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Notes -
Is it?
And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”
Spoilers for a 3000 year old story, but Abraham manages to talk God down from 50 to 10 and is then only able to find 1. At which point God basically tells them "RUN, and don't look back".
Yeah, but, that just isn't true? I've written fiction before, and grand statements like that are very compelling in fiction. In real life, though, I don't really see how the three month old fetuses, or slaves, or even farm animals are all going to be wicked enough to deserve instant annhilation!
In logic, there's the 'principle of explosion'. With a false statement, you can prove anything. We're seeing something - different, but related - here. It's the principle that, to cover for a lie, if you aren't skilled, you end up inventing more and more complicated and implausible lies. God destroyed a city - okay, sure, whatever. But God is benevolent and fair, too! Hm. Okay, A->B and B->C so A->c, everyone in the city deserved it. And now we run into problems - the babies deserved it? The deaf, blind, and mute deserved it?
And isn't that just beautiful! Exactly one! Poetic. How likely is it that that, like, actually happened though? Versus just being poetic?
Says who?
As likely as the US/Japanese war in the Pacific ending with the invention of some implausible superweapon that doesn't ever get used again despite multiple alleged existential threats. Reality is unrealistic.
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