Andrew Brown goes out of his way to misunderstand William Lane Craig and Richard Dawkins on William Lane Craig. Does he really misunderstand or is he just playing silly buggers? I often think coat-trailing is all Andrew Brown ever does. He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases.
What he misunderstands is the part about the slaughtered children of Canaan.
…if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.
Brown misunderstands or pretends to misunderstand the outrage at that claim of Craig’s.
The question is whether it is morally outrageous to suppose that the innocent victims of such crimes go to heaven.
No it isn’t. The question is whether it is morally outrageous to suppose that that belief makes it perfectly all right for “God” to “command” humans to kill them. It’s not whether it is morally outrageous to suppose that people go to heaven; it’s whether it is morally outrageous to suppose that because people do go to heaven therefore it is fine to kill them, at least if you’re “God” or obeying “God’s” command. That’s Clifford’s leaky ship. Human beings have no right to believe that their spooky mysterian boss tells them to massacre people and that that’s ok because the innocent ones will go to heaven. That’s a reckless, negligent, self-serving belief that would justify horrors.
…and, those children being non-Jewish, by their definition of
their “mysterian boss” (love that term, btw), those children
would not go to heaven.
Andrew is using Sophisticated Theology™ on us again.
To normal people it’s bullshit, but to those transformed by faith it’s self-serving bullshit that assuages the cognitive dissonance caused by the simultaneous beliefs that they are good people who are favoured, protected, and loved by a monster and who favour, protect, and love it back, so it’s good.
“…That’s a reckless, negligent, self-serving belief that would justify horrors.”
In fact it was sometimes used to justify the extermination of heretics by the inquisition and secular authorities who often did the actual murders..okay to kill heretics because you were saving their souls…..
… and probably already did: Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens.
Wait, did Jews back in the day even believe in heaven? I thought all the dead people were just sleeping in Sheol?
Oh, well, Craig believes in heaven, so it’s all good. (Except when it comes to abortion. Aborted fetuses presumably go to heaven–but abortion does fetuses wrong. Because, that’s why.)