Tiiba: Because it is very hard to read ambiguity into moral acts. One can say that six days is not meant literally (even if the original language says that—though I’m not saying it does; I don’t know). One cannot say that the firstborn of Egypt were all just sleeping.
Furthermore, one cannot explain away deception. Maybe God actually made the Universe in six days but wants us to think it was longer to test our faith. Yes, that’s a lousy argument, but one might conceive of it being true. As for other offenses, God makes the laws of physics, so he obeys them at his whim.
By contrast, an action making God appear evil necessarily makes him incomprehensible for many religions. If you say that God is good, and that he slaughtered innocent children, and you believe that such a slaughter is wrong, then any defense of God must change the meaning of “God is good” to something completely unrecognizable. Either good is true of God by definition (What He does is good) or it is the “big plan” strategy, in which case it is actually good but you are too stupid to understand why, meaning he is good in a way that we necessarily cannot understand.
So, to end this rambling, people pick moral attacks because they don’t allow the “Well, it’s obviously false, therefore, it isn’t meant literally!” defense. It also attacks concepts of God on a somewhat different level.
If there is a heaven and the killed firstborn went there, then killing them (or anyone else, for that matter) is quite harmless. And killing is wrong for people not because it causes harm, but because God forbids it. It’s a strange view, but not an obviously inconsistent one. On the other hand I’ve always shied away from moral attacks just because the counterargument of “So, God’s not benevolent, now what? You still had to worship it for a few decades or you are going to literally burn for eternity” seemed so obvious. Like it seems pointless to argue that Dumbledore is evil when you’re trying to prove he never existed.
But if somebody is willing to admit that their respective bible or holy book lied about their God being benevolent, that should raise the probability that other parts of their book lied as well. Most of all, unlike everything else that it has been pointed out was inaccurate in the bible, that one cannot be explained by saying it was a metaphor. It would be something it could not be denied was either a severe exaggeration or a lie. That starts touching on uncomfortable territory for most theists because they have admitted part of their ‘side’ is flawed.
Tiiba: Because it is very hard to read ambiguity into moral acts. One can say that six days is not meant literally (even if the original language says that—though I’m not saying it does; I don’t know). One cannot say that the firstborn of Egypt were all just sleeping.
Furthermore, one cannot explain away deception. Maybe God actually made the Universe in six days but wants us to think it was longer to test our faith. Yes, that’s a lousy argument, but one might conceive of it being true. As for other offenses, God makes the laws of physics, so he obeys them at his whim.
By contrast, an action making God appear evil necessarily makes him incomprehensible for many religions. If you say that God is good, and that he slaughtered innocent children, and you believe that such a slaughter is wrong, then any defense of God must change the meaning of “God is good” to something completely unrecognizable. Either good is true of God by definition (What He does is good) or it is the “big plan” strategy, in which case it is actually good but you are too stupid to understand why, meaning he is good in a way that we necessarily cannot understand.
So, to end this rambling, people pick moral attacks because they don’t allow the “Well, it’s obviously false, therefore, it isn’t meant literally!” defense. It also attacks concepts of God on a somewhat different level.
If there is a heaven and the killed firstborn went there, then killing them (or anyone else, for that matter) is quite harmless. And killing is wrong for people not because it causes harm, but because God forbids it. It’s a strange view, but not an obviously inconsistent one. On the other hand I’ve always shied away from moral attacks just because the counterargument of “So, God’s not benevolent, now what? You still had to worship it for a few decades or you are going to literally burn for eternity” seemed so obvious. Like it seems pointless to argue that Dumbledore is evil when you’re trying to prove he never existed.
But if somebody is willing to admit that their respective bible or holy book lied about their God being benevolent, that should raise the probability that other parts of their book lied as well. Most of all, unlike everything else that it has been pointed out was inaccurate in the bible, that one cannot be explained by saying it was a metaphor. It would be something it could not be denied was either a severe exaggeration or a lie. That starts touching on uncomfortable territory for most theists because they have admitted part of their ‘side’ is flawed.