lpetrich

Over in a long-running thread in E/C, "This discussion is continued from the Thread on First Cause in EoG", the following exchange happened:

lp:
Xenophanes was right: people create gods in their likeness.
Ed:
It is unlikely that the Christian God is man made given his high moral standards. A man made god would let you have sex with whomever you want and let you lie whenever you want and etc.
lp:
That's baloney. Simply check out the moral codes of different societies, especially societies whose members had never heard of the Bible.
Ed:
Name one.
lp:
Read the Negative Confession in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. When one is judged in the next world, one is supposed to assert that one has not committed any of a long list of sins. And the god Osiris will check if you are telling the truth. Sins which include

Adultery
Homosexual acts
Theft
Violence
Blocking of water supplies
Disrespect for the Gods
Malicious sorcery
Anger
Talking too much

Ed:
Egyptian religion does not treat women as well as Christianity does.
LP:
Ingenious comeback. It must be embarrassing to discover that other societies have "real" moral codes.

Also, Pharaonic Egyptian religion had female as well as male priests, which is more than could be said of nearly all of Christianity until recent decades.
(end of exchange)

Do Ed's views make any sense at all?

ManM

Be careful, C.S. Lewis takes the similarity between different culture's morality to be evidence of a natural moral law.

But yes, it appears that Ed is making a weak argument that we would create immoral Gods if we fashioned them in our own image. I think your evidence casts sufficient doubt on his argument.

[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: ManM ]</p>