We are creating new forms of life all the time, and soon we’ll be creating species of larger life forms. I could easily imagine us being able to create an intelligent new life form using genetic engineering in a few centuries. Will we be deities?
A deity must be supernatural in a sense - yours does not seem to be.
So you aren’t making a point? It seems between this and the Kanicbird thread in da Pit that you are making more or less the same point in two different threads, the point being that God is cruel and doesn’t exist. Are you sure that you are not making a point?
I try to avoid both subtext and rhetorical questions. I started this thread because I enjoy discussions about morality, ethics, and language. I started the Pit thread because I was irritated.
I don’t think all versions of God are hateful, vile, and so forth. (Though I do think they’re all imaginary.) I don’t think Christians are uniformly evil, or even mostly evil. It’s only certain images of God, and certain species of Christians, that piss me off.
If she’s asking me to volunteer, it’s not a question of sovereignty, making the whole question moot.
If she wants sovereignty, she has a damn strong claim on it. From your description, she has enough power that she could, if she so wished, conquer all of humanity, as near to instantly and effortlessly as makes no difference. But that’s not a matter of morality, and I fail to see any relevance to it.
She also has the right to ask me to sacrifice myself, to the extent that anyone has the right to ask anything of anyone. Why she chose me in particular, I don’t know, but I’m sure she has reasons, and she’s smart enough that they are probably good reasons. I’d ask why it has to be me, but I think I’d be willing to accept “you wouldn’t understand”, if that’s the answer she gives.
I’m thinking Gaia or Frigga or Ishtar or whatever saw the crisis coming centuries ahead of time and did a bit of genetic engineering to gave you the ability to do what must be done. Admittedly, whoever she then asks will say, “But why didn’t you choose someone else?”, but the answer to that is obvious.
Keeping in mind how poorly-defined “supernatural” is, upon what are you basing your conclusion that this deity doesn’t qualify?
I’d promptly start asking for details and try to work with her to come up with a solution that doesn’t require me to make the ultimate sacrifice. Because I really don’t want to be known as the guy who destroyed Goddess and doomed humanity due to my own selfishness.
A follow-up question, if I may: Suppose that what’s-her-name decided it would be foolish to stake the fate of the planet on one mortal’s decision, and so planned ahead and prepared a few hundred potential saviours. She still needs only one, and only one will need to die for the plan to work. If you’re one of those potential saviours, and you know that there are hundreds of other candidates, is it moral for you to not volunteer, secure in the knowledge that there’s bound to be someone else who’s willing, anyway?
My thought here is that–assuming that Inanna is both benevolent and competent–she would (a) have prepared multiple potential saviors, and (b) clearly judge that you are the best of those. Remember, she’s not omnipotent; it’s reasonable to think that she cannot make endless potentials, and that not all of them came out as well as others. She’s coming to you because she judges your qualifications give you the best odds of saving the Earth.