franz kiekeben
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WHY CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS SHOULD LOVE ABORTION

4/17/2015

4 Comments

 
How anyone can read the older parts of the Bible and find it inspirational is beyond me. What could Christian philosopher Paul Copan possibly be referring to when he mentions “the warm moral ethos of the Old Testament”? Yahweh, as anyone with decent morals and a rational mind will agree, was an evil monster who commanded, among other things, that children and infants in conquered tribes – as well as the mothers holding them – be put to the sword by the ancient Israelites.

Such evil commands are among the most difficult things for the religious to justify. But of course that doesn't prevent them from trying. Copan, along with such apologists as William Lane Craig, Norman Geisler, Thomas Howe, and probably many others, claim that this slaughter of children was in fact a good thing. Why? Well, according to Craig, since “God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation” – the idea being that otherwise they would be hell-bound. Geisler and Howe, in their Big Book of Bible Difficulties, even have the gall to describe the slaughter as “an act of God’s mercy” towards these helpless victims.

Now, atheists of course aren't going to agree – but that might be because we do not follow the dictates of an all-knowing and perfectly good being, and as a result have a screwed-up sense of right and wrong. If, however, one does believe that Yahweh is morally perfect, one must find some justification for the slaughter – and the only way such an action could be justified is if the children actually benefited from it. Anything less (such as Craig's alternative justification that God has the right to kill whomever he pleases) is – again for anyone who is decent and rational – wholly inadequate.

But even if one is convinced that the slaughter was good for the children, a problem remains. For if the fact that killing the conquered children at an early age was justified as a way of giving them a “get into heaven free” card, then why wouldn't the same thing go for many – in fact, most – children living today? After all, only some of us, according to Christian apologists, make it to heaven, so allowing anyone to reach an age at which they might believe in the wrong thing places their eternal soul at great risk.

Now, there are a few ways an apologist might attempt to differentiate the Biblical slaughter from other cases of infanticide. For one thing, God commanded the Biblical slaughter, but apparently isn't commanding anyone to go on a similar rampage today. But that doesn't really work, not if what justifies the Biblical slaughter is that it was a good thing for the children. Whether or not God commands it is in that case irrelevant.

Another thing one might say is that in the Ten Commandments, God specifically prohibits killing. However, the real meaning of that isn't “thou shall not kill,” but rather “thou shall not murder.” Killing can be justified, for instance, in self-defense, certain wars, and so on. And if what one is doing is a good thing, why wouldn't it be justified? That is what the apologists usually claim in the case of the Biblical slaughter: there is something that makes those killings good rather than bad; otherwise God would be commanding something wrong (and would be violating his own injunction against murder).

The best way for the apologist to avoid the horrific conclusion that infanticide ought to be practiced is for him to point out that there is a better alternative. It is preferable to send souls to heaven even earlier. An abortion, especially one in the first trimester, is certainly easier to accept than infanticide, and is in several respects better. (There is much less emotional attachment on the part of the parents, the fetus doesn't have any desires or beliefs yet, i
t is easier to convince the nonreligious to have one, it isn't against the law, and so on.) And yet, according to the view under discussion, it too sends a soul straight to heaven.

Those who approve of the Biblical slaughter of children should therefore regard abortion very positively. It has all the good benefits and much less in the way of bad ones. In fact, given that presumably it is a good thing to send as many souls to heaven as possible, Christian conservatives should be encouraging women to get pregnant for the sole purpose of aborting their fetuses – and doing this as often as they can! They should stop protesting abortion clinics and instead hand out fliers informing women of the religious benefits associated with the practice, and encouraging them to do the godly thing.

Or maybe they should just reconsider Old Testament morality instead...


4 Comments
Drue
5/18/2015 09:29:59 am

Three comments. Quoting from this post:

1. Yahweh, as anyone with decent morals and a rational mind will agree, was an evil monster

What are decent morals? Whatever they are, if one has them, why would one need a rational mind to obtain your conclusion?

2. [Apologists] claim that this slaughter of children was in fact a good thing... the idea being that otherwise they would be hell-bound.

You suggests that the apologists would regard someone going to hell as a bad thing (as you say they view it, avoiding that outcome would be a good thing). I am not disputing your claim about the apologists, but it's a bit odd: souls only go to hell on the authority of god, so to regard that outcome bad is to regard god's judgment as defective. Is that really where they stand?

3. Anything less (such as Craig's alternative justification that God has the right to kill whomever he pleases) is – again for anyone who is decent and rational – wholly inadequate.

Here you seem to share some common ground with Christian philosophers in presuming there a notion of morality to which even an omnipotent god would be bound. I've noticed often that when Christian thinkers claim that god is incapable of evil, they are not simply defining morality in terms of his will; they are relating his behavior to a logically prior notion of good and evil. (If I were cooking up a religion, I'd go the other way: establish the acts of god, draw conclusions about his intentions, and define morality as compliance. So simple.)

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Franz Kiekeben
5/22/2015 02:42:15 pm

"You suggest that the apologists would regard someone going to hell as a bad thing (as you say they view it, avoiding that outcome would be a good thing). I am not disputing your claim about the apologists, but it's a bit odd: souls only go to hell on the authority of god, so to regard that outcome bad is to regard god's judgment
as defective. Is that really where they stand?"

I believe most would say it's a bad thing that certain people have to end up in hell as a result of their rejection of God, even though justice demands such an outcome. At any rate, in terms of the specific argument here, their claim is merely that it is preferable for people to die as children (and thus go to heaven) than to grow up and end up in hell. For even if it is good that sinners go to hell, it's still better if they don't sin to begin with.

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Franz Kiekeben
5/22/2015 02:46:08 pm

"Here you seem to share some common ground with Christian philosophers in presuming a notion of morality to which even an omnipotent god would be bound. I've noticed often that when Christian thinkers claim that god is incapable of evil, they are not simply defining morality in terms of his will; they are relating his
behavior to a logically prior notion of good and evil. (If I were cooking up a religion, I'd go the other way: establish the acts of god, draw conclusions about his intentions, and define morality as compliance. So simple.)"

Actually, a lot of these people do define morality in terms of God's will: that's known as the divine command theory. But I wouldn't agree with that even if I believed in God, because there are things that I would still regard as wrong even if God commanded them. After all, his being the creator does not automatically make his desires the same as mine.

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Franz Kiekeben
5/22/2015 02:38:36 pm

"Yahweh, as anyone with decent morals and a rational mind will agree, was an evil monster" - My point was simply that certain apologists, who have at least reasonably decent moral standards (e.g., they would never condone what a terrorist organization like Isis does), nevertheless make excuses (by means of bad arguments) for the atrocities ordered by Yahweh. It is their acceptance of these arguments that makes them
irrational. To put it another way, it's not that these apologists are evil people who actually think slaughtering children is good; it's that they can't help believing that their loving God ordered such a thing and therefore have to come up with some irrational justification for it.

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