Can a newborn baby ever be evil and deserving of death? It seems that in their quest to justify the unjustifiable some theists indeed think so.
a God that can cause a worldwide flood that kills off a world full of evil people and saves only a few that are good
I think we can safely assume that there were newborns in the world just prior to the floode. However I’m skeptical that any baby can be classified as “evil people”.
What do believers in the flood think? Did those babies deserve to drown because they were evil? Did those evil babies go to heaven? Or were they a price worth paying to “reset” the earth to only allow good people to survive?
Why would drowning the baby Stephen Paddock entail cooperation with Satan?
J-Mac,
That does not seem to have been a problem for your god in the dozens of other cases where he smote people. In those cases are you saying that god cooperated with satan? But in this case he would not? Why, what’s the difference?
Here is a list of the 20 million + people you think your god has killed: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_killing_people
What changed?
There is evidence that those qualities exist in other species as well.
I said morality can be constructed using many different guidelines which was your question.
That would seem to be the Biblical justification, increasing the population of the tribe.
Yes, assault is generallly not a good thing for the one assaulted
Most humans have hair. Since we are not identical to all other apes, the word “ just “ seems incorrect. Our ability to manipulate our enviroment through the use of tools is unparalleled in the animal kingdom.
Ed Feser, Thomas Aquinas and a few others:
Yes
Does not follow
How does it work out in everyday life?
J-Mac,
So you don’t think your god is omniscient and omnipotent? So, potentially, your god could be an alien?
What religion are you J-Mac, that you worship such a god?
It doesn’t…
You may want to consider choosing another nickname as newton seems a bit deceiving; it doesn’t suit your basic knowledge of physics…How about oldton or clueton? 😉
You have a major and fundamental issue comprehending the difference between executing justice i.e. executing sentenced to death criminals, and random killing… recent Las Vegas killing…
Are the judge and the jury who sentence convicted criminals to death personally responsible for killing them?
You are potentially a troll… and a clueless one…
How do you know you are not an alien?
It was a pleasure talking to you… Bye bye! 😉
And? What’s your point?
Speaking of evil newborns:
J-Mac, to PaulC:
And of course the Flood wasn’t a random and indiscriminate killing. Every single baby on earth was profoundly evil and deserved to die, no exceptions. God was simply “executing justice”. Right, J-Mac?
Sal, J-Mac is afraid to tell us, but what do you think of this verse that Acartia quoted?
If you had had a daughter who was raped, would you have willingly married her off to the rapist? Would you be arguing “I am just a maggot. Who am I to contest the mighty Yahweh’s command?”
Moved a post to guano.
J-Mac,
So which is it? Did God know that every baby in existence at the time of the flood — every single one of them — was going to grow up into an hopelessly evil fuck, and therefore they all deserved to be drowned? Or was God just killing them indiscriminately, Stephen Paddock style?
ISIS makes fourth claim that Paddock converted. Pascal’s Wager?
Just trying to find a motive amid the madness.
I’m curious about whether the autopsy will uncover any brain abnormalities, like Charles Whitman’s tumor.
First thing I ask myself. That and meds recently stopped.
But some evidence indicates he had been planning this for over a year.
He’d been casing venues, including Boston and Chicago.
But let’s say he is mentally ill (including the possibility of a tumor that causes violent urges), why not take out an afterlife insurance policy?
There are several brands to choose from.
But since the topic is born evil, his family seems to be a candidate.
Rapist were often killed, that’s what Jacob’s sons Levi and Simeon did when their sister was raped. Now, in lieu of that, when a woman is violated, she will usually not be considered marriageable and the rapists punishment is to take care of her.
This is what happened when Tamar was raped by her brother:
Him not marrying her and taking care of her was considered a greater sin that raping her and then disposing of her. Amnon’s brother Abasalom took care of Amnon and killed him. Nothing happened to Absalom taking revenge for his sister because pretty much everyone appeared to understand the death penalty was Amnon’s just punishment.
So The passage in Deuteronomy leaves out some details. Meaning, if the rapist isn’t killed for his deed, he has obligation to take care of the girl he messed up. That certainly wasn’t license to rape, that was in case it was decided the guy doesn’t die first. But as far as I know, two cases of rape in the Bible were punished by death. The rape of Dinah and the rape of Tamar, so that part of the law was moot.
But Tamar expressed the fact that now that Amnon had robbed her of her virginity by force, she was condemned to be single as a result in that culture, and thus would not have the protection of a husband. God’s law is that husbands love and take care of their wives, so the mere marriage ceremony wasn’t what God intended as restitution. The intent of the law is that the husband now has to essentially give alimony. I’m not so sure it guaranteed him further conjugal rights. He might marry her and then the girls family could have him killed and then she gets his property.
But in the two cases of rape I’m aware of, the scoundrel didn’t live anyway to fulfill his restitution. In the case of Dinah, the rapist was circumcised (ouch) then he was killed.
So if the law of Deuteronomy were carried out and then the scoundrel was killed after the wedding ceremony, the girl would be somewhat given justice. In the case of Dinah, the ceremony didn’t even take place. The rapist was circumcised and while his was in agony from the procedure he was killed and his entire possessions were plundered and annexed.
Sal,
Simple solution: order the rapist to support the victim financially, but don’t force her to marry her rapist.
Why is your God too dense to think of such an obvious solution? It’s almost as if he were the fictional invention of a barbarous people, rather than the wise and mighty creator of the universe.
Who said she is forced. The implication form the case of Tamar was that she had the right to demand restitution in the form of marriage. She obviously wasn’t limited to demanding that alone as her brother Absalom took justice on Amnon the rapist. It’s fairly clear from the passages about Dinah and Tamar that rapists weren’t viewed as having the privilege of marrying the girl they violated, rather the girl had rights over the rapist if she chose to exercise them, and in those two cases she didn’t because the rapist was killed.
The presumption is that if the father would allow the marriage. He might not.
Furthermore, there some ambiguity about how this is distinguished from the case where the woman who is screaming for help. In the case of the woman screaming for help, the implication is the rapist is killed.
Whatever the exact details of the law, it doesn’t strike me as the Bible giving license for rapists in light of the way rapists were actually dealt with — as in being killed. She had rights to his estate. There might not even be a wedding if the guy was already dead. If she’s a widow, then it is honorable for her to remarry in that culture.
The passage in Deuteronomy apparently covered cases such as in that of Tamar where Tamar wasn’t averse to being married to the guy in the first place, but the guy was violating proper protocols:
So this was not a random rape situation. The random rape situation where some girl cries for help is different. The implication is the rapist is killed. It’s clear the culture viewed the death penalty as appropriate and the Bible didn’t have to be explicit about what was already customary. The case of Tamar seemed to be the sort of thing Deuteronomy was covering, not a random act of violence.
Sal,
Why should it depend on what the father decides? A decent, loving God would command the right thing without leaving it up to the father. A decent God would require the rapist to support his victim without requiring her to marry him, regardless of what the father thinks.
No, Sal. There is no ambiguity. Read that entire, appalling section of Deuteronomy 22. It’s a doozy:
If the victim is betrothed, the rapist is killed. If not, he merely pays a fine and is required to marry her.
Your God is a complete, misogynistic dick. And he’s obviously the fictional creation of a misogynistic, female-virginity-obsessed people. Yet you worship him. Why?
I’d also be interested in hearing Vincent’s take on this.
Vincent,
Do you believe that the appalling commands in Deuteronomy 22 came from God himself?
I especially like the one about a woman on her wedding night not bleeding. Stone her.
I agree. This god is a racist, misogynistic dick.
Kill your enemies and rape their virgin daughters. Drown everyone on earth except a handful of idiots, for the evils of 10% of the earth even though you have not presented yourself to 90% of the planet. Imagine what the Indians in North America must have thought when they were treading water.
Acartia:
Yeah. Besides being barbaric, it reveals an idiot God who thinks that every woman bleeds when she loses her virginity.
Believers, what happened to you? How did you end up worshiping this evil, doofus God?
And the death penalty for homosexuals. What’s up with that?
That puts your god in the lofty company of Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and ISIL.
Not to mention the US who recently refused to support a UN resolution opposing the death penalty for homosexuality.
stcordova,
Not too bad Sal…Not too bad at all.. 🙂
It could possibly help if the education system would take it upon itself and taught, as early as possible, even very young children, that humans beings are much more than just hairless monkeys and no one has the right to take even one human life…
Since millions of abortions are performed every year, and many attempt to normalized it, should we be surprised that some see no difference between killing a human being that is developing in the mother’s womb or just walking on the street?
It seems that just like in times of Adam and Eve and Job, Satan has been given a measure of authority over some aspects of earthly affairs. It seems that it is related to the issue I describe in my OP here, that talks about the origins of evil…
If God decided to meddle in the affairs that Satan is responsible for, He would have to take some responsibility for his actions…
Just to emphasize the point I made in the OP on the Problem of Evil, God could not have forgiven the sin Adam and Eve committed because the would have made him a lair and Satan accusation true…
Consequently, meddling in Satan’s affairs could make God responsible for the greater outcomes of Satan’s affairs, though from our prospective drowning Stephen Paddock as a child seems like the right thing to do… but we most likely can’t see the bigger picture of all the affairs …IMV….
Thanks. 🙂
What are you talking about, J-Mac?
Sal got pwned. The Deuteronomy passage supports my claim, not his, as I noted above:
J-Mac,
And if he doesn’t “meddle” in those affairs, he’s still responsible. He’s far more powerful than Satan. Everything Satan does is with the full permission and knowledge of God, just as in the case of Job.
Your God is a dick, J-Mac.
J-Mac,
So a greater good was served by the death of those 50+ people? Was perhaps one of them the next Hitler? And by being killed now we saved millions in the future?
But wait just one second…..
So which is it J-Mac? We can’t see the bigger picture or your god does not want to interfere with Satan’s work? You seem undecided, almost as if you are making it up as you are going along.
The conclusion from this ” “the dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion”. So reality is ultimately TIMELESS“ . There is the alternative explanation that time exists but our concept of it is mistaken.
For instance Einstein “Two events taking place at the points A and B of a system K are simultaneous if they appear at the same instant when observed from the middle point, M, of the interval AB. Time is then defined as the ensemble of the indications of similar clocks, at rest relative to K, which register the same simultaneously.”
If Einstein believed reality was timeless why would he provide a definition of time?
If QM is free from the need of of the concept of time why does the Copenhagen Interptation require it?
The oddest part without the existence of time the concept of eternity is meaningless as is the justifying your version of God’s drowning of babies ,that God is outside of non-existent time.
Which theory of consciousness? Is there only one?
I would answer this question if it was worth it…My experience with you tells me it is not… 🙁
newton,
I wish I could help you but I don’t think you I can…You seem sincere in your attempts to understand the concept of time or timelessness but you are not grasping it…
1. Einstein did provide some kind of definition of time because it fit into his theory of relativity, which mind you could be wrong because of the illusion of time… Ironic, eh? He expressed his doubt about the reality of time until his death and it looks like one of the reasons his equations didn’t workout in the unification theory partially because of time… He didn’t know about dark energy and stuff though…
2. The Copenhagen Interpretation is not holding up much because reality is a murky concept… Read this article. It is pretty simple
https://www.wired.com/2014/06/the-new-quantum-reality/
3. There are many theories of consciousness but there is only one that some of it’s predictions have been confined: Orchestrated Objective Reduction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction
I don’t necessarily agree with all aspects of this theory but I may…
I’m in the process of writing to Hameroff on that very discrepancy…
I am underwhelmed.
Do you have a better theory?
I’m not going to ask you how consciousness evolved, because asking you to come up with one bad answer is good enough… 😉
Actually, yes. But I don’t think I can explain it to you.
Try me! I’m more than willing to change my views…
J-Mac, to newton:
To the contrary; newton seems to get it, while you are struggling.
You are confusing the Einsteinian block universe with the set of all possible worlds. Newton’s point is that if a baby is drowned by God, then the baby does not grow up to do evil things. Period. Even from a God’s-eye view, outside of time, the baby does not do those things. It can’t, because it’s dead.
You are thinking of a different possible world in which the baby isn’t drowned and does grow up to do evil things. That’s different, and you don’t need Einstein to understand that.
You’re just confused, J-Mac.
The difficulty is in finding a way to explain it, that you will understand. I’ve tried (with other people). And it never works. They probably think that I am obviously wrong, though they usually don’t say that. They cannot actually find anything wrong, but they do find a lot that they disagree with.
I suspect it is because all of their reasoning is based on assumptions that they are making. And I am challenging those assumptions.
Neil,
My experience has been that once people penetrate your idiosyncratic use of terminology, they discover (and demonstrate) that what you’re saying is either trivially true or obviously wrong.
You could always test that by doing an OP.
Neil:
Keep in mind what happened when you tried that gambit earlier.
Let me repeat this in case Vincent missed it:
Vincent,
Do you believe that the appalling commands in Deuteronomy 22 came from God himself?
I’ve read some of your ideas about consciousness… 1-6 and other ideas about the mind and so on…
I agree with you that consciousness can’t be designed…What are the alternatives though?
I view it in 2 ways:
1. Our consciousness is part of a greater consciousness, like the conscious universe…
2. Consciousness is created in the brain as Now Experience and then it is stored as memories of those conscious experiences…
Quantum consciousness is the best candidate for it but I’m not married to this idea..
Neither of those.
Consciousness is part of our interactive engagement with the world.