Question for theists

[groverat]

I am grabbing this question from hearing someone on talk radio (riding in a co-worker's car) today. The discussion was more about religion as a guiding moral force, but it brought this related question to mind: If God commanded you to kill someone, would you do it?

This means whatever god you believe in/worship and the revelation is in any form you would find convincing. The situation is this: You absolutely cannot deny, in any way, that you have been commanded to kill, your only remaining choice is whether or not to act on it.

Would the victim seeming evil make it easier? Could you kill a mass murderer if commanded?
Would the victim seeming innocent make it harder? Could you kill a seemingly innocent mother of four?

It is poor form to start off a thread without participating in its central premise, and for that I apologize, but I simply cannot because I am an atheist.

[midwinter]

The Abraham question. I like it.

[tonton]

I am an atheist too, but I would like to add my 2c that I would not kill someone no matter who tells me to do so. I guess that rules out soldier and president as career paths for me.

[thuh Freak]

The Abraham question. I like it.

I prefer it as the "Highway 61" question:

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."
-bob dylan

[southside grabowski]

This comes down to how strong your faith is. Abraham held such great faith that he had no doubt the command was from his God. Most would question their faith and question if the command truly was from God.

Moe

[reg]

If you are assigned jury duty can you vote for the death penalty? It isn't your hand that is doing the injecting or throwing the switch but it is your voice that says it should be done.

So to answer your questions. I feel that God also acts as my conscience.
Therefore I could not kill someone that I feel is an innocent.
I have been on a jury where someone was put to death - so yes I have killed someone.

There is no defined line that someone would have to cross to make them eligible to be killed. Everyone has to decide for themself where that line is. Also could you live with your conscience for either saying" Yes, I will do it". Or "No, no one should be killed/murdered". If you said no and a mass murderer escaped and killed someone you knew, how will your conscience react? Would you feel that God was punishing you for not obeying. Just some more food for thought.

[Placebo]

The Abraham thing was a test, so who would follow through knowing that God would only be playing tricks with you?

[shetline]

Don't you have to go with what the voices in your head tell you to do, no matter who they are? :devil:

[BRussell]

I would only kill if shetline commanded me to.

[MacRR]

There are many serial killers who kill because god told them to.

[groverat]

So to answer your questions. I feel that God also acts as my conscience.
Therefore I could not kill someone that I feel is an innocent.

You are avoiding the question.

[@_@ Artman]

If I tell you I hear a voice commanding me to kill someone. Shoot me.

/or at least get me medical attention

[709]

The Abraham question. I like it.
A good rundown (http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/god_tests_abraham/gn22_01a.html) for those semi-unfamiliar with the story.

[shetline]

You are avoiding the question.
I avoided it too, but I'll try to get into it more seriously now.

A problem I have with your hypothetical question is that it states as a given that one truly believes one is receiving a Message from God, that one is completely convinced of this.

My greatest objection to someone who would kill another person based on religious notions is that they'd be arrogant enough to let themselves become convinced, arrogant enough to dismiss all self-doubt about their own ability to determine what's real and what isn't to such an extent that they'd blindly take another person's life with nothing else to go on.

Any of us could end up in a situation where we have to decide the fate of another person, and directly or indirectly end that person's life. In a situation of self-defense, you might not have much time to ponder the decision very deeply, but at least you'd have a clear reason to kill, and it's the person you'd be killing who'd be the one forcing the quick decision upon you. In other situations (say you're on the jury deciding a death penalty case, or on the firing squad which carries out that sentence) you then at least know that there's a (supposedly) careful process leading to an action which is not to be taken lightly.

But to take accept nothing more than visions and sounds which, while possibly startling realistic to you are still very much divorced from the normal flow of reality, to accept one's own internal emotional states as being such a great arbiter of right and wrong, that you dismiss the obvious need to question your own sanity before acting to harm another person in a final and irreversible way based on so little to go on, strikes me at best as monumentally stupid and ignorant, if not unforgivably arrogant.

I suppose a person who never really cared much about the welfare of other people to begin with, who only treated others well and avoided causing them harm to the extent that he wanted to curry favor or avoid earthly or divine punishment, might have very little problem letting himself become convinced of such a thing.

I'm not a theist myself, but if I accept the premise of your hypothetical question, I wouldn't have to be one until this magically convincing event occurred anyway. This event would have to have the power to turn an atheist into a theist on the spot were it so powerfully convincing. Given that I was truly convinced, and given much that might naturally follow from being so thoroughly convinced -- that God was an authority Who had to be respected, that His judgments were just, that He could fry my ass for eternity if I don't get with the program -- then like it or not, I'd say that yes, I'd have to try to do what God told me to do.

[SDW2001]

I don't think God would "tell" anybody to kill anyone else. I don't think that's how He works.

[groverat]

I don't think God would "tell" anybody to kill anyone else. I don't think that's how He works.

Was Abraham delusional? Moses?

[midwinter]

I don't think God would "tell" anybody to kill anyone else. I don't think that's how He works.


1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.

2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

[BRussell]

Half the Pentateuch is God telling people when they should kill each other.

[SDW2001]

I still stand by my statement. And btw, I don't beleive every word of the bible is true, either.

[segovius]

You absolutely cannot deny, in any way, that you have been commanded to kill, your only remaining choice is whether or not to act on it.

The question is flawed. Deeply.

Here is where: if it was the case that You absolutely cannot deny, in any way, that you have been commanded to kill then this would constitute absolute proof of God.

You may have meant something like you absolutely BELIEVE that.... which is indeed the state of many religionists but in fact, the only people who could hold such absolute views -ie no doubt whatsoever - would be psychopathic cases.

I don't mean to refer to fundies by that as I think they have moments of doubt but rather people like Serial Killers who really are mentally ill.

So if we discount psychopaths and the mentally ill, it is clear that everyone who believes in God at some point experiences doubt. These doubts would be excacerbated should 'God' start advocating mass-murder.

But to answer the question - if you had actual proof that God existed and actual proof that He wanted you to kill then why not? You would have to - who can argue with God? It is just obeying a command of the Creator of all that ever existed to destroy one part of that creation - and of course, God could fix it subsequently with the odd bit of resurrection.

Oth, short of absolute proof - and we always are short of that proof whatever we believe, that's why it's belief - then it is morally wrong (imo) to act upon such injunctions.

In fact I would say it is wrong to act on any seemingly divine injunctions by the same token and would argue that this is implicit in all religions and their Scriptures in their original form. In fact the Abraham story is a classic example of one such 'intelligence test'.

[BRussell]

But to answer the question - if you had actual proof that God existed and actual proof that He wanted you to kill then why not? You would have to - who can argue with God? Hi segovius. Your post is interesting to me. But I have to ask: Would you really obey God just because you knew it was God? If the president of your country, or the dictator, or your boss, or your parents, told you to do something, would you do it? I'd hope that we would ask ourselves whether what we're being commanded to do is right or not. You can go to prison for obeying your commanding officer in the military, if his command is illegal. You might say that God the Creator is different, and not just any other authority figure. But is He different enough that we should obey without question?

The reason I ask is that I think it raises a more general question about religion: Should people evaluate whether they agree with a religion, separate from whether they believe in the religion's assumptions? Put another way, aren't there two basic questions to ask about a religion:
1. Is it true? and
2. Is it moral?

People often stop with 1., which I think is a mistake because it's really unknowable anyway. But we can evaluate the morality of the religion, and, in my view, it fails that test miserably. The idea of American-style fundie Christianity, that God worshippers will get eternal rewards and those who don't will get eternal torture, is not a moral religion, true or not, and I'd hope that I would be a "dissident" from that religion even if I believed that it was true. That type of Christianity is the moral equivalent of Saddam's Iraq. Saddam was, by all accounts, very good to his own "chosen" people and to those who were loyal to him, i.e., those who worshipped him. He tortured and killed those who did not worship him. How is that different from the God of the fundies?

So that returns to the original question: If Yahweh decided that Leviticus needed to be enforced better, and you were convinced that this really was Him, would you go out and stone homosexuals and people with open sores or menstruating women who dared to go to Church? Or would you have the nads to say that you think Yahweh is a sonofabitch and tell him to go fuck hisself.

[segovius]

Hi segovius. Your post is interesting to me. But I have to ask: Would you really obey God just because you knew it was God? If the president of your country, or the dictator, or your boss, or your parents, told you to do something, would you do it? I'd hope that we would ask ourselves whether what we're being commanded to do is right or not. You can go to prison for obeying your commanding officer in the military, if his command is illegal. You might say that God the Creator is different, and not just any other authority figure. But is He different enough that we should obey without question?

The reason I ask is that I think it raises a more general question about religion: Should people evaluate whether they agree with a religion, separate from whether they believe in the religion's assumptions? Put another way, aren't there two basic questions to ask about a religion:
1. Is it true? and
2. Is it moral?

People often stop with 1., which I think is a mistake because it's really unknowable anyway. But we can evaluate the morality of the religion, and, in my view, it fails that test miserably. The idea of American-style fundie Christianity, that God worshippers will get eternal rewards and those who don't will get eternal torture, is not a moral religion, true or not, and I'd hope that I would be a "dissident" from that religion even if I believed that it was true. That type of Christianity is the moral equivalent of Saddam's Iraq. Saddam was, by all accounts, very good to his own "chosen" people and to those who were loyal to him, i.e., those who worshipped him. He tortured and killed those who did not worship him. How is that different from the God of the fundies?

So that returns to the original question: If Yahweh decided that Leviticus needed to be enforced better, and you were convinced that this really was Him, would you go out and stone homosexuals and people with open sores or menstruating women who dared to go to Church? Or would you have the nads to say that you think Yahweh is a sonofabitch and tell him to go fuck hisself.

Hi, how are you? Good I hope!

Yes, I think you have identified the central paradox of religion. It is interesting to argue the points it raises but I think beforehand one must state that this paradox is not only the central core of most theistic religions but also that these religions are well aware of it and - in a certain sense - their original message can be seen solely as an approach to the problem.

It is implicit in very many places in both the Bible and Qur'an foe example. One example from Islam:

Satan's crime and fall in the Islamic view was not the same as in the Biblical one (although this Bible does not go into detail). In the Islamic story, God commands Satan to bow and worship Adam after God has created him.

Satan refuses - no reason is given but God therefore exiles him and this is his 'fall'. The implicit message is that Satan has disobeyed God - which he has - but the fact is that God had commanded him to break a command; ie not to worship anything other than God.

This has resulted in Satan being regarded as the 'first Monotheist' by certain Muslim groupings but it is a very interesting paradox and is echoed elsewhere in the Qur'an by the so-called 'Satanic Verses' where Islamic legal opinion conceded that it was possible for Satan to mimic God and even interpolate verses into Scripture. This inevitably leads to the question that if this is so, then how are we to know which Scripture is 'true' and which 'false'

It is the same with Groverat's question essentially: which God is real? The killer or the loving God? Or are they the same?

I think that these paradoxes are not contradictions or interpolations as some critics believe but are intentional in both the Bible and Qur'an.

Imo, their purpose is to move the believer away from reliance on authority figures or scripture and put them in a place where they answer solely to their own conscience and know the 'voice of God' without reference to any literal injunction. That's what Scripture is - it was designed that way. But that's just my opinion.

Oh, sorry, I meant to address some of your points as they are fascinating but I've gone off on one...

Re the last point, I think that there can be an element of where 'local' or tribal Gods (of war) can if they are attributed responsibility for a tribe's success in war or conquest, become transmuted over time from 'a god' to 'God'.

Because they are regarded as 'God' now at the end of a large historical span does not mean they started out that way so we may not be comparing like with like. Todays' 'God' may have elements of yesterday's demons and that would explain a lot.

Clearly many late Israelite conceptions of God differ substantially over time and at least one is a grafting on to a monotheistic base of the Canaanite Volcano god.

[shetline]

Or would you have the nads to say that you think Yahweh is a sonofabitch and tell him to go fuck hisself.
If I absolutely knew I there was a God anything remotely like the Biblical God, He was giving me a command, and that failure to obey that command would result in eternal damnation... I'd obey. No question about it. With that much on the line, I'd be looking out for myself and my eternal interests. Dying is a small thing compared to infinite suffering.

I'll freely admit I have a price and can be bought or intimidated at some point. I think this is true for nearly everyone if they're honest about it. I once posed a similar hypothetical question, but with higher stakes, that went like this:

For me, this is an extremely hypothetical question because I don't believe in an afterlife of any sort. The particular Fundamentalist Christian conceptions of a Heaven of eternal bliss and a Hell of eternal torment seems particularly unrealistic.

A lot of people seem to think you can't have morality without belief in something like this, that you have to believe there's an ultimate Carrot and an ultimate Stick of some sort. Many Christians and other believers tone down their conception of Justice in the afterlife from the Fundamentalist view, seeing a God who's a bit more level-headed about making punishments fit their crimes, but still like to believe that Ultimate Justice exists, and that belief in metaphysically enforced justice is required for morality.

Others see the Carrot and the Stick as besides the point. Valuing goodness for the sake of goodness, avoiding causing undue harm to others because such harm is offensive in and itself, regardless of any potential rewards and punishments, is what real morality is about. One could counter-argue that such a view is still carrot/stick, however, that the rewards and punishments are still there, but that they are simply one's internal feelings about one's actions.

At any rate, take it as given for sake of argument that something like the Fundamentalist Heaven and Hell exist, and you have come to know without a doubt they are real.

God says to you, "You've lead a good life and I'm prepared to send you to Heaven, but there's a problem. I can't send you to Heaven unless I send X people to Hell, many of whom also deserve Heaven, some of who you love dearly. If you sacrifice your spot in Heaven, and accept eternal torment in Hell for yourself, many others can be saved." You are further guaranteed that if you choose Heaven, God will free you from any sense of guilt you might feel about your decision. Nothing will interfere with your full and complete enjoyment of your heavenly experience.

What would you do? Would it make a difference if X were one, ten, a thousand, or a billion?

Take it as given that this is not a trick question, that no one is ever, ever going to reward you for your sacrifice. No one is ever going to so much as pat you on the back, much less reduce the degree or eternal duration of your torment, for being selfless. Saying "I can't believe God would ever put someone in that position!" is besides the point, and just a way of wiggling out of the hypothetical dilemma.

Me? Given those choices, I'm afraid I choose Heaven, and even if a billion or more would suffer for my choice, I'd literally say "to Hell with them". I'd feel like I had no choice but to be selfish and look out for Number One.

And here are some of my responses to the expected attempts to wiggle out of the terms of the hypothetical question, or who didn't really get how horrible a fate I'm talking about...

To someone who suggested "...trying to gather an army of hells minions to dispose of the piece of shit. Hey, its eternity...maybe I could succeed eventually.":
Nice sentiment but it's side-stepping the point of the hypothetical question, which isn't at all about the nature of God and how just or unjust that God is, but how far you are personally willing to go with self-sacrifice when there is not only a lack of reward for making a moral choice, but a terrible and unending penalty for doing so.

Take it as given in this scenario that God is all powerful and simply cannot be overthrown by any means. Further, in Heaven you and everyone else there are too blissed out no matter what you remember or [don't remember] to try to change anything. In Hell you're powerless to do anything but suffer -- it's not like you get to chat about how bad Hell with the guy shrieking away next to you in the Lake of Fire, and try to make plans with him. If you ever did feel like you were making a plan to overthrow God, it would only be a Sisyphean set-up meant to crush you with even more despair and feelings of futility when it inevitably failed.

To someone who said, ""I’d cheerfully go to hell just to spite him [God]":
..that's awfully damned expensive spite! :D

I'll repeat this again: I do NOT believe in this conception of Hell. But the point of the hypothetical question is to take that kind of Hell as a given, and consider how far you'd go to avoid it. I think a God that would create such situations is repugnant too, but again, that's beside the point.

Imagine someone sticking hot pokers into you eyes and every orifice of your body while simultaneous ripping out your intestines. Now imagine that the torment of Hell would make that, by comparison, seem like a relaxing back rub. Imagine that physical pain is just a part of your torment. You feel terrified, helpless, hopeless and utterly alone to a degree no human has every experienced. Now imagine this goes on FOREVER, and that your mind is not allowed to retreat from the suffering, no madness of internal illusion is allowed to form into which you can escape, there is never any numbing or desensitization. Unimaginably crushing torment without end.

No comforting thoughts can possibly form. You'll never have any comfort in recalling, "Well, at least I did the right thing" or "I stood up proudly for what's right". If you can recall at all that your own decision landed you in Hell, that would only add to your torment by filling you with burning self-loathing for having put yourself in Hell. Even the tiny comfort of blaming God or anyone else would not be allowed to enter your mind.

If you're grasping what I'm getting at, I sincerely doubt you'd face that just to make a point about unfairness.

I'm not asking anyone to believe any of this is so -- I'm asking people to take it as a hypothetical given that it is so, and go from there.

To someone who said, "I'd swap myself for one person, anyone. Why? Because living in paradise while others were tortured is one of the worst fates I can think of. Who cares about 'guilt over the decision' - PEOPLE ARE STILL IN HELL! SAVE THEM!" I again had to remind this person that by the terms of the question, absolutely nothing is worse than the inescapable suffering you'd experience by sacrificing yourself, certainly not the pangs of a guilty conscience and worrying about others while you'd be in Heaven, a place where all such worries would automatically be soothed away and replaced with boundless joy.

[BRussell]

Hi, how are you? Good I hope! Yes, good, et tu? A few months ago MarcUK was telling everyone that you were dead. Glad to see you recovered.
Re the last point, I think that there can be an element of where 'local' or tribal Gods (of war) can if they are attributed responsibility for a tribe's success in war or conquest, become transmuted over time from 'a god' to 'God'.

Because they are regarded as 'God' now at the end of a large historical span does not mean they started out that way so we may not be comparing like with like. Todays' 'God' may have elements of yesterday's demons and that would explain a lot.

Clearly many late Israelite conceptions of God differ substantially over time and at least one is a grafting on to a monotheistic base of the Canaanite Volcano god. That's a good point. Prior to full-on monotheism, it made sense to believe in a religion but not [i[agree[/i] with it. YOu could believe that another tribe had their god, but still choose not to worship that god. Or you could pick your favorite Greek/Roman god, but maintain a belief in the others. Today, it's almost unthinkable to believe that a religion is true but to reject it anyway. If you believe in Christianity, you're a Christian, if you believe in Allah and that Mohammed was His prophet, you're a Muslim.

I wonder if you could say that, with the spread of monotheism, belief became equated to acceptance?

[BRussell]

If I absolutely knew I there was a God anything remotely like the Biblical God, He was giving me a command, and that failure to obey that command would result in eternal damnation... I'd obey. No question about it. With that much on the line, I'd be looking out for myself and my eternal interests. Dying is a small thing compared to infinite suffering. Yeah, that's a good point, and I like your hypothetical. I'd go further and admit that I might also do what Saddam told me to do (though I'd like to believe otherwise).

But now we're at least questioning it. We're acknowledging that, even though it's immoral to stone homosexuals, God is bigger than me so I'll do it to avoid punishment. It seems to me that question is rarely asked. Fundie Christians seem to assume that God not only exists, but is by definition morally right.

But it's not just fundies. Even liberal Christians will say "I don't believe God wants us to stone homosexuals," and often go to the trouble of textual criticism and historical analysis of the Bible to prove their point. YOu don't hear liberal Christians say "I think God wants us to stone homosexuals but I disagree with God on that one." It's almost unthinkable.

So why is that? I can't believe it's just fear of punishment that's driving it. It seems to me almost a kind of naturalistic fallacy: If it's true, it's good. If God exists, whatever He does must be correct. And if I believe this or that rule is not morally correct, it mustn't be the way God really works.

[segovius]

Yes, good, et tu? A few months ago MarcUK was telling everyone that you were dead. Glad to see you recovered.

Yes, some such inkling did filter through the Underworld to my Stygian gloom. I do feel a lot better though, thanks - but if he starts claiming responsibility for my resurrection then I think we may need to start worrying.

Slightly more than we do already.


That's a good point. Prior to full-on monotheism, it made sense to believe in a religion but not [i[agree[/i] with it. YOu could believe that another tribe had their god, but still choose not to worship that god. Or you could pick your favorite Greek/Roman god, but maintain a belief in the others. Today, it's almost unthinkable to believe that a religion is true but to reject it anyway. If you believe in Christianity, you're a Christian, if you believe in Allah and that Mohammed was His prophet, you're a Muslim.

I wonder if you could say that, with the spread of monotheism, belief became equated to acceptance?

Yes, in a way, gods were currency weren't they? Tradable commodities that could confer inter-tribal links and business arrangements. The system fell into abeyance though with the emergence of cities and Nations based around structured economic factors and in many ways, religion is a remnant of the previous tribal economic frameworks.

I think this is why Yahweh was so insistent that the Israelites have not other gods. He didn't say there were none - he just forbade His people to take them before him.

Clearly, dietary restrictions and the status of women or slaves are also political expediencies and reflect more on socio-economic factors than divine decree.

Have you ever read Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_th e_Bicameral_Mind) ?

I think he has a lot of interesting things to say on the issue of 'God' speaking to people in terms of psychological and evolutionary theory.

[midwinter]

If I absolutely knew I there was a God anything remotely like the Biblical God, He was giving me a command, and that failure to obey that command would result in eternal damnation... I'd obey.

I think Stanley Milgram would point out that it doesn't even have to be a God.

[BRussell]

Have you ever read Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_th e_Bicameral_Mind) ?

I think he has a lot of interesting things to say on the issue of 'God' speaking to people in terms of psychological and evolutionary theory. Yeah, I saw him give a talk at my university and even talked to him for a bit afterwards. I don't really buy his ideas though. :D I just doubt that humans evolved in such a sudden and dramatic way in such a short time.

[BRussell]

I think Stanley Milgram would point out that it doesn't even have to be a God. NOr does there have to be a threat of eternal damnation; a gentle prompting will do.

[midwinter]

NOr does there have to be a threat of eternal damnation; a gentle prompting will do.


And according to Zimbardo, we don't even need that.

[groverat]

segovius:

Here is where: if it was the case that You absolutely cannot deny, in any way, that you have been commanded to kill then this would constitute absolute proof of God.

No it would not, it would constitute an individual's absolute belief in the existence of god. What mental hula-hooping happens before you arrive at the conclusion that someone else's convictions on an idea are proof of that idea's veracity?

That is absolutely bizarre.

Oth, short of absolute proof - and we always are short of that proof whatever we believe, that's why it's belief - then it is morally wrong (imo) to act upon such injunctions.

Where does one who is convinced of god's existence get morals that disagree with god's?

It is the same with Groverat's question essentially: which God is real? The killer or the loving God? Or are they the same?

That is not my question at all.

[shetline]

No it would not, it would constitute an individual's absolute belief in the existence of god. What mental hula-hooping happens before you arrive at the conclusion that someone else's convictions on an idea are proof of that idea's veracity?

That is absolutely bizarre.
I think the only that's bizarre is how you're reading this and making a big fuss about the wrong this. :D

I think all Segovius is saying is that, [i]as far as this person who believes he's getting a command from God is concerned[i] -- for that person and no one else -- the existence of God has essentially been "proven". All doubts that one person might possibly have about the existence of God would have to go away, part and parcel, with being absolutely convinced he was receiving a command from said God.

No one's trying to say that one person's absolute conviction about a thing constitutes proof to anyone else!

[midwinter]

Yeah, I saw him give a talk at my university and even talked to him for a bit afterwards. I don't really buy his ideas though. :D I just doubt that humans evolved in such a sudden and dramatic way in such a short time.

I think that book is fascinating, but like you, my friends in psych think he's a little nutty.

[MarcUK]

Slightly more than we do already.

damn it, you're early, you weren't supposed to reappear until the fifth day of Pancha Ganapati.

;)

but anyway, i hope you enjoyed the book I sent you - i actually thought you'd found tantric happiness, sorry to hear it was 'gloom'.

[MarcUK]

and on topic, I wouldn't need to be convinced by that I had received a message from God to kill someone - i think I could do it all on my own.

[segovius]

I think the only that's bizarre is how you're reading this and making a big fuss about the wrong this. :D

I think all Segovius is saying is that, [i]as far as this person who believes he's getting a command from God is concerned[i] -- for that person and no one else -- the existence of God has essentially been "proven". All doubts that one person might possibly have about the existence of God would have to go away, part and parcel, with being absolutely convinced he was receiving a command from said God.

No one's trying to say that one person's absolute conviction about a thing constitutes proof to anyone else!

Actually, although you could argue that, my point was more in line with Groverat's interpretation. He is just not following through on the logic for some reason - maybe he can't grasp it or doesn't like where it leads :D

Let's break it down sequentially and follow the logic:

1) There cannot ever be ontological proof of God's existence.

2) Therefore, anyone who claims they have such proof is delusional. They can believe in God but claiming proof is by definition an untrue statement as such proof cannot exist.

3) Therefore, Groverat's original criteria of: "you absolutely cannot deny, in any way, that you have been commanded to kill, your only remaining choice is whether or not to act on it" in reality applies solely to delusional (or delusion religious) people and not to religious people as an inclusive group.

Ie: someone who had no doubt in the way he describes would be by definition delusional and that invalidates the question.

Basically, as it applies exclusively to delusional individuals and as this group by definition includes psychopaths who are often drawn to religious symbolism relating to their psychological imbalance then the question as to whether such an individual would kill is moot.

For the question to be valid, the post should be addressed to 'delusional people' rather than 'theists' - many of whom are capable of entertaining doubts as to their faith at various times.

[iPoster]

I only listen to my Dog....;)

/Runs out of thread...

[BRussell]

And according to Zimbardo, we don't even need that. Glad to see you have kept up on your classic psychology experiments. ;) Electric shocks and prisons, those were the good old days of psychology! Now everyone is too interested in "ethics." Bah.

[BRussell]

I think that book is fascinating, but like you, my friends in psych think he's a little nutty. I firmly believe that book's success is based about 95% on its fancy-sounding title.

[shetline]

They are linked to you telepathically. You can hear them inside your head.

http://www.shetline.com/img/arthur_and_lyta_head_together_on_hearth.jpg

The rabbits demand the death of the pizza delivery guy. Kill him! KILL HIM NOW!!! :devil:

[midwinter]

I firmly believe that book's success is based about 95% on its fancy-sounding title.

To be honest, I still don't quite know what "the breakdown of the bi-cameral mind" means. Is it just the corpus collosum? Or is it something else?

[talksense101]

Hinduism doesn't share the same views as Christians and Muslims do on God and existence. This question doesn't apply. Explanation can be found on Wikipedia. Read the section on Brahman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism

[MarcUK]

Brahma = Abraham