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Only Allah, whom the infidels of the book call God or YHVH, can decide who lives or dies. If he decides a child should not be upon this earth we may not understand why, but who are we mere mortals to say He has done wrong?
 
Remind me again who dispatched those assassins? I am not responsible for the evil acts of others.

The rest of your argument is too abstruse for this merely Byzantine reasoner. Ask me about the Trinity and I'll find something to say; ask me to justify the death of children, or somehow make bringing them into the world equivalent to killing them, and I find myself silent. I shall stick to the simple essentials of the matter: In this conflict there has been one side that killed children, and one that did not. A bright dividing line that I'm glad to find myself on the correct side of.

So the correct side IS child murder then?
 
Only Allah, whom the infidels of the book call God or YHVH, can decide who lives or dies. If he decides a child should not be upon this earth we may not understand why, but who are we mere mortals to say He has done wrong?

Quite so. When men with knives are found escaping the scene of the death, however, the honest theologian must begin to suspect that the will of God was little involved. Men have free will, after all; to say otherwise is heresy, not that I expect this to bother an infidel. Nonetheless, either we are free actors or we are puppets; and why should an almighty God create mere puppets? The argument "if God had not willed it, it would not have happened" is impious, heretical, absurd, and suspiciously self-serving.

So the correct side IS child murder then?

I have dispatched no assassins, authorised no killings, uttered no plausibly-deniable shouts of "will no-one rid me of this troublesome heir?". Having lost the reasoned debate, you now descend to mere name-calling, like a child who can think of nothing more clever to say than "you're another!".

So.. for what ambitions WOULD you sully your souls etc.?

Shush you. I do not claim that the Senate and the People have clean hands; it is not as though we have never started a war. But we do not deliberately kill children.
 
I have dispatched no assassins, authorised no killings, uttered no plausibly-deniable shouts of "will no-one rid me of this troublesome heir?". Having lost the reasoned debate, you now descend to mere name-calling, like a child who can think of nothing more clever to say than "you're another!".
Wait, reasoned debate? You gave up and said you didn't understand. Then proceded to declare you were right because you were right, and were on the correct sign of the 'Bright Line'.

Let me quote.

KoM said:
The rest of your argument is too abstruse for this merely Byzantine reasoner. Ask me about the Trinity and I'll find something to say; ask me to justify the death of children, or somehow make bringing them into the world equivalent to killing them, and I find myself silent. I shall stick to the simple essentials of the matter

Seems like you gave up the reasoned debate, so don't pretend otherwise, it would be dishonest.
 
Indeed, I cannot follow the tortured reasoning that keeps your conscience clean, if it does. I can only note that no children are dead at my hands. A fundamental fact of great simplicity, which sweeps away all your complicated edifice of rationalisation. Look dead Malhaz in the eye, or Vakhtang who has lived to bury his son, and tell them of your skill at reasoned debate.
 
Indeed, I cannot follow the tortured reasoning that keeps your conscience clean, if it does. I can only note that no children are dead at my hands. A fundamental fact of great simplicity, which sweeps away all your complicated edifice of rationalisation. Look dead Malhaz in the eye, or Vakhtang who has lived to bury his son, and tell them of your skill at reasoned debate.

So I suppose paying people to assassinate children is not against Bulgarian consciences?
 
So I suppose paying people to assassinate children is not against Bulgarian consciences?

What child do you accuse me of hiring killers for?
 
Nonetheless, either we are free actors or we are puppets; and why should an almighty God create mere puppets?

Every man has free will and makes his own decisions, otherwise the rewards and punishments in the afterlife would make no sense. But it is Allah who controls fate, it was the choice of Byzantion to send assassins against Salman, brother of the Calipha and blood of the Prophet, but it was Allah who decided wether or not it would succed. It is sad children are punished for the sins of their fathers, but this happens every day through accidends, sickness or worse. Allah lets this happen and we are in no position to question Him.
 
Hey, I wrote holy bloody AAR about the deeds of St. Jesus the Carpenter! This thread is more religious than the current pope...
 
Indeed, I cannot follow the tortured reasoning that keeps your conscience clean, if it does. I can only note that no children are dead at my hands. A fundamental fact of great simplicity, which sweeps away all your complicated edifice of rationalisation. Look dead Malhaz in the eye, or Vakhtang who has lived to bury his son, and tell them of your skill at reasoned debate.

So not only do you refuse to debate, you declare that truth is known simply through its being known. Additionally, you make the case that any sort of specific grief is enough evidence to overturn a mountain of debate and thought.

No children dead at your hands you say? When Bulgaria swept into Croatia, were all the villages treated fairly, with no looting or disease breaking out? Did you ensure that your men at all times had enough feed, or did you live off the land? Was there pillaging? Or do you contend that the general case of your killing children doesn't count, but the specific removal of one individual does? So you support indiscriminate slaughter so long as there is no intention of child killing? Your morality certainly seems monolithic from here, clearly by removing all reasoning, tortured or not, you certainly make your life easier.
 
hmm.. but the fact does still stand : Somebody INTENDED to kill that specific child.. and did. It is hard to see THAT as a good ot benign act!

Killing someone is never good or benign, nessecary, justified perhaps, but ending anothers life in and of itself is always regretable. The question then is why the killing of one specific child out of percieved necessity, a necessity caused by powerhungy men mind you, is more unjust than the random killings of children that happen in all wars. Add to that the fact that dying by the swift assassins knife is much preferable to the things that happen when soldiers take a city.

It seems to me that the accuser in this debate thinks more ill of targeted killing than random not because of any moral clarity, but because of whom it affects. One ends the life of nobles and men of import, the other the common man. His arguments for one being ill and evil while the other acceptable is then nothing but the selfserving wagging of fingers covered in the blood of innocent children, the ending of whose lives is justified as not terribly evil as they have commited the heinous crime of being without lineage.