tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664374791160483011.post732887382303919773..comments2022-07-01T02:56:40.753-07:00Comments on Tekton Forge: The Wolf With a Laugh TrackUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664374791160483011.post-79644742075299973512011-06-11T07:50:07.512-07:002011-06-11T07:50:07.512-07:00>>> I do think he's right that the ag...>>> I do think he's right that the agonistic society/"you're a bigot!" stuff is a distraction in this case. <br /><br />It's not. It's a spot-on description of his attitude.<br /><br />>>>The title of Copan's book is "Is /GOD/ a moral monster?"<br /><br />Book titles are seldom chosen by authors, but rather by publishers, based on ability to attract sales, how to fit into search parameters of book buying databases, etc. Reading anything into it is far too presumptuous.<br /><br />>>>Do God's moral standards change depending on whether God is interacting with an agonistic or non-agonistic culture?<br /><br />I made it quite clear that that is not the question. It is not a matter of God's standards changing but of observers like Stark failing to gather sufficient information on the data which affects the implementation of the standards. What he does is equivalent to asking why the same person, X, killed both A and B, where A is condemned and B is not, and howling about an inconsistency -- then failing to discuss that X is a police officer, A was robbing a bank and pulled a gun on him, and B was a baby in a carriage.<br /><br />>>> Can we agree that this practice is morally repugnant, and that "we", today, are right and the ancients who practiced it were "wrong" to do so? <br /><br />That won't work, sorry, because the implied assumption is that all possible moral questions are of an equivalent quality to child exposure. But since you think you have something here, let me ask you this: What if you could look forward and time and see that the child the parent was considering exposing to the elements would become Adolf Hitler -- and there was nothing you could do to raise him differently so he wouldn't kill millions of people?<br /><br />>>>And it would have nothing to do with bigotry or "chronological snobbery" to question whether God was truly the author of such an instruction.<br /><br />That's nice. However, as I said, cherry picking your moral example doesn't wash.<br /><br />>>>So unless you can demonstrate that God's moral standards vary depending on the culture He is interacting with, <br /><br />Like I said, that's not what I'm arguing. And it remains that bigotry is indeed Stark's method, as it is also with so many others, like the New Atheists.J. P Holdinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09917892597771877097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6664374791160483011.post-75988129439372236302011-06-11T03:30:22.523-07:002011-06-11T03:30:22.523-07:00Hi J.P.,
I don't really take Thom seriously h...Hi J.P.,<br /><br />I don't really take Thom seriously here, but I do think he's right that the agonistic society/"you're a bigot!" stuff is a distraction in this case. The title of Copan's book is "Is /GOD/ a moral monster?", and it's the actions attributed to God that are ultimately in view. Do God's moral standards change depending on whether God is interacting with an agonistic or non-agonistic culture?<br /><br />Let me give an example, which I've used before in a different context and for a different purpose. In the Greco-Roman world (and perhaps the ANE as well?), the practice of child exposure was a common way for a family to rid itself of an unwanted child. Can we agree that this practice is morally repugnant, and that "we", today, are right and the ancients who practiced it were "wrong" to do so? Well and good. But imagine, just hypothetically, that there was a statement in one of the epistles of Paul that endorsed child exposure as good Christian behavior. This would be a problem for us, because we'd have a case of God, through Paul, sanctioning something that is clearly morally wrong. And it would have nothing to do with bigotry or "chronological snobbery" to question whether God was truly the author of such an instruction.<br /><br />So unless you can demonstrate that God's moral standards vary depending on the culture He is interacting with, I think you do your audience a disservice to be dismissive of questions of this sort. I don't think Thom's answer is a very serious one, but I think that the fact that Copan wrote a book on the subject shows that it's a question that people struggle with, and playing the "bigot" card doesn't deal with it in a satisfying or serious way.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14734586120736013744noreply@blogger.com