Kevin Wampler wrote:
> I suspect they might be more amenable to the concept that God's "good" 
> is superior (rather than inferior) to the human version. 

And what exactly does that mean?  That there are things God thinks are good 
that we think are evil?  That there are things we think are good that God 
thinks are evil? Both?

If God thinks things are good that we think are evil, then God isn't 
benevolent. After all, Hitler thought he was improving the race, so *he* 
didn't think it was evil.

If God thinks things are evil that we think are good, then God's will is 
that we do evil (as far as we know) things, which pretty much sums up the 
"you deserve to be tortured" bit.

> Theoretically 
>  it could also be the case that the underlying concepts are the same but 
> that God's decisions are so vast that we can't comprehend how the same 
> principles are are work.

In other words, "God really is good, but he's so mysterious that we can't 
tell that."  In other words, "the evil you see isn't really evil, but it's 
really good, because God willed it and God is good, even though we don't 
have any evidence supporting that in his behavior."

> Nevertheless, I should make clear that I wasn't talking about 
> "mainstream" Christian/Muslim viewpoints.  Perhaps the author was, and 
> by beef is really that he didn't make that more clear.

I think it's clear he's talking about a God who actually cares, yes.

> You could make the view work with a personal God by assuming that all 
> our earthly suffering end up being for the better (or unimportant) once 
> you consider the afterlife (not a traditional view, I'm aware, but I 
> think it's consistent).

And I think that falls under the "it's not really evil after all" argument. 
Neither polio and the holocaust are really bad, ya see, because otherwise 
God would be allowing bad things.

> Oh yes, certainly.  Under this view it's much tricker to make claims 
> about what God wants us to do, although I still think it's possible. For 
> instance, once could assume that morality is based on intent rather than 
> action.  Then we could still know what's good, and this would coincide 
> with what God thinks is good.  The difference is that we would have no 
> reason to think that we would actually *do* what God would have done, 
> but rather that what's important is that we did it for noble reasons.

Makes sense, but conflicts with people who want to tell you what to do 
because their God said so.

> Certainly many people have exactly these views, but since I'd 
> assumed he was making a broader argument his insistence on attacking 
> that one section seemed like a "straw man" argument to me.

Fair nuff.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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