# Would you kill your child if God commanded it?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-kill-your-child-if-god-commanded-it/220412>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 22, 2003, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-kill-your-child-if-god-commanded-it/220412 "2003-12-22T05:31:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 8

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-kill-your-child-if-god-commanded-it/220412/141 "2003-12-24T23:23:37Z")

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> [@](#):
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> The core question is: is that shortcut acceptable to take? Can you just assume, based on the word of a being who says he is god, that this is the situation at hand?

Not exactly. Based on the word of a being that **you area absolutely sure** is God.

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**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-kill-your-child-if-god-commanded-it/220412/142 "2003-12-25T00:16:36Z")

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> [@](#):
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> Based on the word of a being that you area absolutely sure is God.

But that’s part of the question, inevitably. Any being that is even slightly more powerful than mankind could convince you that you KNOW it’s god speaking to you. Your beliefs and feelings would be silly putty for its arrangement.

Further, the sort of “God” this God is can never be fully known to you in practice. Whether or not this is the kind of God you’d want to worship and obey, then, is never fully known to you either.

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