From: sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley)
Subject: Re: Homosexuals anywhere are wrong
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 07:52:05 GMT

simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale) writes:

>Well, folks round here keep insisting that human morality only exists
>because (they contend) Man is made in the image of God. Some theists
>further use this angle to suggest that atheists are incapable of moral
>behaviour, or at least can have no firm foundation for their morality.

  well, i would say that human morality exists based on god's instructions
to us about a moral life in his owner's manual of humanity [the bible]. 
i know a lot of pagans and atheists who lead what i consider to be moral
lives but the root of their moral is more subjective than the objective
biblical root.

>So if Man is indeed made in the image of God, one is compelled to ask
>what aspects of God Man may be expected to inherit as a result. Usually,
>of course, God is given the credit for the nice bits of human morality
>and Satan or Man himself get the blame for the nasty stuff.

  before the fall of humanity's disobedience to god's rule not to eat of
the tree, god created us in his image [genesis 1:27 [NIV] "So God created
man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female
he created them." ]  god created us [male and female] in his [supra-
gender] image.  our nasty bits are the result of the fall and our 
separation for his purely good nature.

>This seems to me to be at best arbitrary, not to mention circular since
>it involves a meta-moral judgement of what are the nice bits and what
>are the nasty bits, and our moral judgement is supposed in this scheme
>to be inherited from God through that In_His_Image business.

  our morality is rooted in the bible.  our good and evil characteristics
are not what are in god's image.  before we fell, we were pure and only
then in his image.

>> in some cases it shows us how to live and in other cases it shows us how
>> not to live. the context contributes to the meaning. further, if god wants
>> to massacre, say the egyptian soldiers in exodus, doesn't he have the right
>> to do so? also he does explain why he does so. further in trying to live
>> a holy life, i use christ as a role model: god living as a human. i do not
>> believe that being in god's image and wanting to live a holy life allows
>> me to do what god did. i am not god and i do not have the freedom to do
>> as he did/does.

>Sure. I only want to know what "being in god's image" here implies for
>your morality and behaviour: in what ways do you differ from what you
>would have otherwise been (without the injection of God's Image)?

  i hope my responses in above paragraphs have shown you just what being
in god's image implies.  and the hypothetical about what we would otherwise
have been is too hypothetical for me to risk answering, a little moot as well.

>>> Have you considered the possibility that the whole shooting match is
>>> crap from start to finish? Just a thought.

>> yeah, i have considered that it's all crap. the overwhelming despair that
>> plagued me for a decade of thinking that led me to consider that it's not
>> all crap.

>Proof by desire-for-it-to-be-so. Not really very convincing, if I might
>say so. Would you believe anything which it felt good or comforting to
>believe, irrespective of its truth or otherwise??

  the despair=god exists thing i have clarified in other posts in the last
few days...email me if you can't find them.

>Cheers

>Simon

  ciao, thanks for your questions.

stephen.