No, go ahead and quote. I can expand that bit a little, too: There's even a personal component as to why that thought makes me angry. It implies that I wouldn't do good things without hope of eternal reward, or refrain from doing bad things without fear of eternal punishment. They might as well be saying I wouldn't tidy my room without getting a cookie for it, or I would stay out very late without telling my parents where I was if I didn't know I'd be yelled at afterwards. The connection should be obvious: I am NOT a child. Neither, one hopes, are human beings who are old enough to be called upon to make moral decisions.
Nope, no one said every good action has a corresponding evil equivalent, I wasn't trying to disprove that. I trying to refute the "evil is the absence of good" argument in the original quote---because I don't think it is; evil and good are both attributes of certain types of actions in their own right.
" It implies that I wouldn't do good things without hope of eternal reward, or refrain from doing bad things without fear of eternal punishment."
*nod* The teaching of my faith is that once one is Saved, that cannot be undone; so the idea of preachers waving the carrot and the stick to get people to behave always struck me as odd -- I'm already promised I'll get the carrot and avoid the stick, so, duh, that's not the reason for me to do good and shun evil.
The reason I came up with (beyond things like "enlightened self interest" and all the non-God-based reasons, which are also useful) is love and duty; that is, not because I fear punishment or am trying to earn Celestial Green Stamps, but out of a sense of duty to God, or out of love for Him, with reward and punishment having been removed from the equation.
Translating that to the broader issue you raise, I guess that means I expect God to expect me to not be a child.
Obviously I do not speak for all subsets of Christianity in this ...
(no subject)
Nope, no one said every good action has a corresponding evil equivalent, I wasn't trying to disprove that. I trying to refute the "evil is the absence of good" argument in the original quote---because I don't think it is; evil and good are both attributes of certain types of actions in their own right.
(no subject)
*nod* The teaching of my faith is that once one is Saved, that cannot be undone; so the idea of preachers waving the carrot and the stick to get people to behave always struck me as odd -- I'm already promised I'll get the carrot and avoid the stick, so, duh, that's not the reason for me to do good and shun evil.
The reason I came up with (beyond things like "enlightened self interest" and all the non-God-based reasons, which are also useful) is love and duty; that is, not because I fear punishment or am trying to earn Celestial Green Stamps, but out of a sense of duty to God, or out of love for Him, with reward and punishment having been removed from the equation.
Translating that to the broader issue you raise, I guess that means I expect God to expect me to not be a child.
Obviously I do not speak for all subsets of Christianity in this ...