Arguments Against Christianity: Why God hurts others to punish David? 2 Samuel

[jcrichton]

It is exactly what they refuse to accept.

They limit themselves to the temporal existence and values and they want to hold God accountable to the temporal existence and values–man tells God what to do theology.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[pocaracas]

Sure… We now have the completely trustworthy tales of old when god did have to intervene, so we just have to believe… because faith.
And, for some unfathomable reason, the god creator of physics and metaphysics cares that each human believes that it (god) exists for real.
How about we go down the path of the well known human nature and realize that having the masses believe in such stories mostly serves the religious leaders… the same guys who wrote the books… the same guys who, throughout the ages, have been telling the people to believe.

I don’t care to keep god accountable for anything. It’s the tale told by those generations of religious leaders that doesn’t make sense… unless you believe… which is what they also want you to do.

Tens of thousands of people died in some war, until the king of the land came to his senses and did what he had to to end the war? awesome… let’s put a god in there as the one who made the king come to his senses and teach that bad things come when you don’t follow the god’s law… and believe!

 

[jcrichton]

But you don’t have to believe!

Don’t you find your argument empty at God’s Revelation:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (St. John 3)

Here’s the key:

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (St. John 3)

Here’s the Summary:

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (St. John 11)

…and here’s the only contractual obligation:

11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (St. John 1)

…only those who choose God need to worry about God’s Commandments.

Of course this means, by default, that only those who choose God need to concern themselves with belonging to God.

You, can choose to belong to your rock&roll star or your “real-life” star or your own made up “star/hero;” God will not force you to choose Him over yourself or whatever–so be at peace the fork is with you (fork-on-the-road).

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[pocaracas]

See all those quotes you put there?
Those are religious leaders writing a story that would make people believe in the religious thing that those particular leaders support.

Take out the religious leaders and their words… and their claims that they represent god on Earth… and you’re left with no god around.
Maybe a deist god… maybe.

 

[jcrichton]

But you don’t have to do so.

Just sample your own understanding and be free and happy.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Agathon]

Why does God hurt innocent people to punish King David? Moreover, even David doesn’t understand it, raising the additional problem of why God would give a punishment not understood by the person supposed to be punished.

“And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel” I don’t think God would kindle His anger against innocents.

 

[Kei]

I’m left with God all around, personally.
Everywhere I look I can’t escape…all of nature bears His trace…the face of the one in need…the one helping him…
in the trees, in the desert, at sea, in the clouds…I can’t escape.
The mother and father hugging their child, the child embracing their parents.

Though I wish you had the joy of Christ, if I cannot ask you to believe, allow me to ask that you help others. That’s what I ask. Live a life worth living, a life unafraid to die, for a good death comes from a good life.

 

[pocaracas]

I’m left with God all around, personally.
Everywhere I look I can’t escape…all of nature bears His trace…the face of the one in need…the one helping him…
in the trees, in the desert, at sea, in the clouds…I can’t escape.
The mother and father hugging their child, the child embracing their parents.

Though I wish you had the joy of Christ, if I cannot ask you to believe, allow me to ask that you help others. That’s what I ask. Live a life worth living, a life unafraid to die, for a good death comes from a good life.

I help others… I am contributing to a better future to all of mankind, when I could be making more moolah out of research…
I find joy in things unrelated to Christ, but be assured that I do find it.

 

[ethereality]

I think you overgeneralize when you start saying “your supporters”. Who, exactly?

I don’t think I’m a ‘supporter’, but I was thinking this morning that the main obstacle to belief for me is ‘divine hiddenness’, i.e. God and His angels are so silent and apparently absent, that it’s difficult to believe that they exist. To put it another way, if the Church is true, then why won’t my guardian angel speak to me in some clear way? How do we interact with immaterial reality? Can you tell me how many angels are present at church with you on Sunday? If not, why not?

So it is not “rejecting a spiritual afterlife” for anyone who has trouble believing the catholic faith.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

You continue to fail to understand your own argument.

The US dropped several catastrophic bombs on Japan.

Was it absolutely necessary?

There are historians on both sides who debate the merits and faults of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One thing that is abundantly clear is that more bombing and more killing was inevitable. Harry Truman was not omnipotent. He didn’t have the power to stop the killing of U.S. soliders by bending the universe to his will.

This really isn’t the place for a full history lesson, but let’s compare what the U.S. did to Japan with what God did to the 70,000. Japan had bombed and killed American soliders, invaded China, and allied itself with a power bent on taking over all of Europe. David’s crime was counting his people without giving a monetary kick back to God. See the difference? The Allies could only resist based on the tools at hand – tools of destriction. God had a hissyfit that one person didn’t listen to him at first and killed thousands who were not part of that act. See the difference?

Even though the US bonded with Japan and made restitutions not a single life taken could ever be returned.

God has the power to return Life.

God has power. Would you also agree that he has the power to punish someone who erred in dealing with him without causing suffering (of which pestilence surely is) to not only the victims but the friends and families of those victims? No more word salad or empty platitudes on the right of God to harm as he sees fit. Does God have the power to punish only those involved?

As I’ve said before, every act we do or don’t do in a scenario is compared to all other possible acts. If I push a child out of the way of a speeding car and break his arm then the act is good since I could have done not have saved the child’s life without doing some harm. If I push a kid off of his bike and break his arm because he was riding through someone’s garden, then my act is wrong not only for the disparity between crime and act but also when compared to other acts I could have done.

If you want to say that painful death of innocents is ok because they (maybe) will have a pleasant afterlife, it’s not only a cop-out but it shows just how unnecessary that act is.

The problem you, your argument and your supporters have is that you are limited to the temporal realm.

Since you reject a spiritual after-life you cannot see beyond the reach of your fleshly demise.

As I noted the claim of an afterlife doesn’t mean that one’s verifiable life on Earth can be disposed of at will, especially since the outcome of that vaunted afterlife hinges solely on what one does on Earth.

Edited to remove one line of unnecessary snark.

 

[ethereality]

Mike, I think you’re not using time wisely bickering here. Ultimately, (in my opinion) the Christian worldview is consistent, and the Bible can be interpreted or understood in a way that supports it: The question ultimately comes down to evidence (if we haven’t studied it enough) or faith (if we have and remain uncertain).

I think you are angry about something (didn’t you mention your mother dying and suffering?) and it is this topic, or whatever you’re upset about, that you should be discussing. Once that is resolved, I think the Bible can be understood in a way consonant with Christian thinking, and you won’t lose time thinking of God as like a mafia leader unjustly hurting others.

Life is hard and painful. Ultimately we must do what we think is right. I do think if God (creator of this universe) exists, that God is good, because we all enjoy some parts of it, and want to live (unless seriously mentally depressed, which is the exception that proves the rule, since we know depression is an illness, not the normal state of the brain).

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Mike, I think you’re not using time wisely bickering here. Ultimately, (in my opinion) the Christian worldview is consistent, and the Bible can be interpreted or understood in a way that supports it: The question ultimately comes down to evidence (if we haven’t studied it enough) or faith (if we have and remain uncertain).

I would disagree on several points here. I wouldn’t say what I’m doing in this thread is bickering. There certainly is a level of frustration on my end, but that’s more in the fervent desire to possibly get straight answers. I would also disagree about the Christian worldview being consistent and being able to be supported. But that’s a larger topic for another thread. My concern here is whether God’s power is being considered consistently and whether what is and is not good is considered consistently. On both counts I say they are not. and I’ve gone over both in great detail.

I think you are angry about something (didn’t you mention your mother dying and suffering?) and it is this topic, or whatever you’re upset about, that you should be discussing. Once that is resolved, I think the Bible can be understood in a way consonant with Christian thinking, and you won’t lose time thinking of God as like a mafia leader unjustly hurting others.

I’ve got a few things to say on this matter, so apologies in advance if I jump around a bit.

First, the connotation that one finds flaws in Christianity because one is “angry at God” is such a hackneyed and demonstrably false cannard that I’m still amazed it still comes up in conversation. I had a good childhood and raised by good parents. I was not an angry child or experienced some misfortune that made me a non-believer. I was 13 when it really came into fruition, when I looked it over and it didn’t add up for me.

Now I understand that I could be wrong on that count. The idea of a deity is such a grand concept that is both unprobable and unfalsifiable that nothing about it can be said with 100% confidence. But what I will say is that even if belief was based on desire I find too many inconsistencies, contradictions, and moral failings to believe at this time.

I find that believers have a hard time understanding that a vast majority of non-believers come to their positions via study and not through outbursts. While I disagree with believers I know that some of them have reached their positions through study. I wish more believers would cease trying to create fictions to explain why non-believers don’t come to the same conclusions that they do.

Second, regarding suffering. I brought it up because someone whose username rhymes with mether beality tried to downplay suffering claiming that it “isn’t that bad”. A correction was very much needed. Also, the death of my mom was over two decades after stopped believing, lest anyone try to link the two.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Third, I am angry about something but it’s my non-belief that indirectly causes this anger and not the anger causing my non-belief. Seemingly reasonable, educated, sane people are so quick to downplay or outright justify incredibly evil acts – not because they are good but because they are or were performed by a detiy or by human agents who believe they work under that deity. I’ve been on CAF several years. I’ve talked to people who have defended the burning of heretics, the kidnapping of children (like Edgardo Mortaro), so very many acts done in the Bible. Most of all I’ve participated in quite a few threads regarding biblical slavery. And it’s a little sickening to see these defenses, these excuses, for what should be the easist checks of morality there are.

I understand why you very much want to change the subject away from God killing tens of thousands.
The cognitive dissonance is almost tangible in trying to defend such things. It goes against every fiber of what real justice and real mercy are.

Life is hard and painful. Ultimately we must do what we think is right. I do think if God (creator of this universe) exists, that God is good, because we all enjoy some parts of it, and want to live (unless seriously mentally depressed, which is the exception that proves the rule, since we know depression is an illness, not the normal state of the brain).

It’s true we must do what we think is right. What I feel is right is to explore why believers believe what they do, especially in the more dire examples when it bumps up against what we know is and isn’t good. I want to be sure that atrocities aren’t met with a mild handwave or a dismissal filled with empty words. I hope you understand that and don’t ascribe false reasoning for why I ask the questions that I ask,

 

[Kei]

What a wonderful song.

I do wonder if one can have the 3rd and 4th levels of joy if they have not Christ, whether they know it or not.
Ah well. God bless.

 

[ethereality]

Second, regarding suffering. I brought it up because someone whose username rhymes with mether beality tried to downplay suffering claiming that it “isn’t that bad”. A correction was very much needed.

I made a brief comment pointing to an argument I didn’t give, and you gave a brief rebuttal to that comment, understandably misunderstanding it.

I did not say "suffering isn’t terrible”, which was the idea you rebutted. Rather, here I will clarify that you can read entire books on the subject, like Peter Kreeft’s /Making Sense out of Suffering/, to conclude that suffering is not the ultimate end to be avoided, i.e. pain and suffering is not the worst thing for us to experience, nor is it something that is never justifiable (even if we don’t see a reason for it).

 

[ethereality]

Seemingly reasonable, educated, sane people are so quick to downplay or outright justify incredibly evil acts – not because they are good but because they are or were performed by a detiy or by human agents who believe they work under that deity.

I think you simply misunderstand what evil is – i.e., what makes a given act evil. For the third time, God removing 10,000 people from the earth (“killing them”) is not like a human being doing so. Why is it wrong for a human being to kill people? Because it’s not our place (our responsibility or authority) to decide when their lives should end! That is God’s place. That’s why it’s not wrong for God to kill people.

You seem to think morality exists independently of God. It doesn’t: It comes from God, as part of His nature. That is why the … Eurypthro? false dichotomy is false: God doesn’t do moral evil (nor would God command it) nor does God obey some moral edict beyond Him because moral edicts come from God.

 

[Gorgias]

I was thinking this morning that the main obstacle to belief for me is ‘divine hiddenness’, i.e. God and His angels are so silent and apparently absent, that it’s difficult to believe that they exist.

So… hold on a second…

You’re making the claim that, since you cannot empirically experience beings who have no physical extension, therefore this lack of physical experience of non-physical beings means they don’t exist?

You can see the illogic of that position, can’t you…?

To put it another way, if the Church is true, then why won’t my guardian angel speak to me in some clear way?

Because that’s neither his job nor is it the will of God.

How do we interact with immaterial reality?

We experience it sacramentally in the Eucharist. We interact with it in the sacraments and in our prayers.

Can you tell me how many angels are present at church with you on Sunday? If not, why not?

Because they’re not physical, and cannot be experienced physically.

 

[Gorgias]

So let me repeat that
A census where God gets paid? GOOD
A census where God does not get paid? BAD

If David had remembered to give God his monetary kickback no one would have died. It’s right there in the Bible.

Wow. That’s a pretty twisted take on it. And you’re the one who’s claiming he’s not angry?

Here’s the thing: Exodus 30 describes the temple tax. It’s something that’s owed by every male over twenty. We see it make an appearance in the Gospels – Peter and Jesus talk about it!

So, the tax isn’t part of the census, but rather, happens to occur in conjunction with it in Exodus 30.

In general, a census is evil because it demonstrates a lack of trust in God.

But, what about that census that you claim is all about God getting money? Not so, my friend: to find that census, you need to turn to the beginning of the book of Numbers. There, we find that God commands Moses to take a census. (See? Your case is already unraveling! It’s not “census with money = good, census without money = bad”… it’s about “census at human command = bad”. )

Ostensibly, this census was to determine the number of men who were available for military service. (That would be bad, though, right?) Keep reading Numbers: they used the count in order to arrange the marching order of the nation in the desert. So, it was used to promote order and properly protect against attack.

Moreover, I think I’d make the case that this knowledge of the relative sizes of the tribes allowed Moses to apportion the Promised Land among the tribes of Israel (see Deuteronomy 3).

So, I appreciate your facetious take on the notion of “census”, but I think you’re mistaken here.

 

[ethereality]

How do you know your prayers have any effect? (You said they were a way to
interact with spiritual reality.)

 

[Gorgias]

How do you know your prayers have any effect? (You said they were a way to
interact with spiritual reality.)

Are you asking me what physical proof there is of a spiritual (i.e., non-physical) interaction?