ie stealing is always wrong, even when it’s stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family?

and suchlike

“Ahh, yes, context. It’s interesting that when christians try to use the bible to condemn or control, they never care about the context of anybody’s life.”

That’s a very bold statement. Christians never care about the context of anybody’s life? Could you explain what you mean? Not saying you’re wrong, it just strikes me as a huge and probably inaccurate generalization which requires some backing up.

A clumsy bit of sophistry from Dawkins who, along with many others in this conversation places God in time and space when He transcends them both. That is a mystery all right, one we’re not, limited to space and time, likely to work out anytime soon.
Then why did god create people? And why ask (or rather, demand) them to believe in him?
In the case of Micaiah (not Micah) the lying spirit was sent because there was no love of the truth (same as in 2 Thessalonians 2) and truth would not be accepted.
A lot of people here (as well as de-conversion.com and exchristian.net) are former churchgoers who did a lot of searching, prayin’ and thinking about this stuff. I know you did not accuse us of not loving the truth, so let me pre-empt that here.
The KJV was all right for 1611, but try reading those references in more modern translations and, for goodness sake, read the context!
Ahh, yes, context. It’s interesting that when christians try to use the bible to condemn or control, they never care about the context of anybody’s life. Yet when people have you in a corner, all of a sudden, we have to put the bible in context. Why should you get it both ways?

HAIL MITHRAS!

But seriously, as for the roasting of sacred cows, I prefer to pan-fry them, with some bacon in the pan for flavouring and maybe some consecrated-wine marinade.

Anything else this recipe needs?

So tell us, kt, do you think that Catholics are really Babylonian sun worshipers?

Of course the language in that comment is kind of revealing: “Why can Christians not be tolerated like the Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, and the like?”

First off, kt, my Catholic mother would like me to tell you to read the definition of Christian.

Secondly, “tolerate” implies putting up with something, enduring its presence. To quote Lehrer:

“Step up and shake the hand,
of someone you can’t stand
You can … tolerate him, if you try”

I don’t tolerate people because they’re religious. I tolerate them when they’re @$$#013s but I can’t get away from them.

Thirdly, we’re perfectly happy to slap around any sacred text you give us, I’m sure. But the god we happen to be covering here happens to belong to a particular monotheism, which uses one particular sheaf of poorly-translated nomadic shepherds’ tales as its particular sacred book.

Wow. Poe’s law and all, I’ll try to answer you.

The statement that I was responding to was J.K. Jones’s comment that, “[God] cannot lie.” Do you see the construction there? CANNOT. Not that he wouldn’t lie without good reason, but that by His very nature he CANNOT lie. I was responding by, among other things, saying that statement was not born out by the Bible.

The references to the bible depict God as being able to lie. Whatever the justification for that lie, the depiction of God as being able to lie is the important part. Drawing only from these references, we can say that God CAN lie. Maybe he wouldn’t without overwhelming reason, maybe because someone can’t handle the truth, but these references all say that God CAN lie.

“why can christians not be tolerated just like the muslims, jews, catholics, buddhists, and the like?”

You’re getting a certain amount of ribbing in the comments section of a atheist blog. If this is your idea of “intolerance,” then you’ve been leading a very sheltered life.

thats just like a scientist excluding certain results from a test, just because they didn’t like the results… that’s backwards science, and all you science believers would be waiting in line to rape that scientist.

it could be compared to a president ignoring certain constitutional rights endowed to everyone just because it would benefit his long term goals; if i recall right, everyone has been pretty upset at the last guy to do that…

why should you be able to do the same? are you an authority on this subject?

if i’m not mistaken, most of the world population is preaching unity, acceptance, and tolerance. why can christians not be tolerated just like the muslims, jews, catholics, buddhists, and the like? why should they be the only excluded group? or better yet, why don’t you start tearing the koran or the book of mormon apart? oh thats right, those religions are tolerated…

So is “The apple I am holding is green. Green apples are delicious. Therefore the apple I am holding is delicious.”

The problem is that, though there are premises here, and they’re verifiable, and they’re organised into a logical argument, I’m not holding an apple.

Just because an argument is valid and the premises are verifiable doesn’t mean it’s true.

In the same way, “God is all-powerful within his creation. Beings that are all-powerful within their creations cannot limit themselves. Therefore God cannot limit himself” rests on the assumption that God exists. If God doesn’t exist, and there’s no proof he does, then the whole edifice crumbles.

Which was Dawkins’ point.

Oh, and don’t tell us to read things in context, it really doesn’t make it any better. Genocide, murder, incest, rape, (incestuous rape, to get into a little category mixing), are bad things no matter what the context is. God, according to His Holy Word, caused all these things to happen. Context for the story of Ammon and Tamar, for example (did I get those names right?), just lays more of the blame at God’s feet.

Well, see, that’s the problem. This kind of statement cuts both ways. If the nature of God is beyond our understanding, then there is nothing that we can say about God. The statement, “God is a liar,” is meaningless. But so is, “God is love,” or “God is jealous,” and so forth. You can’t play the mystery card, then turn around and make a statement about the will of God.

They say that whenever Gautama Buddha was asked about the Gods, he simply became silent. That may be the only reasonable response to any question about God.

“In the case of Micaiah (not Micah)”

1. Yes, sorry about the name. The spellchecker got away from me.

2. The KJV was handy. Generally, we atheists don’t have very many study bibles laying around – though there are exceptions.

3. I know the contexts, but I don’t see them as meaningful to the argument. The statement that we were debating was whether or not God can lie. The justification for that lie is immaterial.

4. “Spiritual death” is not part of the text. I repeat, there is no natural reading of Gen. 2:17 that produces anything like “spiritual death.” If you start bringing things into the text, there is literally no limit to the things you can draw from the reading. You might as well take up Kabbalah and declare that God exiled himself from the garden of Eden.

The idea of a god not limited by space and time is a modern idea that never would have occurred to ignorant men who thought the earth was flat and the center of the universe. Their god was nothing more than a magic, super human being who promised his followers an escape from death. That promise is the oldest con of them all.

Seems like an easy cop-out to me. If you’re going to explain any paradox by essentially saying the normal rules of the universe don’t apply, then you can never be proven wrong. That’s not an explanation, it’s just a way for you to avoid providing an answer.

Yup. Beats me why anyone pays any attention to it nowadays.