I’m a glutton for punishment I guess… can’t stop thinking about you guys…
Are you implying a supernatural illness instituted as torture by a deity? That would be an interesting take from @Sheldon . I thought you were of the mind that God does not exist and neither does the supernatural, was I wrong about that? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Remember an earlier post where someone gave the example of punching someone in the face to prevent harm to another? That argument implies that someone (the puncher in this example) is able to evaluate bad, good, better, and as complexity increases choose the best of all options. Sometimes the best of all options is not good at all. Sort of like when a movie villain endangers the hero’s one true love and a bus of innocent people and the hero must choose. What a lousy choice to have to make. My point is the choice.
A Christian perspective is that you’re right about this process of judging what is just, and due to human free will, there’s a very tangled mess of things to sort out to maintain justice. We are aware of it because humans have been instilled with moral intuition. It can be suppressed or perverted (absolutely) but we have the capacity to see the need for choice, to rise above the mechanisms of life and choose what is bad, good, better, or maybe best. Again, the Christian belief, which I don’t expect you to hold, says that God arbitrates justice without corruption. Our sense of the need for justice comes from Him but is lacking in perspective, scope, and purity to administer it.
At the end of the day, only God has the perspective to judge all fairly (if He exists, and I believe He does). So what do I think about a baby being stricken for the sins of his father? It offends my moral intuition. I don’t like it. But because I believe in God as just and right, it must be somehow justified in a way I don’t understand. That’s not a presupposition I expect you to hold, I’m not making an argument for Christianity here, just explaining how I look at the topic you brought up from my Christian perspective.
So I wouldn’t try to convince you that you should feel good about that passage of the Bible. But if you were to see enough evidence to put your faith in the God described in the Bible you would come to trust that he somehow did right by the baby and father and all of us. A big piece of that would the Christian belief in life after death. Illness, dying, and even torture are not the end in our belief system. We believe in an eternity of joy with God after death. It hits different when you look at death in that light. It also hits different when you believe that God himself suffered and died, so we are never alone in suffering or the experience of dying. That baby was ill for 7 days, then transitioned to eternal joy. He met many Christians who suffered much worse and much longer. And we have no idea what a future for that baby would have been: would challengers to the crown have done something far worse if he lived to be an adult? Many of David’s sons suffered a great deal in other ways.
You make an excellent point (in favor of my view of things). You and I can be totally opposed in our understanding of religion and the universe but totally agree that the Nazis were wrong to kill those people. And no one could ever make a case in favor of the Nazis being morally right in their actions. This points to how not every moral question is answered the same way in various times and cultures, but there are some basic moral standards that we all agree upon. The Nazis were wrong. And we can say that because we know it, not just by social convention.
Equating thiests with Nazis is a pretty lame argument. You have much stronger ones @Sheldon . The Bible is full of warnings not to oppress the poor, the widows, the foreigner. It says “Do not murder.” Malachi 6:8 says, in essence, to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. The people professing Christianity and killing Jews were wrong and not acting in alignment with the Christian faith. Either they were not truly Christians in the first place or they sinned greatly by letting their fear of the Nazi regime pressure them into murder. Either way, it is not a representation of what Christianity teaches or what Christians ought to be. Obviously, we can make the same case for every category of human. Somewhere there’s an atheist murderer, therefore atheism is bad. Somewhere there’s an American murderer, so America is bad. The list is endless.
And to say, “Well, this happens a lot with Christianity is not a strong argument either.” More people are killed with chainsaws than measuring tapes, so chainsaws are worse. Religions absolutely have a power effect, including the misuse of them, just as a chainsaw has more inherent power than a measuring tape. Powerful effect or frequent misuse does not nullify the proper and appropriate use.
I’m not going to respond to everyone. I just don’t have the time. Plus, it’s like 20 to 1 ratio in here, so… Also, whenever I stop replying you could say something along these lines. I never intended to debate forever. I also never intended to debate every aspect of atheism, Christianity, or anything else. I started a conversation about what I consider the self-defeating nature of materialism. Yes, not all atheists are materialist. Yes, they are different categories. I hear you. But I’m pretty sure I found some people of materialist perspective in this thread, so…
See ya later!
