The Bottom Line

[_SteelHead]

God is good?

By which definition?

Which god?

[_ludwigm]

God punished David and Bathsheba by killing their first baby

I've read an explanation somewhere (over the rainbow), on a fundamentalist site, that:

- it was not a punishment, it was only a linear consequence of their deeds...
As the death on the highway, while driving with 200 mph in rain, is a consequence only. Not a punishment.

Every phenomenon has a short, simpl, understandable, and wrong explanation.

[_PrickKicker]

Bible God is EVIL through and through...
Anger, Jealousy, WAR and Genital mutilation, Genocide, infanticide and Mosaic Laws of retaliation.

No point arguing about justification of Mormon God either, cold blooded murder with a Mormon. Just read 1Nephi 4...

Mormon Boy went to make a deal with a mafia boss, Mafia boss laughs and nicks his stuff. Mormon boy leaves, Mafia Boss gets drunk, Mormon boy finds him outside house after partying hard, unable to stand, Mormon boy takes sword and chops off mafia bosses head, Mormon boy lies and deceives dressed as mafia boss to steal metal plates.

Justified by God as a Joseph Smith needed to see them a couple of times before recalling the contents from memory with his face buried in a hat.

[_Sethbag]

So right and wrong are situational (by definition relativism), but it is all ok as long as it is god defining the situation?

Relativism is expressly manifest in the Joseph Smith quote, and in the scriptures I provided from Romans. If you are in the condition of being without the law, you can not transgress the law. But some one who has the law, doing the exact same thing, transgresses the law.

By definition, relativism.

By definition God is good, so again - there is no relativism involved. God isn't going to have us do something evil period. As I said, your assertion is ridiculous. There is no relativism here at all.

Well, if you support Joseph Smith as God's spokesman on Earth, apparently God disagrees with you. From the letter he wrote to Nancy Rigdon, we read...

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another."

"God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.

[_just me]

So right and wrong are situational (by definition relativism), but it is all ok as long as it is god defining the situation?

Relativism is expressly manifest in the Joseph Smith quote, and in the scriptures I provided from Romans. If you are in the condition of being without the law, you can not transgress the law. But some one who has the law, doing the exact same thing, transgresses the law.

By definition, relativism.

By definition God is good, so again - there is no relativism involved. God isn't going to have us do something evil period. As I said, your assertion is ridiculous. There is no relativism here at all.

God is good so if God did it or said to do it it is good because God is good.

The question is, what is good?

Anything the authors of the Bible, Book of Mormon, etc say God did.

[_SteelHead]

Worse than that, Mormon god is incompetent. The whole reason behind the justification of killing the mafia boss still happened. His blood was shed for naught.

And god saw that it was good.

[_just me]

I'm saying it can be recognized unequivocally as evil. Simply because a certain individual believes (or group or even society) that doing something evil is actually good does not make it so. I certainly don't believe in moral relavitism. Just because someone has biases, social preconceptions and a whole host of other factors that can distort their view of good and evil does not mean that neither exists and cannot be unequivocally identified. One does not imply the other at all. Our perceptions of what others choose (or base their decision on) does not have any effect on whether or not good and evil can be unequivocably identified and chosen between.

I'm still waiting for this list of unequivocally recognizable evil acts...

[_SteelHead]

Disobeying what god tells you to do, then, is the only absolute.


Which is great, as everything I do is mandated by god.

[_PrickKicker]

Worse than that, Mormon god is incompetent. The whole reason behind the justification of killing the mafia boss still happened. His blood was shed for naught.

And god saw that it was good.

There is a theory that as well as plagiarize chunks of the Bible and other books, Joseph Smith mirrored his own doings in some of the Book of Mormon stories, I wonder if this is one of them???

[_Tobin]

Well, if you support Joseph Smith as God's spokesman on Earth, apparently God disagrees with you. From the letter he wrote to Nancy Rigdon, we read...

That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another."

"God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.

I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If you are doing what God wants you to do, it is good by definition. There is no relativism involved. It can not be evil.