Your own moral judgements, of course, come from God, the source of all goodness and without whose grace man is utterly corrupt and incapable of anything good of his own will. That is what conscience is (according to Christians). So this is not tautological at all, but simply a matter of taking all the evidence into account and making the best judgement we can in the face of our own fallibility. A theme of this very site, on occasion.
Ah, good point. But the specific example was that He had commanded you to do something apperently wrong—kill your son—hence the partial tautology.
Yes, I mentioned that (“personal revelation”). But it’s only one component of knowledge of the divine, and you still have the problem of deciding when you’ve received one and what it means.
Whoops, so you did.
… how is that compatible with “None of this bears any more resemblance to “direct orders from God”, than evolutionary biology does to “a monkey gave birth to a human”.”?
Not at all. Your formulation of the question is exactly what I had in mind, and your answer to it was exactly what I expected.
Then why complain I had twisted it into a tautology?
You cannot cross a chasm by pointing to the far side and saying, “Suppose there was a bridge to there? Then we could cross!” You have to actually build the bridge, and build it so that it stays up, which Penn completely fails to do. He isn’t even trying to. He isn’t addressing Christians. He’s addressing people who are atheists already, getting in a good dig at those dumb Christians who think that a monkey gave birth to a human, sorry, that anyone should kill their child if God tells them to. Ha ha ha! Is he not witty!
The more I think about that quote, the stupider it seems.
You cannot cross a chasm by pointing to the far side and saying, “Suppose there was a bridge to there? Then we could cross!”
I’m, ah, not sure what this refers to. Going with my best guess, here:
If you have some problem with my formulation of, and responce to, the quote retooled for “rationality”, please provide your own.
He isn’t addressing Christians. He’s addressing people who are atheists already, getting in a good dig at those dumb Christians who think that a monkey gave birth to a human, sorry, that anyone should kill their child if God tells them to. Ha ha ha! Is he not witty!
He is not “getting in a good dig at those dumb Christians who think that a monkey gave birth to a human, sorry, that anyone should kill their child if God tells them to.” He is attemppting to demonstrate to Christians that they do not alieve that they should do anything God says. I think he is mistaken in this, but it’s not inconsistant or trivially wrong, as some commenters here seem to think.
(He also appears to think that this is the wrong position to hold, which is puzzling; I’d like to see his reasoning on that.)
He is attemppting to demonstrate to Christians that they do not alieve that they should do anything God says. I think he is mistaken in this, but it’s not inconsistant or trivially wrong, as some commenters here seem to think.
It seems trivially wrong to me, but maybe that’s just from having some small familiarity with how intellectually serious Christians actually do things (and the non-intellectual hicks are unlikely to be knocked down by Penn’s rhetoric either). It is absolutely standard in Christianity that any apparent divine revelation must be examined for its authenticity. The more momentous the supposed revelation the more closely it must be examined, to the extent that if some Joe Schmoe feels a divine urge to kill his son, there is, practically speaking, nothing that will validate it, and if he consults his local priest, the most important thing for the priest to do is talk him out of it. Abraham—this is the story Penn is implicitly referring to—was one of the greatest figures of the past, and the test that God visited upon him does not come to ordinary people. Joe Schmoe from nowhere might as well go to a venture capitalist, claim to be the next Bill Gates, and ask him to invest $100M in him. Not going to happen.
And Penn has the affrontery to say that anyone who weighs the evidence of an apparent revelation with the other sources of knowledge of God’s will, as any good Christian should do, is an atheist. No, I stand by my characterisation of his remark.
I was going to point out that your comment misrepresents my point, but reading your link I see that I was misrepresenting Penn’s point.
Whoops.
I could argue that my interpretation is better, and the quote should be judged on it’s own merits … but I wont. You were right. I was wrong. I shall retract my comments on this topic forthwith.
Ah, good point. But the specific example was that He had commanded you to do something apperently wrong—kill your son—hence the partial tautology.
Whoops, so you did.
… how is that compatible with “None of this bears any more resemblance to “direct orders from God”, than evolutionary biology does to “a monkey gave birth to a human”.”?
Then why complain I had twisted it into a tautology?
You cannot cross a chasm by pointing to the far side and saying, “Suppose there was a bridge to there? Then we could cross!” You have to actually build the bridge, and build it so that it stays up, which Penn completely fails to do. He isn’t even trying to. He isn’t addressing Christians. He’s addressing people who are atheists already, getting in a good dig at those dumb Christians who think that a monkey gave birth to a human, sorry, that anyone should kill their child if God tells them to. Ha ha ha! Is he not witty!
The more I think about that quote, the stupider it seems.
I’m, ah, not sure what this refers to. Going with my best guess, here:
If you have some problem with my formulation of, and responce to, the quote retooled for “rationality”, please provide your own.
He is not “getting in a good dig at those dumb Christians who think that a monkey gave birth to a human, sorry, that anyone should kill their child if God tells them to.” He is attemppting to demonstrate to Christians that they do not alieve that they should do anything God says. I think he is mistaken in this, but it’s not inconsistant or trivially wrong, as some commenters here seem to think.
(He also appears to think that this is the wrong position to hold, which is puzzling; I’d like to see his reasoning on that.)
It seems trivially wrong to me, but maybe that’s just from having some small familiarity with how intellectually serious Christians actually do things (and the non-intellectual hicks are unlikely to be knocked down by Penn’s rhetoric either). It is absolutely standard in Christianity that any apparent divine revelation must be examined for its authenticity. The more momentous the supposed revelation the more closely it must be examined, to the extent that if some Joe Schmoe feels a divine urge to kill his son, there is, practically speaking, nothing that will validate it, and if he consults his local priest, the most important thing for the priest to do is talk him out of it. Abraham—this is the story Penn is implicitly referring to—was one of the greatest figures of the past, and the test that God visited upon him does not come to ordinary people. Joe Schmoe from nowhere might as well go to a venture capitalist, claim to be the next Bill Gates, and ask him to invest $100M in him. Not going to happen.
And Penn has the affrontery to say that anyone who weighs the evidence of an apparent revelation with the other sources of knowledge of God’s will, as any good Christian should do, is an atheist. No, I stand by my characterisation of his remark.
Having just tracked down something closer to the source, I find it only confirms what I’ve been saying.
I was going to point out that your comment misrepresents my point, but reading your link I see that I was misrepresenting Penn’s point.
Whoops.
I could argue that my interpretation is better, and the quote should be judged on it’s own merits … but I wont. You were right. I was wrong. I shall retract my comments on this topic forthwith.