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

[goout]

No, I am saying that man cannot moralize and limit how and why God operates.

God is God, and is omnipotent, and at the same time God reveals himself so that we can begin to understand him.
God reveals himself fully through Jesus Christ. So we can know in the fullest sense possible how God wills and acts by looking at Jesus. We do not have an arbitrary God, but one of Logos, or reason-ability, in Christ.
We know that God is The Good that sources morality. All of morality is in reference to Jesus Christ himself.
While it is true that God is not subject to human moral evaluation, God is not extra-moral or a-moral. So while it is true that we do not limit God by evaluating him, it is also true that God is the source an end of morality and does not contradict himself by willing or approving genocide and cruelty.
This sourcing of morality is well expressed in JP2’s Veritatis Splendor using Mt 19:16’s question.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html

So while we must stand in awe at God’s omnipotence, we must also appreciate his revelation to us and come to know him as he is. And we must interpret the scriptures in that light which is Jesus Christ.

The quick thinkers are so slow to understand that it is God’s Will that prevails and that it is God’s Justice that sets the moral boundaries. Hollowood is right about one thing, ‘death is only the beginning!’

Maran atha!

Angel

God’s will is love. By definition. And the boundaries of the law are ultimately not set by Justice. If that were the case you and I would not exist, God justly would have vaporized us long ago because we are sinners. If we look at justice alone as the framework of morality, we get what we deserve, or what we have earned. Which is problematic for almost everyone I shudder to think.
The source and boundary of the law is become love. God’s love breathes the law and God’s love leads us to him, our ultimate good. His love transforms justice and gives it it’s full meaning. It is what defeats death.

Marana tha also.

 

[ethereality]

I was asking how you knew. Your reluctance to answer suggests to me that
you don’t, that you rather hope it’s true and trust what priests tell you.

 

[Gorgias]

I was asking how you knew.

In other words, you’re looking for proof.

Your reluctance to answer suggests to me that you don’t

No. It should suggest to you what I’ve been asserting: one cannot reasonably ask for empirical proof of a spiritual reality.

, that you rather hope it’s true and trust what priests tell you.

Nah. But I get that this is your perception.

 

[ethereality]

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?

I’m not insisting on a physical experience. I’m thinking we need some experience, i.e. some reason to think that angels exist beyond “others say so”.

 

[ethereality]

At first I wanted to respond to some of the arguments you make here, but to be honest, taking in your comments as a whole, it seems to me that you cannot be reached on the Internet, that what you need is a personal friendship in your life so that someone can address the key underpinnings of your perspective. I don’t think we can see what your most fundamental problems are, and so online the result is a gridlock stalemate. So I think it’s better to encourage you to stop posting and spend more time with Christians in your area, questioning them specifically.

… as well as prayer and continued study on your own behalf. God bless you.

 

[pocaracas]

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?

The trouble with non-physical beings is that you can’t safeguard against personal imagination, lying, hallucination or any other kind of mental process that produces non-physical beings.
Hence, while one is made to rely on “others’ say so”, it’s best to assume that they’re not accessing any factual realm of beings, but rather their own mind… the same goes for the self - better assume I’m hallucinating before I accept something that isn’t there as real.

 

[Gorgias]

I’m not insisting on a physical experience. I’m thinking we need some experience, i.e. some reason to think that angels exist beyond “others say so”.

Fair enough. Yet, what would “some experience” be, by your standard, if you didn’t mean by that “some physical experience”?

In any case, I think that I would point to the testimony and acts of Jesus, who not only prayed to the Father but instructed us to do so, as well.

 

[Gorgias]

The trouble with non-physical beings is that you can’t safeguard against personal imagination, lying, hallucination or any other kind of mental process that produces non-physical beings.

You mean “you can’t safeguard yourself against others’ personal imagination, lying,…” etc, etc.

However, this isn’t a question of “what does @pocaracas believe?” or even “what does Pope Francis believe?”… rather, it’s a question of personal faith and belief. Generally, we can ‘safeguard’ ourselves against our own personal ‘imagination’ or ‘lying’, etc, etc…

Hence, while one is made to rely on “others’ say so”

At its core, faith is about an individual and his belief, not about “what others say”.

better assume I’m hallucinating before I accept something that isn’t there as real.

Well… that’s one approach. I can’t say that it’s convincing, though. Do you really presume you’re hallucinating with every experience you have… or do you actually presume the opposite as the normal course of experience?

 

[pocaracas]

At its core, faith is about an individual and his belief, not about “what others say”.

Yeah… should be.
Unfortunately, for most believers, it starts off with what others say, and they then grow up and seemingly convince themselves of the opposite… while becoming the ones who say things.

 

[Gorgias]

Unfortunately, for most believers, it starts off with what others say

Doesn’t all learning begin that way? After all, you didn’t derive any of the science or math that you use on a daily basis, right?

But, all learning proceeds from a person internalizing and personally accepting things that they have been taught (and personally rejecting other things). So, in the end, all learning isn’t about “what others say”, but rather, about “what I believe and accept.”

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

Unfortunately, for most believers, it starts off with what others say

Doesn’t all learning begin that way? After all, you didn’t derive any of the science or math that you use on a daily basis, right?

But, all learning proceeds from a person internalizing and personally accepting things that they have been taught (and personally rejecting other things). So, in the end, all learning isn’t about “what others say”, but rather, about “what I believe and accept.”

Can you spot how scientific learning differs from theological learning?

 

[Gorgias]

Can you spot how scientific learning differs from theological learning?

Of course. They are distinct systems which have differing ways of reaching valid conclusions. See Newman’s Grammar of Assent for a full explanation.

 

[ethereality]

I’m the one asking the question, so you cannot expect me to have the answer to it already. However, I think Our Lady of Fatima is instructive: Apparently for private revelation, when the children saw Mary, and later Joseph and Jesus, they did not physically see them (since no one else saw them), but nonetheless in their subjective experience they describe it as seeing them.

This undermines your responses to me that we cannot expect to see anything merely because they’re not physically here on Earth.

Likewise, with Our Lady of Akita (though this seems still under investigation, though approved by their local bishop back in the 1980s), the nun claims to have heard Mary’s voice.

So God can give us experiences that to us seem physical even though they are not empirical.

 

[ethereality]

I think the response you got here was a good one. Elaborating slightly, in science we have Receiver-Operator Response Curves, i.e. the rate of false positives can be reduced by discarding true signal (in a word, “throwing the baby out with the bath water”). It sounds like you are willing to close yourself off from some truth rather than risk believing false things.

This may not be a prudent decision if there are other ways to filter out the false things that require more effort (for example, studying multiple religions and finding what’s wrong with them individually, rather than assuming all religions are false and consequently discarding one that is true).

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

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

It’s twised only in the sense that any character who would kill 70,000 people for lack of payment (or even just for holding a census) is twisted. I’m the one here not twisting the words to say something it does not say.

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.

Exodus 30 doesn’t differentiate between different types of numberings of people. It’s a general rule. To say that it is talking about a specific census would be adding to scrupture, which you should know is a big no-no.

On top of that the Talmud says the fault with David was that he did not take the “ransom” (which is what Exodus 30 calls the half shekel payment) from them as it is written. It also says that it was Satan who told him to perform the numbering.

http://come-and-hear.com/berakoth/berakoth_62.html#PARTb

“Forthwith, Satan stood up against Israel; and it is further written, He stirred up David against them saying, Go, number Israel. And when he did number them, he took no ransom from them and it is written, So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed.”

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

I think it’s interesting that Msgr. Charles Pope, the author of that article doesn’t even bother to try and wade through the much of whether it was God or Satan that told David to perform the numbering. He’s making it seem like David called for the census on his own which is doubly wrong, both when compared to the passage in 2 Samuel and in Chronicles.

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”. )

Are you saying that "1Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’” isn’t God ordering David to take a census? I’m curious how you’re going to say that X means not X.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

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

Keep shrugging. Maybe it’ll help explain why other writers (including the Talmud as noted above) say that at least part of the trouble was Dacid lacking God’s kickback of half sheels.

For example:

"3. Readers also tend to forget that God decreed the payment of half a shekel for each person when an Israelite census was taken. With this decree was the warning that if the census payments weren’t given the Israelites would endure a plague (Exodus 30:12-13). Although this may seem harsh at first you need to realize that a half shekel is equal to about only 3 cents in United States money – a very small amount that even the poorest citizens could afford (and, I’m sure, some of the more wealthier citizens could cover that expense for the poor). However, this payment was neglected during this particular census as evidenced by the fact that the people did indeed endure a plague after the census. "

This writer does say that it was Satan who caused David to perform the numbering. While that contradicts what it says in 2 Samuel, I have to give credit to the author for at least acknowledging that someone told David to perform the number, unlike Msgr Pope.

But most important is this: This still doesn’t explain why innocents should be punished for the acts of one man. God had the power to punish David, to teach David, and/or to remove David from power without hurting anyone who was not responsible for the census/numbering. It wasn’t that God had only two choices of nothing or having David decide which atrocity would befall his people. Why did God not do this? If 70,000 is too many to fathom, then explain why God had David’s son suffer until he died 7 days later for the act of David?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

At first I wanted to respond to some of the arguments you make here, but to be honest, taking in your comments as a whole, it seems to me that you cannot be reached on the Internet, that what you need is a personal friendship in your life so that someone can address the key underpinnings of your perspective. I don’t think we can see what your most fundamental problems are, and so online the result is a gridlock stalemate. So I think it’s better to encourage you to stop posting and spend more time with Christians in your area, questioning them specifically.

… as well as prayer and continued study on your own behalf. God bless you.

So you say that you have responses to my comments and questions, yet instead of responding you have attacked my character.

I see.

Solely going off of the responses in the thread thus far I suspect that you are unable to give a credible response to my questions and that you have taken this tact to distract me and others reading this thread from the fact. I could very well be wrong, and I hope that I am. Ignore the fact for now that I’m an atheist. Ignore that I have (and will continue to be) gruff when it comes to what I see is a dismissal of some very valid moral concerns. There are others out there, believers and those on the fence, who have these same concerns that I’ve expressed. They are looking for real, solid, strong answers. They won’t eat garbage and call it cake. They won’t accept the idea that it’s good to inflict suffering on another for an act they were not responsible. If not me, for those people struggling with the questionable morality that one encounters when reading the Bible please give those answers and response you claim you have.

And I don’t know if I can accept your suggestion to not call wrong that which is wrong and instead study the matter more with Christians. First of all, that’s literally the point of this subforum. It is for Apologetics – to debate, dissect, analyze, and question the faith. If one can’t hash out these moral issues with scripture here, then really what is the point? Secondly, between us I don’t if I can accept your suggestion that I study the matter more as I have shown a better understanding of the matter in hand than you have. You may wish to look over some counter-apologetics. In fact, really everyone should understand the multiple sides of these issues. So far I have not gotten anything from the pro-suffering crowd which makes sense.

 

[pocaracas]

It sounds like you are willing to close yourself off from some truth rather than risk believing false things.

Could be…

This may not be a prudent decision if there are other ways to filter out the false things that require more effort (for example, studying multiple religions and finding what’s wrong with them individually, rather than assuming all religions are false and consequently discarding one that is true).

I have a book called “Anthropology of Religions” http://www.bulhosa.pt/livro/antropologia-das-religioes-antonio-carmo/, by António Carmo. Sadly, I am only aware of the portuguese version… but there should be equivalent literature in English.
In this sort of “essay”, one comes across and understands how the various religions came to be. How human nature, mainly its social part, has played a major role in shaping the religious landscape.

If all religions stem from man, then no religion is true.
One may hold doubts about a potential existence of a non-physical being, but the religions themselves? Those are just social constructs that offer comfort, control, answers, culture identity, etc…

 

[ethereality]

The more time I spend on forums the more convinced I am they’re good only for exchanging information and reinforcing ideas we already hold.

So I’m not sure what to say now. I thought to say how such literature is popular in English, too, but not any more true, but if you already think your position is correct, I don’t think I can talk you out of it on a web forum.

 

[pocaracas]

So I’m not sure what to say now. I thought to say how such literature is popular in English, too, but not any more true, but if you already think your position is correct, I don’t think I can talk you out of it on a web forum.

Why do you say it’s not “any more” true?
Feel free to point at my error. If it is an error, I won’t have any problem in saying so.