Why Does God Love to Kill Children
The tsunami some years back killed many thousands of children. The Bible "records" God's wrath at the time of Noah. There were a few million people on earth at the supposed time and he killed nearly all of them. Maybe a million were children.
As an ancient philosopher pointed out, either God kills these children because he liked to do it. Or, he doesn't like it but is helpless to stop it, not "all powerful."
The unknown ancients who wrote the Bible had to jump through some hoops to keep their hold over societies. The theological tricks and control techniques they invented continue to this day. When natural disasters happen Christian are taught to say, "We cannot know the mind of God." When humans kill large numbers of other humans, bombs and mass shootings, Christians are taught to say "God gave us free will." The ridiculousness is only raised a notch when a Christian doesn't like something like abortions. Then he is taught to say he actually does know the mind of God, "God hates abortion." For a few thousand years these mental gymnastics of Christians have entertained skeptics.
When, like with abortion, people say they know the mind of God there is a predictable pattern. It is that the mind of God is completely in agreement and perfectly in sync with the person telling us what God thinks. I can't tell you how many times I've had gay people and/or their parents tell me God approves of them. For some reason, anti gay Christians know God disapproves. Since the Bible provides nothing of substance on either the gay or abortion issues it is open season on what God is thinking.
Some years ago I discussed the number of children killed by God in the flood. I referred to them as "innocent" children. A commenter hammered me for not knowing "the truth." Those children were not, he declared, "innocent." Instead they were part of the masses that sinned and angered God. This person knew the mind of God and God was doing precisely the right thing.
That this particular god has the power to kill children and does, or, has the power to stop the killing of them and does not, remains one of the holes in Christian mythology that has neve been plugged.
This is one of those arguments I never bought into because it contains a false dichotomy. I also don't believe that the alleged omnipotence, or lack thereof, that a deity possesses is a compelling argument for or against its existence.
ReplyDeleteI believe a compelling argument can be made that the Abrahamic god is one of vengeance and hatred, and I honestly don't understand how anyone could think differently upon reading the Old Testament. I don't think it's really a relevant argument for our purposes, though.
Hello Bryan.
DeleteI’m both curious and rusty here. You are referring to Jon’s statement “god has the power to kill children and does, or, has the power to stop the killing of them and does not” as an example of a false dichotomy, correct? Does the alternative “god does not have the power to kill children” make it so? Thanks.
Ardy B: The reason why it is a false dichotomy is because there are other possibilities at play.
DeleteThe first part of this that can get a little convoluted is the fact that I don't consider The Bible to be a legitimate source for anything. It's not primary source material. It's a work of fiction, and a rather poor one at that. I don't consider any of the accounts in The Bible to be accurate, and I think it is just as much folly to point out the multiple incongruencies in The Bible to attempt to disprove the existence of God as it is to use The Bible to try to prove the existence of God.
I know Christians who claim The Bible is infallible and still refuse to follow the parts they don't agree with. That's pretty much the entire religion in a nutshell right there, so The Bible is kind of irrelevant in these discussions. The Christians have made it irrelevant. It's either an immutable and non-negotiable source of truth or it's worthless as source material.
From that point, I make the deduction that God doesn't actually kill people. To the contrary, we have a universe with trillions of individual organisms along with trillions of other natural systems that are non-reliant on life to function. All of these individuals and systems have a predefined purpose and are set in motion by what Christians like to call "free will". We humans are constantly in conflict with others people, other organisms, and other natural systems when we exercise our free will, and this is the cause of human misery as we know it.
So I would claim that neither stance in that position is true. God isn't the one killing the children whether you believe in him or not.
Thanks Brian for your clarification. Perhaps if I had used the term “possibility” instead of “alternative” I would have been closer to the mark, i.e., the possibility that “god does not have the power to kill children or the power to prevent others from killing children” exposes the false dilemma. A god that powerless is not worthy of the moniker.
DeleteI got a little lost at a universe with trillions of natural systems with predefined purpose that are non-reliant on life to function set in motion by something akin to the Christian take on free will. I may have got your assertion tangled up. You’re exploring some deep stuff. Kudos.
lol, thank you Ardy. That explanation came to me after Columbine when I had friends bemoaning "why does God allow this stuff to happen." It happened again after 9/11.
DeleteIt's not about God allowing it to happen. It's about two different people, or two different groups of people, both exercising a free will that comes into conflict.
Therefore, there is a third (and many other) possible solutions. Perhaps God created order in the universe for a purpose we don't understand, and the only way to maintain that order involves horrid atrocities. Perhaps God is following a belief system that he (or she or, more likely, it) has an uncompromising faith in. Perhaps God even created that belief system for himself, and maintaining it creates a tremendous amount of discipline.
This concept can be extrapolated to fit sentient as well as non-sentient matter, and the confusion comes from trying to explain that part of it.
Bryan K 4:20 --- Excellent summary of skepticism. Even the phrase "God is dead" is a little hard to rationalize literally because there never was a god or God. Maybe a better summary of the growth of skepticism is "Goodbye God." But, of course, if God never was here that doesn't exactly work either.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, the concept of God has had, and still has, a profound impact on the world. Therefore, I consider the concept of "god" to be an abstract philosophical concept that is very much alive and well; therefore, either of those phrases are equally practical when discussing the destruction of that philosophical concept.
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DeleteI am neutral on the question of whether or not the concept of free will exists, and I have thought quite extensively on the implications of either side of that argument. My conclusion, if free will is indeed an illusion, is that the illusion is so convincing that it really doesn't matter either way.
DeleteI'm also not convinced that religion is dying or that it will die.
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DeleteI personally think it's pretty obvious from John Searle's writing that he has no clue what the concept of "free will" means. All of his objections to it fit neatly within its framework. He only attempts to define the concept of free will through his own point of view which is, by its very nature, certain to be full of bias.
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DeleteAs is usually the case in such discussions, the person decrying that the other person doesn't "get it" is the one who is failing to "get it".
DeleteAs I said, I'm neutral in this discussion. The reason why I'm neutral is precisely because of the point you tried to make here. If free will is, indeed, a very elaborate and completely convincing illusion, then you are right in that it becomes a lapse in morality to hold people accountable for those actions. Except, of course, the fact that holding people accountable would also be a pre-determined part of this scenario.
My rebuttal for this has already been offered. If free will is indeed an illusion, then the illusion is so convincing that it doesn't matter either way. And if it is, indeed, an illusion, then holding people accountable doesn't make sense.
That's all part of the game, and we'll never know the answer either way.
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ReplyDeleteI'm losing count of the number of logical fallacies presented so far. We have an appeal to authority, an appeal to ignorance, a red herring (you've misrepresented my position twice),
DeleteThe most basic point that needs to be made here, and it's one that folks like John Searle's should take to heart, is that whether or not something is true or false has absolutely no relevance whatsoever on your ability to accept or understand it.
I also disagree that it's hard to get one's mind around the idea of "free will". That is the default position. It's the easy answer. It's where people go when there is no other explanation. The exploration of the ramifications of life if free will was an illusion is where the conversation starts to become complex, and it is the existence of bias that makes this concept almost impossible for so many people to understand.
This question really comes down to one single point in a process that we, as humans, currently have no understanding of. At what point does the natural progression of chemical reactions, energy, and electrical synapses become "conscious thought". Until we know the answer to that question, it's kind of pointless to belittle others for having a differing opinion on something which we have no quantifiable platform to base those opinions on.
It's a battle of logic versus perception. Logic tells us that free will is an illusion. Perception tells us that free will is real. The middle ground is murky.
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