We've heard it before: you cannot be moral without God, or other similar sentiments. (A friend of mine, Dr. Robert Buckman, great humanist and oncologist, wrote a book called "Can We Be Good Without God?" He passed away a few years ago, sadly.)
But thinker Steven Weinberg once said something along the lines of "believing in an omniscient creator doesn't contain any inherent moral value -- you still have to decide whether to obey His commands."
Thus, think of Abraham, prepared -- at the command of God -- to slaughter his son Isaac. His own son! Now, to me, it is a spurious theological argument to suggest that, since God interfered at the last moment and supplied a goat for the purpose. Abraham, as a human being with a moral sense of his own, should have KNOWN BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT that to kill a child -- on anybody's "orders" -- is simply wrong.
Likewise, the Israelites under Joshua, killing all the Canaanites, except for the virgin girls who could be put to "better use." Surely the Israelites were moral agents, and could reason for themselves whether such a command from God could be the right thing to do -- could they not?
Please try to stick to the argument in question: does "divine command" outweigh your own sense of moral behaviour, or is it better you should do what God seems to command, even if you feel queasy about it?
But thinker Steven Weinberg once said something along the lines of "believing in an omniscient creator doesn't contain any inherent moral value -- you still have to decide whether to obey His commands."
Thus, think of Abraham, prepared -- at the command of God -- to slaughter his son Isaac. His own son! Now, to me, it is a spurious theological argument to suggest that, since God interfered at the last moment and supplied a goat for the purpose. Abraham, as a human being with a moral sense of his own, should have KNOWN BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT that to kill a child -- on anybody's "orders" -- is simply wrong.
Likewise, the Israelites under Joshua, killing all the Canaanites, except for the virgin girls who could be put to "better use." Surely the Israelites were moral agents, and could reason for themselves whether such a command from God could be the right thing to do -- could they not?
Please try to stick to the argument in question: does "divine command" outweigh your own sense of moral behaviour, or is it better you should do what God seems to command, even if you feel queasy about it?