Christian Discussion Thread IV

[Menassa]

The Kings of David through Solomon will last forever, such as Israel will last forever.

So if Iran nukes Israel into oblivion tomorrow, Christianity will have been disproven ?

Israel as in the Jewish people... and I was arguing against a point raised by Christians.

[Menassa]

So if Iran nukes Israel into oblivion tomorrow, Christianity will have been disproven ?

Judaism maybe, but not Christianity. We have our own understanding of the prophecy which has no requirement for Israel to exist.

Your understanding seems to differ with the text, which is fine I guess.

#dualprophecy

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Judaism maybe, but not Christianity. We have our own understanding of the prophecy which has no requirement for Israel to exist.

Your understanding seems to differ with the text, which is fine I guess.

#dualprophecy

do you have a comprehensive list of what the Jews consider to be messianic prophecy? This would actually be of great help with something I'm working on.

[Menassa]

Your understanding seems to differ with the text, which is fine I guess.

#dualprophecy

do you have a comprehensive list of what the Jews consider to be messianic prophecy? This would actually be of great help with something I'm working on.

Perhaps this is a conversation for Telegrams?

https://outreachjudaism.org/the-christian-messiah/

[Tsaraine]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

[Menassa]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

Agag birthed Haman... who according to some Birthed Hitler.

[Tsaraine]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

Agag birthed Haman... who according to some Birthed Hitler.

Yeah, that really doesn't cut it for me, because we don't go around punishing people when their grandchildren commit crimes (Well, the North Koreans do, and I think in some cases the Chinese (though that whole "billing the family for the cost of the bullets used to execute their relatives" thing might be urban myth, I don't know). But I don't think it's moral to do so.). Not to mention that as a Hitler-prevention scheme, mass genocide is a) hugely, hugely ironic, b) clearly didn't work, c) could easily have been avoided by god manipulating the fertility of anyone in the hypothetical line of descent between Agag and Hitler. God has been shown to be able to manipulate fertility elsewhere in the OT.

[The Archregimancy]

So if Iran nukes Israel into oblivion tomorrow, Christianity will have been disproven ?

Judaism maybe, but not Christianity. We have our own understanding of the prophecy which has no requirement for Israel to exist.

Unless, perhaps, you're an evangelical literalist who believes that the existence of Israel is a necessary precondition for the imminent arrival of the Rapture.

I tried to explain the latter to a (Christian) Palestinian friend of mine once - that the staunch support for Israel from many (though by no means all) American Protestants stemmed from their belief that Israel had to exist in order to allow for the imminent Second Coming, alongside the conversion of all of the Jews to Christianity. He was stunned, and initially sceptical. Fortunately, by strange coincidence, the very next day the new issue of Time magazine was published with a cover story outlining that very point in great detail, complete with quotes.

He was even more stunned; but at least willing to believe that these people existed.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

I was kind of getting at this on another thread. Your reasoning is based on the assumption that Genocide is objectively immoral, yet such objectivity of morality does not exist. Morality is a subjective concept based on the beholder.

In the Abrahamic Religions, morality has a bit of objective subjectivity. Good and evil are not objective concepts that you can categorize God with, but descriptions that use God as moralistic standard. Things are Good, because they are Godly, things are evil because they are not.

(After all the Devil is only the personification of Evil because he rebelled.) In the religious paradigm, you can't categorize God's actions as evil, as that's not logically correct. God and Good are tautological equivalents. God could destroy the entire universe, and it would be "good" because God does it.

[Tsaraine]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

I was kind of getting at this on another thread. Your reasoning is based on the assumption that Genocide is objectively immoral, yet such objectivity of morality does not exist. Morality is a subjective concept based on the beholder.

In the Abrahamic Religions, morality has a bit of objective subjectivity. Good and evil are not objective concepts that you can categorize God with, but descriptions that use God as moralistic standard. Things are Good, because they are Godly, things are evil because they are not.

(After all the Devil is only the personification of Evil because he rebelled.) In the religious paradigm, you can't categorize God's actions as evil, as that's not logically correct. God and Good are tautological equivalents. God could destroy the entire universe, and it would be "good" because God does it.

I get what you're saying, and it's a neat explanation. Actually, I think it's Socratic, isn't there a Dialogue on "Is it good because it is godly, or godly because it is good?"? It's certainly an explanation that fits the available evidence well. I just find it ... viscerally unpalatable.

[edit]Wikipedia says it's the Euthyphro dilemma - I'm reading that article now.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Agag birthed Haman... who according to some Birthed Hitler.

Yeah, that really doesn't cut it for me, because we don't go around punishing people when their grandchildren commit crimes (Well, the North Koreans do, and I think in some cases the Chinese (though that whole "billing the family for the cost of the bullets used to execute their relatives" thing might be urban myth, I don't know). But I don't think it's moral to do so.). Not to mention that as a Hitler-prevention scheme, mass genocide is a) hugely, hugely ironic, b) clearly didn't work, c) could easily have been avoided by god manipulating the fertility of anyone in the hypothetical line of descent between Agag and Hitler. God has been shown to be able to manipulate fertility elsewhere in the OT.

See you're viewing this as a sense of crime and punishment, like our legal system. This is a case of tribalism. It's the same reason ISIS want's to kill all Americans, because we're evil by nature of being Americans cause for whatever reason. It's geopolitics, not crime and punishment.

[The Archregimancy]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

The passage you're looking for is in 1 Samuel 15.

Though that's probably best understood, in part, in the context of Deuteronomy 25:17-19, in which case the subsequent command to destroy the Amalekites is issued in revenge for their attacks on Israel during the exodus.

Not that this necessarily justifies thorough genocide, mind, but God in the Old Testament does sometimes have worrying tendency to follow through on his claim that "the L-RD your God in the midst of you is a jealous G-d; otherwise the anger of the L-RD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth".

[Tarsonis Survivors]

I was kind of getting at this on another thread. Your reasoning is based on the assumption that Genocide is objectively immoral, yet such objectivity of morality does not exist. Morality is a subjective concept based on the beholder.

In the Abrahamic Religions, morality has a bit of objective subjectivity. Good and evil are not objective concepts that you can categorize God with, but descriptions that use God as moralistic standard. Things are Good, because they are Godly, things are evil because they are not.

(After all the Devil is only the personification of Evil because he rebelled.) In the religious paradigm, you can't categorize God's actions as evil, as that's not logically correct. God and Good are tautological equivalents. God could destroy the entire universe, and it would be "good" because God does it.

I get what you're saying, and it's a neat explanation. Actually, I think it's Socratic, isn't there a Dialogue on "Is it good because it is godly, or godly because it is good?"? It's certainly an explanation that fits the available evidence well. I just find it ... viscerally unpalatable.

In the words of Al Pacino: "Free will is a bitch"

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

The passage you're looking for is in 1 Samuel 15.

Though that's probably best understood, in part, in the context of Deuteronomy 25:17-19, in which case the subsequent command to destroy the Amalekites is issued in revenge for their attacks on Israel during the exodus.

Not that this necessarily justifies thorough genocide, mind, but God in the Old Testament does sometimes have worrying tendency to follow through on his claim that "the L-RD your God in the midst of you is a jealous G-d; otherwise the anger of the L-RD your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth".

God in the OT also wants all the foreskins for some reason.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

do you have a comprehensive list of what the Jews consider to be messianic prophecy? This would actually be of great help with something I'm working on.

Perhaps this is a conversation for Telegrams?

https://outreachjudaism.org/the-christian-messiah/

I meant more like a comprehensive list of prophecy. But that is helpful, Rabbi Singer seems to have a misunderstanding of Christianity but given the damage of Evangelical protestantism, I can see why.

[Menassa]

Perhaps this is a conversation for Telegrams?

https://outreachjudaism.org/the-christian-messiah/

I meant more like a comprehensive list of prophecy. But that is helpful, Rabbi Singer seems to have a misunderstanding of Christianity but given the damage of Evangelical protestantism, I can see why.

He is directly discussing evangelical Christianity, he makes that distinction in his audio lectures.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ndjesus/#1

[Tsaraine]

Yeah, that really doesn't cut it for me, because we don't go around punishing people when their grandchildren commit crimes (Well, the North Koreans do, and I think in some cases the Chinese (though that whole "billing the family for the cost of the bullets used to execute their relatives" thing might be urban myth, I don't know). But I don't think it's moral to do so.). Not to mention that as a Hitler-prevention scheme, mass genocide is a) hugely, hugely ironic, b) clearly didn't work, c) could easily have been avoided by god manipulating the fertility of anyone in the hypothetical line of descent between Agag and Hitler. God has been shown to be able to manipulate fertility elsewhere in the OT.

See you're viewing this as a sense of crime and punishment, like our legal system. This is a case of tribalism. It's the same reason ISIS want's to kill all Americans, because we're evil by nature of being Americans cause for whatever reason. It's geopolitics, not crime and punishment.

But having re-read the passage (thanks Arch!) it is clearly phrased as a matter of crime and punishment; god commands the Amalekites be exterminated because of their prior attacks on the Israelites, and Saul is punished because of his insufficiently thorough genocide. The commands and punishments just seem to perfectly dovetail with the needs of the Israelites, because of course they are the protagonists. It's like they're led by a talking nuclear warhead. It does seem, as you pointed out, that the OT is clearly on the second horn of Euthyphro's dilemma - what is good is obedience to the will of god, no matter what that god decrees - actually now I think about it that's the moral of Job and Isaac too.

But we're straying from the meat of the question, which is "How do you reconcile your own morality with the worship of a deity described - literally - as wrothful and jealous, and as engaging in all sorts of arbitrary and cruel actions?" - I mean, hell, he ruins Job's life for a bet.

For myself, well, my hubris may be extreme, but I've yet to be struck by lightning, and even if I were I'd attribute it to natural causes. My response is to reject the Abrahamic god entirely (It's worth noting that this is only one of several reasons). I have a hard time not regarding myself as more moral than Jehovah, considering that I have not committed genocide even a little bit.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

I meant more like a comprehensive list of prophecy. But that is helpful, Rabbi Singer seems to have a misunderstanding of Christianity but given the damage of Evangelical protestantism, I can see why.

He is directly discussing evangelical Christianity, he makes that distinction in his audio lectures.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ndjesus/#1

ah. Very well.

[Menassa]

He is directly discussing evangelical Christianity, he makes that distinction in his audio lectures.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ndjesus/#1

ah. Very well.

TG me if ya need anything else.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

See you're viewing this as a sense of crime and punishment, like our legal system. This is a case of tribalism. It's the same reason ISIS want's to kill all Americans, because we're evil by nature of being Americans cause for whatever reason. It's geopolitics, not crime and punishment.

But having re-read the passage (thanks Arch!) it is clearly phrased as a matter of crime and punishment; god commands the Amalekites be exterminated because of their prior attacks on the Israelites, and Saul is punished because of his insufficiently thorough genocide. The commands and punishments just seem to perfectly dovetail with the needs of the Israelites, because of course they are the protagonists. It's like they're led by a talking nuclear warhead. It does seem, as you pointed out, that the OT is clearly on the second horn of Euthyphro's dilemma - what is good is obedience to the will of god, no matter what that god decrees - actually now I think about it that's the moral of Job and Isaac too.

But we're straying from the meat of the question, which is "How do you reconcile your own morality with the worship of a deity described - literally - as wrothful and jealous, and as engaging in all sorts of arbitrary and cruel actions?" - I mean, hell, he ruins Job's life for a bet.

For myself, well, my hubris may be extreme, but I've yet to be struck by lightning, and even if I were I'd attribute it to natural causes. My response is to reject the Abrahamic god entirely (It's worth noting that this is only one of several reasons). I have a hard time not regarding myself as more moral than Jehovah, considering that I have not committed genocide even a little bit.

That's why I said its geopolitics, not legality. Yes they are being exterminated for their attacks on Israel, but it's the same as us nuking NK of the face of the earth if they even sneeze troops in our general direction. It's geopolitical retaliation.


Also it's important to note, that in the age of the ANE identity was more focused on the Corporate Identity, as opposed to identity of the individual. While Crime and Punishment would focus on the crimes of the individual within a community. Geopolitical recourse is enacted on the entirety of a people because they all share in their peoples actions via Corporate Identity. There really isn't a concept of "Civilians" yet.

[Constantinopolis]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

My answer is going to be different from those provided by others so far. They have said, basically, "whatever God commands is moral by definition." I don't think so.

Rather, my answer is: "Everything God commands is carefully calculated so that the innumerable consequences of that action, big and small, will lead to a (much) better result than if the action had not been carried out."

Have you ever read a work of science-fiction involving either (a) time travel, or (b) someone who could see all possible futures, and which describes how a seemingly-insignificant event in the past can have monumental consequences for the future? Now imagine all the threads of history radiating outward from an event which is not at all insignificant, but is rather the genocide of the Amalekites. Forget Hitler; everything about our world today may be entirely different if the genocide of the Amalekites had not happened. Perhaps the human species itself may be extinct by now, having annihilated itself in nuclear war.

Or to put it differently... read this book:



Leto II Atreides, a man who could see all possible futures, gave up his own humanity so that he could become the God-Emperor, and rule the known universe for 3500 years as a seemingly-bloodthirsty tyrant. He did this because every other course of action eventually led to the self-destruction of the human species at some point in the future. After 3500 years, he arranged for his own death, because that was also necessary for the success of the Golden Path (the carefully orchestrated series of events that would lead to the one possible future where Humanity thrives and expands across the universe).

So... if Leto II commands you to destroy a planet, is he evil? I say no. But not because "everything the God-Emperor commands is good by definition." Rather, because the God-Emperor can see all possible futures, and understands the consequences of destroying that planet better than you ever could. Maybe the survival of the human species 2500 years in the future depends on the destruction of that planet today.

[Constantinopolis]

I have a hard time not regarding myself as more moral than Jehovah, considering that I have not committed genocide even a little bit.

When you cannot see all possible futures, you have no right to judge the morality of entities who can.

[The United Neptumousian Empire]

I Chronicles 22:8--10

The word of the L-rd came to me, saying:....Behold, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace. I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for My Name; he shall be a son to Me, and I will be a father to him; and I will establish his royal throne over Israel forever.

Then there's of course: "so that when he goes astray I will chasten him with the rod of men,"
Jesus wasn't a sinner no?

That reminds me, why is modern Israel a republic if it is supposed to be a kingdom according to the Old Testament?

[Constantinopolis]

That reminds me, why is modern Israel a republic if it is supposed to be a kingdom according to the Old Testament?

Modern Israel was founded by a highly secular movement that was initially opposed by religious Jews.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Here's a thing that's bothered me about the (old testament) god for a while, something I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to. I may have also raised it in the Christian Discussion Thread before, sorry if that's the case, I can't remember. I think it's in Exodus. The Israelite king preceding David (Saul, I think?) is punished by god, his throne is given to another, because the genocide of the Amalekites he has carried out on god's orders has been insufficiently thorough.

Some people have tried to explain this by saying that the Amalekites were irredeemably evil (and that this evil was heritable, naturally - the inheritance of sin is something I also find fault with god about, but as that's kind of at the root of Christian theology it's another topic entirely). Or that Saul's sin was in not obeying god to the letter. But these seem to be insufficient to me, splitting hairs over the exact wording when the act itself is clear; god commanded genocide, and Saul obeyed, to like 99.99%. God commanded genocide; how then is god moral?

It seems to me that if god were apprehensible, he would be swiftly brought before the ICJ on charges of crimes against humanity. This really bothers me, since people I like and respect are happily Christian, and I really can't reconcile that with what god gets up to in the old testament; the old testament god seems more worthy of condemnation than worship, and his chosen people seem like bloody-handed murderers.

I'm really not trying to troll or offend anyone here, and I'm sorry if I've caused offense, but this seems ... really critical to the whole Abrahamic faith. How do you reconcile your god with your morality?

My answer is going to be different from those provided by others so far. They have said, basically, "whatever God commands is moral by definition." I don't think so.

Rather, my answer is: "Everything God commands is carefully calculated so that the innumerable consequences of that action, big and small, will lead to a (much) better result than if the action had not been carried out."

Have you ever read a work of science-fiction involving either (a) time travel, or (b) someone who could see all possible futures, and which describes how a seemingly-insignificant event in the past can have monumental consequences for the future? Now imagine all the threads of history radiating outward from an event which is not at all insignificant, but is rather the genocide of the Amalekites. Forget Hitler; everything about our world today may be entirely different if the genocide of the Amalekites had not happened. Perhaps the human species itself may be extinct by now, having annihilated itself in nuclear war.

Or to put it differently... read this book:



Leto II Atreides, a man who could see all possible futures, gave up his own humanity so that he could become the God-Emperor, and rule the known universe for 3500 years as a seemingly-bloodthirsty tyrant. He did this because every other course of action eventually led to the self-destruction of the human species at some point in the future. After 3500 years, he arranged for his own death, because that was also necessary for the success of the Golden Path (the carefully orchestrated series of events that would lead to the one possible future where Humanity thrives and expands across the universe).

So... if Leto II commands you to destroy a planet, is he evil? I say no. But not because "everything the God-Emperor commands is good by definition." Rather, because the God-Emperor can see all possible futures, and understands the consequences of destroying that planet better than you ever could. Maybe the survival of the human species 2500 years in the future depends on the destruction of that planet today.

That's not a statement of morality, but rather one utilitarian function. I'd wholly agree with you that God does operate in such a way.

But in terms of morality, it's source and it's relationship to God, your statement has little to do with.