Conversations with God, part 13

Morality, part 3

I said before that there are no ten commandments, but I should add at this point that there are ten commitments which God gave to Moses. Here is the 5th commitment:

You know you have found God when you observe that you will not murder (that is, willfully kill, without cause). For while you will understand that you cannot end another's life in any event (all life is eternal), you will not choose to terminate any particular incarnation, nor change any life energy from one form to another, without the most sacred justification. Your new reverence for life will cause you to honor all life forms—including plants, trees and animal—and to impact them only when it is for the highest good (p.96-7).

In a world without objective moral values, how can anything be "just" or "unjust'? What does "justification" mean in a world like that? And in a world where nothing is good or bad, how can there be such a thing as "the highest good"? Clearly, this God has a strong sense of morality, and that sense of morality is very clear to this God as is evident in the next quote.

Clearly it is not the highest action to deliberately abuse or destroy another. Clearly, it is equally inappropriate to neglect the needs of those you have caused to be dependent on you. Your job is to render them independent; to teach them as quickly and completely as possible how to get along without you (p.114).

Things like "highest action" and "inappropriate" are meaningless if there are no objective moral values. And how can it be anybody's job to do anything if nothing is required of us? God contradicts herself over and over in this book.

By the highest standards I have observed humans devise, killing can never be justified as a means of expressing anger, releasing hostility, 'righting a wrong,' or punishing an offender (p.151).

Here we are again with "highest standards" in a world where there are no standards, and "justified" when there's no such thing as moral justification.

You have a right under highest moral law—indeed, you have an obligation under that law—to stop aggression on the person of another, or yourself. This does not mean that killing as a punishment is appropriate, nor as retribution, nor as a means of settling petty differences (p.151).

What does it mean to "have a right" in a nihilistic universe? And how can there be such a things as "highest moral law" when there is no moral law at all? And if there are no moral obligations, then how can we have an "obligation under that law"? Can it be more clear? This God obviously thinks it's morally wrong to kill as a means of settling petty differences, and she thinks it's morally right to stop aggression on another person.

Life should be a joy, a celebration, and it has become an experience of fear, anxiety, 'not enough-ness,' envy, rage, and tragedy (p.207).

But God said before that there is no should or shouldn't, so how is it that life should be a joy? If there is no should or shouldn't, then it doesn't matter what life is. Life is completely meaningless.

to be continued...

Part 14