Posts by Tim McKenzie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
this is the type of unintended consequence I try to pick up when I’m writing a submission on a bill, and I dropped the ball.
Don't be too down on yourself. I'm impressed by how many problems you do notice, and no single person should be expected (or expect themselves) to notice absolutely everything.
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Lilith __,
Only Job’s 10 children were killed! Of course he can have some more later.
Interestingly, although Job ends up with twice as many sheep, camels, cattle, and donkeys as he started with, he ends up having only ten more children, not twenty. It's not spelt out, but the impression I get is that the first ten children still count.
His kids are collateral damage in a round of point-scoring between God and Satan.
But if death isn't the end, then the children might be enjoying life somewhere else, and not complaining at all.
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Adam and Eve only knew ‘eat all the fruits and seeds you want, just not the fruit of these two trees’, and they blew it.
Only one tree was out of bounds.
Abraham and Job knew only unquestioning faith and total obedience no matter how shite the situation or ridiculous the divine order.
Abraham famously bargained with God, and to call Job "unquestioning" is beyond ridiculous.
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
Is it able but not willing?
Then it is malevolent.Which is more malevolent: to allow evil that you can prevent, or to enslave every creature to prevent them from causing any evil?
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
I certainly dont agree with that comment of your’s – it is in opposition of what I understand to be so-
If you truly don't believe in absolute morality, then why do you say things like
if they are in your vicinity, and you have spare food, your bounden duty as a rational human is quite simple – help feed the kids-
?
You certainly sound as if you believe that there is an objective moral imperative to help feed hungry children --- not merely an imperative that applies in contemporary New Zealand, nor merely a subjective preference that you hold. -
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Lilith __,
Not to mention the terrible things the OT God does to people.
Poor old Job, who was tortured in every way possible to test his faith. He endures the gratuitous killing of his wives and children but keeps his relationship with God, which is obviously the most important thing.
For a start, the book doesn't describe God doing horrible things to Job; it describes satan challenging God to do horrible things to Job. God declines to harm Job, but allows satan to harm him, within limits.
Secondly, only one wife is mentioned, and she isn't killed.
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to BenWilson,
But Lewis misses a few things too. He doesn’t note the position which denies that morality is real at all, perhaps he hadn’t even heard of it.
I think he does address the position that morality isn't real; he addresses it by trying to demonstrate to the reader that their beliefs aren't actually consistent with the position. Maybe he'd never heard of anyone whose beliefs really were consistent with the position, but he certainly seems to have heard of the position.
Most people would tend to agree with this – they find it inconceivable that God would love immoral things, that he might, for instance, fully endorse sexual violence against children. If he did endorse that, it would not make sexual violence against children right, therefore his endorsement is not the source of the rightness.
Lewis agrees, from The Poison of Subjectivism:
if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the "righteous Lord."
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
slavery still exists in many parts of the world
Okay, then, do you think that there would be no moral improvement if slavery came to a complete end? Do you think that the morals of those individuals and societies that reject slavery are no better than the morals of those individuals and societies that accept it?
The point is not that every society has exactly the same set of morals; they don't. The point is that (almost) everyone (including, it seems, you) speaks as if they believe that there is a universal moral standard with which the morals of individuals and societies could (in theory, at least) be compared. You may disagree with C. S. Lewis about precisely what the universal moral standard requires, but in the end, you probably agree with him that there is one; from memory, that's all his argument requires.
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
Exactly.
Time, and place, and species make all the difference.I'm confused. Are you agreeing here that there was no moral improvement from pre-abolition acceptance of slavery to post-abolition rejection of it?
If humans were a truly sane species, there would be no avoidable suffering.
And are you implying here that allowing or causing avoidable suffering is morally bad in some absolute sense? (That is, not just in the sense that you would personally prefer there to be no avoidable suffering.)
-
Legal Beagle: A matter of conscience, in reply to Islander,
it would be my contention that there is no such thing as ‘a universal moral standard’
If you claim that there is no universal moral standard against which to measure the morals of a particular person or society --- if you claim that morals all depend on where and when you live ---, then you cannot claim (for example) that there was a moral improvement between pre-abolition acceptance of slavery and post-abolition rejection of it; after all, it was a different time, when there was a different society with different morals, just as valid (or invalid) as your own morals and those of the society you live in.