Separation of Church and State

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Yea, how dare I produce outside evidence that contradicts your blatant supposition.

There was no card palming. Do you really believe that the Christians who persecute gays and declaim against gods other than the Christian God do so out of motives other than those derived from accepted Christian doctrine in the Bible? The Bible plainly asserts that condemnation and you cannot deny that is the root of the intolerance. That some Christians ignore that doctrine does not remove it from the Bible. There is no contradiction.

Hold on a minute, your changing your stance again. Now its not oppressing other people for their religion, its declaiming. Stating that someone is wrong based on your own opinion is covered by both freedom of religion and speech. A person is entitled to hold whatever prejudices they like, so long as they behave within the law.



Your argument is predicated on the assumption that because the Bible states a thing is prohibited, it therefor provides one with a legitimate basis for hatred and discrimination of that person. It specifically states that Jesus dined first with the sinners and loves all people. I must have missed the part where that meant I was justified in beating the people at Christ's dinner table.

Essentially sand you are complaining against something you yourself are doing. When one possesses a prejudice, one grounds it in reality as best they can. People who hate others often look for religious/cultural/economic/racial/gender/or whatever else, reasons. You dislike theism and so you are in essence trying to do the same in a secular manner. You are looking for a way to ground your prejudice in the actions of religious people. When I point out that other people have grounded the same prejudice in different constructs you state that it is not the same thing. Surely you can see how awfully contradictory your logic is?

More idiocy.

@ 91
from your link:
...God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.
...The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.
...Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation.

followed by the mind-bending doublethink about how the Jewish/Christian God is still better than the Muslim one:

...The problem with Islam, then, is not that it has got the wrong moral theory; it’s that it has got the wrong God. If the Muslim thinks that our moral duties are constituted by God’s commands, then I agree with him. But Muslims and Christians differ radically over God’s nature. Christians believe that God is all-loving, while Muslims believe that God loves only Muslims. Allah has no love for unbelievers and sinners. Therefore, they can be killed indiscriminately.

Human morality cannot help but judge this kind of reasoning as repugnant, and repudiate it.

Wrt Christianity and Gays: it is entirely probably that, for instance, the severity of the anti-gay law that has been proposed in Uganda, which requires life imprisonment not only for gays, but for those who know that someone is gay and does not report them* (even family members!), is entirely due to the Christianity of some high government officials and to their relationship with fundamentalist Christians here in the U.S.

*And which required the death penalty for some gay acts, including for those in long-standing, committed gay relationships, before international pressure became so great that they reduced the severity of the law.

Hold on a minute LKL.

All of this is based on the moral view of God within the Christian religion. I think you have overlooked the particulars of that argument. Instead of doing some more research you have presented your first reaction as being totally correct. Due to the complexity of the philosophy involved, this will be an incomplete answer. I directed you to an article that was based on philosophical suppositions that have be not been properly explained. The reason for this is that it is a popular article and not a scholarly one (attacking it for being incomplete runs counter to the point).

Under the Christian view of God the existence of evil is dealt with through Plantinga's argument about God and the existence of evil. Which holds that for something to be good, it is required that it be part of Gods nature (which is held to be all loving). For something that seems wrong (like the existence of evil) or the destruction of the Canaanites to be good, God must possess morally sufficient reasons for taking the action. We can have no true understanding of why God choose to order the destruction of the Canaanites. However, to consider this evidence to run counter to the existence of God is considered philosophically unsupportable by mainstream thinkers (for more information please read Plantinga's argument).

This also from the article you quoted (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=5767)

I think that a good start at this problem is to enunciate our ethical theory that underlies our moral judgements. According to the version of divine command ethics which I’ve defended, our moral duties are constituted by the commands of a holy and loving God. Since God doesn’t issue commands to Himself, He has no moral duties to fulfill. He is certainly not subject to the same moral obligations and prohibitions that we are. For example, I have no right to take an innocent life. For me to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition. He can give and take life as He chooses. We all recognize this when we accuse some authority who presumes to take life as “playing God.” Human authorities arrogate to themselves rights which belong only to God. God is under no obligation whatsoever to extend my life for another second. If He wanted to strike me dead right now, that’s His prerogative.

God gives his reasons for the destruction of the Canaanites

By the time of their destruction, Canaanite culture was, in fact, debauched and cruel, embracing such practices as ritual prostitution and even child sacrifice. The Canaanites are to be destroyed “that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God” (Deut. 20.18). God had morally sufficient reasons for His judgement upon Canaan, and Israel was merely the instrument of His justice, just as centuries later God would use the pagan nations of Assyria and Babylon to judge Israel.



The reason for the distinction between the Muslim conception of God and the Christian one is that under Christian theology God is all loving (it is a part of his essential nature). Under the Islamic tradition, God is not all loving. It is also worth mentioning that the discussion relating to Islam in the article took place in response to the question that was asked.

This is taken from here (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=7421)

What a contrast with the God of the Qur'an! According to the Qur'an, God does not love sinners. This fact is emphasized repeatedly and consistently like a drumbeat throughout the pages of the Qur'an. Just listen to the following passages:

'God loves not the unbelievers" (III. 33)
'God loves not the impious and sinners" (II. 277)
"God loves not evildoers" (III. 58)
"God loves not the proud" (IV. 37)
"God loves not transgressors" (V. 88)
"God loves not the prodigal" (VI. 142)
"God loves not the treacherous" (VIII. 59)
"God is an enemy to unbelievers" (II. 99)

Over and over again the Qur'an declares that God does not love the very people whom the Bible says God loves so much that He sent His Son to die for them!

Now this may seem paradoxical in light of the Qur'an's calling God "al-Rahman al-Rahim"--the All-Merciful--until you realize that according to the Qur'an what God's mercy really cashes out to is that if you believe and do righteous deeds, then God can be counted on to overlook your sins and reward your good works. Thus, the Qu'ran promises,

"Work and God will surely see your work." (IX. 105)

"Every soul shall be paid in full for what it has earned." (II. 282)

"Those who believe and do deeds of righteousness and perform the prayer and pay the alms--their wage awaits them with the Lord." (II. 278)

According to the Qur'an God's love is thus reserved only for those who earn it. It says,

"To those who believe and do righteousness, God will assign love." (XIX 97).

So the Qur'an assures us of God's love for the God-fearing and the good-doers; but He has no love for sinners and unbelievers. Thus, in the Islamic conception, God is not all-loving. His love is partial and has to be earned. The Muslim God only loves those who first love Him. His love thus rises no higher than the love which Jesus said even tax-collectors and unbelievers exhibit.

Now don't you think this is an inadequate conception of God? What would you think of a parent who said to his children, "If you measure up to my standards and do as I say, then I will love you"? Some of you have had parents like that, who didn't love you unconditionally, and you know the emotional scars you bear as a result. As the greatest conceivable being, the most perfect being, the source of all goodness and love, God's love must be unconditional and impartial. Therefore, the Islamic conception of God seems to me to be morally deficient. I therefore cannot rationally accept it.

Maximal greatness entails moral perfection and that moral perfection entails being all-loving. This first entailment seems undeniable. The key question is the second. It is based on the evident fact that being loving is a moral perfection or great-making property and that it is better to be all-loving than partially loving.
---------------

Since God and morality are separate under the Islamic tradition then their theology falls into the Euthyphro dilemma, requiring the conclusion that their conception of God is not good (in the moral sense).

All I can say is that, I as a Christian condemn this law. Christianity therefor cannot be established as the root cause of this.

quite frankly, the very exercise of *trying* to find moral justification for genocide is repugnant to me. It's like a drunken parent who justifies abusing their children because 'she made me mad!' The attempt to justify compounds the transgression rather than ameliorating it.

Bringing up the 'Islam is worse' card is only a tu quoque error.


Incorrect: the conclusion is only logically, 'therefore, My Form Of Christianity cannot be established as the root cause of this.'

From the outside, what determines a Christian is that someone bases their theology on the old and new testaments and claims that Jesus Christ is the most devine figure in their pantheon; just as the 9/11 bombers were Muslim despite being abhorrent to most Muslims, so are these people Christian.

Your assumption is twofold. One, if God commanded it, using divine command theory, then it was not wrong. Since we hold that God is morally perfect, then God would have to have sufficient moral reasons for making this judgement. To reject the possibility of God's judgement is to place ones self on a level with God; who out of necessity exists as wholly good. Evil under Christian theology and philosophy is the bi-product of free will. It is reasonable to suppose that you being human and of limited power, knowledge and experience do not have the same vantage point as God.

Secondly, if you reject God as being behind the destruction of the Canaanites then you can only judge the action by the subjective standards of the time. Most societies who existed at that time practiced war in the same way. The Roman's killed millions of Gauls (many years later), Qin Shi Huang of China did likewise during his conquest of China. The only way you condemn this action is if you either stated that the Canaanites's destruction was wrong regardless of place or time (in which case you would be invoking an absolute objective value and therefor under the moral argument would be admitting to necessity of God) or you would be guilty of presuming the morality of people today to be applicable to people who never practiced it (and therefor would be presuming the supremacy of your ethical position regardless of its evolutionary development).



Well no, when one commits an unchristian act, one cannot be considered a Christian. I am also yet to see a theological argument that states I would be justified to do under Christian dogma what the 9/11 bombers did in the name of Islam (there are many theological arguments in support of this from an Islamic perspective)



This is based on the false pretense that I did bring up Islam. The article I sent you to considered 'how can one hold to divine command theory under Christian dogma and not fall into the logical trap of allowing the same from an Islamic perspective'. I sent you to that article because mentioned in detail a defense of the destruction of the Canaanites.

A lot of people think freedom of religion means freedom from religion and use "separation of church and state" to support their beliefs. What you have to remember is that the phrase never actually appears in the Constitution. It first came up in a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association concerning their right to practice their beliefs. "Separation of church and state" simply means that the government cannot establish a religion. A church cannot be run by the government, and the government cannot be run by a church. That's all it means.

Did you attend a private religious school? If not, then it sounds to me like those rules would be grounds for a lawsuit.

Freedom of religion must also mean freedom from religion or else there would be obligation to follow a particular religion. Religions often contradict one another so there must be freedom from one to practice another.

Quota quotes topic

The different interpretations of Sand's seemingly contradictory statements on Christian intolereance are very interesting. Being a sort of third party to this, I will offer yet another interpretation, though it may not unite 91 and Sand, as they are two sides of the same coin that cannot see the other.

I used to belong to a church whose minister deliberately ignored the parts of the bible that spoke of discrimination of different forms of sexuality,the ban on onanism, the practice of slavery, the acceptance of human abuse like wife beating, etc.-- all negatives that would take away from the liberating spirit of the ideas of Jesus. He did not deny them of course, but saw the bible as evolving and changing for the better, to be a more inclusive religion. This was his mission. This meant seeing beyond the nasty passages, and acknowledging that the holy book was written by humans. It was very subtle, but I saw it, and this is what kept me going there long after I had accepted atheism/humanism as my preferred choice or outlook on my life. He was a very interesting speaker and had many great guest semonizers. When he left after being there for about five years I saw this as my way to leave without any kind of explanation--not that I needed to give one, but I got the impression that the rest of the congregation was relieved that he had departed. I heard that the replacement was less tolerant and fit the community better. They are the worse for it, and I always hoped the former pastor went to where he was more appreciated.

My point is that some pastors follow the literal stream and some use common sense and understanding. I remember reading somewhere long ago that a text out of context is a pretext and therefore false. If this is what both Sand and 91 had in mind (and I am an aspie and certainly not good at empathy) then at least they are in the same book, even if not on the same page.

My objection is mainly that Christian prejudices are derived from its dogma. You cannot declare that the viciousness of some Christians out of their dogmatic convictions do not represent one part of Christianity. Just as the Muslims are criticized for not ridding themselves of the vicious terrorists who act out of things in the Qu'ran, so Christians have the same problem with their fundamentalists.

Last edited by Sand on 22 Nov 2010, 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BS. Maybe it's because I'm an American and we rejected the divine right of our leaders a few centuries ago; whatever the cause, I do not accept that genocide is EVER morally justifiable regardless of WHO commands it.


Yes... I'm not sure what your point is, though. The ancient Israelites were barbarians who justified their barbarity with made-up commands of god, just like every other tribe of the time. How does that make it better? Thank goodness time travel is not possible.


According to the people of Uganda and their American allies, they are saving people and therefore being very Christian. Again, from the outside I can only see that people are claiming to be Christian, acting in ways that I find repugnant but which they claim to be 'Christian acts.'


But then you deliberately and specifically cited the parts of the article that pertained to Islam.

On almost any issue I would wholeheartedly agree with you. However, if one takes the destruction of the Canaanites as being the actual will of God, then it is morally justifiable. God would specifically have to order these people destruction though and I am not sure even then I would be convinced; short of a direct appearance in public making that statement I would probably not believe it. However, there is nothing logically contradictory for a perfectly moral God ordering the destruction of certain people. Since if he did, if we take assume that morality he would have a transcendent understanding of the effects of that decision and would therefore be able to make the correct choice.


According to the people of Uganda and their American allies, they are saving people and therefore being very Christian. Again, from the outside I can only see that people are claiming to be Christian, acting in ways that I find repugnant but which they claim to be 'Christian acts.' [/quote]

Well you can also see people like me, calling those people wrong and unchristian; surely that is an encouraging thought.



Well not really; I hate to get into a ‘you did it first’ argument, but actually you did.

well i can see people like you, calling those people right and moral. ...those people committing genocide.... yeah...

so that's it, then. genocide is totally cool with you as long as someone says god says it's cool.