From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Date: 6 Jan 93 20:09:35 GMT
Distribution: world,public
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

In article <1993Jan5.223146.29327@ra.royalroads.ca> mlee@post.RoyalRoads.ca (Malcolm Lee) writes:
>
> But we can have eternal life and the knowledge of good and evil.
> Sure, when God placed the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil in the Garden,
> HE knew that the people would partake of it and be condemned to death as well
> as all the generations that followed them. GOD knew this!  

If I ran a simulation (the closest I can get to omniscience) of, say, a
passenger aircraft design, and the simulated plane crashed, I would be
tempted to think that going ahead with building and operating the plane
was A Morally Dubious Business.

>    That is why He provided a plan for salvation through His one and only Son,
> Jesus Christ.  We are living in the age of grace whereby we may be saved IF we
> choose to follow Jesus.  There's nothing more to it than that.  

That's OK, my simulation indicates that a small proportion of the passengers
will survive the crash. Just don't get in the front three quarters of the
plane, because I *know* that everyone in there will throw a seven. How are
my morals looking now that I've slightly reduced the number of passengers who
I know will die at my hands?

Unless your purported God provides a plan for salvation which guarantees the
salvation of *everybody*, then he has failed adequately to attone for *his*
voluntary action (important point there, don't blame Eve for sitting up
front in first class when offered the seat) in going ahead with the Garden
ritual in the full knowledge that it would result in death.

If *one* of the passengers dies as a result of the crash which I knew was
inevitable (which, dammit, I actually *planned*) then I'm as guilty as if
they all died.

Sure, I'm not your God and his morality may not be the same as my morality.
But if in the next breath you talk of `in the image of God' and of moral
absolutes which supposedly derive from this, the moral high ground is
shifting visibly beneath your feet.

> Maybe I'm being too simplistic.

No, I don't think you're being simplistic (for which read `rigorous') enough.
As I've just written in a followup to another of your posts, you should
*dissect* this garbage and get down there in the nuts and bolts and see exactly
what it really *means* and what are its premises and logical consequences,
rather than floating around on clouds of romantic language and foggy notions
of love, free will, salvation, condemnation, grace, devotion and all the rest
of it. Revive or acquire an ability to cut through the crap and get to the
underlying logical structure of a claim or a set of claims. Trace the
development, be merciless toward circularities and other logical fallacies,
nail words down and don't let meanings shift during the development, reject
appeals to mystery and faith as valid or in any way providing clarification.

If this stuff is correct, it should stay correct when utterly demystified,
and if that isn't possible, you've been had and should toss it in the trash.

> I don't post too often but I am a firm believer and I just couldn't stand
> by silent in admidst this debate. I don't mean to flame anyone.

Me neither, but sometimes it's difficult to attack views to which somebody
is deeply attached without it coming out like a flame.

> After all, Jesus came into this world to save not to condemn. And in His
> likeness, I would not do the same. I welcome your response.

Likewise.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
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Out-of-context quotes from s.r.c #12:

           "We should remain faithful to God because God is God."
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:25260 talk.religion.misc:25425 alt.pagan:15059