But many Muslims are certain that cutting the [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] out of a little girl is perfectly morally right and good. They are certain, too, that "honor killing" one's wife or daughter in the street is also morally right and good. Jeffrey Dahmer, a convicted cannibal serial killer, was also certain that his murderous actions were exactly what they should have been given his nihilistic worldview. Hitler was convinced, he was certain, that he had the right of things when he embarked on genocide and war against the world.
And when I called you a mind-reader for these conclusions, you charged me with deflection? Seriously?
Romans 1 and 2 attribute the conscience to all men and assert that sinners know they are sinners.
(Be aware that when I make an assertion like that, I'm assuming you read it the same way. Which most Christians do. But you're free to rebut that reading). Yet you claim that Hitler killed 6 million Jews without any twinge of conscience? No compunctions? Seriously?
Look, it doesn't matter anyway. I see no exception to the rule of conscience. If you feel certain that action A is evil, and B is good, you're obligated to B.
There are degrees of certainty, however. As noted earlier, a psychopath could guiltlessly murder someone on less than 100% certainty, because his conscience is warped. For him, 95% certainty might be enough to assuage any compunctions in his conscience. I personally doubt there are any perfect psyschopaths in the world (people with no conscience whatsoever and thus able to guiltlessly murder at ANY level of certainty). But even if there were such people, it wouldn't refute my position. Justice makes sense only if we are judged on conscience (see post 5), for reasons that, to me, seem painfully obvious and tautological. Feel free to rebut the analogy in post 5, if you can.
Proverbs 14:12
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
Let's get something straight. I don't care if you cite a million verses that 'seem' (on the face of it) to support your position, if that position has unresolved charges of internal contradictions. Either:
(A) resolve the alleged contradictions convincingly for us all to see OR
(B) find a better interpretation of the verse.
Clear?
People have been sincerely certain about many things that were morally wrong, factually in error, or logically fallacious (or all three together). How, then, can conscience (aka a feeling of certainty) be the final arbiter of truth?
It's not. Conscience is the basis on which we will be evaluated.
At post 109, I argued that all Christians WANT this kind of evaluation - it
seems to be a logically inescapable conclusion (notice the word 'seems'. My seeming apodictics are open to rebuttal, as my signature suggests). And if you read that post, PLEASE bear in mind it's not talking about salvation from hell (Christ's blood takes care of that much) but rather about judged faithful stewards.
I think you're not reading between the lines. To be more explicit, there is a distinction between:
(A) Morally obligatory epistemology - what my conscience is morally obligating me to believe (and do) at the moment.
(B) Objective epistemology. I don't see that I have any access to this. The Bible doesn't really give me direct access to the written Word of God, only to my fallible interpretations of it.
Note that A is tautological, if conscience is defined as feelings of certainty. The tautology is, 'I am morally obligated to currently believe that which I currently feel certain about'.
On the surface, that tautology might sound useless. In actual practice, it's the only way for God to run the church. Suppose He wants you to do something right now, say perhaps, preach to your mailman. Must He wait until you've spent 4 or 5 years at seminary mastering Hebrew and Greek hoping in vain you'll reach the same conclusion one day while reading your Bible? No. He can simply operate in your mind right now to
instantly give you a feeling of certainty that, "I should speak the gospel to my mailman next time he comes by."[/quote][/quote]