Appeals to Human Conscience Not Considered Harmful

In discussions on Facebook, I have appealed to conscience several times. This has been met with the accusation of "special pleading".

But the human conscience would seem to be more reliable to Christians than others would posit.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans2:14-16&version=CEV

Some people naturally obey the Law's commands, even though they don't have the Law. This proves that the conscience is like a law written in the human heart. And it will show whether we are forgiven or condemned, when God appoints Jesus Christ to judge everyone's secret thoughts, just as my message says.

and

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2Cor3:1-3&version=ESV

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

So let's not have any more hand-waving about the human conscience. I'm not talking about quibbling points of conscience -- I was talking about infantcide.

Unless someone's conscience is damaged, they know infantcide is evil. Therefore, if a so-called quote "scripture" says that such was done at the command of God, we know there is something suspect with the text.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%206:21&version=ESV

Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.

I maintain that God would not order such a thing, and that it is absurd to defend infantcide (if it did, in fact, even occur) -- or defend the text, which we know to be defective because of this absurdity.