7216
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The ethics of the Gospel has been supplemented by barbarous Old Testament values [Mill]
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Full Idea:
To extract from the Gospel a body of ethical doctrine, has never been possible withouth eking it out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people.
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From:
John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.2)
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A reaction:
'Barbarous' has a quaint Victorian ring to it, but his point is that the surviving teachings of Jesus are very thin and generalised. Christians would do better to expand their implications, than to borrow from the Old Testament.
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21334
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No necessity ties an omnipotent Creator, so he evidently wills human misery [Mill]
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Full Idea:
If a Creator is assumed to be omnipotent, if he bends to a supposed necessity, he himself makes the necessity which he bends to. If the maker of the world can all that he will, he wills misery, and there is no escape from the conclusion.
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From:
John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.119)
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A reaction:
If you add that the Creator is supposed to be perfectly benevolent, you arrive at the paradox which Mackie spells out. Is the correct conclusion that God exists, and is malevolent? Mill doesn't take that option seriously.
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21328
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Killing is a human crime, but nature kills everyone, and often with great tortures [Mill]
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Full Idea:
Killing, the most criminal act recognised by human laws, nature does once to every being that lives, and frequently after protracted tortures such as the greatest know monsters purposely inflicted on their living fellow creatures
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From:
John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.115)
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A reaction:
We certainly don't condemn lions for savaging gazelles, but the concept of a supreme mind controlling nature forces the question. Theology needs consistency between human and divine morality, and the supposed derivation of the former from the latter.
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21331
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Hurricanes, locusts, floods and blight can starve a million people to death [Mill]
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Full Idea:
Nature often takes the means by which we live. A single hurricane, a flight of locusts, or an inundation, or a trifling chemical change in an edible root, starve a million people.
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From:
John Stuart Mill (Nature and Utility of Religion [1874], p.116)
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A reaction:
[second sentence compressed] The 'edible root' is an obvious reference to the Irish potato famine. Some desertification had human causes, but these are telling examples.
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