How to respond to those who call God a mass murderer?

[goout]

• kill as part of self defense is not murder
• killing in application of the just death sentence is not murder
• killing in fights during a war is not a murder
• kill when God ordered to do it is not a murder

That’s basically what the Catholic Church has always taught

We don’t just have teaching, we have the Son of God, who personifies nonviolent love of your enemies. The power of non-violent love is unavoidable in scripture and the witness of Christ’s life. It’s not easy, but it’s the unavoidable truth. Love is more powerful than violence. (and yes, there is also such a thing as just war to protect the lives of innocents).

God is omnipotent. God is also “Logos”. The fact that God “can” do something doesn’t mean it’s in God’s revealed nature to do it.

Does everyone remember Pope Benedict taking heat for the Regensburg address? You should all read it. He address the arbitrariness of Islam’s perception of God, which is used to justify violence.
Islam claims
"God is all powerful, and his ways are completely mysterious. His commands are not reasonable to human beings. God is radically “other”.
This is why the Incarnation is so offensive to Islam. In the Incarnation God becomes one with us. In becoming one with us Jesus makes God knowable.

Pope Benedict emphasizes that God is reason-able, or “logos”. God does not contradict what God reveals in Jesus Christ. That is an important point to understand if we are to avoid being bible-only fundamentalist Christians.
We have to read the bible in the light of Christ. The Church has always always held to this from the beginning of the Church.

All of scripture must be read in light of Christ’s paschal mystery, because Christ is the fulfillment, summation, and finality of God’s revelation.

Scripture interpretation cannot contradict Jesus Christ.

 

[Russell_SA]

Except that there is a growing movement of people disbelieving in a Deity that they angrily invoke a moral law accusing Him of crimes denying His existence & like Nietzsche wanting Him dead, all the while denying that a moral law exists (to their own endeavors), but expressing their own outrage invoking a moral law…

I agree that there is a growing movement of people disbelieving in superstition since the public discussion has concluded we don’t need religion or deities to be moral and an understanding of proper justified belief. With the easy access to the dirty laundry of religious organizations and cheap access to educating the poor and ignorant through the internet, the false supernatural claims of miracles and divine intervention is having its affects.
Moral law does exist once you have a reference point to strive to. Human well being seems to be the most universal reference all cultures appear to reference. So once that is your goal, you can have moral absolutes. You don’t need a deity’s pronouncements of divine command theory for morality. We can work it out ourselves and live up to making mistakes and correcting them.

 

[Russell_SA]

Voldemort doesn’t exist in real life, but I would say that he is modeled after Satan. Since you’ve denied that sin exists (except where God offends you by your own moral standards - your own standard of sin), one has to wonder why even Voldemort offends you since he’s doing exactly what you have expressed: a denial of sin:

No one thinks themself to be evil. The bad charcters of reality and fiction have just concluded the best way to fix their world is through their methods and not through civil discourse and democratic processes. Problem with characters like voldermort and your deity is that they believe their power gives them right over the people. This is why divine command theory is not to be assumed to be moral unless we, the governed, agree with the ruling. We have to concent to be governed. That is the problem with dictators, they take away the govered the power to remove them and remove the discourse for concluding what the laws should be. The public is kept ignorant of how to think about being govern and it just becomes normal to be ruled over instead of keeping that responsibility to the govered, where it should always be.

 

[Russell_SA]

Well have him bring his claims to the scientific experts in the fields of study where he claims a miracle has occurred. Youtube videos is not enough to provide conclusive evidence of magic existing. There needs to be as much research and testing as the level of the claim is made. If there is a concensus of experts in the fields of study that conclude that to be the case, great. Till then I’m not convinced since I am not an expert in the fields to test his claims. Otherwise, the earth is flat as well since someone made an apologetic youtube video on it.

 

[kainosktisis]

I agree that there is a growing movement of people disbelieving in superstition since the public discussion has concluded we don’t need religion or deities to be moral and an understanding of proper justified belief. With the easy access to the dirty laundry of religious organizations and cheap access to educating the poor and ignorant through the internet, the false supernatural claims of miracles and divine intervention is having its affects.

The public discussion has not decided it, but it is certainly being promoted as reality by academics in institutions of higher learning. They have in effect become the churches of atheism, chaos, hedonism, pragmatism, & fascism.

The Pravda of modern times has shown itself to be about as reliable as the Pravda of the former Soviet Union. Atheism has also become a religion much to the denial of its proponents. It’s been said to be the movement of the intellectuals who have no need of religion, & yet what is anyone to make of atheism as intellectual & philosophical when there are now atheist churches & some demanding atheist chaplains in the military? So much for it not being a religion. As for it being a religion - at least as Stalin had seen it long ago, his version of atheism was very cruel & deadly as evidenced by the millions he’d killed in his lifetime. Mao & Pol Pot were no different. Denial of their religion of practice does no good because as with most people, their worldviews & faith extend into their everyday lives - in their cases, their politics. Who suffered for it? Their people - with their lives. My question is why aren’t you holding them to the same standards applied to other people of faith - especially to Christianity?

Moral law does exist once you have a reference point to strive to. Human well being seems to be the most universal reference all cultures appear to reference. So once that is your goal, you can have moral absolutes. You don’t need a deity’s pronouncements of divine command theory for morality. We can work it out ourselves and live up to making mistakes and correcting them.

So floating in life amorally unanchored in life to guess at what is right or wrong without really needing it as self-defined like opting for the best life preserver (which likely has defects because of human fallibility) wins? The best this can offer is a fallible person with no direction looking at another fallible person with no direction to do hip-pocket morality, which ends up being amoral. And yes, people without God can still live moral lives, but why? If they have no logical reason to be moral, why bother? Who do they have to be moral for? You said it all in the beginning with no need for sin, freedom is all that counts.

 

[kainosktisis]

No one thinks themself to be evil. The bad charcters of reality and fiction have just concluded the best way to fix their world is through their methods and not through civil discourse and democratic processes. Problem with characters like voldermort and your deity is that they believe their power gives them right over the people.

Which boils down to self-made hip-pocket morality. Voldemort is not My God, they do not compare in the least.

This is why divine command theory is not to be assumed to be moral unless we, the governed, agree with the ruling. We have to concent to be governed. That is the problem with dictators, they take away the govered the power to remove them and remove the discourse for concluding what the laws should be. The public is kept ignorant of how to think about being govern and it just becomes normal to be ruled over instead of keeping that responsibility to the govered, where it should always be.

The Israelites did agree to be governed. They entered into a covenant to seal the deal so to speak. What are you - Monty Python?

“Well, I didn’t vote for you…”

 

[goout]

In any case, Eucharistic miracles are not required belief for a Christian.

Russel, do you believe that all of reality is subject to materialist proof?
This has proved to be a difficult question for you to answer.

 

[Russell_SA]

What do you mean by materialistic proof? Are you talking about something like the concept of dark energy and dark matter? We can not directly detect dark matter and dark energy, so we rely on the gravitational affects of it as an indirect indication of it. How ever, the repeatable models indicate that it should be there. Right now, there are no repeatable models of events with supernatural. We have no way to model that proposed idea of reality to be any different than an imagined idea. How do you propose we can determine a difference?

 

[Russell_SA]

Which boils down to self-made hip-pocket morality.

My process of morality keeps the responsibility of success and failure and correction on the people affected by the moral system, where it belongs. Why is having a moral system that we have to keep working on to get better at through civil discourse and learning how to create civil society a bad thing? I don’t find the problem of not having a dictator to be the bar for absolute morality a problem since we still have to agree to be governed by the edicts of that dictator. This teaches people to just obey orders and to not morally assess things for themselves, which I fundamentally will never agree with. Divine command theory just shifts the responsibility on to a deity that appears to be indistinguishable from every literary character writers have imagined.

 

[Russell_SA]

What are you - Monty Python?

“Well, I didn’t vote for you…”

Look if I started walking around claiming I was an emperor because some watery tart throw a scemitar at me, they’d put me away.

 

[Mijoy2]

ummm, say what?

 

[Russell_SA]

Atheism has also become a religion much to the denial of its proponents.

Again, there is no such thing as Atheism. It’s like claiming a jury member that found the defendant not guilty has a world view called Not-Guilty-ism. Atheist is a label put on someone by the religious for a single question about a single topic. The people not convinced of the existence of the supernatural due the religious’ bad arguments and bad evidence. Same way the jury member is not convinced of the prosecutions presentation for why they believe the defendant should be guilty. After the jury member is not convinced, finds the defender not guilty, can you tell me their political views? their world views? their conclusions about life and reality at all? No, no you can not. You can not get a political or world view out of being an atheist. QED there is no such thing as Atheism.

 

[Mijoy2]

You don’t need a deity’s pronouncements of divine command theory for morality. We can work it out ourselves and live up to making mistakes and correcting them.

Wow, we are pretty smart.

No one thinks themself to be evil.

I’d suggest there have been many who think of themselves, or at least, know of themselves, to be evil. And enjoy the journey. I can speak with authority for I am one.

G.K. Chesterton:
Original sin is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Russell_SA, this is a fallen world. Just ask the surviving children of Syria.

 

[Mijoy2]

Nobody, on this side of the vail, whether they believe in a higher power, or do not, will be able to prove one way or the other. You may disagree with this but I propose to you there will always be a follow-up question (first cause).

Just my opinion; I think this is true ( can’t be proven - if you allow the argument) by design.

 

[mythbuster1]

Why should the righteous require the consent of the wicked to rule and punish? Society certainly can become so depraved that it considers it a right and noble thing to sacrifice your firstborn, but I would say that such a society has no right to exist, and ought to be removed from the face of the earth. And I would add that “consent of the governed” is a reference to the Declaration of Independence, but in the Declaration, you will find no appeal to democracy, but rather an appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the World.” The Declaration of Independence makes no exception for democracy when it says, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” Yes, that means that democracy should be, even must be, overthrown, if it becomes destructive to the rights of the people (e.g. by exploiting minorities under color of law). And furthermore, the Declaration holds that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Therefore, whoever rejects the Creator rejects not only the source of rights but rights themselves, and therefore an assertion of a right to consent of the governed becomes nonsensical.

Ultimately, what you claim for yourself is the right to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong, but that leaves no room for anyone else’s rights, for any right of others is subject to your consent to recognize it. When reserved to yourself, that is special pleading and without basis. When generalized to society, anarchy results. Small wonder then, that those who refuse to consent to the laws imposed upon them are imprisoned or put to death, because they refuse to treat others how they wish to be treated.

 

[Russell_SA]

My question is why aren’t you holding them to the same standards applied to other people of faith - especially to Christianity

Where did we even have this conversation?

 

[Russell_SA]

So floating in life amorally unanchored in life to guess at what is right or wrong without really needing it as self-defined like opting for the best life preserver (which likely has defects because of human fallibility) wins?

No, I don’t believe you addressed what I actually wrote and are just responding with talking points. I gave a response on how you can have moral absolutes without the need of a deity or dictator as a reference. Please explain how your response addressed what I actually presented.

 

[Russell_SA]

The best this can offer is a fallible person with no direction looking at another fallible person with no direction to do hip-pocket morality, which ends up being amoral

No direction? Taking in the evidence of the human experience directly provides direction to moral decisions. Can you acknowledge that please? Its the same as expering gravity and having that experience direct your understanding of that part of reality. No one is doing what you describe. The religious are directed by their cultural superstition and the non religious are directed by their experience of reality to them.

 

[Russell_SA]

All the first cause points to is just a logical conclusion of a first cause. Does not imply a deity, universe creating pixies, etc. It is not correct to have a justified belief in what that first cause is other than, ‘We don’t know.’. Also our logic is constantly being demonstrated to be wrong all the time by testing our logical theories against reality. If we can demonstrate a logical conclusion to be false, which would you hold as a true representation of reality? Your logical conclusion or the test of reality? That is why you need to test your theories, to be able to falsify them. If you can not falsify your logic, then you are unjustified to hold it as a true representation of reality until you test it against reality.

 

[Russell_SA]

G.K. Chesterton:

Original sin is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.

Evolution disproves the cultural myth of Adam and Eve. So no original sin. Religion teaches the immoral idea of being created sick and commanded to be well. When they fail, then it is sin. That is just sadistic to believe that about yourself, where the default about humanity is broken just for being human regardless of our successes.