A is for Atheist
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The Divine Command theory states that:
If any action is said to be right by Yahweh, then it is right.
In our society, a large amount of moral instruction is provided as part of religious instruction; this is also the case at home. Many people find it useful when confronted with a moral dilemma to ask what would God do. I am not questioning these claims. But as a result of these claims, there is a tendency to think that morality is dependent upon the words of god, and that this is a Normative Ethical Theory that is property used.
Do christians actually use the "Divine Command Theory", or do they reject the Divine Command Theory, because it has an epistemological problem. On a monthly basis, there are killings in which the killer claims that god "told" him to do it. However, hardly anyone assumes that god told him to do it. They reason that god is all good, and since god is all good, he would never tell someone to kill someone else. But we know this is not the case because often times in the bible, people are TOLD by god to kill others.
Instead of thinking that he had to do it because god told him to--after all god told him to do it, we reason that killing in such cases is wrong, and that anyone that does so, is disturbed. Since this would be a "moral decision" and the Divine Command Theory was not used to make this decision, then we can conclude that not all of our morality depends on what Yahweh says.
veggie--now.....how do you KNOW that god told them to kill in the OT?? And how could you KNOW that Yahweh did NOT tell Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney to kill their children?
You are faced with an epistemological problem because you do not know whether or not Yahweh told the people in the OT to kill, and you do not know whether or not Yahweh told the aforementioned women to kill their children, as they claim he did:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/us/national-briefing-southwest-texas-mother-in-double-killing-is-called-delusional.html?ref=andrea_yates
If any action is said to be right by Yahweh, then it is right.
In our society, a large amount of moral instruction is provided as part of religious instruction; this is also the case at home. Many people find it useful when confronted with a moral dilemma to ask what would God do. I am not questioning these claims. But as a result of these claims, there is a tendency to think that morality is dependent upon the words of god, and that this is a Normative Ethical Theory that is property used.
Do christians actually use the "Divine Command Theory", or do they reject the Divine Command Theory, because it has an epistemological problem. On a monthly basis, there are killings in which the killer claims that god "told" him to do it. However, hardly anyone assumes that god told him to do it. They reason that god is all good, and since god is all good, he would never tell someone to kill someone else. But we know this is not the case because often times in the bible, people are TOLD by god to kill others.
Instead of thinking that he had to do it because god told him to--after all god told him to do it, we reason that killing in such cases is wrong, and that anyone that does so, is disturbed. Since this would be a "moral decision" and the Divine Command Theory was not used to make this decision, then we can conclude that not all of our morality depends on what Yahweh says.
veggie--now.....how do you KNOW that god told them to kill in the OT?? And how could you KNOW that Yahweh did NOT tell Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney to kill their children?
You are faced with an epistemological problem because you do not know whether or not Yahweh told the people in the OT to kill, and you do not know whether or not Yahweh told the aforementioned women to kill their children, as they claim he did:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/us/national-briefing-southwest-texas-mother-in-double-killing-is-called-delusional.html?ref=andrea_yates