Hi Mitch.
I anticipated your response, that's why I framed my answer the way I did. My answer was clearly conditioned on Joshua's acting on a direct command from God. I don't know that the people killed were innocent and neither do you. An all knowing and just God does. All I really know is my own heart and frankly I am more amazed that God spares any of us, than I am that He would judge some. I think the comparison with Jones and OBL is unfair to say the least. If God had done for them, what he had done for Joshua and the nation of Israel( the spectacular and clearly miraculous deliverance from the Egyptians, accompanied by a physical manifestation that lasted more than forty years. A pillar of smoke in the day and a column of fire at night. Springs of water from the rocks and Manna for food every morning) then, and only then could such a comparison be made. Jones was a false prophet with a messianic complex, and OBL is an evil coward in a cave. But you are right that is getting off topic.
Everything is relative. That reminds me of that old Ray Stevens song everything is beautiful. it makes you want to say no Ray, everything is not beautiful. I'm no expert in physics but it looks to me that Einstein made some pretty big assumptions. First, I think that he assumed that there is no fixed point in the universe. I can't help wondering how he knows that from here. When something explodes as it appears to have happened at some point in our universe. it would seem to me that everything would move away from that point in every direction at once. Why then would not the point of the initial explosion, not be a cosmic ground zero? I'm sure someone else has thought of this so don't think you have to answer these, I'm just musing really. If that were the case then everything would seem relative but could in fact be measured from that initial point. More, and I think most, importantly I believe Einstein assumed that the universe was a closed system with nothing outside of space and time. In other words I think he started with the assumption that there is no God. This may, or may not, be a reasonable assumption to make, but regardless, it does not seem quite fair to use a theory that assumes the non existence of God, to prove the non existence of God. Specifically concerning morality, which is after all what we are discussing. Is it fair to use a theory that is only true if no standard outside of the physical universe exists to prove that no ultimate standard outside of the physical universe exists? Is the use of circular reasoning only out of bounds for Theists?
Well I'll have to leave it at that for now I look forward to reading your response.
Have a good evening
Greg |
