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Vox Day: Yes, I’d Totally Kill Toddlers
By Jeff Fecke | February 12, 2007
So Vox Day is insane. Yes, yes, you say you know that. Still, every so often, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that, no, Vox Day is frickin’ insane:
Jefferson poses a feeble trap:
If your god revealed to you in a set of flawless communications you could not dispute that you should kill every child you see under the age of 2, would you?
I don’t see what the problem is, or why people were avoiding this last night. I mean, of course it’s supposed to be a trap but it’s a toothless one of no concern to any sufficiently intelligent individual. The answer is yes, and how would you possibly take issue with that position regardless of whether you believe in my god or don’t believe in any god?
O…kay.
Vox, let me break it down for you quickly, before we go any further. If God came to me tomorrow, in full God regalia, with incontrovertible proof He was, in fact, God, and God told me to kill every two year old in the world, I would not do it.
If God told me that it was His will, I would tell him that His will be damned, I would not do it.
If God cast me into the pit for all eternity, where I would be tortured and tormented, I would not do it.
There is nothing that anyone, God, human, angel, demon, or other, could do to convince me to undertake such a horrific act. Nothing.
We are creatures with the capacity for moral reason. Whether you believe that is God-given or the combination of evolution and socialization does not matter–each of us has a conscience. And my conscience would not let me commit genocide. Hell, my conscience would not let me kill a single child by God’s fiat.
I say with absolute conviction: I would rather be damned than serve a God so evil that he would wantonly slaughter babes. If that sounds arrogant–so be it. I cannot believe God is actively cruel, so I cannot believe that particular God actually exists. But if he does, he is a force of evil in the universe.
Vox continues, unfortunately:
f I am correct that my God is the Creator God, that we are all his creations, then killing every child under two on the planet is no more inherently significant than a programmer unilaterally wiping out his AI-bots in a game universe. He alone has the right to define right and wrong, and as the Biblical example of King Saul and the Amalekites demonstrates, He has occasionally deemed it a moral duty to wipe out a people.
And as we are informed in Revelation, He will wipe out many peoples through the acts of (presumably) His angels. Jefferson can complain that this makes God unworthy of worship all he likes, but that’s as irrelevant as complaining that Stalin wasn’t properly elected according to the Soviet Constitution. Although in this case it isn’t might makes right, it is a much simpler case of might = right. Obey or perish.
Ah, but therein lies the rub–Stalin was evil. Right? I mean, absolutely, completely evil. I don’t know anyone who disagrees with that. Only Adolf Hitler keeps him from being the worst person to live in the 20th century, and then only just.
So if God has the morality of Josef Stalin, don’t we as moral beings have a duty to oppose him? To die rather than to serve him? I can tell you that millions did just that in the Soviet Union. Are they fools, Vox?
If you accept that argument from the IRS without question, then why would you refuse to accept it from the Creator of the Universe? Because excepting the unusual case of an exceptionally brave individual, the logical answer is that you don’t actually believe the choice you are posing.
Well, the IRS is asking for money, for one thing, not that I go kill two-year-olds. And the money goes to build things like roads and schools and parks, things that have some use. No, it’s not a perfect system, but I have a lot easier time parting with my money than my soul.
And then, if I am incorrect and my god does not exist, then we must ask why Jefferson, an atheist, should object to one set of meaningless atomic arrangements being randomly sorted into different arrangements. A reason, that is, besides the one that he has previously provided, which is that he would not like it. As adults do not accept that as sufficient justification for a course of action from toddlers, there is no reason why we should accept it from him either.
And here Vox goes completely off the rails onto his “there is no morality without God” crazy train. That’s bunk, to put it mildly. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a good moral philosophy regardless of whether Big Daddy God is waiting to smack you if you get out of line or not.
Humans may be “random arrangements of molecules,” but we’re thinking, feeling ones. If all human thought is controlled by the meat between our two ears, if all we are resides there, there is a greater duty to protect that life, as once it is gone, it is gone forever.
Now, I admit that if I was wrong and my god did not exist but another one did, one of his worshippers could likely provide a rational reason for why I it would be immoral to embark upon a toddler-slaying rampage. Of course, that would depend on the moral code of that other deity. And then, a Christian could certainly call into question the legitimacy of my divine orders; I’m quite sure that every Christian of my acquaintance would, in fact, do so.
Nevertheless, this is remarkably dangerous ground, not for Christians, but rather for anyone who is pro-science. If you are going to debate the legitimacy of a belief system based on the potential danger it presents, secular scientists are vastly more vulnerable than Christians.
Okay, I don’t even know what that means. All I know is that in the end, Vox Day has come out and said he’d gladly kill toddlers for God, and hey, he was just following orders.
And we wonder why terrorists strap themselves into planes and fly them into buildings. Vox Day has shown us why. Because it’s a small jump from saying you’d kill toddlers if God told you to do so to saying you’d kill toddlers if your shaman said that God told you to do so. Just one more person involved. And if you trust your shaman, why would you say no?
(Via Brett Rasmussen)
Topics: Christianity, Religion, Ted 'Theodore' Beale | 18 Comments »
February 13th, 2007 at 7:42 am
This is why I don’t understand why atheists can’t have morality. Theists don’t have morality, they have god’s will. If god decides mudering children is OK, that makes it moral. There’s no one to tell atheists that it is now OK to kill children. Which would you rather have next door?
February 13th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
God has responded to this controversy on Our blog. I guess with all the suicide bombings lately He was getting a little jealous of Allah’s unquestioning followers and Vox’s post really cheered Him up.
February 14th, 2007 at 8:25 am
See you at the next pro-life rally, Jeff.
January 28th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I’m sure Vox would be amuzed by this critique, seeing as it plays directly into his hands. All you are doing is refuting his arguments with emotion rather than reason. Do you ostensibly make arguments in a logical form? Yes, but the rationale being provided is still an appeal to emotion rather than reason. Vox answered the question given a certain set of hypothetical circumstances, while you ignore the circumstances and appeal to the emotions, and in so doing completely miss the point he is making (though you do an excellent job of demonstrating it).
A single word on your part belies the flaw: “wanton.” The term implies a moral judgement on your part and an assumption that there is no possible justification for such an action (again, a subjective judgement on your part). The minute you insist, whether explicitly or implicitly, upon morality being purely subjective you CANNOT then argue that all men should agree with your moral precepts. By what objective means can you claim that someone else is wrong and you are right when it comes to any given ethical situation?
On second thought, I don’t think Vox would be amuzed at all. I think he would be saddened by what amounts to a specious rebuttal based on emotion rather than sound logic.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Brett Rasmussen review’s Vox Day’s book, “The Irrational Atheist” here.
I actually agree with Vox. When I lost my religion I also stopped believing in an objective morality, adopting emotivism and Stirnerite egoism. Right before that transition the God I believed in resembled nothing so much as Azathoth. My willingness or lack thereof to kill children is entirely a personal preference and I do not feel the need to present any justification nor do I think it possible to do so.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
@apollyon:
I’d have to disagree with your analysis. If the argument is that religion leads to atrocities, then it is Vox who has played into the hands of the anti-theist’s argument. Our capacity to reason and our empathy are inherent to the survival of the human animal as a species because progress is the result of both. Religion fails at both of these because it stratifies humankind from the depths of slavery to the heights of purity and entitlement. It tells us that our enemy is not us, the same animal with the same capacities, but a servant of the ‘other.’ Leaders (religious or irrelgious) who have helped forward the causes of justice have in practice denied the notion that we are simply agents of one or another cosmic force. Your problem, as well as Vox’s, is that you assume we’ve all accepted this notion of moral relativity and that a reasonable perspective endorses moral relativity. All that Vox has proven is that if it were possible to manipulate believers through a chain of religious authority(which it demonstrably is), they could dangerously justify silencing the very traits that allow our survival. Should the men among our world’s political offices be subject to a perceived authority which really amounts to manipulations or a psychotic episodes, Vox’s brand of reason and morality (or moral relativity) will only bring about the end of man. I guess then the irony will be that we will finally have eliminated our species on the basis of a highly dangerous and inferior trait, religiousity because of our unwillingness to evolve.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 am
Congratulations Jeff.
You managed to both prove Vox right and miss his point without even trying to do so.
And JC our species unwillingness to evolve? Please, we have no say in the matter but it is natural selection that has the say (even if humans can overcome nature and all laws of natural selection because we are for some reason a great deal more intelligent than all other life for some reason, when all other forms of life got to a certain point millions of years ago and stopped in its’ tracks) or has your little cults messiah Dawkins changed his mind about how his reinvention of enlightenment amd neo darwinism works so he doesn’t continue to look like an twit when he avoids lines of questioning that put his old but new to the eyes of the uneducated theories to the test.
Will bring about the end of man? Are you high? Remember the 60′s when the usa and russia(or U,S,S,R at the time) had more nukes than brains pointed at everything? That is what nearly ended mankind. Greed and selfish ambition will be our downfall. We just can’t help outselves.
Do you know what hell would be like? Imagine a world where all men put worldly advancement and material posessions as their number one priority, and they knew for sure that they would never recieve judgement for the content of their heart and motives behind their actions.
We are not nice by nature and give a man a chance to commit evil without consequences and you will be disgusted at what you see.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:26 am
This reminds me of a scene from the movie ‘Real Genius’.
GOD: “Vox, I want you to stop masturbating [on your blog]“.
VOX: “… It IS God!”
The theme is also taken up in Lars von Trier’s eerily powerful masterpiece “Breaking the Waves”
I’ve personally welcomed God into my heart and agreed to consider most seriously anything he, she or it might have to say to me. Haven’t heard back from him yet in the sense of words or images forming in my mind.
Problem is, if I did hear or see God, then I would have to ask whether I was hallucinating, and I can think of no empirical method to test that. Deductive reasoning however would support the hallucination theory, since we have thousands of verifiable cases of hallucination, but can not prove any cases of divine missives.
Assuming The Voice were of supernatural origin, how would one know if it were not a demon or satan himself?
These questions immediately arise from the premise that some person has perceived some form of apparently supernational instructions, and a serious thinker would address them. Vox Day does not, ergo…
“God told me to skin you alive.” – Dead Kennedys
July 14th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
The question in and of itself is pointless, since this is completely out of character for God to order anyone to kill all the children under the age of 2.
Also, it is possible for atheists to have morality. We can all recognize right and wrong. The question is not can we recognize good and evil actions, the question is WHY can we recognize good and evil actions? Apart from God we can still recognize them, but why is it that we all seem to (in general) agree on how to classify things as right and wrong?
Evolution? Please, does no one understand that things go from order to disorder based on the very laws science swears by? This I got directly from the horses mouth. Very close friends of mine are scientists in various fields.
I could go on and on, but I’m sure this small piece will provoke a myriad of philosophical flounderings and unreasonable reasoning for disputing this.
God Bless!
July 28th, 2008 at 2:37 am
When atheists start opposing the killing of viable unborn humans…as politically incorrect as that would be to a leftists and involving risk…then they will have a leg to stand on.
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
From the first comment this rebuttal is faulted, for the reason that he is attributing human qualities to God, viewing Gods commands, or in this case request as he would any other human.
Vox is merely pointing out the obvious, for if God who is all knowing, all powerful, always present, and is completely holy and righteous as we are assuming is the God in question, the traditional God of the bible, whose knowledge is infinitely beyond that of the totality of all humanity, therefore presumably much more then any single individual, the intelligent conclusion, the logical conclusion, the only conclusion is that one must obey.
This rebuttal and the comments of those that agree with it demonstrate the long war against God. People deny God not from rational viewpoint, but because they reject the idea of God, and feel him unnecessary to even consider “their thoughts are far from him”. It is therefore predictable that this person would feel they could judge a request by God.
There is another flaw, God would never request such a thing from a person who was so vehemently resistant towards him, they would need to come to a place of belief first, like Moses or Paul the apostle, which is a huge problem for the atheist, because if God was indeed standing outside of the doorway and one could in fact open the door and see the creator of the universe in a manner that would completely prove his existence to them with no doubts, the problem is that the atheist would elect not to open the door. He would prefer to remain ignorant. The atheist is a paradox.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
So, I guess you are pro-life. Since you believe in…no God…? This makes so much sense, my mind hurts.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Thje original poster says he would never hurt a toddler.
What if the Toddler was ONE DAY away from birh.
In Kansas, you can kill em if it MAMA’S WILL.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Goldstein,
You’re missing the point completely. Vox thinks that it’s ok to kill kids even AFTER they’ve been born.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
You lost your credibility here:
“If God came to me tomorrow, in full God regalia, with incontrovertible proof He was, in fact, God, and God told me to kill every two year old in the world, I would not do it.
If God told me that it was His will, I would tell him that His will be damned, I would not do it.
If God cast me into the pit for all eternity, where I would be tortured and tormented, I would not do it.
There is nothing that anyone, God, human, angel, demon, or other, could do to convince me to undertake such a horrific act. Nothing.”
Credibility….gone! I don’t need to read any further. In fact, I quoted 4 mini paragraphs above. I didnt really need to read past the first, but I got all the way to number 4 before I finally said “enough is enough”. Quite a valiant effort. If I wasn’t in such a charitable mood, I never would’ve got that far.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
(have since skimmed, not read in detail, the rest)
You’re either lying, or you’re incredibly stupid. I expect your response to shed some light on the answer.
“I say with absolute conviction: I would rather be damned than serve a God so evil that he would wantonly slaughter babes.”
The fact is, IF God asked for that, he’d still be God. So you’d follow him, a being who is billions of times more powerful and greater than you.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a good moral philosophy regardless of whether Big Daddy God is waiting to smack you if you get out of line or not.”
You’ve missed the point comopletely. The point is that with God looking over your shoulder, you’ve actually got more reason to adhere to this philosophy. And as Vox points out, this has been shown throughout history…..
May 31st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Jeff Fecke, you, sir, are a liar.
If there were a real place called hell, filled with demons and the like, and it definitely existed as described in the christian bible as a place of eternal torture, you would kill every baby you could find. You would kill your own mother and you would probably cut your own penis off to not end up there. Anyone would.
Luckily for all of us, it probably doesn’t exist.
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Trav @ 16:
“The fact is, IF God asked for that, he’d still be God. So you’d follow him, a being who is billions of times more powerful and greater than you.”
So powerful, so magnificent…
He has to ask one of his creations to slaughter millions of his other creations?
Kinda sucky power there, huh? What does he do with that billions of times more power than his creation? If he has to keep commanding humans to do his bidding, maybe he no longer has power to do anything for himself?
Your stupidity is funny, though.