I don't really buy your claim. First of all, where in the Bible (or anywhere) is it claimed that the rules God wants mankind to play by are the rules He Himself must follow? In fact, if we agree that right and wrong are defined by God's will (adultery = bad, worshipping on the Sabbath = good) then how can you argue that His will is ever 'wrong?'
Well that's exactly the point, isn't it? I certainly do not agree that right and wrong are "defined by God's will". On that view, if God had declared it so, then, say, torturing young children for one's personal pleasure would have been right. Sorry, if God *had* so declared, torturing children wouldn't have been good; rather God would have been evil. Some things even God has no power over -- God can't make 4 prime, he can't solve the Halting Problem, and he can't make torture good or right. To *define* good and right as "what God desires" makes the claim that God himself is good vacuous; everything he does or wants turns out good by definition.
Secondly, if you believe that God is all powerful and created all existence, then you must believe that He created a world that is susceptible to sickness and death...
Obviously, since there is sickness and death in the world.
(a Christian might argue that it was human choice aka original sin that caused us to be cast out of Eden, but even the world outside paradise was made by God). So, if God, who is all powerful, creates a world where all living things will age, sicken, and eventually die, then he must be pretty much okay with the idea of those things happening to us.
Why should he be okay with it? Not that I have the slightest idea, but it seems quite consistent to think that God knew what would come about in the world but figured all the havoc that humans would wreak upon one another would be worth it in the long run somehow.
The original point still stands, though. You've got a moral screw loose if you think God's destroying a human being is no different than you deleting some crappy perl code.
On what philosophical foundation do you stand when you say that God is wrong to kill?
The only one with authority to kill is the creator. Is it wrong for you to delete code you wrote?
Good god, you don't think there is any morally relevant difference between people and code? Suppose you discovered a method to create human embryos from a mix of proteins and other bio-matter. By your reasoning, you, the creator, have the right to "delete" your embryos with impunity. Obviously, you don't. Being the creator of something doesn't have a thing to do with whether or not you have a right to destroy it. What matters is the moral status of the thing created. Human beings have intrinsic moral worth. God has no more right to destroy them at will than you do. If he does, then you've completely evacuated the claim that God is good of all meaning.
Let me ask this honestly: how can someone work in an organized fashion with the MacOS X style of managing windows?...Also, today I tried installing Fink and was amazed at first, but after only two or three hours of using it, the fact that XDarwin is much slower than XFree86 under Linux (on the same notebook) makes me also suspect that I may not be using the programs correctly. I can't believe how slow it is.
Sounds like you might be running X in "rootless" mode. Run it full screen: start it from the command line in a terminal with "startx -- -quartz" and select full screen mode. Set up your.xinitrc with WindowMaker or some other speedy wm like blackbox. X is very fast in full screen mode on a 600MHz iBook (my machine too), and you can set up your WM virtual desktops and switch between them as usual. Toggle (instantaneously) into Aqua from X with Option-Command-A, and back to X by clicking on the X icon in the dock.
It's the best of both worlds. I do all my email (via ssh in an xterm to my office machine) and serious writing with xemacs/LaTeX/xdvi in X, and have Aqua for all those great Mac apps.
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The original point still stands, though. You've got a moral screw loose if you think God's destroying a human being is no different than you deleting some crappy perl code.
Let me ask this honestly: how can someone work in an organized fashion with the MacOS X style of managing windows?...Also, today I tried installing Fink and was amazed at first, but after only two or three hours of using it, the fact that XDarwin is much slower than XFree86 under Linux (on the same notebook) makes me also suspect that I may not be using the programs correctly. I can't believe how slow it is.
Sounds like you might be running X in "rootless" mode. Run it full screen: start it from the command line in a terminal with "startx -- -quartz" and select full screen mode. Set up your .xinitrc with WindowMaker or some other speedy wm like blackbox. X is very fast in full screen mode on a 600MHz iBook (my machine too), and you can set up your WM virtual desktops and switch between them as usual. Toggle (instantaneously) into Aqua from X with Option-Command-A, and back to X by clicking on the X icon in the dock.
It's the best of both worlds. I do all my email (via ssh in an xterm to my office machine) and serious writing with xemacs/LaTeX/xdvi in X, and have Aqua for all those great Mac apps.
TXLogic