Gothic_J

just cuz I like to collect quesitons that make the christians think -

would you kill someone if god told you to? you have absolute assurance its god.
what if it was a family member?
what if it was your child?
if you had the option of renouncing your faith and having a family member die, what would you choose?
what if it was your child?
someone you never met?

anyoen else have questiosn in similar tone?

GakuseiDon

would you kill someone if god told you to? you have absolute assurance its god.

Yes.

what if it was a family member?

Yes.

what if it was your child?

Yes.

These aren't biblical questions. They aren't even moral questions. It is a question of logic and courage. Once you introduce "you are assured it is God" then there can only be one logical answer, as if I'm convinced that it is God, and I'm convinced that God is omnibenevolent, then the logical alternative to not doing what God asks means that you are allowing something even worse to happen.

So, let me ask you:

Would you kill someone if you thought it was the best thing to do? You have absolute assurance it is the best thing to do.
What if it was a family member?
What if it was your child?

spin

Given that communications with gods are on a par with the schizophrenic and his phantasies -- ie not independently verifiable --, I'd recommend that someone protect GakuseiDon's family from any such communications of his with his god.


spin

spin

No. Killing in no sense can be justified.

No.

No.

Let me give you absolute assurance that killing yourself is for the greater good of the universe and would allow you finally meet your maker and set you free from the vile body your soul inhabits, thus making it pure and ready for its resurrection body, and relieving us of another potentially dangerously deviated mind.


spin

Attonitus

This simply means that the human life doesn't have any value for a fundamentalist, this is always willing to kill and to die for their idea. Unfortunately, after to kill their own son, the fundamentalist would sit down peacefully to see a baseball game with the calm conscience for the duty compliment. That demonstrates that every time is more necessary to introduce the atheism like obligatory subject in the Schools, many children would thank it!

Vinnie

No. Killing in no sense can be justified.

In the Trolley experiment it can:

"Imagine you're at the wheel of a trolley and the breaks have failed. You're approaching a fork in the track at top speed. On the left side five railroad workers are fixing the track. On your right side, there is a single worker. If you do nothing the trolley will bear left and kill the five workers. The only way to save five lives is to take the responsibility for changing the trolley's path by hitting by hitting a switch. Then you will kill one worker. What would you do?"

This seems relatively straight forward. The greater good is to pull the switch and save the five but lets look at the situation from a slightly different angle

This time imagine that you are watching the runaway trolley from a footbridge. "This time there is no fork in the track. Instead, five workers are on it, facing certain death, But you happen to be standing next to a big man. If you sneak up on him and push him off the footbridge, he will fall to his death. Because he is so big, he will stop the trolley. Do you willfully kill one man, or do you allow five people to die?"

Logically, both of these thought experiments should have similar answers. The greater good requires sacrificing one life for the five but if you poll your friends you will probably find that many more are willing to pull a switch than sneak up behind and push a man off a bridge. It is very difficult to explain why what seems right in one scenario can feel so wrong in another with similar parameters. Evolution may hold the key to unraveling this mystery.

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/morality.html

Vinnie

Vinnie

These aren't biblical questions. They aren't even moral questions. It is a question of logic and courage. Once you introduce "you are assured it is God" then there can only be one logical answer, as if I'm convinced that it is God, and I'm convinced that God is omnibenevolent, then the logical alternative to not doing what God asks means that you are allowing something even worse to happen.

You are correct granted the assumptions but there is nothing "rational" about killing your children .It goes against the created order itself. In your own view it goes against all the God-instilled values we have. You can't paint is as so black and white. If it was Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son wouldn't de beemed to heroic by modern exegetes.

On a realistic level problems abound.

"Deity" says murder they family. To me this is proof itself it is not a deity.

Second, if there is some huge reason why God needs my child or family killed, why must he enlist my aid?

If he just likes to test people he can play in his little sandbox all alone.

Vinnie

GakuseiDon

Vinnie, I agree with you completely. But I can only go with the premises I am given, which I'll point out I didn't create. Logically, given the information provided, I have to go with the best decision possible. Since the premise is that I am absolutely certain that this is the best thing to do, I would have to do it, since the logical alternative of not doing it is that something even worse will happen.

Saying "it's wrong" goes against the premise itself, since by definition God couldn't command you to do something wrong and still be God. Anyone who says "no" is not thinking logically, based on the premises given in the original question.

Attonitus

I agree fully, but unfortunately it seems that not all the Christians think as you. The trolley case it is a problem of election of smaller harm, but in the subject is being justified a murder for a Christian.

spin

Justification is not a democratic process, nor is it when one chooses between saving one life or many. One can deliberately construct a situation in which someone must die, a dilemma in which one is supposed to conclude that it is best to kill fewer lives. These are nearly always unrealistic situations in which the stereotyped response is the sought after one which ultimately justifies killing someone, anyone, and allows for various fancy sophistries to be developed on the cliche, that eventually justifies other sorts of killings, allowing the Texas state murder frenzies of the bush heyday. No, the trolley is a purile cliche aimed at forcing people to accept the dilemma. An unwitting person forced to make a decision about who dies doesn't justify the killing. We then sue the railroad for criminal negligence. Still the killing is not justified. And the sooner we see these sorts of ruses for what they are, the more likely we are to prevent more deaths.


spin