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Bradski
Guest
I see. We were too dumb back then to know that massacring children was a very bad thing to do, so therefore there was no problem in ordering it done. I think you may be missing the point, Frank.
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benhur
Guest
Just as cruel as Hitler, even our abortions, and eugenics (castrating the retarded, mentally ill as we did in this country less than a century ago).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.
So now you believe in sin nature and sin consequences. How does natural selection give us morality ? Do we go against natural selection by protecting the weak, and frail, and elderly, diseased ? Seems “unnatural”. How did such consciousness, even moral free will, the power to decide, evolve, if it is not seen anywhere else ?However, the cruelty in the bible is a result of a conscious decision. Please tell me that you understand the difference.
Apparently you have some God given attributes, desires, even a semblance of His image, for He is like you and me. He, like us,* wishes* that none suffer.He promises to wipe every tear, and restore all to a perfect, harmonious life, foreverAnd 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?
Of course that does not explain to you the past or present suffering. And true some use that against God, whether we inflict it or not. For certainly life itself hands out pain and suffering, just as explained in natural selection. Just as there are natural laws, there are spiritual laws. As there are consequences to going against natural laws (gravity and jumping of Empire State Building) , there are consequences to spiritual laws ( denying that He exists and expect any spiritual understanding).
It all depends what you value. Hiroshima was justified because that city was responsible and somehow , to some extent , fed the military machine that was trying to be subdued by Allied blood. At some point consequences reach the ultimate.Yet this is graciously rare. I mean hundreds of cities were bombed during WWII but only two with the ultimate bomb. God’s genocide was rare also in His battle against sin that men promote. Kind of like the exception proves the rule. God is love but He is also just and holy. Just as your natural selection cruelty has a higher purpose..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?
Me too. This is the NT. We are told to turn the other cheek. Yet it is the governments role to punish evil doers. So there is no excuse for dismissing God due to a misunderstanding of OT happenings. I mean if you want to be tripped up by it, it may more from a stronger desire not to believe than what the “difficulty” calls for. Like folks who insist on all abortion to protect/assist those that are raped even though 99.5 % of abortions have nothing to do with rape.with 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.
Well, how would tell a false scientific proposition, inspiration, observation from a true one ? If nature speaks truths (can be replicated, quantified, qualified) what makes you think that if there be spiritual reality/ laws, that they are not also be able to be qualified ? I mean I just shared with you two of our spiritual realities/laws (turn the other cheek personally, and let government punish evil doers) , and like natural laws, spiritual laws should not contradict each other. So if God told me to kill anyone I would say no, unless I were in the military/police and following their guidelines.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.
No one is stumped here, or without an argument . *Both sides *have polished, antiquated well developed rationales as well as newer ones. And let us not forget the agnostic side.Again, I’ll answer the question in advance: You couldn’t. But what arguments would you use to convince me that you could?
Blessings
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Bradski
Guest
Please don’t confuse death as a natural process of nature and a conscious decision to cause pain.Just as cruel as Hitler, even our abortions, and eugenics (castrating the retarded, mentally ill as we did in this country less than a century ago).
Start a new thread asking that and I’ll join in.How does natural selection give us morality?
You are giving answers to questions I have not asked. I haven’t asked what you valued. I want to know how you can be sure that you have received a command from God. Or that someone else has. And I don’t think it’s valid to say – ‘Well, I wouldn’t kill children. I’d leave it up to someone else to do it’. From that it would appear that you would stand aside and let it happen. Is that the case? That if someone said they had received a command from God to kill children, then you would let it happen? You wouldn’t have protected any Amalekite children?It all depends what you value.
That’s relatively easy. Telling if someone has received a command from God is another matter. It is not possible. If you think it is, then let me know how. Apart from saying that it is written in the bible and must therefore be true.Well, how would tell a false scientific proposition, inspiration, observation from a true one ?
There is a point to this discussion. That if someone truly believes that God commanded someone to kill women and children, then there is nothing to stop that person believing it could happen again. It is nonsensical to say: ‘Hang on, Jesus said that now we shouldn’t do it’. That is saying that God commands one thing yet Jesus says another. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I don’t think it would to any Christian either.
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Belshazzar
Guest
Before Christ, the wages of sin was death. Period. With the exception of David, of course. But even after he repented, God took the life of the son born to him from Bathsheba. Our God is a just God and faithful to His Word.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
One of the very best articulated defenses comes from Peter J. WIlliams in this talk.“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.
youtu.be/agmHVFN2ip0
A slightly broader approach by Dr. Williams is here:
youtu.be/ZOUvw0lMg98
Well worth taking notes.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Well, Brad, if your “anyone” were to call down a series of devastating plagues, stage a pillar of fire by night and smoke by day, part the Red Sea, drown the Egyptian army and destroy a massively fortified city by having a bunch of Hebrew guys blow horns while marching around it – and, by the way, the archeological evidence from Jericho is quite consistent with that narrative – then we might have what is called “warrant” for thinking God actually did issue the command to “anyone.”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?
In the meantime, if you think “anyone” doing “anything at all” because God whispered in his ear has THAT same level of “warrant,” well we need to have a long discussion about the meaning of the word “warrant.”
The fact that you are compelled by your version of the word “warrant” to fail to see the difference between anyone doing anything at all in the name of God and a large population of human beings doing a specific number of things following a series of inexplicable public miracles, does not mean the rest of us need to follow your cue. I reserve the right to deny that any such command to “anyone” to “do anything at all” did, indeed, come from God until a comparable set of miracles come to pass.
Obviously, God must think as I do about not listening to crackpots claiming to be following his orders since he didn’t command anything until he proved his authority and power to issue those commands to the Hebrew people.
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Bradski
Guest
Sorry, Peter, but I didn’t follow that at all.
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benhur
Guest
Agree. That is what separates us from the animal kingdom. As they say, we certainly can act like animals. Now that would seem logical if indeed we came form animals. I know you have your explanations however , how we became different. We do call it cruel, evil, even sinful to cause pain generally speaking.Please don’t confuse death as a natural process of nature and a conscious decision to cause pain.
Agree. I have not read Dawkins entire book. I just looked at table of contents , and he does address the issue of morality two chapters ahead of where I am at.Start a new thread asking that and I’ll join in.
Your correct. I am just trying to show the ends justify the means in natural selection, but not allowed at all in other paradigms. But i agree that the ends do not always justify the means.You are giving answers to questions I have not asked. I haven’t asked what you valued.
I have answered this. Just as you can check your personal science ‘thoughts’’ as to their ‘validity’ a Christian can *check *his personal spiritual ‘thoughts’ as to their ‘validity’, including any “God told me so’s”. We, like you , have our laws, ‘book(s)’, teachers, peers, even ‘political correctness’ enforcement. We even have our five senses as you, with the addition of belief in a spiritual sensor capability.I want to know how you can be sure that you have received a command from God. Or that someone else has
Are you a pacifist ? You would not have dropped the bomb? I mean you are in good company. Just bear in mind there are children right now being trained to kill innocent families. Killing them is only a last resort in my opinion, like when they are at you door ready to blow you up. Are religious pacifists deluded in not lifting a finger to defend their family ?And I don’t think it’s valid to say – ‘Well, I wouldn’t kill children. I’d leave it up to someone else to do it’
Thank you for being patient, for indeed this is what we are talking about, OT incidents like the Amalekites, not WWII or current jihadists. Why do you make them ‘innocent’, even amoral, as if they were in the animal kingdom. Again even the animal kingdom there are forces against the not so good (weakness, ill adapted ). Why can you not see the lesson of ill consequences in a spiritual dimension of weaknesses(sin). Tell me would you raise your family by choice in a neighborhood that had drugs, and sex and violence in the streets ? How about just a poor neighborhood, with folks that had little education with bad habits/choices but not physically harmful ? Why can you have values as to what is ‘desirable’ and God can not ? What do you with people that want to be bad ? For the most part God allows them to be. Once in a while He punishes and for that you are appalled. That is ok, I am also, but not to disbelief , but belief in the ugliness of going against His good nature.That if someone said they had received a command from God to kill children, then you would let it happen? You wouldn’t have protected any Amalekite children?
Man is the only creature who both can spit into and despise, abuse, that which is below him (animals,nature) , that which is equal (other people), and that which is above (God).
Not possible? Zero probablity ? Correct according to Dawkins who rules out anything I could say like the bible or personal experience, etc. To him there is zero probability that the soul and spirit are real entities, that there is also life in another dimension. There is no life after death. All the evidence is in. Actually, he says more is coming in, to prove (or further the zero probability, a conundrum in itself) that naturalism is all we have. Fact is we will never be more than halfway there (of having all the evidence) .Kind of like guilty until proven innocent. Or like well we are not sure when life really begins so to fit our paradigm needs so we will arbitrarily say it begins when the ‘fetus’ leaves the womb and justify abortion (unless of course you attack a pregnant women and if if her “baby” dies , a desired “baby”, it is murder.That’s relatively easy. Telling if someone has received a command from God is another matter. It is not possible.If you think it is, then let me know how. Apart from saying that it is written in the bible and must therefore be true.
So it is ok for science participants to have one say the earth is flat and another not so, or the Earth is the center of our system but another says it is the sun etc but the spiritual realm participants can not have truth battles, that one can say God told me so and another say i do not think so ?There is a point to this discussion. That if someone truly believes that God commanded someone to kill women and children, then there is nothing to stop that person believing it could happen again. It is nonsensical to say: ‘Hang on, Jesus said that now we shouldn’t do it’. That is saying that God commands one thing yet Jesus says another. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I don’t think it would to any Christian eithe
Blessings and thanks for being patient.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
Of course you didn’t.Sorry, Peter, but I didn’t follow that at all.
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benhur
Guest
Thanks Pete , take a look. Fantastic. Right on the thread topic.One of the very best articulated defenses comes from Peter J. WIlliams in this talk.
youtu.be/agmHVFN2ip0
A slightly broader approach by Dr. Williams is here:
youtu.be/ZOUvw0lMg98
Well worth taking notes.
Blessings
B
benhur
Guest
Hi brad,Sorry, Peter, but I didn’t follow that at all.
if you have a little time take a look at site above.Answers the thread topic (OT God being bad)
My first impression was that when you read other ‘fiction’, the Hobbit, or Harry potter, or Greek mythology, you take it all, even delusions, in context of the book(s). But when Dawkins looks at the bible ‘fiction’ he takes parts (Amalekites) of it outside the context of the fiction (and of course to declare it bad, which it would be by itself).
Everything has a context. Contexts must be understood, at least if want to make the right assessment of the action. I suppose we do the same to some of natural selection aspects. Are we all disingenuous or unlearned, unsophisticated, bit of both?
Take a look if you can. I only watched 20 minutes of it (first site) (goes on 1hr.) If i can read dawkins you can maybe watch video.
Blessings
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eddie_too
Guest
i like the response where the poster said where are you getting these standards that you are applying to the works of almighty God and why should anyone consider them objective standards?
if dawkins will not or cannot supply the answer to that question, he really, by being unable to provide an answer is saying, I got nothing.
trying to question someone’s goodness or integrity based on imaginary standards or subjective standards is about as meaningless as a question can get.
dawkins with this question reveals himself to be confused and ignorant in this area of discourse.
if dawkins will not or cannot supply the answer to that question, he really, by being unable to provide an answer is saying, I got nothing.
trying to question someone’s goodness or integrity based on imaginary standards or subjective standards is about as meaningless as a question can get.
dawkins with this question reveals himself to be confused and ignorant in this area of discourse.
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MiserableSinner
Guest
Yes. I almost started a point by point breakdown. I was about to get the passages to refute every argument made by Satan through his mouthpiece Richard Dawkins (not hard to do if you know a little Scripture). Then I read this. Thanks for saving my time.Actually I can, but what purpose:shrug:
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Bradski
Guest
I will, sometime this weekend.Hi brad,
if you have a little time take a look at site above.Answers the thread topic (OT God being bad)
Take a look if you can. I only watched 20 minutes of it (first site) (goes on 1hr.) If i can read dawkins you can maybe watch video.
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benhur
Guest
cool.i might read some. I am just amazed at the internet, how somebody could post/start a thread a Dawkins quote here and somewhere totally different is a half hour or more discourse, rebuttal on the exact same quote.I will, sometime this weekend.
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Frankenfurter
Guest
We are still the same actually, still too dumb to know. It is necessary to note that we have ‘massacred’ 56,000,000 children in the US since abortion became morally acceptable in the culture, which it had not been for 2000 years.I see. We were too dumb back then to know that massacring children was a very bad thing to do, so therefore there was no problem in ordering it done. I think you may be missing the point, Frank.
Regarding God being a bad guy, something that is missed by many who are not of the faith, is that the bible is NOT a history book. But people read it that way when they don’t understand what it actually is.
The OT books contain the oral tradition of the Jewish people. These stories are not necessarily historical facts or even ever claim to be. Oral culture uses stories to remember their lessons learned over time, keep their cultural memories alive, define their faith, contain the myths (meaning the arch-typical stories) that helped them orally remember where they came from, and where they were going. The stories are literature, not history.
So when you claim that God did something bad, how do you know that it actually happened, or if it is a story meant to convey a theological idea? Do you know the bible that well? Does Dawkins?
Much of the early OT involves Moses keeping a large band of unhappy people together as they go through harsh conditions. Some of the techniques he used here to keep order were to create stories of how God would punish you if you did this or that. So the story of how that punishment happened gets recorded. Why? Because that makes it powerful. Powerful to keep future people in line. Did the scary event of God punishing ever happen?
You try keeping 100,000,000 unhappy people unified and see what kind of tricks you turn to. If those people are afraid of God, perhaps you might develop stories to describe how he punishes people who got out of line to help keep the order. God might even help you do this if he sees the purpose he wants in it. But did God actually do things, or just create the stories?
Dawkins commentary is irrelevant and naive. It is like that star trek episode where the alien race found a novel on a ship and ASSUMED that it was a guide as to how humans lived so created a world for us based on it, and missed the point that it was literature, not an instruction manual.
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Bradski
Guest
Ye gods and little fishes. Isn’t this what I’ve already said? Isn’t this what Dawkins is implying? Dawkins knows it didn’t happen. And yes, as far as I am concerned it is exactly as you said: a story meant to put the fear of God into people. Literally.So when you claim that God did something bad, how do you know that it actually happened, or if it is a story meant to convey a theological idea?
But Dawkins is asking a question by making that statement. Is this really the God in whom you want to believe? And he is horrified that a lot of people say: Yes.
Think Sandy Hook. Think that instead of a gun, they were killed by a sword. Multiply the numbers dead by hundreds, if not thousands. Is that the worst thing you can imagine? It can’t be far off. And people say that if God ordered it, it was acceptable.
I don’t think that you do. You think, as I do, that it was a story made up to keep people in order. No problem with that. But a lot of your fellow Christians think otherwise. And if hacking children to death is considered acceptable, for whatever reason, then really, there is nothing off limits.
I’d like to think that if anyone thought that God told them to do something like this, then they would refuse. That they would either believe that they were being delusional or that they wouldn’t do it because it was an evil thing to do. Wouldn’t you be concerned if someone said: ‘Yes, if I thought I had received an instruction from God, I would carry it out’.
Is it really an acceptable thing to say that if God commands it, then in this case it must be good?
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You
Guest
I believe in the NT he said nobody knows the Father but the Son, nobody has seen God but the Son.Ye gods and little fishes. Isn’t this what I’ve already said? Isn’t this what Dawkins is implying? Dawkins knows it didn’t happen. And yes, as far as I am concerned it is exactly as you said: a story meant to put the fear of God into people. Literally.
But Dawkins is asking a question by making that statement. Is this really the God in whom you want to believe? And he is horrified that a lot of people say: Yes.
Think Sandy Hook. Think that instead of a gun, they were killed by a sword. Multiply the numbers dead by hundreds, if not thousands. Is that the worst thing you can imagine? It can’t be far off. And people say that if God ordered it, it was acceptable.
I don’t think that you do. You think, as I do, that it was a story made up to keep people in order. No problem with that. But a lot of your fellow Christians think otherwise. And if hacking children to death is considered acceptable, for whatever reason, then really, there is nothing off limits.
I’d like to think that if anyone thought that God told them to do something like this, then they would refuse. That they would either believe that they were being delusional or that they wouldn’t do it because it was an evil thing to do. Wouldn’t you be concerned if someone said: ‘Yes, if I thought I had received an instruction from God, I would carry it out’.
Is it really an acceptable thing to say that if God commands it, then in this case it must be good?
So to say he instructed people or that they knew what he wanted them to do, or they were obeying his command would be also saying they knew him and had seen him.
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sudy
Guest
rationalchristianity.net/ot_love.html is worth reading.
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Aloysium
Guest
:twocents:. . . Dawkins knows it didn’t happen. And yes, as far as I am concerned it is exactly as you said: a story meant to put the fear of God into people. Literally. But Dawkins is asking a question by making that statement. Is this really the God in whom you want to believe? And he is horrified that a lot of people say: Yes. . . y an acceptable thing to say that if God commands it, then in this case it must be good?
Being someone who would say yes, let me try to give you a sense of what I mean.
I would disagree with what some other posters seem to be saying, and assert that it is all true basically.
Unlike other scripture like the Bhagavad Gita, Vedas, Tibetan Book of the Dead (not wanting to argue this point) the Bible is more than just an ontological map of the human soul.
It is the revelation of the Word, the second person of the Trinity within history.
Through its contemplation, we come to understand the what’s, how’s and why’s we are created as we thereby participate in a dialogue with our Father.
Aware of my sinfulness, how far I am from where I should and could be, and how in need I am of His graces, I would say that we should be afraid of God
It is not that He is unmerciful, but because the cosmos is founded on love, there is justice. This is all very real and what we do is not without consequence.
Truly, there is just so much beauty, so much wonder, so much love, enveloping the sorrow, the pain and suffering, which only highlight the glory, all within reach.
Some points to consider:
We are eternal beings. Our foundation lies outside of time.
The past, present and future that defines each moment of our existence is that aspect of our spiritual soul which changes within the context of our eternal nature, as we choose and act in time, becoming who we are forever.
Five minutes, five decades or ten, it is always one person, one life in eternity, in relation to God.
This life is of supreme importance as it is who we are. It is the kernel from which we will reach our destiny, which has always been to tend forever God’s garden universe.
So, those whack-jobs blowing themselves up are not getting their marching orders from God. The point is to give of oneself, not take others with you.
As to the instances in the Old Testament that demonstrate, anthropomorphically speaking, God’s vengeance, such stories depicting what appears on the surface, immoral actions by the Deity, are not uncommon is sacred texts.
In the Mahabharata, Ganga the river goddess, married to Shantanu the king, kills their first seven children. It’s a very long story.
The point is that God is omniscient and all His acts and all He commands are for the good.
You believe this stuff to be hogwash, I think.
So, I imagine that is why you might be worried about others - people doing bad stuff thinking it is good.
That’s where I see a need for a moral code founded on a real relationship with Love.
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