| The reason I act the way I do now is out of love and obedience, not selfishness. Besides, that hypothetical scenario is not reality, and we have enough to debate given the present reality. What the tribe does is wrong. The fact that they are doing it out of ignorance makes it understandable but it doesn't make it right. Ok right, but you still won't acknowledge the fact that from a moral perspective, their conscience is entirely clear. Put on their glasses for a moment. Why? As you just stated, their own ignorance aka a lack of knowledge is the reason why. I need to re-emphasize that their moral conscience is clear. It's all relative to humans, who are clearly reliant on more knowledge to make better moral decisions. Nevertheless, I agree (and concede to you) that moral absolutes don't prove the existence of God. However, thousands of simple human examples show that more information and more knowledge should allow us to make better moral decisions. By should, I mean more knowledge doesn't necessarily stop us from cutting up and suctioning children in the third trimester from their mother's womb (for example). Regardless, the loaded question you asked me would be properly re-factored as a moral dilemma, one that both of us could never answer without bickering for years: Is the mass slaughter of a single generation of children to punish their parents justifiable... in light of...
The 400 years of brutal slavery and genocide inflicted on an entire race of God's chosen people? Two moral crimes, good sir, now who's to be the judge? Certainly not I, I know not enough. |
You make it sound like the `God's chosen people' part is relevant to the moral discussion. If the Egyptians had been the slaves and Israelites the slave holders, would that change things?
What about if it was the Americans and their black slaves, a couple hundred year ago?
Would infanticide be justified then?
I don't even see how the Egyptians moral crimes are relevant. The party that is primarily punished is the only innocent one: children.
That's before we even consider whether the death sentence is ever justifiable.
> Two moral crimes, good sir, now who's to be the judge?
As the old adage goes, two wrongs, good sir, don't make a right.