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From: ewp@ihuxn.UUCP (Ed Pawlak)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: The morals of God
Message-ID: <485@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Jan-84 20:17:52 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.485
Posted: Wed Jan 11 20:17:52 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Jan-84 04:45:28 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 57

I have great difficulty understanding the statement, 'Who the hell is God
to do that!'  This type of statement seems to be stated with an agreed
upon set of postulates for the argument.  (These are the infamous "EVEN IFs",
which logically means they are accepted for the sake of argument, even if
one of the arguees doesn't accept them outside of the argument at hand.)

              1) God exists.

              2) God is all-knowing.

              3) God has tremendous power to create matter/energy, destroy
                 matter/energy, and alter the mental states of humans.

              4) God created the universe and everything else (no assumption
                 is needed as to how).

I believe this is the basic framework of the current discussion involving
Dave Norris, Tim Maroney, and others.  Remember, you don't have to believe
these four statements, they are just the basis of the discussion.  Debate
on their validity is a completely different argument.

Given these premises, I find the evaluation of God's ethics absurd.  God is
not an equal of yours to be judged by whatever standards you see fit.  He
created you, has full power to control your destiny, and I feel every right
to do as He sees fit.  You may not like the idea of not being able to appeal
to a higher authority but this isn't a game of chess He's playing, it's only
solitaire (apologies to Jethro Tull).  God devised the game and He makes the
rules.

In the scheme of the entire universe with an infinite span of time, how
important do you think you are?  Where's your outrage at a sick person
taking medicine which will kill countless millions of germs and bacteria?
Given the definition of God, do you think a human, even a whole planet of
humans are any more significant than a mosquito you swat when it bites?
You didn't even create the mosquito.  You couldn't.

Most people reading this create files occasionally.  These are your creations,
your universe.  Do you ponder the moral implications of editing a program
that doesn't do what you want it to?  What about deleting a file, or a
whole directory of files?

Comparisons of the God - human relationship to a human dictator - human subject
greatly understate the relative rights and demands of God and humans.  I put
the question to *you*, who the hell are you to make demands of and judge
God?

A final note:  If you want to dispute any, or all, of the assumptions that
is fine.  That is also a different discussion.  Don't change the assumptions,
then knock down the argument on that basis.  If everyone is in agreement,
given these four premises, and someone wants to start with a different set
of assumptions, we can start a new discussion.  If you want to discuss the
validity of an assumption, we can start a discussion about that, too.
Please stick to one topic at a time.

trying to be logical but, probably sounding fanatical,
Ed Pawlak
ihnp4!ihuxn!ewp