Your position, however, is still based on belief. There is no such thing as "natural law" regarding values, whether capitalized or not. As for the "Creator", what's that?
I'm afraid you're not making your case. Using animals as examples won't take you very far. As you say, they kill each other for food. Does that mean that we are allowed to do so? As for what is "wrong", you can say that something is wrong because it is just wrong, but that doesn't make it wrong in any sense other than a societal or cultural value. As for what God does or doesn't do, that again is a societal value, meaningless to anyone who doesn't care one way or the other what someone else's God has to say about the matter.
Oh, I see, we should not have killed and starved them, but since we do have their land, we may as well keep it, right? This is called situational ethics, and is a function of culture. Clitorectomies is wrong, you say. Well, what makes circumscision right? There are studies that say that it decreases sexual pleasure in the male, you know. Unfortunately, you are probably wrong in your world view, because you presume western values to be exclusively right. Regards Oddi
Your own culture disagrees with you about Hilter, because, like Saddam, the west took their sweet time doing anything about Hilter's genocide. America did not go to war to save the Jews. God absolutely condones the killing of another man. Read your bible more closely. In fact, God told Israel to wipe the Caananites OUT, if the bible to be believed. Regards Oddi
Most religions who believe in monotheism preach parallel things about many of the most basic moral values -- including such things as stealing, lying and killing another person. My animals analogy may not have been the best, but the point I was trying to make is that, as humans, we raise the bar of intelligence. Along with that comes a basic understanding that if I kill you, I invalidate my right to not be senselessly killed myself. Most cultures, if not all, have some very basic laws or ethical standards against senseless killings. If they did not, they wouldn't survive for a culture very long. Social evolution itself has ingrained some very basic moral principles in most men and women. You don't even need to play the theological card to understand that, from an evolutionary standpoint, rampant and unchecked murdering of others will eventually lead to the extinction of a race, culture or group of people. That is why there does exist some very rudimentary moral principles that apply across the board, no matter what culture you are subscribed to. However, the fact that some people abuse power and break those moral guidelines is another matter altogether (Hitler, Saddam, Stalin, et. al.)
That's bullshit. The United States was an isolationist state for a very long time up until that time period. We just didn't sit on our hands and, by doing so, condone the killing of jews. In fact, the full extent of what Hitler and the third reich were really up to wasn't made apparent until some time into the war -- and at that point, we committed everything to go in there and stop Germany from progressing throughout all of Europe and stop the extermination of jews. To suggest that America did not commit endless amounts of American troops to keep Hitler and his nazi followers from exterminating more jews is asinine. My own grandfather served in World War II and there were stories of immense brutality committed by nazi soldiers against American camps in that region. He, along with many other Americans, risked their lives in a conflict that wasn't even near their own soil. I'm sick of all the American bashing. It's funny how a lot of people in Europe will take this anti-American stance until it comes time for us to bail yet another country out either financially or through military action.
Aphex, you can say bullshit all day long. The facts are that America knew about Hilter and his genocide but didn't feel the need to get involved simply for that, hell, PBS history shows about the holocaust will tell you that. Stopping genocide has never been an American priority. It wasn't in Germany, nor Russia( Stalin killed millions of ethnic Russians), nor Kosovo, and not in Iraq. So cry all day, Aphie, the facts are public record and speak for themselves. here is a link http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/bermexcerpt.html
Since this is a theology question let me just get straight to the point. The two key concepts are "righteousness" and "sin" or "good" and "evil". The definition of good or righteous behavior is obedience to God's law. God is good because he is perfect, so his words are perfect, his laws are perfect etc. The definition of evil or sin is disobedience to God's law or breaking a commandment. Since by definition God is good and obedience to his law is good, and Lucifer rebelled against God's will, so his actions were evil. He then became the father of sin and thus was called Satan, and then we had opposition (good and evil) so that men could exercise their agency to follow God or to follow Satan. God wants men to choose good, while Satan wants men to choose evil, or in other words to rebel against God like he did. So it is an eternal power struggle over the souls of men. And as the saying goes, no man can serve two masters, so everyone chooses either God or Satan by their actions thoughts and intents (where your heart is, there will your treasure be, and by their fruit you will know them).
Depends on how you define "senseless". Weeding out the weak and helpless is common in the animal kingdom and has been common for centuries in the human. Still is in many places. Some cultures still eliminate their female children (or kill or exterminate, whatever you like). Some cultures eliminate extra children altogether. Is this wrong? Is it right to threaten the existence of the tribe by overpopulation when there is barely enough food for current members? And royal families have always avoided weakening the line by refusing to allow marriage with those not of royal blood. Hitler was primarily concerned with strengthening and protecting the Aryan bloodline. He just became a little overenthusiastic about it. But his attitude was shared by every royal family over centuries.
You don't know much about history, do you? If Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor, our entry into the war would not have occurred when it did. In fact, we may not have entered at all. As for how long we waited before allowing Jews to emigrate to the U.S., you'd be surprised. We knew about the persecution of Jews long before Hitler ever invaded Poland, and we did nothing. Nor did anyone else. No one, least of all the U.S., is in a position to take the moral highroad with regard to the Holocaust.