Do Morals and Ethics Really Matter?

[Ramaraksha]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask

So, are they not saying that morals and ethics do not matter? If what we do in life does not matter, it doesn't matter whether we are good or bad people, whether we save little kids from burning buildings or start fires, whether we save women and children from horrible situations or run around at night raping and killing - all that matters to "God" it seems is whether you had joined "his" religion or not. When the likes of Gandhiji, the Buddha and Einstein are tossed carelessly into hell, then we are not talking morals and ethics are we?

This reminds me of what happened under Hitler and ISIS. To Hitler what the Jewish person did in life did not matter. The poor old man could have spent all his life working for the betterment of Germany but that did not save him and his little grandchild from gas chambers. ISIS, similarly, did not care for their victims as persons, as human beings, their religious affiliation meant either death or life. Collective condemnation was the norm

So, as to the title - such ideas are not a secret - religions preach them openly and yet face few people asking them why then would the 10 commandments matter? So, their religion does not care about morals or principles?

The fact that religions have not been asked such questions tells me that for all the talk and discussions on morality and ethics, it's all just talk - morality and ethics are what we make of them, we change them as it suits us

So, why don't religions insist on morals and principles as way to find God? Because then that would put an end to conversions, proselytizations. If anyone can be with God based on their actions, then religion will cease to matter, as it should. Religion is an affiliation, not a qualification. By insisting that religion be a qualification, they preach division and hate throughout the world, again facing zero condemnation. While divisive ideas such as racism, sexism, casteism, ageism and the like face censure, these religions happily preach their divisive ideas

My great admiration to religions, that in this day and age, with all our education and intelligence that they have made religion a qualification that even the brightest do not seem to question

 

[fast]

Of course it matters. What a silly question.

If you attempt to kill someone, then whether you're successful at it or not, you're still going to jail (so it might not matter in one way since you're going to jail either way if you're found guilty), but not mattering in one way doesn't mean it doesn't matter in other ways. It'll matter to the family whether you're successful or not, so the blanket "does it matter" is most certainly yes.

 

[Ramaraksha]

Of course it matters. What a silly question.

If you attempt to kill someone, then whether you're successful at it or not, you're still going to jail (so it might not matter in one way since you're going to jail either way if you're found guilty), but not mattering in one way doesn't mean it doesn't matter in other ways. It'll matter to the family whether you're successful or not, so the blanket "does it matter" is most certainly yes.

You miss the point - sure everything matters but what the post was about is that we can justify anything, all sorts of crimes can be justified based on our biases. If you are a writer and your boss asks you to write about Genital Mutilation, you would say yes, but then would you not come back and ask, "Male or Female"? - because gender matters, right? The story is different based on gender - if it is male, then said mutilation is good, if female, what a horrible thing to do to a woman!

As a Hindu i saw this first hand when India recently banned the killing of cows - all the reports from the west were biased and against the law! They thought not killing, let's say that again, not harming a poor animal was wrong! And these are the same countries that ban the killing of dogs & cats. In muslim-majority countries the killing and eating of pigs is banned and yet they had a muslim preaching morals at us Hindus - "Isn't it a human right to eat whatever one wants"? hello! So how come i can't eat a pig in your countries. Dogs and cats are eaten in China and Korea - so if they want to eat them in the US what about their rights? Shows how religious hate and biases skew our views

The Bible talks about slavery and yet millions of blacks are christians. It also talks about the mass murder of even women and children ordered by God and yet few protest. Just simply amazing to see this side of humanity

 

[Valjean]

Don't confuse persons with symbols.

 

[Bomb#20]

Angel Child: It must be very trying to be bad all the time
Vicious and cruel and mean

Devil: you get used to it

Angel Child: When there's so much beauty
All round us to be seen
And so very little time in which to see it all
And feel it all
So little time

Devil: you should know

Angel Child: Perhaps when you were little
No one held you in their arms
And told you that they loved you very much
Perhaps you were embittered
By your fall from Grace

Devil: How long have you been dead?

Angel Child: Two Months

Devil: Do you miss your friends?

Angel Child: Yes, I miss them
I've tried to make friends here, but it's hard

Devil: Yes, they resent you

Angel Child: Perhaps

Devil: They know you're smarter than they are

Angel Child: Perhaps

Devil: Yes

Angel Child: Perhaps

Devil: Yes

Angel Child: Yes

Devil: Your parents, do you miss them?
Do you wish that you were with them?

Angel Child: Yes, I miss them
I do miss them

Devil: The man who shot you in the head
In that Burger King in Tucson
Well, he never will be punished you know
He will move to Big Pine, California
Become the richest man in Mono County
While that may not be much, it's enough
When he dies
Sixty-five years from today
With his loved ones all around him
He'll be whisked right up to heaven
He won't pass go or have to wait
He'll just march right through the God-damned gate
Why
you may ask yourself why
For thousands and thousands of years
I have asked myself why

Lord: Faith

Angels: Contrition

Lord: Sincere contrition.
Confession.

Angels: Yes Lord

Lord: Sincere confession

Angels: Yes Lord. Yes Lord

Lord: Redemption.
Absolution
Those who seek Me shall find Me
In the case of this man,
Predestination

Angels: Predestination

Lord: My ways are mysterious
Sometimes even to myself
My ways are mysterious

- "Randy Newman's Faust"

 

[Underseer]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask

So, are they not saying that morals and ethics do not matter? If what we do in life does not matter, it doesn't matter whether we are good or bad people, whether we save little kids from burning buildings or start fires, whether we save women and children from horrible situations or run around at night raping and killing - all that matters to "God" it seems is whether you had joined "his" religion or not. When the likes of Gandhiji, the Buddha and Einstein are tossed carelessly into hell, then we are not talking morals and ethics are we?

This reminds me of what happened under Hitler and ISIS. To Hitler what the Jewish person did in life did not matter. The poor old man could have spent all his life working for the betterment of Germany but that did not save him and his little grandchild from gas chambers. ISIS, similarly, did not care for their victims as persons, as human beings, their religious affiliation meant either death or life. Collective condemnation was the norm

So, as to the title - such ideas are not a secret - religions preach them openly and yet face few people asking them why then would the 10 commandments matter? So, their religion does not care about morals or principles?

The fact that religions have not been asked such questions tells me that for all the talk and discussions on morality and ethics, it's all just talk - morality and ethics are what we make of them, we change them as it suits us

So, why don't religions insist on morals and principles as way to find God? Because then that would put an end to conversions, proselytizations. If anyone can be with God based on their actions, then religion will cease to matter, as it should. Religion is an affiliation, not a qualification. By insisting that religion be a qualification, they preach division and hate throughout the world, again facing zero condemnation. While divisive ideas such as racism, sexism, casteism, ageism and the like face censure, these religions happily preach their divisive ideas

My great admiration to religions, that in this day and age, with all our education and intelligence that they have made religion a qualification that even the brightest do not seem to question

Authority-based moral systems can't make anyone more moral, they can only demand obedience. This was demonstrated thousands of years ago with the Euthyphro dilemma.

So every religion claims that they can make you more moral, but none of them can.

That's how you end up with "moral" systems in which it is reasonable to exterminate all the Jews, or exterminate all the homosexuals in some modern African country with the goal of passing similar laws in as many other countries as possible, or set children on fire for witchcraft. Once you accept an incoherent foundation for your morals, anything becomes potentially permissible. All you need is a man or woman of the cloth telling you that X is good, and just like that X is good no matter what X is.

Even setting children on fire for a "crime" they can't possibly be guilty of.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

Of course it matters. What a silly question.

If you attempt to kill someone, then whether you're successful at it or not, you're still going to jail (so it might not matter in one way since you're going to jail either way if you're found guilty), but not mattering in one way doesn't mean it doesn't matter in other ways. It'll matter to the family whether you're successful or not, so the blanket "does it matter" is most certainly yes.

You miss the point - sure everything matters but what the post was about is that we can justify anything, all sorts of crimes can be justified based on our biases. If you are a writer and your boss asks you to write about Genital Mutilation, you would say yes, but then would you not come back and ask, "Male or Female"? - because gender matters, right? The story is different based on gender - if it is male, then said mutilation is good, if female, what a horrible thing to do to a woman!

As a Hindu i saw this first hand when India recently banned the killing of cows - all the reports from the west were biased and against the law! They thought not killing, let's say that again, not harming a poor animal was wrong! And these are the same countries that ban the killing of dogs & cats. In muslim-majority countries the killing and eating of pigs is banned and yet they had a muslim preaching morals at us Hindus - "Isn't it a human right to eat whatever one wants"? hello! So how come i can't eat a pig in your countries. Dogs and cats are eaten in China and Korea - so if they want to eat them in the US what about their rights? Shows how religious hate and biases skew our views

The Bible talks about slavery and yet millions of blacks are christians. It also talks about the mass murder of even women and children ordered by God and yet few protest. Just simply amazing to see this side of humanity

The very fact that you find contradiction and deplorability in these laws is a perfect example of why morality and ethics really matter. Because human attempt at codifying morals and ethics can end in disaster is not an example of why they are irrelevant.

aa

 

[braces_for_impact]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask

So, are they not saying that morals and ethics do not matter? If what we do in life does not matter, it doesn't matter whether we are good or bad people, whether we save little kids from burning buildings or start fires, whether we save women and children from horrible situations or run around at night raping and killing - all that matters to "God" it seems is whether you had joined "his" religion or not. When the likes of Gandhiji, the Buddha and Einstein are tossed carelessly into hell, then we are not talking morals and ethics are we?

This reminds me of what happened under Hitler and ISIS. To Hitler what the Jewish person did in life did not matter. The poor old man could have spent all his life working for the betterment of Germany but that did not save him and his little grandchild from gas chambers. ISIS, similarly, did not care for their victims as persons, as human beings, their religious affiliation meant either death or life. Collective condemnation was the norm

So, as to the title - such ideas are not a secret - religions preach them openly and yet face few people asking them why then would the 10 commandments matter? So, their religion does not care about morals or principles?

The fact that religions have not been asked such questions tells me that for all the talk and discussions on morality and ethics, it's all just talk - morality and ethics are what we make of them, we change them as it suits us

So, why don't religions insist on morals and principles as way to find God? Because then that would put an end to conversions, proselytizations. If anyone can be with God based on their actions, then religion will cease to matter, as it should. Religion is an affiliation, not a qualification. By insisting that religion be a qualification, they preach division and hate throughout the world, again facing zero condemnation. While divisive ideas such as racism, sexism, casteism, ageism and the like face censure, these religions happily preach their divisive ideas

My great admiration to religions, that in this day and age, with all our education and intelligence that they have made religion a qualification that even the brightest do not seem to question

Authority-based moral systems can't make anyone more moral, they can only demand obedience. This was demonstrated thousands of years ago with the Euthyphro dilemma.

So every religion claims that they can make you more moral, but none of them can.

That's how you end up with "moral" systems in which it is reasonable to exterminate all the Jews, or exterminate all the homosexuals in some modern African country with the goal of passing similar laws in as many other countries as possible, or set children on fire for witchcraft. Once you accept an incoherent foundation for your morals, anything becomes potentially permissible. All you need is a man or woman of the cloth telling you that X is good, and just like that X is good no matter what X is.

Even setting children on fire for a "crime" they can't possibly be guilty of.

All the while our good little religious person will opine on how YOUR ethics are subjective, but his have a solid foundation. What's that behind the curtain?

 

[Underseer]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask

So, are they not saying that morals and ethics do not matter? If what we do in life does not matter, it doesn't matter whether we are good or bad people, whether we save little kids from burning buildings or start fires, whether we save women and children from horrible situations or run around at night raping and killing - all that matters to "God" it seems is whether you had joined "his" religion or not. When the likes of Gandhiji, the Buddha and Einstein are tossed carelessly into hell, then we are not talking morals and ethics are we?

This reminds me of what happened under Hitler and ISIS. To Hitler what the Jewish person did in life did not matter. The poor old man could have spent all his life working for the betterment of Germany but that did not save him and his little grandchild from gas chambers. ISIS, similarly, did not care for their victims as persons, as human beings, their religious affiliation meant either death or life. Collective condemnation was the norm

So, as to the title - such ideas are not a secret - religions preach them openly and yet face few people asking them why then would the 10 commandments matter? So, their religion does not care about morals or principles?

The fact that religions have not been asked such questions tells me that for all the talk and discussions on morality and ethics, it's all just talk - morality and ethics are what we make of them, we change them as it suits us

So, why don't religions insist on morals and principles as way to find God? Because then that would put an end to conversions, proselytizations. If anyone can be with God based on their actions, then religion will cease to matter, as it should. Religion is an affiliation, not a qualification. By insisting that religion be a qualification, they preach division and hate throughout the world, again facing zero condemnation. While divisive ideas such as racism, sexism, casteism, ageism and the like face censure, these religions happily preach their divisive ideas

My great admiration to religions, that in this day and age, with all our education and intelligence that they have made religion a qualification that even the brightest do not seem to question

Authority-based moral systems can't make anyone more moral, they can only demand obedience. This was demonstrated thousands of years ago with the Euthyphro dilemma.

So every religion claims that they can make you more moral, but none of them can.

That's how you end up with "moral" systems in which it is reasonable to exterminate all the Jews, or exterminate all the homosexuals in some modern African country with the goal of passing similar laws in as many other countries as possible, or set children on fire for witchcraft. Once you accept an incoherent foundation for your morals, anything becomes potentially permissible. All you need is a man or woman of the cloth telling you that X is good, and just like that X is good no matter what X is.

Even setting children on fire for a "crime" they can't possibly be guilty of.

All the while our good little religious person will opine on how YOUR ethics are subjective, but his have a solid foundation. What's that behind the curtain?

Yup.

William Lane Craig: Divine Command Theory tells us that it is moral when God orders the slaughter of all the babies in a city, but immoral if you were to do the same thing.

Also William Lane Craig: I believe in objective morality instead of moral relativism because objective morality proves that God exists.



It's the height of absurdity. Pardon my half-remembered paraphrasing, but I believe Daniel Dennet once said that religion is a trap baited with people's desire to be good.

The fact that every religion promises to make followers more moral despite the fact that no authority-based moral system can possibly do so only makes discussions about morality more muddled and less conductive because a large portion of the population is operating on a deeply flawed basis for morality, all so that men of the cloth can have more wealth and political influence.

 

[aupmanyav]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask.

Not an issue in Indian religions. If one's actions are good, one goes to heaven irrespective of what religion one follows, or what God you worship or don't.

 

[WAB]

Below is a snippet from a novella I wrote about ten years ago, called Fireflies of the Dusk, before my psychotic break, which sums up my thinking on the matter of salvation based on faith then. I find not much has changed in my reasoning mind, despite some emotional residue and sentiment left over from my religious experiences:

An older man, a disgruntled, reclusive atheist, is talking to a young man of fourteen, who mows his lawn on weekends:

*

Tottle was leaning forward now, the book closed in his lap, and his big knuckles were white upon it. "I know, I shouldn't have put the question like that. Let's say Heaven and Hell are real places. According to what we know about such places, would good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell? Does that seem about right?"

"Sure, I guess," Noah said.

"Well, that isn't the way it is. What it boils down to is faith. Faith or the lack of it is the thing that determines our fate. Christians talk a good deal about right and wrong, good and evil, but at bottom there is one simple fact: God is good, and man is evil. Man can never be good, try as he might, because of Original Sin. A couple of people disobeyed God a long time ago and because of this single act every person conceived is corrupted. Man can never be good. The only thing he can do is believe. He has to believe that he is corrupt and that he's a sinner, through and through.

"On top of that every man has to believe that Jesus Christ, the son of God, the physical embodiment of God according to some, was tortured and killed as a means of paying for his own imperfections, not Christ's, but his own weakness, his own human nature. If God truly forgave us for our sins there would be no need for atonement, no need for Jesus to hang on a cross and suffer for us. Our sins are paid for, not forgiven. That's what atonement means. Christ pays the price of our sins by enduring the punishments we ought to have suffered ourselves. You see?

"There is no forgiveness, just a bizarre transferal of penalty from one to another, from all to one. Your hope of being spared an eternity of damnation doesn't depend on your being forgiven, it depends on your ability to believe that what certain men put on paper thousands of years ago constitutes reality. You are to believe that an ancient story is the truth, and your failure to believe will result in your damnation. Short of this belief, being a good or bad person is irrelevant. Bad people who believe the ancient story go to Heaven, and good people who cannot believe go to Hell. Notice I said cannot, not will not. We can only believe things that we find believable. We can't force ourselves to believe in something that doesn't make sense to us.

"Of course some good people believe and some bad people do not believe; what's important to remember is that goodness and badness is irrelevant. The act of faith is your salvation, and very little else. But what exactly is it that you are asked to place your faith in, Noah? That God, the creator of the universe, is incapable of truly forgiving his creations for their imperfections. Incapable or unwilling, or both. If God could truly forgive man for his sins, there would be no need for the atonement on the cross.

"The crucifix is a constant reminder that God cannot or will not forgive you for your failure to attain perfection, that one person was made to suffer inconceivably because you had the audacity to slide from your mother's body and be born into the world. You, Noah. You are the reason that innocent man was nailed to a cross two thousand years ago. It's your fault, Noah. And your only escape from being damned rests entirely on your capacity to hold yourself guilty of Christ's blood and pain, to accept that your imperfection sentenced him to his fate long before you were born, that your fallibility, your humanity, imposes upon you the responsibility for his torture and death. The failure to acknowledge this monstrous truth will result in your being damned forever.

"But goodness and badness comes in degrees, and what I'm describing is only one form of faith. Even if there is a God I feel comfortable in saying that Christianity, as it is commonly accepted, cannot have any acquaintance with reality. For what possible purpose does Hell exist? For what possible reason would God need to condemn human beings to an eternity of pain and suffering? People don't know what they're talking about when they talk about eternity, or they refuse to give it serious thought. An eternity of torment is unconscionable, even for the worst of people. That some people can find it in their souls to truly believe there's anything remotely like justice in the idea of Hell is disturbing, even revolting. Some Christians don't believe in Hell, and I have no problem with those people. Some people believe in salvation through works, and not faith alone, and with those people I have no serious quarrel, although I don't agree with them. But no matter what type of religious faith, you're dealing with the belief that man is sick by nature, that man is guilty by nature, that there's something inherently wrong with being human..."

 

[fast]

You miss the point - sure everything matters but what the post was about is that we can justify anything, all sorts of crimes can be justified based on our biases.

Of course I miss the point. That's what I do. And here again, I'll do it once more:

When the bad guy spoke to explain his evil deed, the lady listening in said, "he is justifying his immoral behavior."

We have an intuitive sense of what is meant by her use of those words, but when examined with a careful eye, I can't help but think he was not successful at doing what he was trying to do. He wasn't (as she said) justifying his immoral behavior. He tried. He tried hard. But, he didn't try and succeed. He tried and failed. He did not (again, did not) justify a darn thing. Try as he might, he failed.

You're saying that "all sorts of crimes can be justified." You even go on to explain how they do it: "based on our biases." But, are you right? The first part, especially. Can all sorts of crimes be justified? Try as we might, I have serious doubts they can. A few, sure. But not all. The point, of course, has not to do with how many. The point is that since failure is common, success is not therefore achieved in those failed instances.

[/Point missed (take two)]

 

[steve_bank]

How about enlightened self interest?

In a group live by a code of ethics to enhance personal survival instead of going it alone.

The Ten Commandments served to add cohesion and stability to a group of nomads trasitioning to farmers. Marriage and monogamy instead of fighting over women stabized the group.

 

[WAB]

Enlightened self-interest is usually a term used by Randian Objectivists, libertarians, and some types of theists, particularly those who pander to the prosperity teachings.

I would consider what you describe as enlightened collective interest, since it's just as much about the interest of the social order, the group or tribe, as it is the interest of the individual.

But that's just me.

?

 

[Underseer]

This issue is about the dominant religions and what they preach - they say that unless you pray to their God, you get hell. Your actions do not matter, all that matters is that are you with their God or not? If you are not with their God, he cannot save you. Do you want to go to hell? they ask.

Not an issue in Indian religions. If one's actions are good, one goes to heaven irrespective of what religion one follows, or what God you worship or don't.

What you say is true, but who determines what is good or bad? You need to listen to the authority (generally a religious leader) to learn what is good and bad.

In the end, it's still a system of political control even if the mechanism is more subtle, and religions are still promising to deliver what no religion can.

 

[Underseer]

People make this more complicated than it needs to be.

Humans are social mammals and like most social species, our primary survival strategy is each other.​

That's it. You can understand what you need to from that. Animal species on Earth can be divided into social and solitary species. One survival strategy isn't necessarily better than the other, but they have different strengths and weaknesses. If you look at different social species, the details of how the social survival strategy works can vary depending on the circumstances of the species, but the overall outline is pretty simple.

I do things that benefit the well-being or survival chances of someone else in my social group that doesn't benefit me at all. If enough people in my social group do the same thing or similar, then everyone in the group gets a very large increase in well-being and survivability even if each individual contribution is small. For social mammals, socialization often involves some sort of bonding, which makes us more inclined to risk ourselves for the benefit of those we form emotional/social bonds with.

The social survival strategy is based on behavior and works better if everyone in a social group is operating on the same page. Since Every species other than us is not able to communicate ideology, then the standard behavior must from instinct to at least some extent. Human social groups are a lot more complicated, but thankfully we are able to communicate ideology. Human nations/societies can have large differences in standards of behavior, and we get into loud angry arguments about standards of behavior.

Religion doesn't create morality (as previously mentioned, it can't), but it can be a vehicle for communicating standards of behavior through the authority of religious leaders. I'm guessing that's why many religions emphasize obedience to the exclusion of actual morality and even encourage followers to mistake obedience for morality.

 

[steve_bank]

Enlightened self-interest is usually a term used by Randian Objectivists, libertarians, and some types of theists, particularly those who pander to the prosperity teachings.

I would consider what you describe as enlightened collective interest, since it's just as much about the interest of the social order, the group or tribe, as it is the interest of the individual.

But that's just me.

?

In general usage it means going along and limiting some aspect of yourself for security or benefit in some form. Call it simply self interest if you like.

 

[steve_bank]

In the modern west moral codes are esentialy the civil law system.


Ethics is how you follow the morality.

Codes are there to keep a lid on chaos and violence. We are social but so are chimps. Like chimps we are aggressive. The human convention of marriage exists to limit aggression and conflict.

 

[Underseer]

In the modern west moral codes are esentialy the civil law system.


Ethics is how you follow the morality.

Codes are there to keep a lid on chaos and violence. We are social but so are chimps. Like chimps we are aggressive. The human convention of marriage exists to limit aggression and conflict.

Uh, no.

Civil law isn't morality. Civil law is what is necessary to run a nation-state (or local government).

Budgets can be described as moral documents in that they make plain what a nation finds important and unimportant, but laws are not morality. I don't know why anyone would think they are.

 

[WAB]

Lots of distinction between what is moral and what is legal:

Abortion. Should it be legal? I think so. I hold to the view that the woman has sovereignty over her own body, up to and until the moment of birth. Is it moral? Well, that's where it gets tricksy. Was she raped? Then I would say, and only insofar as it's the mother's decision, that it could be said to be moral for her to abort the fetus fathered by a monster.

That being said, a good friend of mine's wife was raped, before they had even met; and she had decided to keep the baby that was the result of the assault. She had a great relationship with the child. Win for her, win for the child.

Primary point: it's up to the mother, not the state.

If there really is a Deity in the mix, and if said Deity is in absolute control of His universe (as Calvinists and evangelicals, etc, claim), then no creature can, by any stretch of the imagination, by any exercise of intellection, speculation, or erudition, be held responsible for anything they do; whether it be to choose what tie to wear, or whether to have an abortion.

If God knows everything that everyone will ever do, and in fact, plans and designs the entire cosmological event(s) before His creatures even come into existence, down to every detail, down to every dotted 'i' and the number of hairs on every creature's head, not to mention the fall of every sparrow, then whatever happens, said Deity Has only Himself to blame.

Any argument to the contrary is futile, abortive, not to mention, absurdly, and unspeakably, inhumane and corrupt.


[please excuse all those commas, and the silly affected certainty...]