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From: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Good and evil
Message-ID: <169@hou3c.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Jan-84 18:57:56 EST
Article-I.D.: hou3c.169
Posted: Mon Jan  2 18:57:56 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 4-Jan-84 02:44:24 EST
References: <447@ihuxq.UUCP> <1105@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ
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Greg Skinner's article raises one of the biggest problems the God of
the Old Testament faces with respect to modern day morality.  In the
Old Testament offspring are viewed as extensions of their parents, in
particular of their fathers.  This viewpoint is alien to the concept
of individualistic morality which I, and probably the vast majority
of people on the net accept.

According to the Bible, when Adam sinned God punished both Adam and
Adam's descendants.  There is simply no way I can accept God's action
as moral.  In every nation represented on this net, if a person breaks
the law then that person is punished, not his children.  Even if the
lawbreaker happens to die before he is convicted, his children are
not punished in his place.  What's more, nobody would even consider
this possibility.  Each person is an individual and is responsible for
their own actions, not those of his parents.

Another incident in Genesis which illustrates the issue slightly
differently is the story of Lot.  Lot meets a pair of men who are
angels and invites them into his house.  When the men of Sodom want
to rape Lot's guests, Lot offers to send out his daugheters instead.
This story illustrates the value placed on hospitality.  Lot offers
to sacrifice one of his most precious possessions, his daughters, to
protect his guests.  However, in the United States today, daughters
are not posessions, they are individuals; and Lot would probably be
facing loss of custody of his daughters as well as criminal charges.

In short, the some of the values of the Old Testament conflict with
both my values and with the norms of the culture of which I am a member.
I won't join with Tim Maroney in calling the God of the Old Testament
a hideous monster, but that god certainly holds values which I find
difficult to comprehend, much less accept.
				Kenneth Almquist

P.S. I'm not sure that there is Biblical support for the idea that
people have free will.  Consider Exodus 10.1:
	Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go in to the Pharaoh; for I have
	hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may
	show these signs of mine amoung them, and that you may tell in
	the hearing of your son and of your son's son how I have made
	sport of the Egyptians and what signs I have done amoung them;
	that they may know that I am the Lord.
This passage hardly suggests that the Pharoah has free will.