Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!scherzo!allegra!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.philosophy Subject: Re: Summary of my questions Message-ID: <2032@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 00:55:10 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2032 Posted: Mon Nov 4 00:55:10 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 07:09:25 EST Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 30 Xref: linus net.religion:7747 net.philosophy:2757 > 2) Scenario: You're 12 year old son says he didn't mow the lawn (when you > specifically asked him to) because the damager-God controlled his actions > and made him not do it. He uses the same excuse for taking drugs, stealing > and beating up other kids. How do you answer him? > > 3) To broaden this last one, how would you deal with a criminal who on the > stand said that he didn't want to kill all those people but the > damager-God made him. How do you punish someone for something they didn't > do or weren't the motivating force behind? [RICK FREY] I sure hope Baba is reading this so he can explain to me later how my "assertion" (that there are people who have become more interested in punishment than in the goal that administering punishment was supposed to achieve) is bogus. Why is Mr. Frey so interested in administering punishment if the person DIDN'T DO something or if they weren't the motivating force behind it? Must all "bad" acts be punished? To what end? I don't believe in gods (damager variety or otherwise), I believe in cause and effect, and if people learn to behave a certain way in the course of growing up and exposure to the world, are they "evil"? Worthy of "punishment"? Rick attributes good things to his god, and Paul attributes bad things to his. In reality, there is no god causing either set of things to happen, there is simply the interactions of all the things in the universe, sometimes resulting in "good" things, other times "bad". The evidence points to no consistent willful direction toward a general "good" or "evil". (After all, a good thing to you might be a bad thing to someone else: today's thunderstorm may cause you some temporary or permanent harm, but it helped the farmers who needed the rain.) -- "Mrs. Peel, we're needed..." Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr