John,
> I agree. If good and evil exist independently of God then He has nothing
> to do with morality except that He's supposed to obey moral law just like
> everybody else. He can't be omnipotence either.
The theologies associated with Christianity are a logical and linguistic mess because they cannot stray very far from that polyglot, polymorphous and disjointed publication upon which they are based. So many incompatible myths and legends! An example of the above is Lucifer, who successfully defied Supreme Authority which therefore cannot be omnipotent. Or, by Fiat, the Supreme Being permitted the apostasy and therefore permitted evil to be pervasively inflicted on man, and therefore cannot be considered "Good" but at best, like the Titans and Zeus, either indifferent or frivolous with respect to the welfare of his creatures.
> If good and evil are
> not independent of God then doing good is just a matter of avoiding
> punishment and no loftier than obeying what the Nazi's tell you to do
> if they occupy your country.
I suppose the ecclesiastical promotion of self-abnegation and obeisance was in the best interests of that establishment. And in Dostoevski's "Grand Inquisitor", Christ is accused of being indifferent to the needs of humanity to the point of cruelty; the Inquisitor insisted it was he who really loved people, because he had removed from them that painful burden the shedding of which was their deepest desire, that is, their conscience and therefore made them as happy as his ruthless moral demands had made them miserable.
> One must be true if God exists but I've
> found that most people are unhappy with either conclusion, so I don't
> make this argument much anymore, except to Extropians because
> they're not most people.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
Perhaps your argument requires only the discipline of rationality to be persuasive. But I'm sure we all appreciate your compliment.
Bob