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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!duke!mcnc!amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson)
From: amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Good and Evil
Message-ID: <448@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 31-Dec-83 11:52:26 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.448
Posted: Sat Dec 31 11:52:26 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Jan-84 02:18:13 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 74

First, two quick little asides--

I'm sorry, Mr. Maroney, if I got your name wrong.

On the subject: Re: query: God=Father & Christ=Son
Greg Skinner says:

>>	1) So why wasn't Christ mentioned earlier in the Bible?
>>
>>	   He IS.  As early as the major prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel,
>>	   Daniel, etc. all mention Him.

The Messiah is mentioned, but the person of Jesus is not.  Nor is
there any mention of a Trinity (there are things that have been
interpreted as referring to the Trinity, but nothing explicit.)

Now to my response to Greg on my original article on good and evil
(no, this is not my promised and eagerly anticipated second part).

When you say:
>>	What is important is that all the suffering of the
>>	Israelites, their 40-year trek in the desert, God's
>>	deliverance of the enemies of Israel into the Israelites'
>>	hands, etc. is a cause of original sin.

I assume you mean result, not cause.  (And how do you feel about
the Christian anti-semites who blame the sufferings of the Jews on
their supposed responsibility for the death of Christ?)

I was not talking about the results of original sin, but rather
that there is a lot of badness in the world that cannot be ascribed
as the result of sin.  I am also not trying to "blame God for man's
transgressions" all I am asking is why God created man with free
will.  I don't necessarily agree with you that if had created man
incapable of screwing "then God would have created robots not
intelligent beings." It is perfectly concievable (to me, at least)
that God could have created man so filled with love for him that
any attempt to transgress God's will would be simply unthinkable.
If you truly love someone, you do not deliberately do something
that you know will hurt her or him.

>>	One more thing:  there is a big difference between a coyote
>>	eating a rabbit and a human being hunting rabbits for sport.
>>	The former is an act of survival -- the coyote eats rabbits
>>	to stay alive.  Whether or not he relishes the taste of
>>	rabbit is immaterial -- it is not a sin, or evil, for the
>>	coyote to like rabbit -- he is behaving as he must to stay
>>	alive.  On the other hand, the human who kills a rabbit is
>>	acting out of selfishness -- it is not ok -- it is evil.
>>	Whether it is a sin is another issue, however, it is
>>	morally wrong to take a life (even if non-human)
>>	unnecessarily.  So, when you talk about good and evil, you
>>	must restrict your examples to clear cases of good/evil,
>>	not cases involving survival (that includes people eating
>>	chickens, etc.)

I am not going to get drawn into an argument on the morality of
hunting as a sport (for the record, I am a non-hunter), nor am I
going to get into vivisection.  It appears that you have missed one
of my main points.  I agree completely that the coyote eating the
rabbit is not evil (I have defined evil as the actions of moral
beings), and I have said that the coyote, in all his
actions--including rabbit-eating--is reaffirming his goodness in
the eyes of God.  What I am saying is that this makes it hard for
the rabbit to continue to reaffirm his goodness, nad the rabbit, in
eating lettuce, is ending the lettuce's ability to reaffirm its own
goodness. I do feel that the world is a very rough place, and I am
in the middle of wondering why God should have it so.

				John Hobson
				At&T Bell Labs
				Naperville, Il
				(312) 979-7392
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