Can anybody refute this from Richard Dawkins?

[benhur]

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

This is a very popular quote from Dawkins among the Neo-Marcionites in the New Atheist movement. Can anybody refute these charges, individually, concerning the personality and actions of Almighty God as He is revealed in the Old Testament? Thank you.

I am reading his book The God Delusion, at the request of my 15 year old grandson. I have sticky notes all over with rebuttals. I did not rebut your posted quote. Certainly to pied-pipe that there is zero probability of His existence, as Dawkins does, one certainly must " accent the negative and eliminate the positive" ala Perry Como twist. After all, it is by His goodness that He draws all men. Dawkins would tell you himself he is zero drawn, therefore he must postulate zero goodness in any OT observations of God.

 

[benhur]

You should read the OP again. Dawkins doesn’t say that God is vindictive, genocidal etc. He says the ‘God of the Old Testament’ is all those things. And here’s a heads up for everyone. Dawkins doesn’t believe any of it happened just the way it is written.

Yep, he already knows that. And he’s hardly having a pot shot at God because, and another heads up here, Dawkins doesn’t believe in Him.

So…I wonder what he is actually saying? What IS he complaining about in that whingy Oxbridge, plum-in-the-mouth, grating English accent?

Well, here’s one of those heads up kinda thingys again. He is actually having a go at all those people who actually think it all did happen exactly as written and who try to justify it in any way they can. People perhaps like, I dunno, those Protestants you mentioned.

Instead of brushing it off, saying something along the lines of: ‘Well, mate, I’m sure you know that those stories were written, not as an accurate account of what happened, but more as a way to put, literally, the fear of God into people’, they say things like: ‘Well, He’s God. He can do whatever He wants. Killing men, women and children, no problem if God says it’s OK’.

An argument which, taken to the extreme, can lead to all sorts of problems. If you believe that God did indeed command people to kill men, women and children, then what’s to stop that happening again.

Dawkins in railing against a fundamental approach to, in this specific instance, the bible. I’m sure all Catholics everywhere would join him in that. Well, wouldn’t you…?

Hi B,

I think folks have come up with way better ways to explain things other than dismissing literalness or brashly just saying “so?”… I mean one could say nature is quite terrible also, even cruel. A tiger tearing apart a little lamb, a volcano burying men women and children, etc., etc… Yet Dawkins could explain the beauty of it all, even to the point of having an ecstatic moment in the deep, naturalistic understanding of such mysteries ( as we have religious experiences).

Blessings

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Can anybody refute these charges, individually, concerning the personality and actions of Almighty God as He is revealed in the Old Testament? . . .

There’s not much there but name-calling.
I don’t think those sorts of statements lend themselves to refutation, only argument.
Reading it is like overhearing one side of a nasty marital dispute - just bad feelings all around for everybody.

Clearly, Dawkins has no intention of reaching out to Christians in a meaningful way.
His approach is off-putting, which is a not an unreasonable tactic when there is no interest in listening.

Let’s clarify what it is that he is addressing:
Scripture constitutes a dialogue between God and man.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit it reveals the Word.
The Alpha and the Omega, the eternally begotten Son is found in the Garden, in the Flood, Isaac’s climbing of the hill carrying the wood of his sacrifice on his back at the behest of his father, doing the will of God. He is present in the sacrificial unblemished lamb, whose blood redeems and whose flesh is shared in Exodus. In these and other passages we come to know who we are in relation to each other and our Father.
Scripture plays an important role within the relationship we have with God.

Dawkins’ comments point out the sad fact that outside of such a connection with the Ground of our Being, the Old Testament is no longer a spiritual tool, but is reduced to a rather complicated and disjointed story.
That is the God Delusion - the odd ideas which he forms and draws upon to support his statements, concepts divorced from the Reality to which the words of scripture speak.

 

[Bradski]

If Dawkins is referring to the Amalakites, God is merely doing what God does, sovereign lord snuffing out evil attacking his people. The same anyone would do defending their family. BUT, with the benefit of omniscience, so that a greater good may prevail.

Ah, so you would be one of the people that Dawkins is having a go at.

I notice that you say that God killed the Amalakites. But that’s not strictly true. If He wants to punish people or ‘snuff out evil’ then He’s been quite happy to do this Himself. For example, He flooded the planet and killed everyone, not just a few people from one tribe. Fair enough, you might say. His call. But in this particular instance, He asked someone to do it for Him.

The problem with that is that anyone can do anything at all and claim that God had commanded them to do it. And we have no way of knowing. So your argument can lead to all sorts of bad things happening to good people. If you believe that God can command someone to kill women and children, then how do you know He has actually issued the command and they are not acting for selfish reasons?

The short answer is that you don’t. But I’d be interested to know how you might argue that you could.

 

[Ender]

I’m not sure it’s possible to refute an opinion, although reading the opinions expressed by those who are a good deal more familiar with the Old Testament than Dawkins might be a good start. This one for example:29. The Books of the Old and New Testament provide us with the first and fundamental fact concerning the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness. In the Psalms and in the preaching of the Prophets, the name merciful is perhaps the one most often given to the Lord, in contrast to the persistent cliché whereby the God of the Old Testament is presented above all as severe and vengeful.
(JPII, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia)
As he said, this cliché is persistent.

Ender

 

[steve_b]

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction:** jealous** and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Those are the people God is dealing with

 

[Bradski]

I guess the main thing that gets me fired up about Richard Dawkins is this: what exactly is his problem?

Bear in mind that he is an evolutionary biologist.

'Between 40% and 47% of Americans over the past 32 years have said the creationist explanation for the origin of human life best fits their personal views. These Americans tend to be highly religious, '. gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

That’s well over 130,000,000 people and almost all of them Christians (including a front runner or two for the GOP’s nomination). It must drive him up the wall. It does me.

He starts with a false assumption: the assumption that the Old Testament is fiction. Does he have a peer review of this?

Good grief…

His argument is not exactly opaque. He is stating that if the OT is TRUE then those descriptions apply. It’s effectively a challenge: If you think that the OT is completely true then why would you think it’s acceptable to kill innocent women and children. Or to put it another way which seems more applicable to me, how do we know when God has issued these type of commands?

It seems to be OK for some people if the work was given to someone else a couple of thousand years ago (hey, they must have deserved it!), but why couldn’t it happen tomorrow?

I am reading his book The God Delusion…Certainly to pied-pipe that there is zero probability of His existence, as Dawkins does…

Ah, then you haven’t got to the part in the book where he says he is not 100% certain. Let me know what you think when you do.

 

[cfauster]

JPII had something to say about it:

“The Old Testament, according to Marcion, came from a god unworthy of the name because he was vindictive and bloodthirsty, while the New Testament revealed a God of reconciliation and generosity. The Church firmly rejected this error, reminding all that God’s tenderness was already revealed in the Old Testament. Unfortunately the Marcionite temptation is making its appearance again in our time.”

H.E. Most. Rev. Pablo Virgilio S. David, Titular Bishop of Guardialfiera, Auxiliary Bishop of San Fernando (Phillipines), noted:

"While theology often dwells on the power of the Word of God; we will always need exegesis to remind us as well of the humility of the Word of God. Do we not too often find ourselves speechless when confronted by serious readers of the Bible among our faithful who feel scandalized by Scriptural passages that are full of violence, bigotry, cruelty, duplicity, and all other contradictions that are characteristic of the humanity we share with all other sons and daughters of Adam? And yet we have not cancelled them out from the canon of Scriptures. We have in this canon texts that deny the resurrection and afterlife and texts that affirm them. We have texts that regard Satan as part of the heavenly court with a specific task and texts that present him as a fallen angel. We have texts that declare evil as a consequence of human sin and insist on human culpability and texts that present evil as a disease and human beings as mere victims that can only rely on God’s forgiveness. We have texts that emphasize divine grace, and texts that put a prime on human effort.

Ascent and descent, the divine and the human, the sublime and the wretched-these are aspects about the mystery of divine revelation, about God’s Word in human words, about the God made flesh, that will always require both the contributions of exegetes and theologians, and above all of the pastors who have to keep us all together in humility and with the proper disposition of listening and self-emptying, keeping our focus on Jesus-the God with a human face- on his power in weakness, on his wisdom in foolishness, on his exaltation through humiliation."

See
zenit.org/en/articles/synod-interventions-of-8th-general-congregation
or
vatican.va/news_services/press/sinodo/documents/bollettino_22_xii-ordinaria-2008/02_inglese/b13_02.html

The above material I posted. The following was posted by someone else, not me, though it has been inserted into a composite post attributed to me:

A rational response to what I’ll admit was a more emotionally heated comment by me.

I’ll also admit I’ve never read anything by Dawkins. On its own, though, this quote is pretty crazy. The main reference I got was “jealous and proud of it,” referring to Exodus:
Eye-roll. No Jew or Christian has taken this line literally for over two millennia–what makes Dawkins think we’re going to start now?
If he’s going to be as willfully narrow-minded as this in all his Biblical studies, what reason would Christians have to listen to him?

And that’s just it: Dawkins has a major authority problem. How are people supposed to distinguish him from the throng of wackadoo TV preachers and doomsayers who construct their own radical conclusions from a few carefully chosen and out-of-context Bible passages? Compare the relatively extreme Biblical interpretations of Dawkins, a ‘new atheist’ with little credibility in Biblical studies or theology, to over 2000 years of great Christian thinkers, where even relatively minor points were thought over with extraordinary care for centuries in cases… Does he really expect to convince anyone–with Biblical study, at least–except those who already think like him? Christian theologians have far greater motive to try to interpret a passage objectively than Dawkins does.

Well, perhaps that’s just what he’s doing: bolstering his own base…

I guess the main thing that gets me fired up about Richard Dawkins is this: what exactly is his problem? Why is he against Christianity at all? I can understand an atheist trying to argue that Christianity isn’t true philosophically and rationally, and at most being patronizingly condescending of the religious like Isaac Asimov. But he seems to have his own vendetta against what is arguably the greatest force for good in the world today. Does he really believe trying to vilify Christianity is a good thing to do? Does he just like to say shocking things for the public attention? I don’t understand his motives.
Even if I were an atheist, I would dislike Dawkins as I dislike Ebeneezer Scrooge. I would defend my beliefs if challenged, but having lived among Christians living full and happy lives as Christians for over 20 years, what possible reason would I as an atheist have to try to take that away from them?

 

[fred_conty]

The question is … how can a person understand a book on Christian faith without having the proper faith to read it? His faith is science and not Christianity.

If I read a book on chemistry with the language of faith, that wouldn’t make much sense to me either. A round peg still doesn’t fit a square hole.

 

[David_Zampino]

All of those negative descriptions imply a standard that God is falling short of; and that it is **bad ** to fall short.
“unpleasant” character implies pleasantness exists, and is desirable;
“unjust” implies justice exists, and should be upheld;
“malevolent” implies “benevolent” exists, and should be preferred;
And so on.

Dawkins is making 2 kinds of assumptions here, he has not proven anything.

1. Where did those standards come from, from which he finds shortcomings, that the normal standard was not upheld?
2. Why is it good to be normal in the first place? Why is it bad to be unpleasant, unjust, malevolent, etc? Why should he, or his readers care about this?

Scientists tend to be skeptical by nature. If someone claims something to be true, they want to prove or disprove it before they repeat every good and bad idea as “true”.
If someone makes a statement that assumes A, B, and C, they challenge those assumptions. Where did they come from?

Unfortunately Dawkins suspends his healthy skepticism here.

CS Lewis would have had a field day with Dawkins. By arguing that his conception of God does not match his (Dawkins’) own moral standards, Dawkins is still arguing for a notion of Ultimate Objective Reality. “The Abolition of Man” – esp. the first two chapters are excellent on this . . .

 

[Bradski]

CS Lewis would have had a field day with Dawkins. By arguing that his conception of God does not match his (Dawkins’) own moral standards, Dawkins is still arguing for a notion of Ultimate Objective Reality. “The Abolition of Man” – esp. the first two chapters are excellent on this . . .

I can’t believe I keep reading comments like this. Dawkins is NOT using the OT to show that God cannot exist. Is this not blazingly obvious to everyone?

He is pointing out the fact that the OT describes God as being someone who, for example, orders the killing of women and children. And that if you believe that, if you believe that God actually did that, and presumably could do the same again, it horrifies him. And, need it be said, me too.

 

[Glomung]

And there’s the point- Why would anyone assume that Dawkins has anything of value to say?

He has his opinions, based on his understanding (or lack thereof) of the topic.
Why would anyone think that his opinions have merit?
He needs to back his opinions up with facts, not just hot air.

 

[Thorolfr]

I can’t believe I keep reading comments like this. Dawkins is NOT using the OT to show that God cannot exist. Is this not blazingly obvious to everyone?

He is pointing out the fact that the OT describes God as being someone who, for example, orders the killing of women and children. And that if you believe that, if you believe that God actually did that, and presumably could do the same again, it horrifies him. And, need it be said, me too.

Numbers 15:32-36: When the Israelites were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the sabbath day. 33 Those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses, Aaron, and to the whole congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. 35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him outside the camp.” 36 The whole congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

1 Samuel 15: 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

2 Samuel 6: 3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio,[a] the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4 with the ark of God;** and Ahio[c] went in front of the ark. 5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs[d] and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 6 When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. 7 The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark;[e] and he died there beside the ark of God. 8 David was angry because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah.**

 

[Rhubarb]

He shouldn’t have added in the “in all fiction” part. It’s unsupportable, if he really has any esteem for the scientific method.

As for his characteristics of God, I’m afraid reading the OT I have to agree. At least if I take the reading as a literal history.

 

[Bradski]

He shouldn’t have added in the “in all fiction” part. It’s unsupportable, if he really has any esteem for the scientific method.

He could have said ‘literature’. But I think he might have specifically said ‘fiction’ because the whole point of the point he was making was: ‘Who could really believe that this was actually, factually, literally true’.

 

[benhur]

Ah, so you would be one of the people that Dawkins is having a go at.

I notice that you say that God killed the Amalakites. But that’s not strictly true. If He wants to punish people or ‘snuff out evil’ then He’s been quite happy to do this Himself. For example, He flooded the planet and killed everyone, not just a few people from one tribe. Fair enough, you might say. His call. But in this particular instance, He asked someone to do it for Him.

The problem with that is that anyone can do anything at all and claim that God had commanded them to do it. And we have no way of knowing. So your argument can lead to all sorts of bad things happening to good people. If you believe that God can command someone to kill women and children, then how do you know He has actually issued the command and they are not acting for selfish reasons?

The short answer is that you don’t. But I’d be interested to know how you might argue that you could.

Hi B,

You operate under the assumption “we have no way of knowing” ( God or His commands). Dawkins assumption is worse, we can know only delusions of that, for there is no God. There is zero probability of answering your question to your liking. Yet you are in the same dilemma. Nature can be cynically looked at also , and seem just as cruel as Dawkins depicts our delusionary God. Interesting that his conclusions takes an amoral approach to the workings of the universe yet applies a morality to any other approach.

I suppose you would agree with dawkins when he states our supposed experience in the supernatural are delusions. That because folks indeed can be deluded, can be tricked by their own mind and senses, that all supernatural experiences must be based on such,all. No real McCoy. It is guilt by association.That some are wrong all are wrong. Some are wacky then all must be wacky. Kind of like saying that because people can have mirages of an oasis while stranded in a desert, oases do not exist.

Again, for some folks everything must be carbon based, natural, perceivable only by the five senses. No reality of soul, spirit, or such forms of life in our dimension, therefore not in any dimension. Zero probability. Pretty vain to spit into that kind of wind.

Blessings

PS- what if I were to say that indeed such supposed “God told me so”’ could lead to bad things but eventually there might be a few real McCoy good things, but you need both as kind of learning curve , an evolving, and then would the “bad’ be bad” or just part of a process?

How is that any different from the lion saying natural selection told me to eat the lamb or the volcano saying mother nature told me to wipe all the men women and children,and animals below me ? Why doesn’t that horrify you ?

 

[benhur]

I can’t believe I keep reading comments like this. Dawkins is NOT using the OT to show that God cannot exist. Is this not blazingly obvious to everyone?

He is pointing out the fact that the OT describes God as being someone who, for example, orders the killing of women and children. And that if you believe that, if you believe that God actually did that, and presumably could do the same again, it horrifies him. And, need it be said, me too.

Again, maybe He was evolving, upgrading the race, a type of spiritual selection. And naturally speaking , no matter or energy was lost. I could say more consoling things but it would require belief in another dimension and life after death (a spiritual existence, that goes beyond this dimension).

Blessings

PS- Of course I speak a bit tongue in cheek. Just wish you would apply the same amount of sophistication that makes you look beyond the superficial appearance of cruelty in natural selection to the superficial appearance of cruelty in the bible.

 

[Frankenfurter]

God speaks to us in ways we understand. He stoops to our level. (The way any good Father would).

He speaks to us in the OT at the development level we were at, at that time we understood revenge, punishment and retaliation. These are primitive notions. But that is where we were. Later, he helped us understand forgiveness, mercy, love. These are more grown-up notions.

 

[Bradski]

Just wish you would apply the same amount of sophistication that makes you look beyond the superficial appearance of cruelty in natural selection to the superficial appearance of cruelty in the bible.

Who says I look beyond cruelty in evolution? It is practically based on the requirement that the weak suffer and die. Nature filters them out. That’s the way the natural world works. However, the cruelty in the bible is a result of a conscious decision. Please tell me that you understand the difference.

And couldn’t God have just caused those women and children to cease existence? Or even not to have come into existence at all? To have them killed requires them to suffer. Would God want children to suffer? And how sure would you personally have to be that God had actually commanded you to do something before you hacked some children to death? Personally speaking, I don’t care how sure I was that I had received a personal command from Him, I would refuse to carry it out.

And no-one seems to want to explain how they would tell if God had or had not given a similar commandment today. Pick any recent mass killing and if the people responsible said that God had told them to do it, how could you tell the difference between what they said and what those who killed the Amalekites said.

Again, I’ll answer the question in advance: You couldn’t. But what arguments would you use to convince me that you could?

 

[benhur]

God speaks to us in ways we understand. He stoops to our level. (The way any good Father would).

He speaks to us in the OT at the development level we were at, at that time we understood revenge, punishment and retaliation. These are primitive notions. But that is where we were. Later, he helped us understand forgiveness, mercy, love. These are more grown-up notions.

Hi F,

He did stoop to our level, by becoming man. But He has always elevated us to His level, at the creation beginning, and through out both OT and NT . It was cruel to kill a faultless lamb after the fall, but loving and gracious to cover man’s nakedness and re-elevate man (at least Adam and Eve, and a remnant thereafter).

Blessings