On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 4:23 PM, keith smith <[email protected]> wrote: > I only read the first paragraph and Istopped!! Yikes!! Jesus is not telling > anyone to "genocide, the murder of a single innocent child, rape, what have > you".
It's a thought experiment, Keith, not a quote from the Bible. The question is, if God told you to do one of those things, would that make it right? In other words, is the word of God the "source" of right and wrong? Or do right and wrong already exist, and God simply points them out to us? If you're used to thinking of things in terms of the "divine command" theory, this may seem like an arbitrary division, or like I'm splitting hairs. But it's an important distinction to make when discussing religion. I would urge you to go back and read the rest of my email. If the specific things I chose as examples are too upsetting to you, feel free to mentally replace them with something like "stealing a Snickers bar." -Dan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
