Sunday, September 16, 2007

On infanticide and turning the other cheak...

Theists tend to want it both ways, I have increasingly come up against the rather stunningly silly argument that you can't judge God. For example, Curious Kitten posted a thread on About Atheism's Forum comparing God to an Abusive Father.

"You are bad. You are so bad that you should be sent far away to a place where you don't get to be around your nice Daddy who loves you. You deserve to be tortured until the end of time, and to be miserable.

"But Daddy is nice. i'm so nice that I'll give you a 'free gift.' I won't let you be tortured by strangers. Remember: You don't deserve to be happy, so I'm a wonderful father to do this for you.


All in all, a great post and interesting take on it. If God, the Father, was a father there would be several Child Protective Services calls needing to be made.

In any event, shortly there after, Sister Hydrogen Bomb of Loving Truth starts in with the that's apples and oranges argument.

A human father, or a sovereign god?


After several more rude, ignorant, and condescending posts, drops this little nugget:

This question makes no sense. God, being God, is outside of our standards.


I've seen this argument here and there before. The original note was that if God was a father we would judge such an individual as patently immoral. To the counter argument that god isn't a human and comparisons fall short.

Now, what about moral statements, does the reverse hold?

Is it moral for God to love people? Sure, it would be good if humans did it, but what about God? It's comparing apples and oranges. God's love is thusly perfectly amoral. When God commands people to murder gays, that's a fine thing to do and we cannot judge those actions as immoral. When God commands people to turn the other cheek, that's a fine thing to do and we can't judge those actions as moral.

Theists can't eat their cake and have it too. They must either condemn all the evil shit God does in the Bible or they can't prop up things in the Bible as virtuous and moral. You either say the entire bible is good from the genocide, the slavery, and the commandments to murder people for picking up sticks... or you don't get to say anything.

Everything good gets attributed to God, and everything bad... eh shit happens or the devil made shit happen. Double standards make baby Jesus cry! Unless they are in God's favor.

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