Slaughtering Toddlers For Jesus

Fortunately the story of Saul, David, and the Amalekites is just fiction. But you have to wonder about the sanity of people who take myths like these as the word of a super-being.

See "The Bible Unearthed" by Silberman and Finkelstein.

It is also very edifying to do a search on "amalek" or "amalekites" and see contemporary acceptance of god's will. Vox is not the only religious one who approves of Bible massacres.

If you believe the Bible, then this is *NOT* a hypothetical question.

God *DID* order things like this, and those orders were followed, and God praised and rewarded them. And at those times when such orders were not followed, God punished them for not obeying. (look it up!)

If god existed the next question would be "is this god worthy of being followed?" if not, than I'm definitely not following orders. If so than I'd better have some good payment for the slaughtering of millions of innocent babies. Like say, the earth restored to a state like it would be in if humans hadn't existed (and that's pretty much all I'd accept). In general, if god were offering me such trivial things as eternal happyness and eternal life, I'd sooner die (I'd probably end up killing myself if I did make such a bargain with god, if someone else hadn't gotten to me first).

This moral question is sort of like the one "how much money would you demand if an old man asked to have sex with you?".

"The question Plato asks is this: Does God command something because it is good, or is it good because God commands it?

If we choose the first option, then we are saying that there is a moral standard external to God, and that is this standard, and not God himself, that determines what is good; God would simply be relaying this information to us. Needless to say, this presents problems for theists. What is this standard, where did it come from, and how does it get its power over God? If God is constrained by a standard external to himself, then he cannot be said to be omnipotent. And if such a standard exists, could not atheists bypass God and appeal to the standard directly?

However, the second option is potentially even worse. This scenario is essentially moral relativism writ large; it says that morality is determined solely by God's whims. So far, God has declared justice and mercy and other such things to be good. But tomorrow, he might change his mind and declare rape, torture and child sacrifice to be good, and from that point on, we would have to praise that choice and live with its repercussions. People who did such things would be welcomed into the bosoms of the angels, while those who refused would go to Hell. Can anyone, even the most conservative of fundamentalist believers, condone such a scenario? "

Apparently, yes.

Day stated very clearly what he would do in this particular situation. He would act immorally, then attempt to escape the consequences of his actions by claiming that he was just following orders.

I disagree. From his own point of view, Vox Day would not act immorally at all. Vox Day, like (too) many other people, doesn't even know what morality means. The concept of morality is foreign to him. When I read passages like Day's, I mentally substitute "obedience," "obedient," and "disobedient" for "morality," "moral," and "immoral," which gives me a more accurate idea of what they're really thinking. To them, God is an authority who has the right to make laws solely because he has the physical power to enforce them and his laws should be obeyed because of this. The idea that something could be "right" or "wrong" as opposed to merely declared good or bad by a powerful authority is not one that they can understand.

That guy is such an attention whore.

Vox Day should go down to the state psychiatric ward. He'll meet any number of people who believe or believed that God told them to kill people. He'll even meet a few who, as he recommends, acted on that belief. He should shake their hands and compliment them on their self-consistent moral codes.

Brent asked "Is there some reason why people still try to use this argument after it failed so miserably after World War II?"

Yup. It saves on thinking for oneself.

The 1991 movie called 'The Rapture'. It explores this very question. In the movie a woman who has been receiving visions goes into the desert with her daughter and when the end times get a bit late she kills her daughter so that the daughter can go to heaven.

**SPOILER ALERT**

At the very end of the movie the rapture happens and everyone is going off to heaven. The girl's spirit comes back and asks her mother to accompany her to heaven, but the mother refuses to go and spend an eternity with a God that would make her do such a thing. The daughter tells her that "God forgives you." But her mother answers: "Yes, but who will forgive God?"

Well there you go! Just as ol' whatsisname said, "if there is no GOD, then all is permitted." Including defying HIS clear, direct command that you axe up all those two year olds. Now you listen up: cut out your stupid Kid Nietzsche act, stop being so God damned perverse, and get to work! Here's your axe; start with those little girls right over there.

Translation: "As a good Christian, I would kill all infants if God told me to, therefore I am moral. Atheists would not do so, even if God told them to, therefore atheists are immoral."

To paraphrase the song, "If not killing infants is wrong, I don't want to be right."

If an omnipotent god instructed me to commit a heinous act, the question I'd have to ask would be, "Why would an omnipotent god create a situation where a heinous act by me is the necessary course of action?"

Presumably the kids all have to die to achieve some goal. So what reason could there be that couldn't be addressed by the omnipotent being wrinkling her genie nose and making mass infanticide _not_ the solution to the problem?

The answer of course, is nothing. Nothing could possibly stop an omnipotent god from removing the requirement for infanticide from the pursuit of its agenda.

Perhaps the goal would be a test. Testing me against the deity's measure of worthiness, holiness, obedience or some other quality.

But even such testing does not, in fact, require global infanticide - an omnipotent being could fabricate a test that was identical in every particular as to the weight and scope analysis it would expose me to, without requiring the universal slaughter of children.

So why would an omnipotent god require such an action by me? Because for some indescibable reason the being _wants_ universal infanticide. It covets the fullfillment of such an act for presumably deity-calibre reasons.

Such a motive in not moral, especially when, as an omnipotent, infinite alternative paths to the same goal exist.

[Vox Day] A reason, that is, besides the one that he has previously provided, which is that he would not like it. As adults do not accept that as sufficient justification for a course of action from toddlers, there is no reason why we should accept it from him either.

No, no, no, no, Vox. It's not just that he "would not like it", it's the fact that it is written into his very nature by millions of years of our species evolutionary development. Killing children is bad for us as a species. Over the course of millions of years, our species has learned this.

I have to disagree with both Vox and Brent there.

"Don't kill kids" is not particularly written into our nature by evolution; in fact, both human and animal infanticide may be partially explainable on evolutionary grounds. Getting rid of unrelated kids, or even your own if you have too many to care for, can be quite good for your fitness.

Moreover, "Evolution says so" is hardly an effective moral justification. If it were, celibacy would be the gravest of sins! Evolutionary theory can explain why most of us aren't celibate, but not why we should or shouldn't be.

The fact is, "I wouldn't like it" is the explanation why most of us wouldn't slaughter children if commanded to. We really really wouldn't like it. We'd like it even less than the prospect of disobeying our creator and being punished with Biblical ferocity. Vox, on the other hand, would apparently rather toddler-massacre than disobey (although I have my doubts that he'd actually go through with it.) And that's the whole story. Most of us, in turn, would rather try to stop Vox if he goes on a toddler-massacre than sit around and watch TV. And so forth. Evolutionary theory and religious studies and psychoanalysis may explain why our likes and dislikes are what they are, but that doesn't make them any more or less valid.

To paraphrase Dick Garner: After you realize that God doesn't exist anywhere but inside your head, the next step is to realize the same thing about morality.

Well, at that point "believe" wouldn't really be the right word anymore. It would be like me saying "I believe in my truck". It doesn't make sense to "believe in" a factual thing.

As is so often the case, there's a Terry Pratchett quotation for this situation:

Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.

(From Witches Abroad)

What I wonder is: what would comprise "a set of flawless communications you could not dispute"? I'm guessing that for Vox Day the threshold is pretty low, and any thought flitting through his brain might well be a communication directly from his god. A more important question might be: when Day's defense is that his god told him to kill all the toddlers, what possible evidence could he present in court that would keep him out of a mental institution for the homicidal and/or the appropriate Death Row?

And does he mean that we should no longer object to terrorists who, say, blow up the World Trade Center, because their god told them to, and who are we to argue?

No, no, no, no, Vox. It's not just that he "would not like it", it's the fact that it is written into his very nature by millions of years of our species evolutionary development. Killing children is bad for us as a species. Over the course of millions of years, our species has learned this.

To compare it to a toddler's temper-tantrum is disingenuous at the very least.

"Killing Children is bad for the species"? How so? After all Vox only noted killing of children under 2 years old. Maybe there is a birth defect in that generation that would add a harmful element to the gene pool?

As for "it's a fact that it is written into his very nature by millions of years of our species evolutionary development" then why do various species on the planet seek out competing young for elimination? Male lions will kill other male cubs. Tribes have killed tribes young so there wouldn't be competition for resources. "Morals" have never been an evolutionary genetic adaptation. It is purely social. If the goal of the species is survival for the next generation than eliminating competing elements to further my groups development would not be bad would it?

After all what use does a society or our species have for people with mental retardation or physical imperfections that prevent them from being productive? Better they be removed to allow for more useful members of the species. Only a group of people with some concept of life being some holy or sacred thing would advocate that the less desirable elements of our species should continue to live and drain resources from more productive elements.

So I ask you Atheist, why allow the weak to live and take the resources that could be better used for the more capable?

In the case of Vox's mind game there was never more information given then the statement of would you if ordered kill children. There was never a statement of if they were or were not problems with said children. If Vox trusts his god to be working in the best interest of the human species then why shouldn't he off the children?

Morals are the shared set of rules that allow our species to keep from killing itself off. Morals are an evolutionary survival strategy for our species. Murdering two year olds is contra-survival, hence it is immoral, no god needed to lay down the rules.

By this token, would abortion also be immoral?

Morality doesn't come from science--that's the naturalistic fallacy. Morality comes from philosophy.