Just point to the right page
Suppose the Nazis are out looking for Jews, and they ask you where some Jews are, and you know – what do you do? Do you lie, or do you say ‘yes, I know, they’re in the cellar at number 22 Goethestrasse’? Well let’s think about it, says Bodie Hodge of Answers in Genesis. Jesus said (Mark 12:28-31) that the first commandment is to love God and the second is to love your neighbor, so the first trumps the second (because Jesus said so Mark 12:28-31).
Jesus tells us that all the commandments can be summed up into these two statements. But of these two, the first is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. So, this would trump the second. Our actions toward God should trump our actions toward men…If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first—before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?
And the answer is, as the framing of the question may have already hinted, that the greater good is trusting God and telling the Nazis where the Jews are.
Which means, apart from everything else it means (which is a lot – one could expatiate on the meaning of this claim for hundreds of pages), that Bodie Hodge is so blind and so indoctrinated and so obtuse that he is willing to tell other people to trust that some words in a very old book are the uncontaminated unaltered undoctored trustworthy words of a god and that it is safe to let them trump the protection of human beings from mass murder. That fact all by itself is simply terrifying – even before you get to questions about why anyone would trust a god who would expect them to act that way. Bodie Hodge apparently can’t even imagine even for an instant that he and his fellow believers actually have no way of knowing that any particular book is the authentic unaltered word of ‘God’ and therefore should be very cautious about obeying instructions to do things that in any other context would be the utmost wickedness. That fact by itself makes Bodie Hodge an object of horror.
This is what makes religion so horribly dangerous – it’s this conviction that one knows what one doesn’t know, and the failure to realize that, and act accordingly. It’s this loathsome, ruthless, armored certainty, which is avowedly and proudly not about trying to do one’s best for other human beings.
We’re always being accused, we ‘new’ atheists, of wanting to eradicate all religion (and sometimes of wanting to eradicate all believers), but I think most of us don’t want that. But I think most of us decidedly do want to eradicate that kind of certainty. Bodie Hodge makes our reasons very obvious.
This is a big problem with religious morality. Religion rationalises our moral norms on a false basis and thus requires that we act on them in a way that’s contrary to their real point – i.e. to serve us. Defective moral norms get fossilised, and moral norms that are still reasonable guidelines become absolute rules that must be obeyed even when it defeats the purpose of morality itself.
I started reading the page you linked to and found myself unable to complete it. It is sickening. (Russell, you hit the nail on the head.)
Well at least it’s ostensibly consistent, which is admirable in its perversity. I quite encourage this style of ecumenical advice, since I expect that it gave the person who asked the original question (M.H.) a powerful reason to find spiritual salvation from someplace outside the asylum.
Well Russell, I guess moral reasoning is as vulnerable to GIGO as anything else.
Well, yes, but the action encouraged is not always contrary to the moral norms’ real point. Surely an action can be moral even if the reasons for doing it are false?
Any example of a religiously-motivated good act shows this, if the religious belief is assumed to be nonsense, and
assumed to be sincerely held. We can all give examples in which (say) a Catholic priest sacrificed his life for others.
I agree with OB, and note in addition the way Brodie’s beliefs cause him to devalue human life: “If a lie helps keep someone alive for a matter of moments compared to eternity, was the lie… worth it? …It would be like sitting in a cell on death row and when the guards come to take your roommate to the electric chair, you lie to the guards and say you don’t know where the person went”.
Just a slight tangent:
“Lie” vs “cooperate with Nazis” is surely a false dilemma.
Responding along the lines of “No, I will not help you” may not be the wisest course of action, but it retains both honesty and non-cooperation.
“Like most, if placed in such a difficult situation, it would be very difficult. ”
With friends like this -who needs enemies? What a scary, warped, brainwashed man is Bodie hodges.
Si,
Yes, to you and I that would make sense. But grassing up the neighbours because god says so means you can be a total bastard and still feel holy and smug.
Which, to a certain mind-set, is the ideal result.
During his years at SIUC (a secular college), he continued his personal study of biblical apologetics, and even began teaching this topic to a junior high Sunday school class.
God help the mindsets of the children who were under his ‘biblical apologetics’ tutelage. As with a mentor of this calibre none of their friends in the aftermath of their indoctrination with this ‘holy’ man would be safe to be around – if they should happen fall on hard times involving ethical and moralistic dilemmas.
He should stick to engineering
On the plus side, the new Ham book they are touting in the sidebar looks like good news.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Already-Gone-Book,6131,224.aspx
Speaking of reasonable guidelines becoming absolute rules, here’s
an example linked to by Ben Goldacre.
A man in Reigate, England, found a shotgun, phoned the police to say he was coming to hand it in, did so, and will be going to jail for at least five years ‘cos you can’t have an unlicensed gun!
http://constantlyfurious.blogspot.com/2009/11/beyond-belief-really.html
Bodie Hodge need not have gone into all that convoluted reasoning involved in prioritising of commands: 1. love God; 2. never lie; 3. love thy neighbour, etc.
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…” has generally been interpreted as ‘always obey the State’.
Blind obedience to an old book requires both obedience and blindness.
Stephen,
According to available information, that’s not what happened.
Si: “Responding along the lines of ‘No, I will not help you’ may not be the wisest course of action, but it retains both honesty and non-cooperation.”
But it is still not the best response in the (hypothetical) situation: the better response is to deny that you know where any are.
Kantian ethics, actually, would also require a person not to lie in this instance:
http://www.philosophyblog.com.au/immanuel-kant-and-the-supposed-right-to-lie-to-murderers-from-benevolence/
So don’t be too harsh on Bodie Hodge even though he’s stupid.
I certainly would lie to the Nazis or refuse to cooperate with them in any case. In such a situation, we would have to exercise some kind of moral imagination, such as refusing to help.
And I do believe that morality has an objective divine foundation, but as you have argued, we are never 100% sure.
And that is why faith is so important in the Christian faith. It is not a replacement for doubt, it’s a replacement for certainty, which I agree plagues much of fundamentalist Christianity today.
Keith McGuinness,
You know that I said it “may not be the wisest course of action” when pointing out the false dilemma.
I know you know because you quoted me saying it. :)
I agree, though. While I like to think I would stand up to that sort of question, until I’m actually in that position myself I have no idea whether I would simply lie instead.
How is faith a replacement for certainty? Isn’t faith the same thing but without reasons?
I understand that faith can mean belief-short-of-certainty – but in a religious context that isn’t really what it does mean, is it? It means something more like cognitive commitment – something analogous to loyalty – which is not supposed to be tentative or limited or less-than [certainty]. No?
Russell, that’s really not a fair description of Kant from what I’ve read. He leaves a very limited and restricted role for faith–it’s entirely subordinated to secular moral norms derived from reason.
He would agree with the actual decision Hodge makes here (which, yes, is crazy) but not at all with the “reasoning” behind it. The “God told me so” school of non-thought cut no ice with Kant.
I don’t think I need to know anything more about answersingenesis. What an utterly contemptible opinion.