A letter I wrote to the editor of my city's rag

[uriel1972]

It was never printed, I can't think why :)

To the Editor,

It is not uncommon, even amongst those who do not believe strongly, to claim that God is the fount of all morals and the Scripture the human record of such. Let us for the moment look at the logical consequences of that belief.
From the Bible it is possible to determine acts which are/have been/will be acceptable and those that are not. We shall call the acceptable; Right, Good and Moral, the unacceptable; Wrong, Evil and Immoral. This is also known as Divine Command Theory, from the obvious.

If God commands something to be done it is Right, Good and Moral, if He commands it not to be done it is Wrong, Evil and Immoral. An act or practise is not intrinsically moral or immoral except in relation to God’s command.
Taking a simple example from Genesis 4 we see Adam and Eve are the only humans their sons of necessity must have married their sisters. At this time God had not prohibited incest, therefore incest was if not moral then at least not immoral.
At a later time in the Bible it becomes prohibited and therefore immoral. The act in itself is not Good or Evil until there is a direct command from God.

To a stronger example;in Joshua 6:17 we see God commanding the people of the Exodus to slaughter the inhabitants except for Rahab the harlot and the people with her in her house. God commands it; it must be Right, Good and Moral.
Genocide: Joshua 6:21 “both man and woman, young and old”, people, innocents, infants, newborn babies all put to the sword. Right, Good and Moral. The act itself is not moral or immoral, but for the command of God. Genocide. The Christian, or indeed the Jew who says God no longer wants genocide and therefore all is right with the World is missing the point.

The point is that at any time God may decide that genocide is required again and what most of the civilised World regards as the greatest of Evils will be required of the Right, Good and Moral Christian. This is perhaps the greatest challenge for those who claim God is Love.

Mickey of Adelaide

[trotsky]

1. An excellent letter, and a point that liberal believers will never even acknowledge.

Belief in a god who uses revelation to communicate to humans can override previous communications at any time, and the nature of revelation is such that only the person receiving it can attest to its authenticity.

[BiggJawn]

2. Always makes them stop and think for a second.

"So, let's say, oh say tonight,when the house is still, Gawd 'comes to you' and commands you to take up whatever weapon he fancies these days and start slaughtering members of some other group. What you gonna do? Dismiss it as indigestion, or start spilling blood?"

Usually, the response is "Oh, GAWD would *NEVER* do that!"

S'Yeah, he said he's the same today, yesterday and tomorrow. He was a bloodthirsty sociopath 6,000 years ago, he's STILL a bloodthirsty sociopath.