (as a function of his godhood) and as to power to act in any number of spheres.

Creating worlds, for instance, of any kind, is quite beyond out power. Interestingly, in an ultimate sense, both the creation of life and its destruction are impossible both for man and God. Both we and God can remove eternal spirit children of our Father in Heaven from the mortal realm and place them in another realm by terminating biological life processes here. But in no case can anyone (or anything living, for that matter) be "killed" in any ultimate or meaningful sense. The sphere, or plane of activity and life can be altered, but not existence itself, which is at the very base of reality itself, and can not be altered at all. The difference is, of course, that God's motives and perspective in removing humans from mortality are infinitely greater, broader, deeper, and wiser than our own.

There are so many problems with this, it's hard to know where to begin. First, it is not Mormon doctrine that we were created by God. Ergo, he does not own us, to do with us as he pleases.

This is just plain false. I don't know where Chris is getting this idea, but LDS doctrine is quite clear that our bodies, and the particles that compose them, are God's; they are his creations (he organized them out of chaos) and he sustains them through his power and priesthood authority.

Second, God supposedly respects our free will. God is so conscientious about non-interference with free will that he won't even stop natural disasters, but not conscientious enough to stop him from committing mass murder whenever he feels like it?

By this logic, the very process of old age and natural death are an argument against the existence of God, as, if God was really just and merciful, he would have made the mortal experience, not a probationary state, but a permanent sinecure for his children.

Third, either this life matters, or it doesn't. Either human life on earth is something sacred to be protected, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways. It can't be one thing for one group of people, but the opposite for those who have power. That's called unrighteous dominion and a double standard.

Human life, and the mortal sphere of existence, are relatively sacred, yes. They are also a vanishingly tiny component within a fantastically narrow bandwidth of reality facing, on one side, an infinite regress into a beginningless past, and an eternal future not yet present. Mortal life's sacredness, in LDS theology, must be balanced against that panoramic view of existence qua existence.

And, sorry to have to tell you this, it can be different for different people. Individuals as well as large segments of entire societies can forfeit the right to their continuance of existence in mortality through sin; through that point at which they become "ripe" in iniquity and become, as a psychiatrist might put it regarding a deranged lunatic, "A danger to themselves and everyone around them," including those yet unborn who would have no chance of growing up in righteousness within that cultural setting.

The crux of the matter is that only God has the intelligence and wisdom to perceive correctly when that point has been reached. He also, by virtue of his perfect nature and character, has the authority and responsibility to determine when such action should be taken, and he has, as well, the power to execute those judgments.

Never, in the scriptures, it should also be noted, are a people ever destroyed without numerous warnings from the Lord's servants, the prophets. The gospel is here, now, with a "voice of warning" to many, as well as an invitation to "come unto Christ" to those who are so inclined.

Edited July 13, 2011 by Loran Blood

[Honorentheos]

I've been developing a huge admiration for Rene Girard's concept that violence attributed to God (including sacrifice) is simply a collective scapegoat, and that one key aspect of the significance of Christ's murder was the revelation that it is not God who incites violence - it is the justification of men who are in violent opposition to the will of God. That the scapegoat is, in fact, innocent. This is a key part of the great Revelation of Christ.

I +1'd your post, but also wanted to say I admire your thinking on this subject nackhadlow.

[ERayR]

Bluebell,

I'm glad you at least recognize that God commanding others to carry out mass-murder is unacceptable. I wish you could see that it's equally unacceptable for him to carry it out himself, but I suppose I'll take what I can get. Peace,

-Chris

I don't mean to be antagonistic but your post comes accross as very arrogant. For myself I would not dare to tell God which of his actions is acceptable.

Edited July 14, 2011 by ERayR