What's So Great About Ushas

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 11 Jul 2008, 18:54 · from 2008-July.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:54:02 -0700
Subject: (urth) What's So Great About Ushas
In-Reply-To: <4877A7BF.6060706 at io.com>
References: <BAY103-W560D3C354485A0F9FE96B9D7900 at phx.gbl>
	<3e1fa2e90807110849p7e143749ne8487e847665b181 at mail.gmail.com>
	<4877A7BF.6060706 at io.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370807111154m6be8a48qbae63dc80f56adac at mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:

> That was pretty much the discussion in progress just before you arrived. I'm
> not convinced that God has no part in a plan involving the White Fountain;
> as the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe, He is responsible for
> its content and as such He kills everyone and destroys everything that
> passeth away. How he implements His will and whether the intermediaries are
> servants, sock puppets, or dupes is what we are sorting out.

Well, there's a further point here: one can claim that *any* action, by
*anyone*, is part of God's Plan. To do this is to create moral anarchy
for humans -- "Yes, I killed six million Jews,  but that was part of God's
plan, so it's okay." No, I don't think so; the only way to theodicize this is
by assuming an extreme Calvinist-predestinarian stance.

The only way to say that the Hiero*s don't share the same moral
burden as humans is to say that they have direct knowledge of
God's will. This is the justification for the Israelites' slaughter of the
natives of Canaan -- "God said so," which trumped "Thou shalt
not murder."

So to justify the Hiero*s' actions, to say that their plan that involved
the slaughter of Urth's billions, was morally OK, means that you have
to present evidence that they have a direct knowledge of the will
of the Increate, which I do not see in the text.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com

I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a
restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand
Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce. -- T. Pratchett

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