How to respond to those who call God a mass murderer?

[ericc]

What you see in the Old Testament. Jesus told to the adulterous woman: “Go and sin no more.” There is no such thing as free killing.

We are at the OT scenario where Elijah just meted out capital punishment. You can’t judge Elijah anachronistically using future standards since Jesus hasn’t arrived at the scene yet.

What do you mean by free killing again? One can refrain out of love or mercy but that doesn’t make it unlawful Mosaically speaking. The Holy Spirit struck Ananias and Sapphira dead for lying. Acts 5:1-10. Taking your favorite verse and applying that as a standard for all other behavior isn’t the right way to understand the Bible.

Agathon has replied you excellently about the trap set for Jesus.

 

[curious_cath]

The incident with the woman caught in adultery doesn’t serve to erase the death penalty. It was just Jesus getting out of a trap.

You guys are the ones for whose sake Jesus was incarnated and dwelled among us. Yet, you still don’t know Him and refuse Him. Just as was written.

 

[Agathon]

By your logic, who are you to make that statement?

 

[curious_cath]

Why do you want to deny the mercy of the Lord toward the adulterous woman? You say He only wanted to escape a trap. Really? I don’t mind if you continue to believe that way. I only ask you not to force your view on others. My Jesus is a merciful Lord and I cannot change that. Sorry.

 

[Agathon]

I wasn’t denying the mercy of Christ; I was saying that His actions didn’t overturn the death penalty.

Analyze the Pharisees’ question. If Jesus gave an affirmative answer, there’s no doubt in my mind the Pharisees would’ve gone over to the Romans and accused Him of murder. If He answered in the negative, He’d be discredited as a person who opposed the Mosaic Law. Instead what He did was turn the tables back on His adversaries.

 

[Gorgias]

Can you demonstrate that there is an objective morality in reference to a deity that has yet to be demonstrated to exist at all? I’ve presented my example as to where I understand we can demonstrate this to exist, but you are referencing the moral pronouncements of an entity that has yet to be demonstrated to exist and have yet to explain why we should take its position over anyone else’s.

Look: let’s be fair. God has been demonstrated to exist. What you really mean is that God hasn’t been demonstrated to exist to your satisfaction. Big difference. There comes a point where, in the face of obstinacy, rationality shrugs and says, “you’re being unreasonable.”

You’re being unreasonable.

 

[Russell_SA]

Your deity can not be demonstrated to exist by an standard we use to test claims about reality. What demonstration do you have that contradicts this? Where’s your noble prize for discovering the link between reality and your reality? Just like when we discover the link between medicine and alternative medicine, we just call the alternative medicine…medicine. Once you can demonstrate that the supernatural exists at all, we just call it …natural or aka reality.

 

[goout]

Demonstrate love.
Demonstrate faith.
Hope.
What is all that?

Music?
Art?
Dreams?
Show us the research.

Demonstrate that the reason you are here considering Christianity is not a work of God.

 

[Gorgias]

Your deity can not be demonstrated to exist by an standard we use to test claims about reality.

You’re conflating “empirically measurable physical objects” with all of “reality.” My great-great-great-great-grandfather, who came over from the old country, is real. He’s not measurable.

And so, what you’re really asking for is an empirical measurement of God. And, of course, you know that this is an unreasonable request – that’s why you’re asking it!

Once you can demonstrate that the supernatural exists at all

With empirical methods? Umm… you know what a “stacked deck” is, right?

Once you can demonstrate that empirical methods are the appropriate way to ‘measure’ the spiritual, then we can talk. Until then…

 

[Russell_SA]

I don’t understand how those qualities have anything to do with demonstrating those ideas come from the supernatural. You are by passing that part of the conversation. Start from there. How can you know event A had supernatural involvement verse event B without supernatural involvement?

 

[Russell_SA]

We have actual imperical data of parents creating offspring. What data is there of the supernatural at all that is demonstrable?
Change out the word supernatural with magic, chi energy, mind reading, prayer healing, and your point still works here. Your personal preference for channeling powers from the beyond and communing with spirits does not make it so if you can not demonstrate your ability is any different than wishful cultural practices

 

[goout]

I don’t understand how those qualities have anything to do with demonstrating those ideas come from the supernatural. You are by passing that part of the conversation. Start from there. How can you know event A had supernatural involvement verse event B without supernatural involvement?

We are talking about two different issues now.
You claimed that a deity cannot be demonstrated to exist by any standard we use to test claims about reality (which is not really true, unless you eliminate philosophical reason from “test”, but for the sake of discussion, ok let’s let that pass.)

I pointed out things that are not testable. I’ll recap:
Demonstrate love.
Demonstrate faith.
Hope.
What is all that?

Music?
Art?
Dreams?
Show us the research that prove how these things work, what they are. If you can’t ,then all of reality is not testable, and you are “barking up the wrong tree”.

 

[goout]

We have actual imperical data of parents creating offspring. What data is there of the supernatural at all that is demonstrable?

So let’s drive home this point.
You believe that all of reality is testable by analyzing data.

That is more superstitious than the wildest ancient idol worship.
It makes you into a god. Christianity is tame by comparison.

 

[mythbuster1]

Examine all the Eucharistic miracles for yourself. Here we have a testable claim: Christ declared bread to be His Body and wine to be His Blood, and these miracles demonstrate that to be so by unveiling it for any scientist to examine. Human Flesh and Blood, spontaneously produced from bread and wine, always AB blood type, not subject to decay even when exposed to the elements for years.

 

[mythbuster1]

And furthermore, if Christ had desired to abolish the death penalty, would not the revolutionary have been justified in saying, “Save yourself and us?” Yet Jesus did not save him, but did harken to the prayer of St. Dismas after he confessed, “We are condemned justly, for our sentence corresponds to our crimes, but this Man has done nothing wrong.”

 

[Eric_Hyom]

We have actual imperical data of parents creating offspring. What data is there of the supernatural at all that is demonstrable?

Of course we have actual empirical data of parents creating offspring. Now just give us empirical evidence of creating parents from the dust of the earth or the sea, life had to start somewhere.

 

[Curious11]

I don’t know how to respond to people like this

What I do with people who say that is stamp their forehead with a seal of approval to show I agree with them. So if you’re ever in doubt, now you know there’s at least something you can do with no hesitation

 

[Russell_SA]

So you don’t like abiogenisis. We have evidence of nonliving matter, we have evidence of living matter, do we have evidence of the supernatural? Until you can demonstrate that the supernatural actually exists, what it can and can not do, how it interacts in the natural realm, what are the markers that indicate a natural event over an event with supernatural involvement, suggesting the answer to our unknown questions of this reality by presenting supernatural as the answer is exactly no different than suggesting it is magic. That is why it is not allowed as a solution to any question in science because we can not distinguish the claim of supernatural involvement with any other imagined idea. It may actually be the answer, but it is intellectually dishonest to suggest it is until you can justify why it should be a solution. Just claiming that it is the answer is just to assert it without evidence. And that which is asserted without evidence is dismissed without evidence.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

So you don’t like abiogenisis. We have evidence of nonliving matter, we have evidence of living matter, do we have evidence of the supernatural?

We don’t have any evidence as to how non- living matter became living matter.

That is why it is not allowed as a solution to any question in science because we can not distinguish the claim of supernatural involvement with any other imagined idea. It may actually be the answer, but it is intellectually dishonest to suggest it is until you can justify why it should be a solution.

I believe it is intellectually dishonest to say that abiogenesis happened naturally, if you do not have the evidence that it did. Science needs to be fair and open to all possibilities, otherwise it can become the biased view, and that will not help scientific advancement.

 

[curious_cath]

Your personal preference for channeling powers from the beyond and communing with spirits does not make it so if you can not demonstrate your ability is any different than wishful cultural practices

The greatest power is love. It is supernatural, because it goes beyond sympathy, filia or sexual desire. Agape is a form of love that has no self interest so might not give you evolutionary advantage. It has a supernatural side of it, coming directly from God.