Abortion and covid

Do you have an argument for why murder is wrong that isn't dependent on your worldview?

You have created a definition of "omnipotent" that I reject and is contradictory to the Bible…

You have created a definition of "merciful" that I reject and is contradictory to the Bible…

God says it is wrong. He is the Creator, we are the creature. He is the Judge so He makes the rules. You can disagree, but you will still have to answer to God on judgment day.

Because God created humans as moral agents and is not culpable for our sin.

The responsibility of the government is given by God to the governing authorities, and that includes making laws and enacting justice. Since it is specifically given to those authorities, I wouldn't consider it a "divine prerogative." And corruption does not remove this responsibility. However, it usually leads to the judgment of that authority or nation. This happened to Israel (2 Kings 17:6-7).

If we were talking about a newborn, I personally don't see the difference other than how long "physiological underdevelopment" will result in the death of the newborn.

But perhaps I am misunderstanding your argument. So where is it morally acceptable to leave a newborn if you decide you no longer want to expend time and labor to feed and shelter it? The ditch is obviously off limits.

I noticed I forgot to tag you in post #313

Because one is a direct teaching of Jesus that takes the Old Testament ("the Law and the Prophets") into account. The other is a vague sentiment that can mean whatever a person wants it to mean based on their definition of "fairness."

I treat my neighbor like I treat all humans, not necessarily with "love" but with fairness and respect.

I don't necessarily know the contents of your mind. But if you tell me you adhere to the golden rule, and that you seek to treat all humans with fairness and respect, that tells me that you are picking and choosing values from the Bible while rejecting others like Leviticus 24:17, “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death." So to rephrase the question: If you are trying to use the teaching of Jesus to treat your neighbor as yourself which is drawn from the Old Testament, why do you reject the teaching of Leviticus 24:17?

Depending on how you define deportation, no.

Let's say some people show up at the border of your country and say that they are fleeing for their very lives.

You ask them to present evidence, and they only have eye-witness-testimony (which is considered solid-gold in a civil court).

You tell them they need better evidence, like corroborating testimony and or photographs or video or something.

They don't have any evidence other than their own eyes and ears.

So  you reject their application and send them back to where they came from.

AND THEN THEY ARE MUTILATED AND OR KILLED.

It almost seems like "murder" to me.

That's not a definition.

You know why you pick and choose ?

Can you perhaps link to some source that supports your cherry-picking ?

I've quite honestly been trying to find a coherent moral theory of the old testament ever since I was a small child (when my questions were ignored).

There are a great number of Christians who have put little thought into what the Old Testament Law means for Christians today. I will answer the question but I would first like to hear your answer to my previous question: If you are trying to use the teaching of Jesus to treat your neighbor as yourself which is drawn from the Old Testament, why do you reject the teaching of Leviticus 24:17?

Forget about god for a second.

Would you blame me if something I made catastrophically malfunctioned ?

That depends on what you made. Did you make a moral agent or an automaton? If you made an pre-programmed automaton with no moral agency that only did what you programmed it to do, then I would blame you. If you made a moral agent that willfully violated its intended purpose, and that violations caused a catastrophic malfunction, then I would blame the creation.

But you still haven't answered the question: Did God create humans as automatons?

I'm arguing that the governments as they are and their discretion in practicing execution is not extension of God's will because they are corrupt.

• “Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant. “It will be, that the nation or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine and with pestilence,” declares the Lord, “until I have destroyed it by his hand.
  

That's an important distinction. Because one results in the initiation of aggression toward the newborn and the other doesn't.

The point I'm attempting to illustrate is that no one is owed help--not even a baby...The Bible is lousy with collectivist notions, so it's only natural that an adherent will propose arguments which are odds with my individualist ones, and vice versa.

You can argue that all governments have a responsibility to do as God instructed but they don't.

(2) I am in no way stating that a child's necessity in its parents providing it resources is akin to some evil plot.

They're both equally vague.

I believe the "golden-rule" is a concise expression of our "better-instincts".

I do not believe that all the Jewish teachings are logically coherent.

If I tasked the GPT3 with controlling a number of robots and taking care of the elderly in a retirement facility or a hospital for example, and I dialed up the creativity to say TWENTY-NINE and watched it for about a week and everything seemed to be working great, and then three months later a robot ended up causing the death of one of the residents, WHO WOULD YOU HOLD RESPONSIBLE ?

But you still haven't answered the question: Did God create humans as automatons?

(IFF) GOD CAN PREDICT ALL POSSIBLE FUTURES (AND) GOD CAN CHANGE ANY AND OR ALL VARIABLES THAT LEAD TO THOSE FUTURES (THEN) GOD CAUSED EVERY ACTION YOU BELIEVE YOU "CHOSE" FOR YOURSELF

the other option would be that god is NOT able to predict all possible futures and or NOT able to change any and or all variables that lead to those futures.

the only way for humans to have hypothetical free-will is for god to NOT KNOW what we are going to do.

only gods IGNORANCE and or INCOMPETENCE can absolve them from responsibility.

ALSO,

If edward bernays proved anything at all, they proved that humans are ridiculously predictable.

Depending on how you define deportation, no.

Let's say some people show up at the border of your country and say that they are fleeing for their very lives.

You ask them to present evidence, and they only have eye-witness-testimony (which is considered solid-gold in a civil court).

You tell them they need better evidence, like corroborating testimony and or photographs or video or something.

They don't have any evidence other than their own eyes and ears.

So  you reject their application and send them back to where they came from.

AND THEN THEY ARE MUTILATED AND OR KILLED.

It almost seems like "murder" to me.

That's not a definition.

IT'S EVEN MORE PRECISE THAN A DEFINITION, IT'S A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE.

1. Would you say that deportation = murder ?
   
2. Would you say that deporting a specific group of people who are claiming they are fleeing for their lives, which ultimately ends up with them being killed = murder?
   

1. This is a question of definitions. "Would you say that [the lawful expulsion of an alien or other person from a country] = [the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought]?"
   
   To this question, my answer is no. The definitions are absolutely not the same.
   
   
2. The second question is dealing with a particular situation. Since I would not define deportation as "a specific group of people who are claiming they are fleeing for their lives, which ultimately ends up with them being killed," this question is deciding whether the particular actions of an individual or group can be considered murder.
   
   To this question, my answer is probably not with the given information. It could be considered negligence with dire consequences, perhaps even punishable by law, but probably not murder.

From Jeremiah 27:6-8:

• “Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant. “It will be, that the nation or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine and with pestilence,” declares the Lord, “until I have destroyed it by his hand.
  

Was the government of Babylon corrupt?

Did the government of Babylon serve as an extension of God's will?

So if I leave my newborn baby in an empty house with some money for groceries and no intention of aggression, that is morally acceptable?

The Bible is not purely collectivist. If we consider collectivism and individualism on a spectrum, a biblical worldview would fall somewhere in between.

But either end brings one to an extreme view - which ultimately removes the inherent value of others.

Your form of individualism removes inherent value from others because the only value they have is ascribed by the individual.

The only obligation I have is to myself; everything else is coercion.

And I don't see any other conclusion if you can argue that parents have no obligation to keep their children alive.

They're both equally vague.

No, they're not. One has its foundation in the Old Testament. The other means whatever you want it to mean because there is no foundation to work from.

At what point is "revolution" justified ?

Well stated.

2. Would you say that deporting a specific group of people who are claiming they are fleeing for their lives, which ultimately ends up with them being killed = murder?

If I tasked the GPT3 with controlling a number of robots and taking care of the elderly in a retirement facility or a hospital for example, and I dialed up the creativity to say TWENTY-NINE and watched it for about a week and everything seemed to be working great, and then three months later a robot ended up causing the death of one of the residents, WHO WOULD YOU HOLD RESPONSIBLE ?

The analogy doesn't work because you are talking about a computer program, not a moral agent. 

To this question, my answer is probably not with the given information. It could be considered negligence with dire consequences, perhaps even punishable by law, but probably not murder.

That wasn't a clear answer. A yes or no will suffice. Did God create humans as automatons?

I believe the "golden-rule" is a concise expression of our "better-instincts".

I do not believe that all the Jewish teachings are logically coherent.

So you cherry-pick based on your opinion of which teachings make sense to you while rejecting those that don't.

The Bible is not purely collectivist. If we consider collectivism and individualism on a spectrum, a biblical worldview would fall somewhere in between.

No such spectrum is logically justifiable. There's collectivism; there's individualism. Sustaining this notion of "spectrum" is an oft used device for those who have no intention of resolving their logically dissonant notions.

Yes, and the obligation to do others no harm (as harm to another would undermine the very framework which informs one's "obligation to oneself.") Anything that would undermine the aforestated would be coercion.

Have you shifted your position on the appropriateness of a "pre-emptive strike" against a perceived threat ?

"foundation in the Pentateuch" means nothing to me.

What does that mean exactly to you ?

It's not obvious what you think the difference is.

Please be slightly more specific, perhaps with an example from real-life or something.

• Who/what is man?
  
• Where did we come from?
  
• Why are we here?
  
• What's wrong with the world?
  
• How can what is wrong be made right?
  

Forget the analogy aspect for a second.

How would you answer the question as it is presented, at face value ?

To this question, my answer is probably not with the given information. It could be considered negligence with dire consequences, perhaps even punishable by law, but probably not murder.

Manslaughter perhaps ?

THE ANSWER DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF GOD.

OMNIPOTENT OMNISCIENT GOD CREATED AUTOMATONS.

SEMIPOTENT SEMISCIENT GOD CREATED MALFUNCTIONS.

All humans begin their journey to their moral outlook with a blank slate.

The starting point is you.

You (either intentionally or unintentionally) look for external codes and guideposts and traditions and systems that MATCH your internal conscience.

You evaluate the data available to yourself and then you ADOPT an external tradition or system or code (if it feels like a "good-fit").

My internal moral sense tells me "do not do things to other people that you would not want them to do to you".

I did not "learn" this from anything outside of myself.

We may be missing each other on a key detail. How would you define a corrupt government? Are all governments corrupt?

But individualism is not necessarily a monolithic ideology with only a single set of beliefs.

From what I understand, it has actually changed over time.

I would agree though that there is not an actual individualism/collectivism spectrum. Rather, individuals may embrace certain values from each -ism. This is what I meant to portray with the imagery of a "spectrum," but I will try to avoid that for clarity.

While it is possible for individuals to hold contradictory beliefs from each -ism, it is also possible that a completely different view which holds certain values from both sides is actually correct. For instance, I would argue that the biblical worldview values both individual liberties and the collective good, and this is in no way contradictory.

The main point is that the Bible does not promote Collectivism or Individualism because those are manmade ideologies. But there are certain values from both ideologies that can be found in the Bible.

Would you say that consistent Individualism only considers a person's freedom valuable, but not the actual person?

Consider the case with the newborn. It seems you only value the newborn's autonomy, but not it's life. Otherwise, it would not be morally acceptable to leave the baby, knowing that it is not physiologically developed enough to survive on it's own.