You don't have to be brainwashed to believe that people are generally s****y. Nor do you have to be brainwashed to have a negative view of the future of humanity. Hell, our whole political scheme here in America is actually designed with layer after layer of legal obstructions and barriers so that you could reasonably conclude that the system was setup so that nothing of substantial progress might ever occur. In our republic, we don't even trust the general populace (ourselves) to be politically or morally informed (and this is considered the ideal political system!). And right now our oceans are teeming with competing nuclear submarines that daily practice over and over certain diabolical exercises that if ever carried out, would bring a nuclear apocalypse to our planet. And well, you could go on and on like this. Not only are we sinful, but we are a crazed species, bent on self-destruction. If we vanished from the earth today, millions of species of life would flourish and thrive, and, quite frankly, our continued existence spells utter doom and sure extinction for all of these life forms. If you could advance the consciousness of a dolphin, or even the kindest creature, just a little, and give them the capability to get rid of us, we would all be goners- man, woman and child. It would be an act of suicidal gross negligence for them to let us continue to proliferate. We have been an ecological catastrophe to the planet as we poison the air and oceans. We have slaughtered hundreds of millions of our own. And here we are, looking to malign the creator Himself for a do-over or two with us. Puh-leze.

What does any of this have to do with newborns or innocent children?

What do you think "every man, woman and child" means?

I have setup now in this forum a few situations where I believe there can be hypothetical moral justification for the elimination of the whole human race. You just have to see it through the right lens, or wear the right eyes. That is the point. You don't see as God sees. You don't or won't see our kind outside of our human context, the way a truly righteous moral agent might see us, or another species of life (if they could). You just aren't trying, really.

I'm talking apples. You're talking oranges.

Even if your argument is valid and the whole human race should be wiped out, it has nothing to do with innocent babies being killed because they are inherently deserving.

If you want to try again, be my guest. But try to address the point: By what logic does a newborn baby deserve to be killed by god?

Don't really feel like playing games with you. Thanks.

I think that your objection is genuine, and it wouldn't be fair for me or anyone to simply dismiss it by saying, "God is good, period." That said, I think there are other possibilities. I think what Doggg alluded to has some credence, that God may not look at things like we do, that we see death as final, but for God it is simply the beginning. In relation to eternity, what is the difference between someone dying at birth, at midlife, or at old age, especially when death is certain? If those babies end up in heaven for eternity, I think it's far different than a person killing a baby out of some selfish agenda, not knowing what is in store for them as it were.

I am not sure how you are approaching this, I assume you are an atheist and see this as just another instance that proves atheism to be true, since the biblical God is not just and therefore could not exist? Either way, I think you could theoretically be right and God does not exist because he is not perfect, and this is the evidence, but I don't think that this is the only conclusion. God could still be just and the flood story be true. God could even exist and not be just, I guess, this probably means that the bible is not accurate, but theoretically it's a possibility.

I think you have a point, this is probably the most difficult thing along side with the problem of evil that Christianity faces, but I don't think that the matter is officially closed as a result.

If you're referring to the diatribe about the human race causing more trouble on this earth than we're worth, I could be convinced of that. However, this has nothing to do with innocent children or babies.

I find the bolded part to be a cop out. Or at the very least illogical. Why? Because you'd then have to make the case of why god gave life to a baby in the first place only to take it away. I've had these discussions before and they always wind up as some variant of: We can't know the mind of god. If you find that to be a sufficient argument, you're welcome to it.

Again, you can turn this around and ask: What purpose did it serve for the baby to be born in the first place?

Again, I am not at all impressed with this line of thinking. By the same logic one might ask why be concerned with self preservation at all? Yet, I don't see many people, Christian or otherwise, in any hurry to die. On the contrary, Christians in particular seem very partial to clinging to life even when all hope for a non-suffering dignified life is lost.

Sorry. Like I said. I'm not impressed with this line of reasoning.

I'm unfamiliar with you, but have seen a few compliments regarding the quality of your posts directed your way. So I'm rather shocked that you would have such a misunderstanding of what atheism is. Nothing proves atheism. Atheism is simply the unconvinced response to an extraordinary claim. I'm not out to prove god doesn't exist. I don't happen to think one does. If you claim that one does then provide your reasons. If I find them unconvincing, I'll give an atheistic response.

I can agree that it's possible a god or gods exist, but unless you want to throw away everything we know about the physical nature of the way things work, the flood story is almost certainly untrue. There are mountains and mountains of evidence based reasons not to believe the Noah's Ark story.

I agree. The matter should never be closed and we should always keep an open mind that is subject to change upon evidence. However, that doesn't mean we waste time on believing every single thing that cannot be proven to be impossible. I'm perfectly open to the fact that a big foot type creature might exist somewhere. But I'll continue to reject such claims until enough evidence piles up for me to take it seriously.

I think any perspective that views the elimination of the whole human race as morally justified is a perspective that leaves out morally relevant facts about humans or is so foreign to the ordinary understanding of notions of goodness and evil as to be unrecognizable. Thus, while I will grant you that there are perspectives (i.e. moral frameworks) under which this annihilation is justified, those perspectives are flawed and should be rejected. Hence, they cannot be used as justifications for the actions of a morally perfect god.

Honestly, these passages seem to me much stronger as an argument against inerrancy than against the existence of God. It is very easy to understand how a nomadic tribal group would say that God commanded a holy war against their neighbors--we've seen exactly that happen throughout history with all sorts of gods and peoples. The difficulty comes in when you claim that the God of Christianity--a morally perfect, peace-loving god--actually did make such commands.

After all, the reason why Christians reject the claim that these actions are immoral is because they are committed to two claims:

1) God is morally perfect.
2) The literal or "plain meaning" of every passage of the Bible is true.
3) Genocide is immoral.
4) The plain meaning of some passages in the Old Testament say that God commanded genocide.

This is an inconsistent set of statements. So Christians have give up one of them. Atheists often press hardest on (1), just because it seems closest to saying that God doesn't exist. Christians will often try a frontal defense, and argue that (3) is false. For various philosophical reasons, I think giving up (3) gives too much to the Christian's opponents (most of the arguments for (3) being false end up making (1) meaningless--why say that God is morally perfect if his perspective is so different from ours that even the actions which are paradigmatically most evil end up being good?). I think that Christians should instead give up either (4) (very hard), or give up (2).*

*This excellent article by Wesley Morrison goes into this argument in more detail.

I wasn't really going that route.

I've touched on this before, that it is possible that God *had* to give life, because that's what a perfect being *needed* to do to be perfect. That since God is love, he had to share his love, and had to create us to share in his perfectness, despite the fact that he would need to punish people when they sinned, because he is also just.

That's what I mean when there are different ways to look at this, that God didn't necessarily say, "I'm going to make this baby and then take it back again", but that out of love he created people, and out of justice he took them away. It's no different than creating someone who he knew would reject him, why not just not create them? Why not just not create anyone? This begins a slippery slope where God does not do anything, and does not share his love, because his justice would be painful.

That baby can now be with God for all eternity, which is what God's will is for everyone.

This would be a human error, to value one's earthly life over your eternal life, which is my point. God does not make that mistake, to over-value our time on earth, which is no more than an opportunity to know God and accept him. If this involves taking someone sooner than later, it doesn't necessarily lead to God being immoral.

Fair enough.

Well, I'm shocked at those compliments too, if that helps. I did not mean it literally, my question was that if part of the reason that you do not believe in the biblical God is because you see contradictions in the bible. I was not sure if you were an atheist, so that was my sloppy way of asking, I'm aware that you can't "prove" atheism.

Perhaps, although you can find the same themes in other stories, unless you reject every biblical account.

I can accept that, but you earlier said that you believe God to be inherently evil based on your interpretation of the flood, so wouldn't that mean that you already rejected a "big foot" so to speak? Not a criticism, just a question. Do you think that there could be an alternative explanation that precludes God from being evil based on babies dying, something like what I've described, or is this conclusive proof that the bible is wrong?

1). I wasn't talking about creating us. Only babies.
2). But babies don't sin. (or are you saying that they do?)

Also keep in mind that we're not just talking about god's biblical murders. Babies still die every day.

I don't know what else to keep saying except that such arguments don't impress me. It's not even a valid point. What justice is served by the killing of a baby? In a few hours a baby will be born only to die within minutes. Perhaps it was premature, or maybe it was born with its heart outside its body. Are you saying it was out of love that god created this baby and took it away because of some imagined justice that needed to be served? Or maybe you're saying that parents who lose children deserve to, because justice is being bestowed upon them? What level of absurd and disgusting morality are you willing to propose in order to excuse this god of yours here?

Well, isn't that just too easy. Whenever something doesn't add up or make sense, then it's human error... for god so loved us all... god works in mysterious ways... and now the baby can be with god for all eternity. This is why I stopped posting in RGT. God didit. God's never wrong. Even if everything we know about common sense and morality tells us he's wrong, he isn't. We just don't understand gods way. There's no arguing with that. But again, it doesn't impress me at all. If you're fine with it, more power to you.

Of course, I reject the claims of a big foot in the same way I reject claims about a god. As for whether I believe god is evil, that would be silly, since I don't think one exists. But I must admit that I sometimes enjoy watching the mental gymnastics people go through in order to believe their god is a loving one.

But each person is supposedly judged by their actions during that Earthly time, such that it affects their eternal life. Does it make much sense to judge some old person on their thoughts and actions that they held for a fraction of a second in the first moments of their life? How then does it proceed that someone's behaviour during, at best less than a century, dictates their future 'life' and wellbeing (whatever that would mean) over not just the following billions of years, but for EVER?

I wasn't aware you were speaking of babies in general, so my focus was on the flood account. If your objection is that babies die every day, then this is a slightly new objection, namely the problem of death, or evil in general.

When a baby dies at birth, or an illness or the like, it is not God being just (at least necessarily), there is corruption in the world and people will suffer and die. To avoid this, you need to eliminate all suffering and death entirely, which is a slippery slope that will lead to the elimination of earth in order to avoid any and all suffering. The problem of evil is a genuine objection as well, but I think it's slightly different than your first objection.

I'm saying that God created everyone, including that baby, to share eternity with him, but that free will brings suffering. This suffering is only temporary, and cannot compare to an eternity in paradise, which is God's final plan, and only endures the temporary pain for the sake of eternity.

Errr, there is no need for this, I've been nothing but polite even though I disagree with you.

Hang on, you asked why we should be concerned with self-preservation, and I responded by saying this is a human-error, to value earthly life more than eternal life, it has nothing to do with God. Frankly, you're making the same mistake, you're focusing on someone dying and how unfair it is, and ignoring how insignificant that life is, compared to an eternity in paradise. IF this was true, then why is death so disturbing?

Also, I'm not saying that I can prove any of this, I'm simply giving you other possibilities that could make these things make sense. You could be right, God may not exist and the bible could be filled with contradictions, I'm merely giving you my opinion on why this is not so. If you're not impressed, so be it, this is not personal. If heaven is real and eternal, the death of a baby at birth, because of whatever reason, is not as bad as it seems, compared to a world where death is final and earth is all there is. You seem to be ignoring heaven altogether.

Okay.

this is why I accuse you of making stuff up. This is just a "maybe" or "what if". Do you have any evidence that this is true? that he had to share his love? Or is this just some rationalisation and justification, made up to support a belief?

How can you use a "maybe " or "what if" to support your belief in a god? Any point that is made against your belief, you can just say "well maybe god had to do X in order to Y" . This is not proof, evidence, or support of your belief. Im sure there is a name for this fallacy.

I'm not sure I follow your objection here, whenever you accept Christ you are forgiven. It doesn't matter if it happened sooner or later, heaven is the reward (for the sake of simplicity I'll ignore any talk of treasure in heaven) and it is the same for everyone, regardless of when they accepted Christ. Take the parable of the workers in the vineyard who were all paid the same amount, despite many of them beginning to "work" at different times.

As for those who do not accept Christ, I'm not sure to be honest. If your objection is that a 100 year old man judged for 100 years worth of sin (or 90 or whatever) versus a 20 year old man with 20 years of sin, then I'm not sure. But by the same token that the 100 year old man has more sins, he also had more time to do what is right. Not sure if this is what you meant.

The reason in this particular instance that I worded this carefully, is because not everyone agrees to this, even though I subscribe to this view. That because God is good, he had to create life.

Also, for the sake of this argument, Lestat implied that there is no other way that God could be just because of these things, so I'm partly inclined to suggest some other possibility, because I do not believe this conclusion that God is unjust necessarily follows, and know I've done this in the past as well. So, I guess you're right that I do this sometimes, but it's not that I don't have a particular view, but sometimes I throw out other suggestions to play devil's advocate, so to speak.

In this particular instance, I do believe this, I simply worded it like that because I didn't want to state it outright since not everyone agrees.

Let's make it simple: I am saying that a baby is innocent and blameless for sin of any kind. Period. You are desperately trying to tie worldly corruption, the fall of man, or what have you, to have something to do with babies. Either make your case, or stop attempting to erect this straw man.

So you say. E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E. Until you present some, you'll excuse me if I don't buy it.

My comment was not impolite. You are trying to justify the death of innocents even if it means god killing babies. I'm simply asking what lengths you are willing to go.

I agree it's human error and I made this comment only to show the ill conceived logic on the part of believers. On the one hand, they'll say it doesn't matter if babies die, because they will be in eternal glory. Yet, they themselves will cling to life at all costs. Again, my comment had nothing to do with god in this case.


I actually don't find death fair or unfair and don't find it at all disturbing. But then, I'm not the one trying to justify why my god kills innocents.

C'mon... You're not trying to provide me with possibilities. At best, you're playing the devil's advocate. At worst, you actually believe what you're proposing. Here's another possibility: The universe was sneezed out of the nose of Garuthealia. When you die, he scoops up your soul and takes you to an alternate universe that resides in the trunk of a tree on the grounds of Buckingham Palace where you'll exist in orgasmic eternity. How's that for a possibility? There's no less evidence for that than what you've been proposing.

So you do believe what you've been proposing... It's not personal for me either. I'm just saying I don't believe what you're selling. I'm ignoring heaven because there's not a single shred of evidence it exists. Ditto for any gods. You're entitled to believe whatever nonsense you want (and before you accuse me of being rude again... It's nonsense to me in the same way Scientology, or the Juju at the top of the totem pole are nonsense to you ). I only get riled when people try to justify the murder of innocents, which is what you seem to be doing. Unsuccessfully so, I might add. At least in my opinion.

Babies are innocent, but they still die. Okay, this is your objection. My point is that there is nothing immoral or bad with a baby dying, if it means the baby enters paradise for eternity. Everyone has to die, you seem pretty knowledgable, I'm sure you know Christianity teaches that death entered the world through sin, and that God's plan was that there be no death, which is what heaven is, a place with no suffering or death.

Presumably you would not object if there was no suffering or death, so your objection is the problem of evil. If you're not satisfied with free-will as a solution to this problem, and that God's will is that people be with him in heaven, then there's not much else I can say to you.

I have no evidence to show you, BUT, your original complaint seemed to be more philosophical, that IF the bible was true THEN God would need to be unjust because of the implications. I don't need to prove that these things are true in order to suggest that your conclusion does not necessarily follow, which is what I'm doing. Babies can die and God still be perfect.

Death is part of life, everyone of us dies, I don't see this as a stumbling block, especially since the point of God creating us was to be with him, and those babies are supposed to be with God when they die.

Sure, some Christians don't have that much faith, and value their life too much, I agree.

Okay.

Again, you said that God needed to be unjust, and I'm suggesting that he does not. Yes, I happen to believe what I'm saying.

If you want to propose some other religion, I have no problem with it. Judaism could be right, and Jesus not the Christ. Scientology could be right. My objection, and only point, was that God could still be just under this framework, even if the whole thing was false. I'm not trying to convince you of Christianity being true, I don't believe I can do that, only that it doesn't (necessarily) contradict itself.

I understand you don't believe it, BUT, if it were true, then your argument loses some credibility, that God is unjust because babies die. IF heaven was real and it was eternal, a temporary life would not be worthy of comparison.

In the context of a God that offers an afterlife, why exactly is it bad if he kills someone if it is not the end of their existence?

If babies go to heaven and life begins at conception, abortion clinics are the most effective Christian evangelism of all time.

Death in and of itself isn't the bad thing being considered; it's the suffering that precedes it, e.g. infants gasping for air while drowning.

And the people killed (except babies/kids in some views) dont get an afterlife of fun times. They get extermination or eternal torment depending on the version of hell.

Really. So you're okay with mothers killing their babies if they don't want them any more? Or is it only okay when god does the killing? By your logic why should it matter if there is nothing immoral or bad with a baby dying?

I presume this is because god said so. And since god is perfect he must be right. And you know he's right, because god said so. And since god is perfect he must be right. And you know he's right, because god said so. And since god is perfect...

I don't live my life by entertaining every possibility imaginable. It's just not rational. IF... Hitler were visited by a space alien who gave him inside information that all the people he killed were from the planet Bipplebopple in a far away galaxy and were planning to annihilate the earth, you could make a case that his actions were justified. In fact, there is NO action you couldn't justify by entertaining IF possibilities. So why don't we just call every abominable act ever committed justified, because the argument against it loses credibility if some absurd possibility were true?

In the context of a god that offers an afterlife, why exactly is it bad if anyone kills someone if it is not the end of their existence?

The irony of all of this baby-nonsense here is that I'd bet that some (if not most) of the people making this argument actually participate in an ideological crusade against the protection of the lives of innocent babies. Maybe God did kill babies when he brought a great flood. But western society is catching up, or has far surpassed God in the baby-killing business.

Its not irony for them if they dont think fetus are babies. It is from your perspective but not theirs.