Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
You need to explain this better, Aswad. It isn't acceptable just to say 'that's wrong' in this medium, I think.
I'll spell this out, once.
The premise of conventional theology, to which I don't subscribe, but of which I have some grasp, is that there are three possibilities for everything: (a) God did it, or (b) Satan did it, or (c) Humans did it. In some minority theologies, the third option does not exist, because they believe in predestination. Some who believe in predestination also believe in free will, but that's about as hard to grasp as the wave particle duality (i.e. not very, but it confounds most who try, apparently). WBC is ultracalvinist, which is a theological term referring to an extreme form of predestination belief, about as gloomy as it gets. [ Three choices. ]
Mourdock is a nondenominational evangelican, which means he is probably not subscribing to any of the minority theologies I mentioned. To be clear, this means Mourdock probably believes that there are things humans are responsible for, things God is responsible for, and (possibly) things Satan is responsible for. In this view, the decision to commit rape rests solely with the man that does it, and God does not impose any mental straitjacket or the like to interfere with his free decision, despite it being unpalatable. Conception, on the other hand, is a physical process that involves no conscious decision by anyone, once the rape has already occured. By Mourdock's view, the process of conception is governed by God, while the act of rape is governed by humans. [ Mourdock's view. ]
Now, we can take this one step further, to the idea that the origin of life is God, and that conception is indeed strictly physical and not even subject to approval, but that life is sacred due to its presumed divine origins, that ending a life of any sort is poking God in the eye, so to speak, because it rejects the "gift of life". But that would be inferring beyond his words to what he probably meant to say, and I'm trying to deal with what he actually did say, which was in the previous paragraph. Just to be clear. [ Sidebar. ]
The false dichotomy is between "God did it" and "Satan did it", when the truth is "Humans did it".
It strikes me as somewhat perverse that an atheist of all people would exclude that most straight-forward of possibilities: God didn't do it, we did.
Did I forget anything?
IWYW,
— Aswad.
P.S.: Ultracalvinism is a label that applies to a certain branch of theology, and it doesn't apply to Mourdock, as far as I know, nor did I say it did; I said you were using the assumptions of ultracalvinists and holding them as axiomatic in dealing with what the guy said, which is nonsensical, as neither you nor Mourdock hold that axiom to be true, near as I can tell.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: Now God intended rape to happen. - 
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