It still isn't clear what you mean by excuse despite me repeatedly asking. You seem to struggle with answering questions. As in, just because someone else thinks murder or grace is commanded doesn't mean I do, so I don't really "excuse" them, I will still condemn it in accordance with my view. And it is quite reasonable that I might find a different level of moral condemnation for not saving oneself and for killing others.

Instead of "excusing" them based on my worldview, the other possible interpretation is to consider their worldview. Well if their worldview advocates for murder then trivially their worldview advocates for murder. IF you want to call this me "excusing" them go at it. But it is completely trivial and not under contention.

I think it best that you explicitly state "from your worldview" or "from their worldview" in your answers because from what I can tell you are getting the two hopelessly muddled.

Try posting this as a moral dilemma in SMP, then, and frame it strictly in terms of following father's or doctor's or coaches orders to avoid getting it booted back here. See if you get more traction there. (I don't think you will.)

Yeah, I think that’s reflected in our criminal statutes: The first isn’t guilty of any crime, nor is the second, whereas the third will be convicted of the highest crime on the books.

You know why fundamentalists are fundamentalists? Because they think everything what goes beyond their prudence, it is also beyond the pale.

First of all, who says, you change your religion or I kill your family, he is killing them anyways, even if he shouldn't kill them, he will not let them alone. That you say, yes but I don't mean those cases, than there will be a contradiction:
Whoever says you do this or I kill your family: Do you think, the guy doesn't know, he did create an enemy for the rest of his live?

Two: One simple question, if killing would be within your prudence, would you follow a command to kill or not?
I give an example: The American pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb has died, aged 92 - with no regrets.
After a series of strokes and heart failure Paul Tibbets died at his home in Columbus, Ohio.
To his dying day, the experienced pilot insisted he never lost a single's night sleep over the apocalyptic mission and that his main concern was to do the "best job" he could...He stated in an interview with newspaper the Columbus Dispatch in 1975: "I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz3Ao9Xrx00

After all doing something because you think god wants it, seems to be a better excuse than saying I wanted to do the best job.

I'm not a presuppositional atheist (if there is such a thing, I'm aware of the theistic equivalent), it's not a 'truth' in my worldview that there are no gods, I'm able to take on your perspective in order to examine claims. In that framework then, I can ask the question, 'what kind of god'. I don't think it's possible to 'know' god, for you or anyone else, many aspects of god's character are not a given and I think questioning what they might be in the context of what we observe is perfectly reasonable, so I think 'what kind of god' is a valid question.

Why is it potentially more harmful? Why wouldn't god want you to live, to stay on in your finite existence doing his good work for a little longer, to keep your children alive, when all you have to do is utter a few meaningless noises to acheive that? He knows the truth, that's all that should matter. Why would such a powerful being care that you pretended to deny him? Why would god give us a such a strong survival instinct only to expect that we ignore it on this particular issue?

Also, the 'atheist assumption' that you describe is not necessarily true. There are many things worse than death.

It seems that way to me. You claim that displays of faith have divine consequences. You then claim that allowing yourself and your family to be killed, rather then fake a conversion, would be a display of faith that (might) be rewarded by a god. I agree. Where I don't agree is your assertion that a display of faith that takes the form of killing in the name of your god,m believing that to be the instruction of your god, is not a display of faith that woudl be rewarded. Clearly many Muslims don't feel that way.

You can't have it both ways, either both displays of faith might generate rewards, or neither of them because displays of faith actually have no divine consequences at all, because there is no divine.

Hopefully someone whose posts you read will address this but this is wrong.

What purpose is might playing in this above sentence. If both actions might then both actions might not, how then is this different from distinguishing unless you are saying the answer to one MUST be the answer to the other, in the event there is a divine in which case you're wrong.

You may be able to, but I do not believe that you did and I pointed out the flaw in your reasoning.

It is a valid question, but your answer was not sufficient again imo because of restrictions on your thinking inherent in your atheism. To ask the question you have to approach the question from the point of view of a God and within the framework of an afterlife. You did not do that which was my point.

There is a lot here to discuss. First, your words are not meaningless noises. They reflect at some level what is in your mind. Also, others hear them and are impacted by what they say about you. Second, whether God wants you here or in the next life is not a question we can really answer. But in your initial post you said:

Is the decision whether God wants you here in this life or with Him in the next "malicious and petty"? If not, you can see how your restricted thought process enabled a statement that is actually not defensible if actually considered from the point of view of God existing. That is the simple core of my objection to your post.

The first point I addressed above. On the second, perhaps part of our challenge is to surpass our animal instincts. Given the statement that follows you recognize that is sometimes possible.

Not really a fair point given that I said:
"Put another way, under an atheist assumption being killed is close to the worst thing that can happen to you." which already acknowledged the point you were trying to make.

I did not actually say that, did I? What I said was that there is a difference between the three displays of faith that means that they can legitimately be treated as distinct. Thus, one could be rewarded while the other two are not.

Very sloppy sentence. You try to create an either/or situation although the cases are distinct. You threw "might" in there so the first phrase almost looks valid but if this actually represents your thought process it is a little scary. It is quite possible that one display of faith generates rewards while the other does not, so there are 3 distinct outcomes.

There is a huge difference between two and three. Two involves putting people at risk for your own belief. But the risk is not of your making. It is imposed by someone else who bears the ultimate responsibility for creating a situation that is morally repugnant. Three is simple murder done with malice and intent. How you can make these more than remotely similar in your mind is not something I can rationally grasp.

This is the main point I think, the rest have dropped out of the discussion.

The 'might' was to avoid misquoting your position, not to give validity to mine RLK. My argument is valid.

P1) God rewards acts of faith
P2) Killing non-believers under instruction from god is an act of faith
C) Killing non-believers under instruction from god will be rewarded by god.

Clearly you don't consider this argument sound but you could substitute 'Dying rather than renouncing god is an act of faith' as P2 in an instance 2, and it would be now be sound for you, no? From my point of view, this argument fails at P1 because god hasn't been proven. From your perspective it fails at P2 in instance one, and is sound in instance 2 and that seems like a contradiction to me.

Sure I can. I think you believe that 'atheist' means 'sure that there are no gods' (in fact you say pretty much that here - "contains the assumption that there is no God" but it doesn't mean that, at least not weak atheism, which is what I subscribe to. I don't believe in any gods, that doesn't mean that I'm certain that none exist RLK. I can imagine gods existing and wonder about what characteristics they might have.

This is simply not true. I just said out loud at my desk 'I believe in god'. Is that now true? I didn't mean it, it was meaningless, I don't believe in god, I just passed some air over my larynx and caused some sound waves. Flip this, if you said 'I don't believe in god' would it now be true? Would god believe the noises you made even though he see in your heart that you actually believe?

I think that any god that allowed a situation to occur where you had to watch your children be killed is malicious, and if that situation was over refusing to deny him, that's petty. Can I double check something here, are you saying that it's ok for those children to die because god wants them in the next life?

Ok, look at it this way, I have no fear of hell or any kind of eternal torment, I only fear things that can happen to me during my life and for me death is the end, it's nothing, there isn't anything after it, so I won't even know I'm dead. I don't fear death, I fear dying, there's a big difference.

Seriously? You feel this is a strong argument? People may feel that P1 is somewhat true, but isn't it fair to consider it bound by underlying religious concepts such as the Ten Commandments, etc? I would imagine that very few people would agree that simply labeling something as an "act of faith" in your own mind automatically entitles it to reward from God.

Basically P1 fails as the concept that anything that could be construed as an act of faith will be rewarded is not a given. Once P1 fails, the entire argument fails.


To say the least.

No. The argument fails at P1, probably for everyone.


I have no idea what you believe and the label "atheist" has been broadened to the point of containing no information to fill that gap. I simply asserted (and continue to assert) that your argument was constructed as if you assumed there was no God or at least only partially addressed the implications of the existence of God. (This disconnect appears later in your comments about death.)

Irritating. We were obviously discussing a situation where you renounced God in front of witnesses with the goal of avoiding an adverse consequence. You have now extended my comment to a meaningless situation with no resemblance to the original situation. The only thing this does is to suggest that I have to word all of my comments with long modifiers to avoid trivial counterarguments of no value.

I am not sure if you have a short memory or just consistently fail to understand my points. In my response to your first post I said:

"DS's argument is not very compelling to me because the same act when the price is someone else's life is a very different thing. To refuse to deny God at the risk of your life is simply courage and faith. To refuse to deny God at the risk of your families lives is not at all the same thing."

I have never said that it was okay to let children die from our point of view. How God views the death of a child is hard to understand. Since you are adept at viewing things under the assumption of God and an afterlife you surely understand that.

This sounds like the strong atheism that you claimed not to embrace. If you truly do not reject the concept of God entirely then death is an unknown and what happens after you die is uncertain. Uncertainty can be unnerving so fear in that case is very reasonable.

At this point, I am not sure what you fear. I am not sure that you know.

It's not clear to me how you know which acts of faith are rewarded and which aren't. Can you clarify?

The bit you're not getting is that they're just words, they mean nothing for you if you didn't mean what you said. They don't necessarily reflect what's in your mind at all, where are you getting that from? If that were true, there'd be no lies. And yes of course others hear them and in your situation that would be you and your family, others in the same situation, the executioners and god. You and your family and the others know what you really believe, and so does god, it's just the executioners who dont. And since god knows your heart, you don't need to worry that he'll be cross with you. You assume that god will approve more of you dying and allowing your family to die. I'm still waiting for some justification of that.

Why not? The children are going on to a better place, all according to god's plan for them, and, they're doing it because you showed commitment and faith, you set a fine, if brief, example to them. Also, you admit that it's hard for you to understand god's view wrt to the death's of children, so how are you forming your own view on whether or not it's right or wrong to fail to prevent them dying? Surely it's an even more courageous demonstration of faith and commitment to let your children die rather than renounce god? Wasn't that the point of god testing Abraham?

In order for C to follow from P1 and P2 P1 must be able to be stated as

P1 God rewards all acts of faith.

If it can't be stated as such it isn't valid.

No one knows which are rewarded and which are not. I have never said that I do. So, no I cannot clarify. What I asserted was that there is a rational basis for distinguishing between risking your life, risking the life of your family and outright murder. I think that is already clear.


They do mean something and your family does not necessarily know exactly what you believe anymore than I know exactly what you believe. I also do not assume that God would approve of my dying or my family or whatever. For myself as I sit here typing, I would not let my family be murdered. I would lie and pretend to convert. If it were just my life, then I might well tell those bastards to go to hell and take what comes. Life is nice, but I am going to die someday in any event. Of course, I am sitting at my computer typing. Even I do not know what I would actually do in the real event.

That was the point of the Abraham story, but I am not a Biblical literalist. I believe we are responsible for our choices and cannot count on "the Bible told me to" as a valid excuse at the final reckoning. If presented with that particular test I will decline to comply. If that is an error I will be forced to throw myself on the mercy of the court, as it were.

By three I meant killing to please your God. Not because of malice. Did you not realize that?

But this ultimate responsibility distinction is overblown. If a train is coming toward your children and you don't save them because you think its God's will don't say you weren't responsible for their death.

(Put differently, the difference between two and three is small not because I don't think that three isn't as bad as you do, but rather I think two is worse. A seriuous sin of omission is a serious sin period.)

I think one of the problems here is that the arguments become tautologies. If God is wants you to kill someone, then of course he is pleased with it. That's a big if, though.

It is irrelevant if you think that God is pleased to God actually being pleased. Or thinking God wants you to do something, to him actually wanting it.

Paganism resolves this problem nicely.

Odin has a bounty on my head or wants me to knock off cousin Sven? Bless me, Freyr!

This all started because I was appalled by tame deuces saying

"I hold no ill sentiment against those who (pretend to) convert, it is a human thing to do. I greatly respect those who do not."

So I actually should have used the words "greatly respect" rather than "excuse".

More specifically I take issue with the idea that one should automatically respect someone who sticks to his convictions even when you disagree with them. Rather I contend that such respect shouldn't go past a certain line.

Example:

You are a pro choicer.

It is OK to say that you respect someone who would refuse to have an abortion

It is probably OK for you to say that you respect someone who is lobbying to make abortion illegal

It is not OK for you to say that you respect someone who advocates killing abortion doctors.

Since that is not OK you are getting very iffy if you say that you respect people for thinking that abortion is first degree child murder, even if they don't advocate killing doctors. If you respect these people the doctor killers will claim that you are essentially giving them a kind of philosophical seal of approval since many people think that it is moral to kill to prevent child murders.

In other words I think that the original idea should be that it is OK to respect people for having the courage of their convictions but only up to a point. If they cross that point you should turn that respect into contempt.

Malice was an error on my part. I withdraw that word and remain with intent.

There is a difference between the train and the threat made by a potential murderer. Failing to remove your children from the path of a train is indeed very close to murder. Failing to yield to the demands of person who threatens to murder your children is not murder, because the person making the threat has the will and morale responsibility to not go forward with the act. That is not present in the train scenario.

OK, but two with the train is significantly worse than two with the threat from another person.

I can't believe you are making such a big distinction. Suppose the person is high on drugs, mentally ill, or mentally challenged? (In fact anyone who would kill your child if you didn't call Jesus the devil, probably is.)

Do you disagree with the US stance to not negotiate with terrorists, when they threaten with demands?

But what’s at stake isn’t just a token admission; one is tacitly submitting to the socio-political theodicy of Radical Islam. I’m sure plenty of atheists would choose death over that, even if their refusal to convert meant the death of others, loved ones included.

My mistake then, I thought that this - "Thus a believer who shows faith and commitment by not letting fear of death force him to deny God is actually being rewarded by death" was saying that not denying god, because of fear of death, would be rewarded. (Presumably death is a reward because god will allow you into heaven for your sacrifice?) I don't know how else to read it.

I think I can say words and not mean them, even if they have an impact (which of course would be convincing my captors that I just converted) but I wouldn't have, and god would know that I hadn't. I still think that edicts forbidding fake conversions are more likely to be about the control mechanisms built into organised religions than that a god would actually be angry with you for lying to save your children's lives, or pleased with you for dying needlessly.

Take a standard consequentialist moral theory like utilitarianism. They will have an account of the good (utility), and an account of the right (maximizing utility). However, this account of the right isn't a decision procedure--you aren't supposed to try to calculate which action will maximize utility before you do it. Instead, it gives you a criterion by which to analyze the morality of different actions.

A utilitarian decision procedure would be different. It would instead be a set of heuristics (i.e. a set of moral "rules") to use as a shorthand for guiding behavior. This raises the possibility that someone might be guided by good utilitarian heuristics, but still end up making a decision that leads to lower utility. Strictly speaking, most utilitarians would say that you made a wrong decision (as it led to lower utility). However, if they think that your heuristics are in general good, then they might say that given the information you had at the time you made what would have seemed like the right choice. Thus, there is no reason to blame or criticize you for your decision.

For a Kantian, this distinction is much less, if at all, significant. For them, the good is the right (or something like that), so if you made a decision following the proper decision procedure (i.e. a decision consistent with the categorical imperative), then there is no further analysis needed to see if it was the morally correct decision.

For more, this section on Consequentialism from SEP talks about some of the relevant issues. I also think this issue is central to debates between rule and act utilitarianism.

Thanks, I was approaching it from the wrong direction. I was wondering how an act could be blameworthy without being wrong rather than considering how an act could be wrong without being blameworthy.

I get it now cheers.

This is taken out of context. The full quote was: "This argument just does not hold together imo. If there is a God, then He knows that death is not an end, but presumably a beginning of something far better. Thus a believer who shows faith and commitment by not letting fear of death force him to deny God is actually being rewarded by death, not punished. There is no pettiness in this at all."

It was a response to your characterization of God as petty or malicious. I was pointing out that from the point of view of God, a believer benefits from death. Again we are speaking under the assumption that there is a God and imagining his point of view, a mental exercise that you have claimed is within your grasp. I was in no way asserting that I knew that this was certainly the case.

The bold statement is disturbing. On the one hand, I do not want to give offence. On the other, if you truly cannot understand my written statements any better than this, I doubt if we can actually have a fruitful debate on any concept with significant complexity.