>Exactly. If God told you to do it, it must be okay.
Okay, so, now that we've established that it's okay as long as god said so, how do we handle those people that said "god told me to do it"? What evidence that god actually did the commanding? Do we look for burning bushes? Do we look out for a pillar fire hanging out by the temple? Oh, right, that was old testament stuff. We're clearly in the new testament stuff, so gonna need some examples of proof of work on that voice in the head being the actual god that it has been established as being okay to say murder someone(s).
>> Okay, so, now that we've established that it's okay as long as god said so, how do we handle those people that said "god told me to do it"? What evidence that god actually did the commanding?
That's a very good question without a good objective answer.
Most Judeo-Christian scripture has miracles or supernatural events occur that demonstrate that God is involved in what is happening. There also tends to be a religious leader of some kind who is "calling the shots" so that people know that the extraordinary events are not chance occurrences, but the work of God. For example, Moses and the plagues of Egypt.
There is an excellent podcast by Dan Carlin that discusses what can happen when "God told me to do it" went bad during the Reformation:
But you've only provided an old testament example. I explicitly called for new testament examples.
New testament is all about turning the other cheek, and not mass murdering a whole race of people. Are we supposed to look for a single set of footprints? "God told me to do it" new testament style would be to go out and feed the masses, or forgiving the guy that has been persecuting your people to become your most prolific evangelist. There was no sidekick or witness to new testament "miracles", just the word of the person. (It just so happens the feeding the masses and turning water into wine just so happened to be the god in person, so sidekick not required).
Okay, so, now that we've established that it's okay as long as god said so, how do we handle those people that said "god told me to do it"? What evidence that god actually did the commanding? Do we look for burning bushes? Do we look out for a pillar fire hanging out by the temple? Oh, right, that was old testament stuff. We're clearly in the new testament stuff, so gonna need some examples of proof of work on that voice in the head being the actual god that it has been established as being okay to say murder someone(s).