Post by Arlon10 on Jun 20, 2023 23:32:26 GMT
The question here is whether the god of the Bible was unusually cruel.
My claim is that the prevalence of evil in the Bible was not like today, and that it would be unfair to expect such massive problems to be solved by today's methods.
My claim is that the prevalence of evil in the Bible was not like today, and that it would be unfair to expect such massive problems to be solved by today's methods.
In the case of the first you have already admitted that your preferred deity's actions were "excessive" and "cruel". In the case of the latter I have just explained carefully why it is special pleading for actions such as genocide, rape, torture etc to be ever justified.
How you define evil is not relevant here. It is the quantity that is relevant here... the point is not whether it is evil by various definitions. The point is that it is not very many people.
In which case, if definitions of evil really are irrelevant I can say that that parking fines and dentists causing pain are 'evil' and are matters experienced all around the world, and in fact 'evil' is even more "rampant" today than I thought. I don't think you have thought this through lol
(If it was me btw, I would have opted for the proportion of evil, rather than quantity, as what is to be counted within a society and stick with what the majority consider to be really bad. But it's your choice and we shall go with that...)
I consider that the "evil" of eighty percent plus of the population of the world murdering and raping is not contested here. It needs no further examination or specification other than it's enormous quantity and apparent evil.
However to make this statement you will need to define what evil is to be so identified.. oh, that's right: definition is irrelevant....
I would be willing to concede that what you found in today's world is also "evil,"
But again, without a satisfactory definition you have no way of deciding this.
if we agree to call it that, is no comparison to the evil in ancient Bible times.
I took the trouble to provide you an illustration of how the quantity of evil can require different solutions. If it were ten to one against you, you would be hard pressed to act much like the god of the Bible did. If it were ten to one for you then less "cruel" solutions would be available. See how the quantity is the essential factor? Not "consequentialism"?
Finally, if an all powerful deity wanted to solve the issue of evil of peoples in the ancient world without slaughter, rape and torture by his followers he could just have softened the heart of the offenders, or simply given them a propensity to do better... God was, after all the person who repeatedly hardens peoples hearts when it suited, so why not work the reverse? bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/God-Hardening-People The way it happened we have a supposed god who chose the very worst alternative as a matter of process.
Luckily for you I have.
The first thing you need to know about debate is it must focus on a single issue. For example we might debate whether to add chicken to the menu of our restaurant. It is important to distinguish those things that matter to that decision and those that do not.
One thing that obviously does matter is what kind of chicken. Broiled? Fried? Cordon Bleu? Nuggets? If one team argues for Chicken Fricassée and the other team argues for Chicken Nuggets, there can be distractions.
Therefore before the debate begins it is necessary to have a "definition of terms" session that ensures we use the same definition of "chicken." (A more general debate is possible, but this is just for illustration. For example there could be a debate about "white meat" that precedes this one, and so on.) A common practice in the definition of terms session is to agree to all other definitions found in a particular edition of a particular dictionary in order to save time.
It saves much time because the "definition of evil" for example is not relevant to this discussion. Never will it arise in this particular debate that we should use chicken nuggets because evil is deontological. It is not related.
The problem with your style of debate is that it fails to achieve agreement on anything whatsoever before the debate. That would be like a person who only speaks French trying to debate a person who only speaks German. That is stupid and childish. That is why your "debates" devolve into nothing but nuisance.
When I say that the definition of evil is not relevant I mean that it is not relevant to our debate here, in this context. I explained why. Whether you define evil as deontological, consequential, or by Webster's New World College Dictionary 5th Edition 2020, it has no effect on the solutions of the scenarios I asked you examine.
Those solutions are clearly different either way and you lose the argument, no, evil is not like in ancient Bible times anymore.
Your complaint that I asserted the definition of evil is not relevant in any context shows how little you understand any context. Please do not do that again.