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Salvation and other religions
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08-02-2010 10:49am#1
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DogmaticLefty wrote: »If a person wishes to interpret the Bible in that sense, that's their perogative. There are plenty of nut-job "Christians" in America who interpret the Bible so as to suit their white supremecist views.
You mightn't like it, but the ultimate authority on the Bible is the Catholic Church. The Anglicans and others have it nearly right.
what
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DogmaticLefty wrote: »If a person wishes to interpret the Bible in that sense, that's their perogative. There are plenty of nut-job "Christians" in America who interpret the Bible so as to suit their white supremecist views.
You mightn't like it, but the ultimate authority on the Bible is the Catholic Church. The Anglicans and others have it nearly right.
What?? 0 -
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Genocide doesn't actually infer a crime (like say the word murder does), though it is obvious difficult to see the deliberate systematic destruction of a people or ethic group in terms other than as a crime. Ethical genocide is some what of a moral oxymoron rather than a linguistic one, unless you are religious of course
Indeed. But seeing as God (if he exists) kills (directly or indirectly) all people at some point and seeing as our life on Earth isn't the main event, but is a rather, a precursor to the main event, you'd forgive me for dispensing with the need to restrict my evaluation of morality to the merely temporal.
It'd be like attempting to evaluate a game of football played only within the centre circle.You say we can recongise the truth of God's morality without needing to believe God is real.
By this I assume you to understand that we can discern the difference between good and evil - as they are defined by God. Without believing God is real. In other words (to use one example) we can distinguish the difference between loving a neighbour (good as defined by God) and stealing their property (evil as defined by God). Without believing God is real.
One means whereby we are enabled to distinguish is via our consciences (given what it says both before the event and after the event).
If this is your understanding of what I say, then we can proceed.Say you were presented with the Hebrews carrying out genocide on their neighbours.
Would you not be very worried about a person who didn't believe God existed, but who looked at these passages from the Old Testament and thought they were moral?
That would mean the person is looking at Hebrews killing men women and children in an effort to wipe out their civilisation and thinking that is perfectly fine
Would that not trouble you, seeing a person coming to that conclusion?
If the person thought what the Hebrews did was moral they would only be thinking so from the viewpoint of having read that God was the one giving instruction unto genocide. In which case it isn't the Hebrews who are acting, it is God acting through the Hebrews.
That they don't actually believe in God, in fact, is neither here nor there. For the purposes of their evaluating morality, they must reckon on the existance of God - because God exists as a central part of the story. And reckoning so, they might conclude "no problem" in the exact same way that I conclude no problem.
You don't have to believe in God's existance to see there is no issue with him killing anyone. Nor does our hypothetical unbeliever. Perhaps you could explain (according to your morality) what is immoral about God killing people?
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Well here's to me never viewing suffering as you do I guess :pac:
It's die to yourself in this life. Or the next. I'll continue to hope it's in this life for you.
Suffering is a lever utilised by God in the attempt to save you. Your view of it isn't relevant to his operating it in regard to you. But if you agree with the general point that suffering is the way in which we're told something is amiss (be the suffering psychological, emotional, physical) then you'd happen to align with God's truth in this regard. Even though unbelieving.But again how you (a believer) view suffering isn't really the point. It is how a non-believer, such as myself, views suffering, since "God's truth" is supposed to be self evident to me apparently.
Perhaps a better example is one used before. If you consider murder wrong then you happen to do so because of God's truth to which you are exposed. That you would attribute your sense of murder being wrong to some other cause is neither here nor there. The narrow point being made is that if God then:
- he'd be the source of the truth "murder is wrong"
- you're exposed to that truth by him - albeit indirectly given your position as a 'Gentile'
- he'd see your daily response to that truth (with likely more activity taking place in that branch of murder called "anger" than in the actual physical taking of anothers life)
Unfortunately, the Bible is more or less silent on the issue of dying children, the severely retarded, the aborted ... in respect to their salvation. So I'm precluded from commenting this way or that regarding it. As I say, you can ignore the general argument by kicking things into the touch of unknown if you like.I view it more as the exception that demonstrates the falsity of the doctrine
It's a pretty well trodden path for the objectionist
Of course not. And it wouldn't be because you're excluding God from the equation and merely seeing Hitler-ite style genocide. What makes it moral is a holy God acting perhaps wrathfully against sin.Then it isn't self-evident, since something that is self-evident is so blindingly obvious that it requires no further explanation.
Hebrew soldiers butchering children is not self-evidently moral is it? If you didn't believe in God would you look at that story and conclude it was the correct thing to do?
In fact, you have here the perfect example of the self-evidency (to Wicknight) of God's truth: "thou shalt not murder (it is evil)". You see the Hebrews murdering but exclude the possibility that God instructed it so are left supposing people acting on own authority unto murder. And you consider that evil. And God considers it evil.
You agree with God in other words.
You've heard of the thief on the cross no doubt. The case of a last minute, death-bed (as it were) conversion.And even with the introduction of God as the person who ordered it it is still troublesome for a lot of people, including Jews and Christians, who have a hard time accepting that this was the best way God could have dealt with the problem of pagan tribes.
The general case of a mans salvation involves his arriving at the end of himself (so to speak). Arriving at the end of his own reliance on himself to the exclusion of God. Arriving at the end of his sitting on the throne of his own life. Arrival at the bottom of the barrel. To which Jesus said "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God". There are any number of ways in which a man can arrive at the end of himself, to become impoverished in spirit, to hit the bottom of his own barrel. As many ways as there are men probably. Through sickness, addiction, empty living, unemployment, depression, loss of all sorts, pain, hanging on a death cross..
How many of those slain by the Hebrews were brought to salvation by their suffering, by their approaching death? How many of those slain were believers who (this thread supposes) don't need to believe in God-of-the-Bible in the style of the "come to Jesus" sector of Christianity but who were nevertheless being disciplined by their Father "even unto death" - a Paul writes. How many of those slain were those deemed by God as irretrievably lost who he then decided to remove from the stage?
We can't tell. But what we can tell is that God can be operating in all three arenas in what appears on the surface to be a homogenously purposed "genocide".
And so I haven't the same difficulty that those Christians and Jews have.
An aside. Every now and then I find myself typing a word I've never had a problem spelling .. the wrong way. It's as if there's a glitch in my brain that causes me to hit the keys in wrong order. Then it clears up and I'm back to having no issue with the spelling. Until the problem strikes with some other word. I've seen you make the same error shown above with the word "recognize" a few times lately and wonder do you observe the same thing?Counter these stories with say Jesus saying do unto those as you would have them do to you. That is a moral philosophy that does seem self evidently true, with or without God.
People may not always follow it, but when they don't they feel like they have done something wrong, and when they do they feel like they have done something right.
I'm an atheist, I think God is imaginary, but this concept feels right, it feels sensible. I don't require a belief in God to recongize it as self-evident.
Back to business...
In considering "do unto others" you would agree it self-evident that this should encompass the sharper end of that particular stick in the form of "and eye for an eye". That if a man causes you loss that you are entitled to seek retribution to equivilent degree?
In which case, you're entering the waters of God's retribution against mans sin. And that God might decide to exercise that retribution in mass-fashion shouldn't deflect you from the self-evident morality of his so doing.
To edit the story as you're suggesting (leaving in the words but not taking account of them) renders the story one of mans action only - in your consideration. Which would return you, like I say above, to alignment with God's view of things.You don't have to snip it out. Leave in "And God told them go back to kill every woman and child". But again if you don't believe in God you won't believe that actually happened.
The 9/11 bombers claimed God told them to destroy the Twin Towers. Are you saying that destroying the twin towers should be self-evidently moral? Or only self-evidently moral if we accept the premise that God actually told them to do this?
You get into circular nonsense if you are claiming that God's truth should be self evident to people even those who don't believe in God but only if they believe in God
Or Hell?I've no problem with God say killing an old man who is suffering of terminal cancer in order to call him to heaven.
I'm not sure that the term "all-powerful" (as used by theists) means that God can do simply anything at all. He can't give a man choice whilst ensuring the outcome for example. And it appears that in order to offer choice, a canvas on which choice is presented and played out must too be presented. It had to be some way, and it happens to be this way. The all power of God enabling this way.Given that God is all powerful it makes very little sense that he would ever need to cause anyone to suffer.
Remember too that God is dealing from the deck supplied him by mans first choice. It was man that invoked the consequence of suffering upon man. Had Adams choice been therwise, I'd be pretty sure God's mechanism of choice would have dealt from that alternative hand. Choice seems to be his overiding aim wrt each of us.
God invariably deals with man through man/men. He deals with us through Adam. He deals with us through the man, Christ. Through Moses, through Kings, through fellowship.If you think about it it makes zero sense that God, an all powerful deity, would actually ask his favourite tribe to go over and there and genocide a neighboring tribe.It does of course make much more sense if you view it in terms of two or more tribes in ancient Arabia fighting with each other over land and resources and each tribe needing a way to rally the troops.
That to me is self-evident
Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.
You accept self-evidency of what purports to be God's truth in the case of "do unto others" (as per Jesus). You'll likely accept the self-evidency of the harder edge of that same truth "an eye for an eye" - whether or not you yourself would decide to invoke your rights in this regard. You apparently evade acceptence in the case of the Hebrews genocide by stripping the story of God and turning it into a story of man - accepting the self-evidency of God's truth "thou shalt not murder" in the very process of doing so.
That's a lot of acceptance. And that's a lot of alignment with the point I was trying to make in the OP, to whit: a man is exposed to God's truth (irrespective of his believing in God or not) and can't help but respond to God's truth; positively or negatively. And thus is he dealt with by the mechanism which determines whether he will finally be lost or found.
Will he love the truth and so be saved or will he refuse to love the truth and perish? His own choices in the face of Gods truth to which he can't help but be exposed will decide that matter.0 -
antiskeptic wrote: »It's die to yourself in this life. Or the next. I'll continue to hope it's in this life for you.
die to yourself? I don't understand what that means?
Seems a bit of an odd lever.antiskeptic wrote: »Suffering is a lever utilised by God in the attempt to save you.
Are you suggesting that God is attempting to save a woman cowering over a Hebrew soldier who has just killed her husband and children and is about to kill her?
Is that supposed to be self-evident to me?
Is your view?antiskeptic wrote: »Your view of it isn't relevant to his operating it in regard to you.
Are you sure you have this correct, that God uses large amounts of suffering to try and save (convert?) people? Is that Biblical or your own opinion?antiskeptic wrote: »But if you agree with the general point that suffering is the way in which we're told something is amiss (be the suffering psychological, emotional, physical)
Well yes, that was sort of my point. Something is "amiss" with your idea that righteous god would torture people. The pain that these people suffered, and that we can imagine them suffering, should be telling them and us, that something wrong with your idea that this was moral.antiskeptic wrote: »Unfortunately, the Bible is more or less silent on the issue of dying children, the severely retarded, the aborted ... in respect to their salvation.
Their salvation is irrelevant to their suffering though isn't it, unless you are suggesting that while they are being stabbed to death by "God's soldier" they are supposed to realise how bad they are and repent to God in order to be saved?
And we are supposed to recognise this as a good way to get people to repent as being self evident?
Children suffering always isantiskeptic wrote: »It's a pretty well trodden path for the objectionistantiskeptic wrote: »Of course not. And it wouldn't be because you're excluding God from the equation and merely seeing Hitler-ite style genocide. What makes it moral is a holy God acting perhaps wrathfully against sin.
So again, to a non-believer it is not self-evident.
I have to first believe your god exists to consider this moral. And I probably never would believe your god exists because doing so would require me to accept a loving god that would do this
It becomes an end game move. I don't believe your god exists and I don't believe your god can exist because what your religion describes your god doing is immoral.
I can't get from the position of not believing in your god because what you are asking me to accept is a paradox.
It would be like a Satanist trying to convince you to believe in a sinful God. It ain't going to happen because the concept itself oxymoronic.
You have some how got yourself into a position of circular confirmation, where you already believe in God and thus because to you God has to exist and has to be moral these passages in the Bible have to be moral, even though you admit that if you remove God they become utterly horrific.
I could believe in a God that tells me to turn the other cheek because that is a moral idea that is self-evident to me.
Are you following, I'm not sure I'm explaining particularly well.antiskeptic wrote: »In fact, you have here the perfect example of the self-evidency (to Wicknight) of God's truth: "thou shalt not murder (it is evil)". You see the Hebrews murdering but exclude the possibility that God instructed it so are left supposing people acting on own authority unto murder. And you consider that evil. And God considers it evil.
You agree with God in other words.
Which is the point. God considers it evil. He wouldn't do it. Therefore he didn't.
To be asked to accept a God who would send his Hebrew soldiers to kill children is to ask to accept a paradox, like being asked to accept a holy God who sins.antiskeptic wrote: »How many of those slain were brought to salvation by their suffering, by their approaching death? How many of those slain were believers who (this thread supposes) don't need to believe in God-of-the-Bible in the style of the "come to Jesus" sector of Christianity but who were being disciplined by their Father "even unto death" - a Paul writes. How many of those slain were those deemed by God as irretrievable who he decided to then remove from the stage?
We can't tell.
Again back to this point of God inflicted suffering leading to salvation.
Are you suggesting that God basically tortures people, including children, in order for them to realize that they need salvation?
Again, is that supposed to be self evidently moral to me?
I'm dyslexic so it happens to me all the time. Forgot how to spell "apple" a few days ago. Quite frustrating, but who knows maybe it brings me closer to Godantiskeptic wrote: »I've seen you make the same error shown above with the word "recognize" a few times lately and wonder do you observe the same thing?antiskeptic wrote: »In considering "do unto others" you would agree it self-evident that this should encompass the sharper end of that particular stick in the form of "and eye for an eye". That if a man causes you loss that you are entitled to seek retribution to equivilent degree?
No, I don't believe in an eye for an eye.
But God cannot be harmed, so that doesn't make sense.antiskeptic wrote: »In which case, you're entering the waters of God's retribution against mans sin. And that God might decide to exercise that retribution in mass-fashion shouldn't deflect you from the self-evident morality of his so doing.
While I don't agree with an eye for an eye for various reasons, the concept is based around the idea of equal loss.
If you lose an eye the person should also lose an eye so that they experience the loss you have experienced
God can't be harmed nor can he lose anything. Which makes his vengeance against humans not only seem ridiculously over the top but also pointless.
So again by his own rules your god is acting immorally.
The inescapable conclusion I'm left with is that he doesn't actually exist and was invented by people who basically didn't think that hard about the contradictions they were presenting.antiskeptic wrote: »Or Hell?
Well hell is a difficult topic because you talk to 100 Christians and you get 100 different ideas of what hell is supposed to be.
I would have a problem with God sending this man to hell if hell is considered to be a place God has created to torture people for eternity because they have sinned.
This would go back to the concept of an eye for an eye.
Given that the damage to God is zero and the damage to humans is infinite this would seem rather ridiculous idea of justice.antiskeptic wrote: »And it appears that in order to offer choice, a canvas on which choice is presented and played out must too be presented. It had to be some way, and it happens to be this way.
It only appears that way if you have already accepted the conclusion, which is circular reasoning.
It doesn't explain the sense in an all powerful God requiring people to suffer.
It still doesn't make sense, you just choose to ignore this. Which leads to the question at what point did the God of the Bible actually make sense to you?antiskeptic wrote: »Remember too that God is dealing from the deck supplied him by mans first choice. It was man that invoked the consequence of suffering upon man.
Nonsense.
That is like saying that if my child drops his dinner on the floor he has invoked the consequence of me beating him until he is unconscious, as if I've not choose how I decide to deal with what he has done.
God choose the response to man's action. And for a righteous all powerful God the response your religion claims he made not only doesn't seem self evidently moral, it seems self evidently immoral.
But you guys have the circular reason that everything God does is moral, so anything God does is moral.
So given an immoral God is not a possibility I'm left with the only conclusion left, God doesn't exist.antiskeptic wrote: »God invariably deals with man through man/men. He deals with us through Adam. He deals with us through the man, Christ. Through Moses, through Kings, through fellowship.
Which doesn't make much sense unless you consider that God is actually merely an imaginary concept used to justify the actions of men.antiskeptic wrote: »You accept self-evidency in this thread wrt certain of God's truth. And likely the harder edge of that same truth. You evade acceptence in the case of the Hebrews by stripping the story of God (for the sake of argument) and turning it into a story of man - accepting the self-evidency of God's truth "thou shalt not murder" in the very process of doing so.
But you are missing the point. The moral points I've accepted as self-evident are self-evident irrespective of God exist.
You make an except for the Hebrews. You then require that God is introduced in order to save the action from being considered immoral.
That is something you don't do with anything else. Do unto others what you would have done to you doesn't require God to exist in order to be self-evident to me.
Even an eye for an eye doesn't require God to exist to be self evident.
Butchering children is wrong is self evident.
Butchering children is ok when God tells you do contradicts the first and requires that God exists.
It is an exception clause, rather than a self-evident truth.0 -
die to yourself? I don't understand what that means?
Sorry about the jargon.
Effectively it involves relinquishing the throne on which you sit.. relinquishing it to God. Currently, you occupy that throne: you decide what it is you want from your life without any reference to plans that God might have had in creating you. You make your rules and you break your rules.
You're not meant to occupy that postion however. Arriving at 'the end of yourself' is a bit like Hitler squatting in his bunker with the sound of soviet gunfire approaching in the streets nearby. He'd no place to run or hide. Now, you can do as Hitler did: enact the final and only rebellion left open to him: "I will not submit to the righteous authority" - which in his case was signed off on with a bullet to the head . Or you can surrender to that righteous authority.
I sincerely hope you surrender. Unlike Nuremburg, you'll find only grace. Grace unimaginable..Are you suggesting that God is attempting to save a woman cowering over a Hebrew soldier who has just killed her husband and children and is about to kill her?
Is that supposed to be self-evident to me?
The answer to your first question is:
- not necessarily. Perhaps that woman is already deemed lost and is about to take her final breath before waking up in eternity to face the eternal wrath of God. But supposing for a moment she's still save-able at that point, then yes, the facing of ones mortality in no uncertain terms can be that final push which tips the person over into relinquishing reliance on self-sufficiency.
As for self-evidency? I wouldn't suppose so. The truth of God which applies to the issue of your salvation doesn't have to concern itself with the finer points of salvation's mechanism (presuming: suffering is involved in salvation). The issues concerning you would have more to do with good/evil, I'm supposing.
And to which you give your heart finally. The 'great' thing about evil/decay is that it isn't static. Once embarked upon, you engage in a slide downwards towards depravity/death. Either things will get so bad that you'll seek succour in an unbelieved in God. Or things will get so bad that you'll slide into the Abyss refusing to yield to that which could save you.Is your view?
Are you sure you have this correct, that God uses large amounts of suffering to try and save (convert?) people? Is that Biblical or your own opinion?
That anyone could read the pages of the Bible and miss it would startle me.
Look at the condition of those who came to Christ (and whose condition is noted): lepers, prostitutes, beggers, the lame, blind and sick .. the bereaved even. Desperate people one and all. Although no guarantee of anything, there ain't nowt like suffering to demolish a mans pride.Well yes, that was sort of my point. Something is "amiss" with your idea that righteous god would torture people. The pain that these people suffered, and that we can imagine them suffering, should be telling them and us, that something wrong with your idea that this was moral.
That I've gathered. Perhaps you could explain why it is that a righteous God wouldn't/shouldn't inflict punishment/discipline on people who do evil? I mean, righteousness that doesn't react in the face of evil sounds like sentimentality to me.
Thief on a cross? Put to death by 'Gods soldiers'? Repentance on account of being brought to face his badness whilst staring death in the face?Their salvation is irrelevant to their suffering though isn't it, unless you are suggesting that while they are being stabbed to death by "God's soldier" they are supposed to realise how bad they are and repent to God in order to be saved?
Bear in mind my point above that tipping over a tipping point will be the culmination of a process that has prepared a person for this. They'll have been moving in this direction some time already, I'd be supposing.
You've conflated two situations - perhaps without realising it.Which is the point. God considers it evil. He wouldn't do it. Therefore he didn't.
The first situation sees you condeming the Hebrews committing genocide without Gods approval (for you don't believe God exists to give them his approval. In this you're in alignment with Gods truth: thou (you, mankind) shalt not murder.
The second situation see you supposing that God finds it wrong that he should kill people. Which he clearly doesn't - seeing as he kills everyone at some point. God isn't subject to the command he issues to man to govern mankinds dealings with each other.
You've no basis (that I can see) for supposing God killing evil/sin/wrong. I've never seen you put a grounded basis forward. Supposing God subject to the same commandments he is entitled to issue to us - which aim to govern our dealings with each other - is not a grounded basis.To be asked to accept a God who would send his Hebrew soldiers to kill children is to ask to accept a paradox, like being asked to accept a holy God who sins.
Don't you? I'm not asking whether you think it's preferable all round not to operate according to it. I'm asking whether a man who has being wronged by another in someway isn't entitled to retribution along equivilent lines. Like, one man burns anothers house down during a row and the first man isn't entitled to take over the first mans house until such time as the arsonist reinstates the victims house.No, I don't believe in an eye for an eye.
Or even failing such a constructive solution.
Is the second man not entitled to burn down the first mans house in return (assuming for a moment it's his own property and no insurance co. (thus us) will suffer as a consequence. I myself see no problem with it from a right order point of view.
If you operate outside the boundaries he has every right to apply to your behaviour then he has lost your dutiful obedience. He has lost exercising sovereign reign over your life. And in applying eye for an eye to you (in the case you are finally lost) or grace (in the case you are saved - in which case Jesus is subjected to God's eye for an eye in your place) his loss is restored according to the concept of equal loss you refer to yourself.But God cannot be harmed, so that doesn't make sense.
While I don't agree with an eye for an eye for various reasons, the concept is based around the idea of equal loss.
If you lose an eye the person should also lose an eye so that they experience the loss you have experienced
God can't be harmed nor can he lose anything. Which makes his vengeance against humans not only seem ridiculously over the top but also pointless.
I can understand why you wouldn't apply eye for an eye. Perhaps you've answered why you think it's immoral though - in your response above.
Thus not.So again by his own rules your god is acting immorally.
Hopefully you've been placed back in chewing mode.The inescapable conclusion I'm left with is that he doesn't actually exist and was invented by people who basically didn't think that hard about the contradictions they were presenting.
We've seen the damage caused to God.I would have a problem with God sending this man to hell if hell is considered to be a place God has created to torture people for eternity because they have sinned.
This would go back to the concept of an eye for an eye.
Given that the damage to God is zero and the damage to humans is infinite this would seem rather ridiculous idea of justice.
A crime committed in eternity (time being a subset of eternity we must suppose) by an eternal creature (humans) against an eternal creature (God) attracts eternal punishment (Hell).
What part of "eternal units" do you not understand?
Suffering is a lever - whether you believe in God or not. It causes people to be deflected from whatever path they happen to be on.It only appears that way if you have already accepted the conclusion, which is circular reasoning.
It doesn't explain the sense in an all powerful God requiring people to suffer.
It still doesn't make sense, you just choose to ignore this. Which leads to the question at what point did the God of the Bible actually make sense to you?
Assuming men lost (for the sake of argument) and assuming God wanting to save men (for the sake of argument) and assuming the default path men are meandering down leads to damnation (for the sake of argument) then suffering (a way of deflecting people from the path they happen to be meandering down) does indeed make sense.
God promised the response to mans disobedient action prior to the time of choosing. And man was aware that the consequence of disobeying God would be negative, prior to choosing. Your child throwing his toys from the cot analogy is.. well .. throwing your toys from the cot.
Nonsense.
That is like saying that if my child drops his dinner on the floor he has invoked the consequence of me beating him until he is unconscious, as if I've not choose how I decide to deal with what he has done.
God choose the response to man's action. And for a righteous all powerful God the response your religion claims he made not only doesn't seem self evidently moral, it seems self evidently immoral.
The tactic of focusing on God's rightful assignment of consequences and not on mans knowledgeable choosing is noted.
But you haven't yet presented a case for the immorality of God acting as he does. You object but your objection doesn't attach to any firm grounds.But you guys have the circular reason that everything God does is moral, so anything God does is moral.
So given an immoral God is not a possibility I'm left with the only conclusion left, God doesn't exist.
"God killing men is atrocious" you say. But why? Citing the atrociousness of man killing man isn't much use as a comparison. Especially not when God agrees with you.
You're not in a position to say this. If God exists and is the source of your morality then the self-evidency is his installation. You're entering Dawkins 7 territory here*.But you are missing the point. The moral points I've accepted as self-evident are self-evident irrespective of God exist.
??You make an except for the Hebrews. You then require that God is introduced in order to save the action from being considered immoral.
Your story reader is considering the Hebrews killing without Gods instruction for them to do so (because he doesn't believe the bit about God instructing them to do so). And he's finding that dandy. And I'm steering clear of him and your steering clear of him.
Such a person: one who considers it okay to kill others without God's say so is someone God condemns too.
Your problem: seeing that you, I and God ... are in agreement on this one.
*Repeat: You're not in a postion to state this. You don't know what's required to enable self-evidency.Do unto others what you would have done to you doesn't require God to exist in order to be self-evident to me.
Even an eye for an eye doesn't require God to exist to be self evident.
Which is the point of the OP:
Whether you believe God exists (or believe it necessary for God to exist in order for you to hold your view on eg: Do Unto Others (Grace) vs. Eye For An Eye (The Law) doesn't matter to the mechanism of salvation. The mechanism of salvation ignores whether you are a Jew ( a lost believer in God) or a Gentile (a lost disbeliever in God). It merely considers your response to the truth God has revealed to you.
You'll follow the eye-for-an-eye path at times in your life (we all do: be it wanting bankers hung by the goolies or railing at politicians expenses..) God observes. You apply grace at times (" Ah sure, had I been in his shoes I'd have likely done the same" - as the addict/burglar runs off down the road with your DVD player). And God observes.
Which is it that you love...
Although I'm not suggesting this is the case (because of the dearth of biblical comment). Suppose:Butchering children is wrong is self evident.
"God decrees that all children who die/are killled/aborted/etc/ before the age of reason go automatically to heaven"
Would it still be your view that butchering children is wrong?0
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