Well, it should come as no surprise that I would be disgusted by an article over at Answers In Genesis.  These are the people who tell us that the world is 6000 years old and God just set us up to look like dummies when he invented the fossil record. But that rather pathetic argument pales in comparison to this one. I noticed this little gem being referred to by PZ Myers at Pharyngula today, and had to read it.
Essentially, this is all around the concept of a righteous lie. The example given is that you are asked by a group of Nazis where a family of Jews are hiding. Your options are to lie and hopefully save the lies of these people, or to tell the truth and let them be slaughtered. Most people would say that lying to save lives is the lesser of two evils in this case, but not the AiG folks.
They use all kinds of biblical references to lying to justify the notion that all lies are betrayals to God. They talk about how people like Ananias were punished for lying, and the punishment is of course an afterlife in hell. And they say that this is always the case.
Casting my mind back to my own childhood faith lessons, I seem to recall an example of someone lying (Mark 15 66-72):
66And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest: 67 And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.
68But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou sayest. And he went out into the porch; and the cock crew. 69 And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them.
70And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto. 71 But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak.
72 And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.
Interesting that they forgot this one. It’s kind of a big deal. But I’m sure that Peter got what was coming to him, a fiery prison full of torments and evils no living soul could comprehend or defend against (Matthew 16:18-20):
I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
¬†This was the punishment for his lie? Suddenly he’s Saint Peter, the first Pope and the guy we have to contend with when we show up at the gates? SRSLY?
For starters, this is just typical of the AiG crew, and all the fundies of the world. They find all the items they can find to justify their position and totally scrap the parts that contradicts. Next would presumably come the cop-out of “…but Jesus died for all our sins, and that means Peter was forgiven!” So wouldn’t Ananias be forgiven? What about the person who lied about the Jewish family? Talk about promoting from within.
The other argument they put out there is that we have no way of knowing what God’s plan is for this family. Perhaps their death will be that iconic death that changes the lives of billions of people, suddenly making them see the terror of Nazism and galvanizing them against this force? Maybe their children, if left unkilled, would have grown up to be murderers or rapists? We have to trust in God’s plan, he knows what’s best.
Of course, that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It’s like when the anti-abortionists talk about Beethoven and how he was meant to be an abortion, but his mother kept him and think of how much more beauty is in the world because of him. It’s not a real argument. We can’t assume that without Beethoven we would have not had another great composer at the same time who’s skill rivaled Beethoven’s but he was the number two guy. And we can’t assume that the fetus growing inside us is Beethoven any more than we can assume it’s Charlie Manson, whom God also seems to have had a plan for.
To me, this wreaks of nihilism. Since you can’t see the bigger picture, just go along with anything they tell you to do. Don’t act on your morality, because you might be betraying God’s. What a ridiculous notion. An all-powerful God wouldn’t let us betray him. If he had legitimate plans for these people then he would spare them with one of his always-popular magic tricks. But instead we get The Unknowable Will Of God Ishna Allah Karma argument, the one that tells us that messing up against a¬†desire we cannot possibly comprehend means we’re in some shit.
It’s all just so bloody silly.
So the immoral behavior of dooming your neighbors is a moral decision based on an unknown and unseen morality dictated to simpletons two thousand years ago, and you people have the stones to say that there is no way an atheist can be a moral person? I would, if put in that situation, gladly lie to save their lives. I would encourage someone to get chemotherapy for their cancer to extend their lives even if it goes against the plan of some mighty creator. I would swerve to avoid killing a child who ran into the street chasing a ball. The argument that we don’t know God’s plan is just foolish. What if God’s plan is that you lie? What if by lying you save the cheerleader and save the planet? You can’t know that he doesn’t want you to lie. Unless of course you just look at the verses that back you up.
Shame on you, Answers In Genesis.
Jim
Jim: My Expanded thoughts on the topic – Just for your blog!
You touch on one of the things that bothers me most about pretty much all organized religion. The ability to sift through their giant holy texts and only pull out the exact phrases that support any single argument they are giving at the time. They then disregard the rest of said “holy scripture” because it is not relevant, or does not support their current argument. Quite often, these same people will tell you that something ridiculous (like the creation story in Genesis) is absolutely true because it is in their sacred texts, but something else (like Jesus turning water into wine) is merely a metaphor or a simile or an allusion of some kind, because their denomination doesn’t want them to consume alcohol. It is amazing how THEY are the ones that know which parts of their books are absolute truth and which parts are not important or relevant.
Personally I wouldn’t hesitate a moment lying my face off to Nazis that were looking to kill Jews. What makes it laughable is that the “fundies” first impulse is to blurt out where the Jews are so the Nazis can kill them. They aren’t smart enough to come up with the following:
Solution #1: Um, how about we just do not telling the Nazis anything…
“Sorry, I can’t help you.” Would not be a lie. Everyone wins.
OR how about this you fundamentalist douche-bag:
Solution #2: Stand up to the Nazis and tell them “I will not help you because what you are doing is wrong”
But no, because then they would be the ones catching the wrath of the Nazis. And that would be against God’s infallible plan.
BUT WAIT! Didn’t he say: “It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning.”?
By his own argument, he can’t know what the Nazis will do and should just trust in God’s plan. After all, God controls everything, including the Nazis that are hunting the Jews right? It also doesn’t occur to them to be the martyr and stand up for what they believe. To protect the weak and innocent without concern for their own lives. Isn’t he confident that he will earn himself a place in Heaven after all? Why worry about your own life if you are just going to spend eternity in the blissfully perfect afterlife? How does he know that sacrificing himself to save others isn’t in God’s plan for him. Who is he to deny God’s authority?
My favorite part is where he quotes this bible scripture:
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
This is a really famous passage (and I honestly think it is a wonderful idea). BUT, He then goes on to tell us the following:
“Jesus tells us that all the commandments can be summed up into these two statements. But of these two, the first is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. So, this would trump the second. Our actions toward God should trump our actions toward men. … To love God first means to obey Him first‚Äîbefore looking at our neighbor.”
Um, wow … really? Did Jesus talk to you in person and tell you to make this distinction? It doesn’t literally say that, so how do you know that is what it means?
He then goes on to say how obeying God means to follow all his rules in the “great perfect book of awesome!” The whole point of the passage is to *sum up* all of God’s rules. If by that statement Jesus meant that obeying all of Gods rules was more important than Loving thy neighbor as your self, he would have said something like “Love God, your Lord above all, and don’t forget to go back over all his scriptures and make sure you didn’t miss anything that might make him angry…”
This is a prime example of how these guys twist and manipulate the words of the bible to support whatever it is THEY believe. I find this behavior sad and disheartening.
Sorry, but in my opinion, the “fundies” are Jerk-offs of the highest order.