By Dear Pro-Lifer,
Your God is not pro-life.
You might find that statement surprising, but I know this from your own holy book. Despite what you may have been told, the Bible is not a pro-life document.
It is, in many parts, pro-death. In one of the first stories in the Bible, God murders millions of people through a global flood — including born and unborn children. Unborn children — the ones you fight for. God only wanted to get rid of them.
Later in your holy book God commands the death of nation after nation because they happen to inhabit the land he plans to give the Israelites (Josh 7-9). He commands Israel to kill women and children (1 Sam 15). When he wanted to make a point to the Egyptians, he murdered all the firstborn sons of Egypt. Innocent children. And when King David killed a man and slept with his wife, God punished him by killing his unborn child.
This same God does nothing while billions of people throughout history have been starved, drowned, raped and murdered. He sits on the sidelines and watches.
That is not a God who is pro-life!
On top of all that, at least 25% of all pregnancies end in “natural” abortion — which you believe your God either designed or actively performed — an act you consider murder.
No, your God is not pro-life. By your own standards, he is a murderer — the most prolific abortionist of all time.
So don’t tell us you base your morality on the Bible or on the character of God. Don’t tell us you’re sent from your God to protect the lives of the innocent. Despite what your pastor says, your God is not pro-life. He has been killing, maiming, and letting people suffer for ages. You’re pro-life because, like most humans, you value human life.
I also value human life, but it has nothing to do with supernatural beings.
I’m pro-life too. I hate abortion. I don’t think it is murder, but that doesn’t mean I like it. We can agree on wanting to minimize abortion as much as possible. Since 95% of Americans admit to premarital sex, that means we need to work on getting people to use birth control so they don’t have to consider an abortion. Abstinence-only education doesn’t work.
Let’s work together to teach birth control methods. Let’s provide counseling and adoption services. But let’s not take away the legal right for a woman to choose. Let’s not stand outside and scream at people that they are going to hell for murder if they have an abortion. Let’s not block women from entering a clinic.
In this way, we respect the legal right of women, as well as reducing abortions. We will, as Bill Clinton said, make abortion, “safe, legal, and rare.”
Sincerely,
Dan Florien
See also: Murder in the Bible
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246 Comments
Of course, i agree. But lots of those fundies are going to say that those histories are figurative, or that they are from OT and it changed after Jesus.
How is that they still think God is love, against the “evidences” on his holy book?
Oops, by the way, you could include that passage about the man that has to sacrifice the first thing -who results being his own daughter- he sees when he comes back at home.
That would be Jephthah the Gileadite (judges 11). And unlike in Abraham’s case, this time god didn’t stop the execution.
But there are many other examples of god murdering children. My favourite is 2nd Samuel chapter 12, where god kills the illegitimate newborn son of king David.
Yeah, god could even have had someone else walk out the door first. But he didn’t want someone else to walk out the door first, apparently. He wanted the daughter sacrifice.
I also like the one where the bears ate the 42 little children for making fun of Elisha.
Well said Daniel.
I’ve always wondered, is there ANY statement in the Bible to indicate that God would be against abortions? I mean, other than that, “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” thing, which arguably doesn’t really apply in this instance and has never been paid the slightest attention to anyway?
There are a handful of verses in OT saying that God formed you in the womb (like Psalms 139:13-16 or Isaiah 44:2). A believer will take this literally, while others will see merely a euphemism for biological processes. Strictly speaking, those verses say nothing about the fetus having a soul from the moment of conception (well, some Bible translations do, but most of them do not).
Jeremiah goes a step further, mentioning that God knew Jeremiah before he formed him in the womb. Jer. 1:4-5: “4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”"
Believers usually skip the whole prophet part and apply it generally to every unborn, indicating that God knows us (our souls) before we are born. This seems a little dishonest, I think. Once again, it might be a euphemism, merely saying that God knew beforehand the prophet role he would appoint to someone, and Jeremiah turned out to fit that role (probably not, though – Jeremiah would likely claim that God always had a special plan for him personally).
No matter how you interpret these verses, they are contrasted by a number of verses displaying God as having absolutely no regard for the unborn (or anyone else), like the nauseating passage in Hosea where God boasts multiple times how he will kill all the unborn (Hosea 9:16, 13:16). Also, he will cause the women to miscarry (Hosea 9:14).
“Believers usually skip the whole prophet part and apply it generally to every unborn, indicating that God knows us (our souls) before we are born.”
Isn’t that part and parcel of the whole omniscient package.
Emily: “the Bible is God’s way of repenting and Jesus’s Resurrection was the way to make up for the mistakes”
The new Testament! that is, the ‘new’ Will, as if there could be two wills of the Creator. If perfection includes the capacity for growth surely it does not include the capacity for human emotions such as anger, jealousy or a schizophrenic change of personality. After all God IS Jesus and Jesus IS God – always has been right?
When the church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and the New Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.
Be this as it may, they decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected several; they voted others to be doubtful, such as the books called the Apocrypha; and those books which had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had they voted otherwise, all the people since calling themselves Christians had believed otherwise; for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the other. Who the people were that did all this, we know nothing of. They call themselves by the general name of the Church; and this is all we know of the matter.
So your beliefs today, Emily, were decided for you, long ago, by a group of men VOTING. Maybe that’s part of the reason you feel slightly uncomfortable when you read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness and so on…
http://infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/age_of_reason/part1.html
We are not God, we don’t get to kill and not pay for that. We do not know the grand plan- why God does what God does. But, yeah, the rules say not to kill so we shouldn’t. God does know us before we are born because the soul is there. You guys can debate and argue and say that a baby isn’t a life- all I can say is talk to Jesus. If you decide not to, well, you can face the consequences, I’m not threatening you, it is called free will- you can be with God or without, the choice is yours.On a personal note, I felt my baby at six weeks-you supposedly can’t feel the baby at this point-and when she died within me I felt the loss, the soul gone. People can say there is no life at six weeks yet science has proven there is, how can anyone support abortion? I mean, really, how when it is a life?
As far as the evil God theory, I have had these thoughts. I think that God has done much growing, as well. I think the Bible is God’s way of repenting and Jesus’s Resurrection was the way to make up for the mistakes. Think about it, we can do pretty much any vile thing in this world and honestly ask for forgiveness- not do it again- and we will be forgiven and saved. Why would God choose to do that? Perhaps because God made His share of big mistakes and maybe that is why we have the Old Testament to explain that to us. I could be completely wrong, but I have the freedom to do so. Just some food for thought.
If your god has been “growing,” then that implies that your god is imperfect and capable of mistakes. If this entity is capable of making mistakes just as any of its creations are, then what makes it worthy of worship? Further, why would it “inspire” the writers of the Bible to claim that it is a perfect being? Seems to me that if–IF–your deity exists, has personality flaws the size of the Andromeda galaxy and then “inspires” people to mislead others about its being, then I would be better off not dealing with it; I wouldn’t put up with that from a puny human, much less something claiming that its my “god” and wanting me to worship it.
What if perfection by definition includes the capacity for growth? That is, what if all entities that cannot grow are by definition imperfect?
That’s one of the arguments made by process theologians that just about made me one in college.
So your god is NOT ominscient?
That was the best blog EVER!! OK…maybe not ever….but it’s up there.
I have always wanted to be able to say the very same thing, except you put it into words that I never could.
Bravo.
Don’t forget – he killed his own son too.
Hey, thanks for spoiling the ending for me
but he was his own son. He basically committed suicide to make himself feel better about himself and his little clay creations.
This is one of the muslim world’s arguments for the humanity of jesus. If he was god, he couldn’t die, let alone commit suicide.
What a sacrifice, to be 3 days dead and then go to heaven! Prometheus had it much harder!
Isn’t it considered a sin to commit suicide?
Correction, abstinence-ONLY education does not work. The “Only” is the controversial part.
Teach kids that they have a 97% chance (or whatever it is) of avoiding pregnancy and STD’s with appropriate contraception, and a virtually 100% chance of avoiding them by avoiding sex altogether, and let them decide what to do with those facts.
Technically, abstinence isn’t 100% foolproof. There’s rape. Even if a girl was abstinent, she could still be impregnated/contamined via rape…
That’s why I included “virtually”.
There could also be some psycho stabbing you with a syringe full of AIDS blood, or something. I try to avoid using absolute language whenever possible, because nothing is ever 100% certain.
Sure. I just felt like being the Devil’s advocate this morning ;p
Correct me if I am wrong but according to all reports didn’t Mary practice abstinence.
True enough, though they could just have their partner tested if STDs was their reason for abstaining. I’ve updated it.
Even if a teen practices abstinence, something else bad can still happen to them.
Yes but that wouldn’t be their fault. There’s little reason to knock abstinence due to the slim change of rape, surely? I’m not pro-abstinence-only I’m just saying some lines of argument are frankly OTT.
Yes, the best way to avoid catching an STD or getting pregnant is to completely ignore human nature. Sadly though that is a very unhelpful approach to actually solving the problem.. just ignore your human nature, that will fix everything.
Yes, even to the point that touching your own body while remaining abstinent (as thought a nonsexual being is a more “Christian” being) is baaaaaaad. The guy upstairs OWNS you, man.
I wonder if those people also say the best way to avoid obesity is to just stop eating. I mean, it follows, doesn’t it? No food = no fat.
You are incorrectly assuming that abortion is mostly a birth control method. There are many reasons to perform abortions including the failure of a birth control device.
Certainly you don’t object to aborting a fetus developing without skin or a brain?
Pro-Life is really a misnomer for opposing abortion whereas Pro-Choice is a reasonable description of those who support it. Many ‘pro-life’ followers support the death penalty (NOT pro-life) and generally support suffering during life because they feel their obligation is to getting a baby born, then showing little to no interest in the child’s well-being after that. Is it better to abort a 3-month-old fetus or allow it to come to full term where it is raised by incompetent or financially insecure caregivers (consider the slums of the Philippines where the Church opposes both abortion AND birth control…)?
I suggest what you oppose is the use of abortion as birth control which would nearly disappear with increased use of preventative birth control. However, even in this circumstance, what right do you have to not allow a woman to decide if her pregnancy should be aborted within a time period where it has an undeveloped nervous system and cannot feel pain nor be aware of its existence?
Hopefully I’ve left you with some things to think about.
I don’t think anyone here is advocating abortion as mean of birth-control.
Of course there are other reasons to perform abortions, that’s one reason I think it should be legal. But where it is used as birth control, I think a much better solution is using a pill or a condom.
I’m trying to decide if I want to say something about this, HumanistDad.
What I’ll say for now is this: there is a very real difference between an abortion and an execution, and it isn’t just that the person executed has done something wrong.
An abortion is a private citizen ending (what some would consider) a human life, and it generally requires nothing beyond their own desire to do so.
An execution is a government ending a human life with (roughly) the consent of the governed, and it generally requires a great deal of due process that is agreed upon by the citizenry of a country (via democracy.)
Effectively, i’m talking about the reason why we don’t usually call an execution ‘murder,’ and why it is legally not considered as such. It is because an execution is not someone killing someone else as a private citizen.
I have left out all debate over whether or not a fetus is alive in an interesting sense, since that is a big can of worms. But, hypothetically, if a fetus is alive, then this all applies, and so it is a bit silly to compare state execution with private abortion (especially if your goal is to convince those who disagree with you.)
That’s why people don’t call wars murder, too.
A fetus is not a person until about 20 weeks into a pregnancy, at which point the quickening takes place and it develops a complex cerebral cortex. It can then perceive pain and a conscious being. Before that it’s a collection of cells and I don’t think that there is any reason to consider getting rid of it (with the consent of the mother, of course) unethical. It hasn’t developed a brain so it cannot be afforded rights. It’s equivalent to pulling the plug on a braindead patient in a persistent vegetative state.
Virtually no abortions are done after this five-month (late term) period (it’s less than 1%) and doctors only agree to them if failure to operate would be a serious threat to the mother’s health.
As for abortion being used as a form of birth control, I agree that this should be reduced (in favour of contraception) simply because it IS a medical procedure and it does have some inherent risks. It could also emotionally damage women if they’re either convinced that what they’re doing is wrong and is the direct result of their irresponsible behaviour *or* they simply regret the loss of a potential child. Though I’m a bit skeptical of this one, simply because pregnancy can cause similar symptoms of depression.
So, I’m curious what the OP hates about abortion. Good post though.
Further reading, I simplified Carrier’s main argument above and used it to make my point:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/debates/secularist/abortion/carrier1.html
Also, from RationalWiki:
Many of the most vocal pro-lifers base their beliefs on the Bible, claiming that the Bible says a fetus is a human. However, in parshat Mishpatim, God commands:
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she has a miscarriage [or "she gives birth prematurely"] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows.” – Exodus 21:22[11]
If the fetus was counted as a human, the acceptance of money as compensation would directly contradict two other quotes from the Bible, one of which also comes from Mishpatim.
“Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death.” – Exodus 21:12[12]
“Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.” – Numbers 35:31[13]
Numbers 5:11-31 is the only place the Bible specifically mentions abortion, and it is mentioned as part of a bizarre remedy which God orders priests to give women suspected of becoming pregnant out of wedlock. If a woman is suspected of pregnancy out of wedlock, priests are to give her a “bitter water” which will cause a miscarriage (in other words, induce abortion) if she has indeed conceived out of wedlock.
The Bible also contains prohibitions against “substituting the traditions of men for the commandments of God”, which presumably includes substituting the traditions of the anti-abortion movement (which are not backed up anywhere in the Bible) for the commandments of God (for example, Numbers 5:11-31.)
Augustine argued that it is still probably wrong to abort a fetus before the quickening, even though he believed that a fetus was not alive at that time (bear in mind this was around the time of the fall of Rome, so his science was iffy, but his point is interesting nevertheless.) He regarded the destruction of the potential for a human life to be essentially similar to destroying a human life. So, while for Augustine aborting a fetus before quickening wouldn’t be murder, it would still be wrong.
Also, bear in mind that, once again, Numbers 5:11-31 is not the privatized abortion that we know and love today. In fact, it is a government-enforced action, and not an action relying on the private choice of any single person. (the theocracy of pre-kings ancient israel is a government, and priests do not act on their own authority, but something resembling very closely a state authority; at least this is my understanding.) A government ending a life, or ending the potential for a life, is a different animal from abortion as it is typically understood today: the (largely) free choice of an individual person.
Don’t worry, women are designed to destroy the potential of human life once every month. Should they be pregnant all their fertile lifes?
Not the same thing, although it always cracks me up that the female body is designed to kill as many sperm as possible.
Feels like a metaphor for my entire life…
:D
It’s a form of natural selection, survival of the fittest!! ( and I’m sorry to hear about your life, lol)
Regards-
In fairness, Exodus 21:22 talks about someone accidentally striking a pregnant woman and making her miscarry, whereas the other commandments talk about intentional murder (more or less, anyway).
The argument those who oppose abortion claim is that it’s a potential human life that, if left by itself, could lead to a human being. It doesn’t extend to fertility clinics because those were not implanted and would not develop if left alone.
Why favor “potential” over “existing” is beyond me.
I want my cake, and I’d like to eat it, too!
It is not mutually exclusive to treat both ‘potential’ and ‘actual’ children in a moral way.
The issue isn’t that I’m not in favor of helping existing children, but that there are people (with whom I disagree) that deny that ‘potential’ children are something worth caring about to any great extent.
It isn’t as though someone involved in AIDS relief necessarily thinks that AIDS relief is more important than feeding the homeless. It may just be that they have decided to invest their time into one cause instead of another, which could be for any number of reasons– from personal connection with someone suffering from AIDS to an idea that more people are concerned with feeding the homeless and therefore they should help where their help is needed most.
But come on!!
God makes the laws, he doesn’t have to follow them!
Otherwise he wouldn’t be all-mighty, rules are only for us puppies that can’t tell good from evil without Him!
And whenever he slaughters and kills, he’s only slaughtering and killing NON-GOD-LOVING CHRISTIANS!
Come on?
The War in Iraq?
That’s people with dark skin and big mustache, you can kill the kids because they are far away and probably don’t even have a soul!
My ’sarcasm’ tag was eaten by HTML.
Hope you’ll realized my comment was sarcastic.
Duh.
Don’t think you needed a /sarcasm there, dude!
You’d be surprised…
Most would see it’s clear that was sarcasm. But there are alot of slow people out there that need that explained to them.
Great post btw, Dan.
Mr. Florien, who are you to criticize your Creator? We are not meant to understand God’s plan, so why bother? As for your examples, the flood was because the world was filled with terrible people, unfit for His creation. Pharaoh had plenty of warning before the Plague of the Firstborns, and many Egyptians did what God told the Israelites to do. And He killed Bathsheba’s unborn child because it was created in an act of ungodly lust.
The single linking connection? God kills as punishment. Not on a whim. Not because He is bored.
God does not call Christians to be murderers. God is a loving father, and fathers must punish their children; hence all the death.
P.S. Bathsheba’s next child, after she was lawfully married to King David, was named Solomon. Sound familiar?
Sorry, is this a Poe thing that I’m just not getting? At first I thought your post was just dripping sarcasm, but towards the end I got the impression that you actually believed the shit you were shovelling! Because God killed unborn children as a punishment for… What? What has an unborn child done that’s got God so pissed off?
Please tell me you’re joking.
It’s not just me being thick, is it? I really did think Scott was extracting the urine at first, and then changed my mind!
My thoughts exactly. Exclaiming the old cliché that we should never question God, and besides, all those people were evil and deserved to die anyway – that’s just so over the top that it must be a joke. But the last sentence in particular leads me to believe he’s not joking.
“We are not meant to understand God’s plan”
Well, that explains a lot.
“We are not meant to understand God’s plan”
I take this to mean they don’t know what they are talking about either.
Pharaoh had plenty of warning before the Plague of the Firstborns, and many Egyptians did what God told the Israelites to do.
God interferred with Pharaoh’s free will? I thought he wasn’t supposed to do that. That is the only other way to explain it espcially after verses say things like “god hardened Pharaoh’s heart”
LOL
“God is a loving father, and fathers must punish their children; hence all the death.”
You must believe in reincarnation. How else are they learning from all that “punishment”.
Well, they won’t be naughty again. Ever.
T’is a harsh lesson which kills you.
Yeah, but it does work.
“The operation was a success, but the patient died.”
“In fact, most of the patients in the hospital died, but they won’t be getting sick again.”
I think “God is a loving father, and fathers must punish their children; hence all the death.” will become my new favorite quote.
“the flood was because the world was filled with terrible people, unfit for His creation”
How comes, if god is omniscient and almighty, he should have known -and avoided- it.
” We are not meant to understand God’s plan”
If you don’t know God’s plan, you can’t say that God love us, neither if God is “good”
“Pharaoh had plenty of warning before the Plague of the Firstborns”
God hardened his heart to be “righteous” when he sent the plagues. What an hypocrite!
“And He killed Bathsheba’s unborn child because it was created in an act of ungodly lust”
Couldn’t he avoid the fertilization? And punish those who made the fault, not an “innocent”
“God is a loving father, and fathers must punish their children; hence all the death”
Ya know, usually loving fathers don’t torture their childs for all the eternity, no matter what they have done. And they don’t kill their childrens for desobeying them.
I’ve always found the Flood story to be deeply ironical. God kills everyone because of their wickedness, then afterwards he says to himself that he won’t do such a thing again because “the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth“.
Oh allright, humans are inherently evil. So the Flood changed absolutely nothing. Terrific joke, God. And a terrific display of omniscience on your part.
” “the flood was because the world was filled with terrible people, unfit for His creation”
How comes, if god is omniscient and almighty, he should have known -and avoided- it. ”
mark: I love to clobber holy rollers over the head with this line thinking.
“the flood was because the world was filled with terrible people”
Including those evil fetuses?
“Pharaoh had plenty of warning before the Plague of the Firstborns”
I may be mistaken, but did not your god “harden Pharaoh’s heart just so god could kill all those mean spirited rug rats?
Ah, but dontcha know, God heartened his heart so he wouldn’t be influenced by fear. While God terrorized him.
So God kills sinful, wicked, deplorable, detestable, despicable…
innocent children and unborn babies?
Yeah, that’s a god of love. (Chortle.)
Did you even read this article?
God, in his omniscience, knew what kind of people those babies were going to be. Kill ‘em now, kill’em later. It’s all the same for intrinsically evil people.
Is it a remarkable coincidence that God only killed the wicked people who happened to live on the land that his people wanted?
No, I do not believe that this is a coincidence.
Kinda like how the United States government murdered Native American children and babies huh? What was that quote? Nits turn into fleas? Same concept with your god. How very loving. BTW, your god was awfully confused, saying that children should be punished for the sins of the father….then an about face…children shouldn’t be punished for the sins of the father. I guess you forgot about the Nephilim? (sp) Wasn’t that a creation of god? So bloody ignorant.
I am almost positive Nomad was being sarcastic there, birdie.
If so, then I apologize for the “attack.” Haven’t been here long enough to “know” those who post often. ;-)
And He killed Bathsheba’s unborn child because it was created in an act of ungodly lust.
The single linking connection? God kills as punishment. Not on a whim. Not because He is bored.
So why was the child punished for his or her parents’ acts of lust?
Kind of a shitty thing to do, if you ask me. Kinda really shitty.
The people wiped out by the flood (if you believe that) WERE also God’s creation.
What? God’s a loving father. He kills as punishment. Wtf? Are you serious? Do you really believe that?
“God is a loving father, and fathers must punish their children; hence all the death.”
INORITE! I always kill my kids when they misbehave. I mean, I AM a loving father. What else am I to do? Hope I get some good ones one day. I can’t procreate forever, so I’m gonna run out of replacements soon.
christianity is insanity. inculcation is a potent method of indoctrination used on guileless children.
A superb summation, Dan. Nice work.
I think the most damning passage in the Bible regarding abortion is Numbers 5:14-28, which is an instruction for how a jealous husband suspecting his wife of infidelity must take her to the priest and make her drink holy water mixed with dirt. If she is innocent of having had sex with another man nothing will happen, but otherwise “…the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop” (and also, she shall no longer be able to conceive children).
If the woman was impregnated while having sex with that other man then this treatment, sanctioned by God, causes her to miscarry.
So what is God’s stance on abortion?
Shouldn’t Joeseph have taken Mary to this priest. Jesus should have been aborted?
Oh man, that’s an EXCELLENT point.
I’ve always understood the religious pro-life argument to be that only God has the power to give and take life, so whether or not God is pro-life isn’t really relevant to that argument, he/she/it is already acknowledged to have the power and right to take life.
God only has the right to take a life, huh? Ask a Christian Wrong (I refuse to call them “right”) Reichpublitard if that includes Iraqi life, why doncha!
They have brown skin and wear a turban, they don’t count as human beings.
Come on! They live far and are not even Christians!
Common misconception – Muslims don’t wear turbans. Sikhs do.
This article is somewhat misguided. God was never one to lead by example. The rules he sets in the Bible apply to humans and not to him.
¿?
There is also an article about the inmorality of God. Anyway, if moral rules doesn’t apply to God, how can you trust him? How can you know that there is a hell? how can you know that you will be rewarded for something? Are you sure you want to explore that way?
That’s what faith is – believing in something that has not been proven to you. That isn’t easy and I don’t think it’s meant to be.
Why should the guy who sets the rules and passes judgement based on them be liable under them himself? The Biblical God doesn’t have any kind of democratic obligation – he is all-powerful. The only time he exists under human conditions is when he comes down to Earth in the form of Jesus and I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t kill any children (although others did try to kill him as a child).
Not saying I believe any of this by the way, I’m just describing the context as I see it here.
That’s what faith is – believing in something that Doesn’t Make Any Sense.
Fixed that for you.
And is horribly immoral.
“The Biblical God doesn’t have any kind of democratic obligation – he is all-powerful.”
Might makes right?
That’s what faith is – believing in something that has not been proven to you. That isn’t easy and I don’t think it’s meant to be.
Actually, it’s painfully easy. The human capacity to fool ourselves into accepting things we were raised to believe or have the will to believe is astonishing. We are champion rationalizers.
Especially when one is barraged with the message ….. god loves you, you are loved, blah, blah, comforted, loved, cared for, loved etc.
Seeing that in the human condition the desire to be loved is nearly as stong as the need to eat and breath, it’s no wonder the “just have faith” message sells as easy as it does.
I don’t think it’s easy for a rationally thinking person.
But I think I’m going to duck out because I didn’t expect to provoke such a wide-ranging response and I’m clearly ill-informed on this subject matter… (and so is everybody else, aha.)
Hey, you. Yeah, you.
My name Don Yahweh. Let me tell you the rules here. You pay me for “protection”. Hey, don’t give me that look. You’ve got a nice face and all, and I’d hate for “something” to happen to it.
Oh, and you’d better be showing me proper respect. That means following the laws in *my* town. Well, universe, really. But you – you gotta follow the rules.
You might notice that I go around town, knocking up virgins and leave them with their husbands to raise, or killing people. Hey, rules are for the little people – like you. See, I gots all the power, to I makes all the rules.
Now, show proper respect and praise my name for everything you have. Hm? You don’t want to? Look, I get that. You have free choice. So here’s your choice – either get down on your knees and praise my name and kiss my ring, or you can choose to be dumped into a big pit of fire for the rest of your life – which will be long, because we’ll make sure you don’t never die.
Your choice – I mean – you’re *free* to choose your eternal damnation.
——
Gee, this Don Yahweh guy sounds like a *great* leader to follow. Not like an evil maniacal mob boss/dictator *at all*!
“Why should the guy who sets the rules and passes judgement based on them be liable under them himself?”
I warned you not to explore that way…
1.- I’m not saying that he is forced not to kill, I’m speaking about moral rules there, supposed in a “loving” God. I’m assuming he wants to follow moral rules and, being almighty, to want is to be able.
2.- Let’s assume He doesn’t want to follow those rules… one of those particular rules is not to lie. If He can lie, and He doesn’t want to avoid lying, He could have lied when He wrote the bible -particularly, I think the bible was written by bronze-age men without any kind of divine intervention but, what the hell, just for the sake of the argument
3.- If the bible is a lie -even a God’s lie- you don’t know anything about God. So what’s the point in believing in him, or following his rules?
4.- So you can’t use the “God don’t want us to kill” to forbid abortions or to justify pro-life actions, because you don’t know what God wants or not
And like, why are there all these other religions who say God wrote their Bibles that entirely contradict ours? He can’t be telling ALL of us the truth! (Or can he…?)
Good question… how can you know wich is the correct -if any- holy book?
Has god sent a lot of books only to be sure a lot of humans are going to hell? Is He a sadist?
[I don't believe that God is bad, I simply prefer not to believe while there are no proofs]
Even though God is not obliged to follow the rules he set up for us humans, his actions still give us a clue to his morality (what else is morality but your thoughts and your deeds?).
Had a human done all the despicable things God allegedly has, we would regard that person as the epitome of evil, an example of everything that was sinful in human nature. We certainly wouldn’t say he was loving and just. But God gets a free pass. Whenever he does something good it prooves his love, but whenever he does something bad no conclusion can be drawn.
Taking the argument that God is not bound by his own rules further – then God is not bound
to keep his promises. Nor is he preempted from changing the rules. I don’t see how
anyone can both argue that God is not bound by rules and then argue the Bible means
anything relevant. God could have lied about the whole thing or God could just flat out
change his mind.
If God is not bound by rules, there are no rules. There are just his whims.
um, perhaps because a good leader is one who sets a good example to be followed??
So where does morality come from, then? Practically every fundamentalist Christian I’ve ever met has argued that our concepts of morality come from the nature of god himself.
If the rules that apply to us are arbitrary in application to the gods, then where does a god-centric morality come from, Tom Daylight?
We’re talking the God in the Old Testament though. He was a bit of a badass. The one in the New Testament is the loving guy they talk about. He must have had a change of heart along the way.
Yes, except that most Christians also argue that God’s nature never changes. I’m not sure how that can be reconciled?
It is clear to me that if one reads the Bible, and tries to reconcile everything in it, any intellectually coherent practice of Christianity becomes impossible.
Hence the whole “God is unknowable” and “He works in mysterious ways”.
which apparently means he makes mistakes, ergo, is not omniscient or omnipotent.
how can this be congreunt with the ubiquitous claims of exactly the opposite? that is the most oft- cited argument, n’est-ce-pas? that god is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent? that’s how ALL the inconsistencies are explained away.
*congruent* !!
I live my life by the words:-
“Be most excellent to one another.
And party on.”
– Bill & Ted
Interesting article. You maybe taking the Bible a bit too literally or perhaps I missed the irony. Besides there is no God. Mankind is the killer.
The Bible is taken literally my many Christians, a majority I would say. Others view it as figurative. You would think an all-knowing god who could see this confusion of the future before it would happen, would have provided a bood that wasn’t so convoluted and ambiguous. I mean, mere mortals like myself know that you should speak to the level of the crowd you are addressing, why doesn’t he as an immortal know this. If I’m teaching fourth graders I would speak in a different manner than I would if I were teaching grad students.
I can remember the week after Rowe vs, Wade, learning in Sunday School about Joshua and the Israelites ethnic cleansing of Canaan, including the killing of Canaanite children. On one hand I was hearing that the Supreme Court made it legal to murder children at the same time being told it was okay for the Israelites to kill Canaanite children because they were members of a “cursed” race. The excuse from my Sunday School teacher bothered me, but I kept quiet, knowing that asking tough questions could get me in trouble. I learned in it was okay to ask who, what, when and where but not why or how.
Actually you CAN get in trouble with “when” as well considering that the Bible preaches an incorrect order of creation and has no grasp of the ages of things.
Thanks to UF, I’ve learned some very disconserting things about God that seem indefensible.
Here’s another tidbit from another blog.
“You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The first-born of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do likewise with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.”
Later on God admitted he did this in Ezekiel 20:25-26 where he purportedly said:
“Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.” (See note). [19]
The context of the Exodus passage just quoted above concerns offerings and sacrifices, and it says God requires that first born sons are to be literally sacrificed to him.
First quote above from Exodus 22:29-30
Nomad, you mistaked that second verse to be talking about God’s laws. No– this is talking about giving them over to the lusts of their hearts so they could learn through the school of hard knocks that following the laws of foreign gods was bad for them until they came back to God repentantly.
Well reasoned, Daniel. Thank you.
“Then He opened up their minds that they might comprehend the scriptures” Luke 24:45.
Define irony. A closed-minded man reading from a text which requires your mind to be not just shut but hermetically sealed – and which proclaims how open minded its followers are.
Kind of follows that whole circular argument we love so much: “God is divine because the Bible says so, the Bible is the Truth because it says God says so”.
Spot the flaws, John.
Hi, John. Don’t mean to use you as a punching bag, but can you explain the above-mentioned passage in Numbers 5 to me? It seems a rather straight-forward case of God-ordained abortion to me. Is there some hidden meaning which would make it not so? Sincerely.
TRJ…
Let me ask you a question in return, then I will address your’s kindly. Is the passage you referenced literal? Did Moses really lead millions out of Egypt in the exodus? Or at what point does “Bible” transition from allegorical truth to literal history of record, if at all? And why did Christ speak and teach in parabolic language? Is it still truth in that form? Do you know the answers?
Why would God have an entire OT portraying Him in only a partial (veiled) light? It makes no sense (to our faculties of reason and logic) yet that’s exactly what the NT says about the OT. Yes, because of the agenda (lets be candid here) the UF forum insists on its literal rendering because Christians claim said Bible to be the “inerrant Word of God”. So who is right? God is. Ha, what did you expect me to say? So Christ is the true (unveiled) revelation of the Father (Jesus declaring that when we’ve seen Him we have seen the Father…in the true (dual) lights of grace and truth).
Regarding Numbers 5…the soul represents the female aspect of man(kind). We see spiritual harlotry, unfaithfulness in us (God is jealous, but for us, our hearts and affections, undivided loyalities, etc…you shall have no other God’s (love’s) before Me). Jesus refers to this “Holy water in earthen vessels”in John Ch 4 the “woman” at the well story saying if we would only ask Him He would give us “living water” and it would flow “out from us, from our inmost parts, our bellies”. Paul follows this up saying “but we (believers in receipt of His spirit within) have this treasure in our earthen vessels, in our jars of clay” meaning our bodies. (2 Cor 4:7). We read if she has “gone astray under her husbands authority (the spirit within (male) that the soul (female) is to be wed to and wholly subject to since the spirit is where Christ is joined to the believer resulting in peace, truth” (1 Cor 6:17). This is speaking of harlotry, spiritual unfaithfulness our souls having “gone out” after other, false lovers and not Christ (spirit within).
Now go back to John 4, the woman at the well story. The OT is full of these “types and figures” which are as the mysterious Author of the book of Hebrews declares “examples for us”. The UF forum often makes fun of God saying that He is a “jealous God” even yesterday I saw Vorjack elude to this but what/who is He jealous for? His lost sons and daughters that went out in adam (as in the story of the prodigal son Luke 15) and wake up, come to their senses and return in Christ”. He is jealous for us, our love. He is Spirit (John 4 also) and such its all an internal awakening, a spiritual occurance.
Of course none of this makes any sense to our natural (reason dominated) minds, yours or mine. Man having lost his sensitivity to the divine (spiritual) apsect of his (true) being in the fall, this is the apsect of us that He must regenerate or “quicken”, bring to life again in us. Then, as I said in my original post…He opens our minds to the (true) meaning of the scriptures. Luke 24:45.
All the best…
Why would an omni omni creature need our love? Because he created us? Did we ask to be created? Did we ask to exist? We didn’t. We owe him fuck-all. Yet he demands love because he’s jealous, alright – jealous that we don’t need him, don’t bow down to him, don’t grovel at his pearly feet. Ungrateful little brats, we are. He gives us everything (which we neither wanted or needed) and then bitches when we don’t care. He’s like a spurned lover, and a piss-poor communicator, too.
Then again, he doesn’t exist, so.
Or like the original narcissist! ;D
It makes me feel much better to note your belief that God killed *allegorical* children.
LOL. And he only killed his *allegorical* son, too. ;)
And if you don’t except allegorical Jesus into your heart, you won’t go to allegorical heaven, but you’ll be surrounded by allegorical flames for all of allegorical time. Forever and allegorically ever.
Crap, I meant accept. I’m firing my editor.
Whether they be allegorical or not, I do not know. The word “children” means offspring and not necessarily of the phyiscal kind. It can be results, consequences, etc What were they reproducing? The God kind (like Jesus) or another?
For all things reproduce after their (own) kind…what kind are we? Ha, that ought to bring some amusing responses, all the best.
We’re apes.
You have to go to such amazing lengths to justify the words of the bible. Truly incredible levels of denial and willful ignorance.
“For all things reproduce after their (own) kind…what kind are we? Ha, that ought to bring some amusing responses, all the best.”
As he walks into the sunset on squeaky clown shoes.
John C is just another plaintive cry for attention.
Hey, it makes me feel better that he doesn’t think all these things are literal. Anyone who believes God actually killed all the Canaanites or a whole bunch of first born sons scares the hell out of me. What else is going on in their mind that allows the sanctioning of this behavior?
John:
To answer your question – well, your question is rather broad; I’ve split it into two:
> “Is the passage you referenced literal?”
Yes, very much so. You might as well ask if all the commandments pertaining to Jews are literal. They are. They must be carried out as literally as possible in your every action (to the point where orthodox Jews can’t turn on a light switch during sabbath because they think it corresponds to making fire). The same is true of this passage. Everything that concerns the Pentateuch’s priestly creeds and rituals was to be taken quite literally by God’s chosen people. Even though this practice of ritualised trial has since been abandoned it was at the time a ritual that was meant to be followed to the letter.
> “At what point does “Bible” transition from allegorical truth to literal history of record, if at all?”
Who said allegories are automatically truth? It’s clear to everyone, atheists included, that the Bible contains allegories, but their alleged truth concerning spiritual matters is quite another question. Also, every allegory has a breaking point. You attempt to make everything in the Bible allegorical, but there’s a limit to how far you can sensibly attach symbolism to certain, very specific cases. I’d argue that this is one of them.
I notice that you don’t actually say anything in defense of Numbers 5. You make an extremely vague attempt at an allegory (the harlot wife), in the process glossing over the very specfic instructions of Numbers 5, and in no way diffusing the problem. In fact, I’ll say this: the very specific instructions of Numbers 5, leading to abortion, are in direct opposition to everything your mellow allegories say about jealously guarded love. This mundane commandment in its merciless directness quashes all the intricately woven symbolism about divine love.
You’re essentially saying “Hey, look over there!” and then attempting to make your escape. That’s not a very satisfying explanation.
>>You’re essentially saying “Hey, look over there!” and then attempting to make your escape.<<
Heh. That is the perfect description of pretty much all Biblegod apologetics.
And exactly what John C does. Comes, spouts bullshit, quotes scripture then runs away, hugs himself and feels righteous when the questions are too tough for him to answer.
Of course the *adult* thing to do about beliefs like that is to question them and realise that you’re wrong about them – but theism stunts development and maturity, so hey, what can you do.
“the soul represents the female aspect of man(kind)”
classic john c statement
“Of course none of this makes any sense to our natural (reason dominated) minds”
but somehow you’ve figured it all out
JC you speak so much about how Jesus is our savior etc…. but what about the many, many millions who died before Jesus came. Shouldn’t that be a clue as to the fallacy of the Jesus story? Were they just unlucky? Think about it – the Jesus story is just that – a story.
Oh, and John: Will you PLEASE try to grasp that scripture does not count as a valid argument, m’kay? It’s meaningless. You’re essentially using something to justify itself. That’s not an argument, that’s a baseless statement. Do you see how this works?
Arguing is not my aim Custador.
Yes, Witnessing is your aim. Evangelizing, proselytizing. I’m sure everyone is aware of that at this point.
Exactly, arguing has never been John C’s aim.
He doesn’t provide arguments and neither are they important to what he’s saying.
He is trying to circumvent argument — supplant reason with faith.
Arguing with John C probably isn’t going to accomplish anything.
Your arguments about the fundies’ use scripture are valid, and I’m not interested in expressing how I perceive of scripture.
I’d much rather take the opportunity to say that I am pro life AND pro choice, which means I am have problems with abortions, but I respect that it is the mother’s responsibility to care for her body and the life inside of her. My being pro life, among many other things, also means I am against terrorizing teenage girls who need help.
So what you’re saying is that you’re pro-choice, as your sentiments are basically the same as that of other pro-choicers: abortion is to be avoided, but it should exist as an option – a necessary evil, if you will.
I’ll give you ten bucks in the afterlife if he admits you are right.
Care to make it interesting? Give me ten bucks now, and I’ll give you a HUNDRED bucks in the afterlife if he admits it at any point of our lives.
That’s 10:1 odds. Think about it.
Ooohhh, can I get in on this? How about this. Give me $100 now, paypal is fine. If it turns out there is an afterlife, I’ll give you $1 million *and* all my virgins, let you play my harp and shave my wings bald.
“harp” here is literal or allegoric?
rofl at this whole conversation
I guess it has to be literal if you are a guy, too, since we’d be in hell otherwise. Unless its like, cool with god to be gay once you are finally dead.
lol, only asking, after reading some apologetics I’m a bit confused about what has to be read as allegoric and what hasn’t.
And… I don’t accept bets wich I know I’m going to lose
“I am pro life AND pro choice”
Makes sense to me.
Did you forget Hosea 13:16 or did I just miss it? In that verse, unborn babies are ripped from their mother’s wombs:
The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”
We get pretty locked up in our ideas on what’s fair. The murder in the Old Testament was my biggest issue with the Bible for a very long time. I’m more at peace with it now. All earthly life will end, but that’s not the end of existence. That’s just the beginning of a new “chapter” for those who accept the idea of eternal life.
It is my opinion that the entire Bible points to Jesus. God allowed free will and we screwed up His plan – Jesus was the solution. The Israelites are God’s “chosen people” in that they are the people through which God would bring the savior of the world. Anything that threatened their meager existence had to be dealt with. The extermination of threats to Israel preserved the salvation of billions. And if earthly death is temporary, I’m not so convinced it’s all that barbaric to remove the threats to eternal salvation.
Yeah, but won’t all those Samarians now be forced to endure eternity in Hell? First they die in horrible painful ways, then get to prolong their existence in a similar manner. I can tell you now that whether a god exists or not, that is NOT fair.
I’ve spoken with many who believe Jesus gift of salvation goes in all directions on the timeline of human history and that those who’ve never heard of him are given the chance to accept his sacrifice.
For the record, this doesn’t reflect on MY beliefs. :)
If it’s more moral to remove a threat to salvation than to not remove one, then why did God allow Satan to continue to exist after he fell?
Remember, God can’t force anyone to go to heaven… but he’ll force them to burn in hell!
When Jesus spoke of a burning hell, the original word was Gehenna – that was a literal place at the time. A dump outside the city. Always on fire. People went there when despondent to weep and wail and gnash their teeth. Jesus’ message was that he wanted to save us from such an existence, yet many use those words to mean there’s a literal burning hell.
Hell could just as easily be a place of eternal separation from God that is completely devoid of light. Or it could be a place where one ceases to exist entirely. The Bible never clearly states this.
I lean toward the idea of “ceasing to exist” should a person choose not to spend eternity with God. I suppose it’s possible one could exist in a place where they’re aware they COULD have been with God.
If Jesus wanted to teach that people would just stop existing when they died, don’t you think he could have been a little clearer? I mean he’s supposed to be god, right? It’s pretty easy to communicate such things. You know like this,
“Behold, when you die and do not believe in me, you will no longer exist. Those that do believe in me will be in paradise with me.”
Easy. But instead he compared things to a garbage dump that was on fire and gave a parable of someone burning in hell begging for a drop of water.
You can’t seriously think Jesus point in all of that was people would stop existing, can you? I’m glad you recognize how absurdly crazy hell is, but Jesus’ mean seems pretty clear, and he never mentions anything about peaceful non-existence.
“…that whosoever believes in me will not PERISH but have everlasting life.”
Seems to me he’s saying that if you don’t believe in Him you’ll receive the opposite of “everlasting life”. And then there’s that whole word we translate as “perish”.
Jesus spoke in a lot of parables, as you know. His purpose was so to get the mind going of those who listened.
But whether or not hell is literal or just another parable doesn’t really take away from the idea of being able to connect with the creator of the universe. I don’t follow Christ to avoid hell (whatever it may be). I follow him because it’s pretty damned awesome to do so. Encountering God is pretty amazing.
Group fantasies are always powerful experiences. That doesn’t make them real, though.
Custador, perhaps you should pay attention before making assumptions. Not that you should know my life, but if you don’t it would be better to ask, “where these group experiences?” than to assume that’s what I’m talking about. On the “about” page of my blog I’ve shared one of many unquestionable experiences I’ve had (alone).
Well Donny, I’m assumng that you’re not the only Christian in the world…
Ya know, every christian is the only true christian in the world
Donny is speaking for Donny, not all the Christians in the world…
(Note his pronoun choice)
:P
But God is not represented as torturing his enemies in most cases. (BTW, this isn’t my argument, but someone else’s. I thought it was interesting, so I’m reproducing it here.) God is represented as destroying his enemies. In the old testament, he kills enemies directly, or gives others the command to do it. And then it happens. There isn’t a ‘torture phase.’ God ends the life of his enemies. and that’s all.
I suppose you could still make the argument that God is evil if you wanted to, but it isn’t as if the OT says “and God tortured the canaanites for all eternity, in fact even now they are squirming in agony…” Rather, God’s command was to eliminate the other nations. Eliminate permanently. Orthodox Jews don’t have ritualized Canaanites in their homes that they beat on the Sabbath. It isn’t consistent with God’s behavior throughout most of the Bible that Hell exists in the form most people take for granted.
At any rate, that was their argument. I’m not sure what i think about it, but this was a person who had done a great deal of study on the matter, and was not dumb by any stretch of the imagination, so i thought i’d throw it out there.
That’s true. The only people god tortures in the bible are his servants.
Job, Jeremiah, Jacob, etc…
Being god’s enemy is not nearly as bad as being his pal.
“It isn’t consistent with God’s behavior throughout most of the Bible that Hell exists in the form most people take for granted.”
Agree, but… they are a lot of things wich most people take for granted that are not consistent with God’s behaviour throughout most of the Bible, maybe God loving human life is one of these
But that is exactly what JWs believe. Only gods “true” followers will live forever on a paradise earth. Everyone else will no longer excist.
Sorry, my spelling stinks
So God is NOT omnipresent?
Of course, if you think the god of the bible is an enormous dick, that’s probably not a bad thing.
Hell could just as easily be a place of eternal separation from God that is completely devoid of light. Or it could be a place where one ceases to exist entirely. The Bible never clearly states this.
… or it could be a place of hellfire and torment. You don’t know that; the Bible suggests but does not affirm that (as per your own words).
I lean toward the idea of “ceasing to exist” should a person choose not to spend eternity with God. I suppose it’s possible one could exist in a place where they’re aware they COULD have been with God.
Your opinion does not truth make. Which is fine for a lot of things, but when it comes to a matter of salvation or damnation, then it’s pretty damn relevant whether something is factual or not.
I’d say that both Mathew and Mark, not to mention Revelation, are pretty clear on sinners, including unbelievers, being cast into “everlasting fire”.
But perhaps you’re going all John C on us, interpreting “fire” as “void”? Don’t you believe the Bible when it becomes unpleasant?
That question was directed at Donny.
fire is everlasting, not the things put into it?
I dunno, its a slightly weird topic anyway
^not Donny
Belief in the afterlife is not dangerous in itself. But it becomes dangerous when the myth is elevated above everything, including rationality and life itself. When everything is subordinated to the myth. Be it Moses’ myth, Mohammad’s or Paul’s. The myth becomes more important than life itself. That is why people kill for them. Crusades, witch hunts, suicide bombers. When we use the myths as justification for killing people, then belief in the afterlife becomes dangerous.
“Jesus was the solution. The Israelites are God’s “chosen people” in that they are the people through which God would bring the savior of the world. Anything that threatened their meager existence had to be dealt with. The extermination of threats to Israel preserved the salvation of billions. And if earthly death is temporary, I’m not so convinced it’s all that barbaric to remove the threats to eternal salvation.”
If he feels that I’m threatening other people’s salvation, would he then think that it’s moral to kill me?
That argument is basically the stuff of holy wars. “We must kill them for the common good and our holy cause. It is the moral thing to do.” (apparently it was the moral thing to do back then, so why not now?)
I disagree about the afterlife. Anything that devalues actual life is dangerous in and of itself. The levels of danger may vary, but anything that promises a life of any kind after death can only lower the value of the only life we really have.
“God allowed free will and we screwed up His plan – Jesus was the solution”
You cannot -by definition- screw up the plan of an omniscient almighty being. Either he didn’t know how things will go -so he is not omniscient- either he did something wrong in our creation -so he is not almighty.
And how was Jesus the solution? It changed the world or humanity? Don’t think so. Was Jesus a loophole to God rules? Has that any sense??
We get pretty locked up in our ideas on what’s fair. The murder in the Old Testament was my biggest issue with the Bible for a very long time. I’m more at peace with it now. All earthly life will end, but that’s not the end of existence.
Yeah, how horrible of us, thinking killing innocent people is a bad thing.
That’s just the beginning of a new “chapter” for those who accept the idea of eternal life.
So it’s OK to kill the little darlings, they’re all going to heaven anyway. Let them die. Who cares? They’ll go to heaven. Or maybe they’ll be tormented forever and ever and ever, but heh, who cares?
People who think like this should encourage abortion – it’s far less likely the fetus will be corrupted by “the world” if it dies before it’s even born. It’s the moral choice to do – you may damn yourself for eternity but you’ll save someone else’s soul. The ultimate sacrifice, far more meaningful than Jesus’s.
It is my opinion that the entire Bible points to Jesus. God allowed free will and we screwed up His plan – Jesus was the solution.
That any creation should ruin the plan of the creator – not any creator, but a Perfect Creator with Capital P – is ridiculous. If God is omniscient he knew the plan was going to be ruined even before the plan was done. That’s what being omniscient means. He knew it’d happen. He did it anyway. He intended for all those killings and bloodshed to happen much as he let the conditions be set for the far more centre Rwanda genocides. He is either omniscient and powerless, omniscient and uncaring (which, if such a creature as a God existed, would be my choice as the most likely) or he is not omniscient.
The Israelites are God’s “chosen people” in that they are the people through which God would bring the savior of the world. Anything that threatened their meager existence had to be dealt with.
Then God isn’t omnipotent. He depended on the existence of the Israelites. He was unable to alter his plans or adapt in any way.
The extermination of threats to Israel preserved the salvation of billions.
Which is the exact excuse so many people use to kill other people in the world. That people can believe this terrifies me far more than your imaginary friend’s existence or lack thereof.
And if earthly death is temporary, I’m not so convinced it’s all that barbaric to remove the threats to eternal salvation.
Then why are Christians so anti-abortion? In fact, why not euthanize people whenever they reach a certain age?
Ugh, I can’t write. This … centre Rwanda genocides. was supposed to read recent Rwanda genocides.
And this Then God isn’t omnipotent. He depended on the existence of the Israelites. He was unable to alter his plans or adapt in any way. should be complemented with:
Or he does not care all that much about human life, in which case he is either not all that loving or being alive is irrelevant, a nice but useless appetizer.
Only 117 comments so far? Why, I’d expect nothing less than 200+ comments, the majority of which were testimonials about how gawd loves the little babies (until they come out of the womb, after which they’re pretty much frelled).
In the OT, among His nefarious deeds, God clearly slaughters babies. How does this point to Jesus?
Wake up.
Re-read. Do some pondering. It’s really not difficult.
I’m not sure that you really answered his question.
In my experience it is typically with facetious condescension.
I read your blog entry on your personal conversion. The only unusual thing I can find there is that you were jolted by an energy like feeling while praying. After this, you asked God to tell you why He is moral in spite of Hosea 13:16. After several weeks of no answer you become sure that you don’t need and answer but need to believe Him instead. This is accompanied by good feelings. Have I basically got it right? Are you being literal when you say that while driving and praying a “jolt that goes through my body feels like electricity”? Are you sure it was really like electricity and not an aspect of the bliss spectrum?
You said that the whole Bible points to Jesus. I ask again, how does His OT killings point to Jesus?
OK, look. The idea that God has to create a system in which there is untold misery and suffering including unspeakable killings, some of which He personally perpetrates so that He can find a way to accept a small portion of humanity (narrow is the way and few there by that find it) is absolutely crazy, immoral and selfish. The only thing this points to is skepticism.
Was Jesus judging himself when he supposedly said that if someone harms a child, it would be better if that perp weren’t born?
Jesus is the salvation for the world, and he was sent through the Jews. If they were threatened, they were expected to defend themselves even through the shedding of blood.
Jesus claims he fulfilled the Old Testament laws. That being the case, any questioning of the Bible needs to be directed at things in the New Testament, not the Old.
As for your little quote (narrow…) have you researched that?
How are babies and children a threat to The Plan? And if they are, then either: 1) God is inept at planning; or, 2) God should have refrained from such an obviously immoral plan. Remember that the children and baby slaughter includes not just the moment of extinction but all the terror leading up to it. It becomes even more ridiculous when you consider that in other places He supposedly tells the Isrealites to take prisoners of war and in yet other places tells them to kill some of the prisoners while enslave others.
And we are talking about just one type of God’s OT atrocities. For instance, how is drowning the entire human race a necessary part of this plan? How does all of that particular mayhem point to Jesus? The destruction of animal life alone is enough to condemn the perpetrator.
Concerning my narrow way reference, unless you are wanting to suggest universalism, the number of converts is a trivial point in the discussion. I shouldn’t have brought it up in this context. To answer your direct question, it’s been decades since I studied the NT in any depth.
Perhaps you would like to rethink this?
Silly Question-I-thority. Didn’t DonnyPauling just tell you that those babies stood in the way of our salvation? It’s really not difficult to understand, you know.
Those babies shouldn’t have thwarted God’s plans. Shame on them for not being omniscient and for not being able to think of a different way to go about the whole thing…
Babies are pretty dumb because, well, they are so young an inexperienced. It is no wonder they messed things up. They had it coming, really.
Yeah, all that stuff about the meek inheriting the Earth *must* have been rubbish.
Plus, they’re in a better place anyway. Yeah for them………I guess.
Yep. There isn’t a theological problem that can’t be justified by introducing the afterlife. It’s the trump card of all times.
So, it was ok to kill any threat to the israelites (women, children, animals, men, etc) because the savior was coming thru them. And jesus died for our sins so we don’t perish? Yea, right, I am soo glad other people got killed so I could be saved for something I had nothing to do with.
wow, I almost got saved again.
The it’s a matter of, “If I have to kill the whole world in order to save the people through which the savior of the whole world will come, I will damn well do it!”
Just want to say- a brilliant piece of writing!
I’m perfectly at peace with the violence of the Old Testament. It was something that happened rarely even then. It makes sense to me in light of the bigger picture. Humans can be angry about it, claim it isn’t fair, rant, rave… none of those things will change anything. It doesn’t really matter whether or not it’s “fair” in the eyes of those of us with a fraction of the picture. Our version of “fair” is of no consequence.
Jesus’ death fulfilled God’s plan. Those who have killed in the name of God since that time were not told to do so, no matter what excuses they use.
But Jesus was missunderstanded, and He had to send Mohammad with the right Gospell
Yeah, all those millions killed? Who cares, it’s history now. Water under the bridge. I mean, it’s not like it says anything about the morality of God in any way. Because we cant hope to understand the mind of God. Except when he does good things, of course.
“I’m perfectly at peace with the violence of the Old Testament.”
At peace with violence. I suggest that that is precisely the problem with Christians. All that violence in the OT? Perfectly understandable. This is fundamentalism and not surprising. But where are the moderates? Why do they shy away from this issue? I would really like to hear how they reconcile this barbarism with their belief in a loving God.
There is a schizoid split between the O.T. and N.T. God. In the O.T., God is often vengeful and violent. In the N.T., Jesus points in the completely opposite direction. Why would an all-powerful being spend centuries killing and purging unbelievers and then do a complete 180 and become Mr. Love-and-Kindness. I wonder with you – how are these two seemingly distinct personalities reconciled as being an all-loving God?
To be honest, it’s hard to find the good part of the good news. Jesus said some incendiary stuff (I bring not peace but a sword). Furthermore when he returns at the Apocalypse he returns as the destroyer. The relative few that are saved, what are they saved from? The Devil? No. The wrath of a loving God. The NT is not much of an improvement upon the OT. Jesus and Yahweh. Good cop, bad cop.
With the twist that bad cop is beating you because he loves you.
So is good cop, actually.
TRJ…
All our discussions (and their seemingly fruitless end) testify to the fact that one, outside of divine illumination by the Holy Spirit can not merely “read” the bible and comprehend it unless the Author grants us this light. There are numerous references for this in scripture, this is why it makes absolutely zero sense to the natural man and mind, its foolishness and is only fit for ridicule and scorn.
He will “open up the scriptures to our minds” (Luke 24:45) when we love Him. I can write and talk till I’m blue in the face but illumination is for Him alone to impart. I’m not anyone special, I just foolishly, trustingly believed Him like a child would his Father and committed to the journey with God. The results in my life and heart have been beautiful, glorious and He is Who He says He is, love, truth and light.
One can never know the truth of scripture without knowing the Truth Himself. We can know Him in exactly the way that He says we can.
Maybe so. It would seem, however, that this Truth is of an alltogether different nature than secular, logical truth. It is unable to explain unpleasant parts of the Bible, such as Numbers 5, in other than airy, general terms, that really offer no explanation.
I’d have thought that a transcendental Truth could do better than that.
But you’ve already established thoroughly in another debate (actually, pretty much all of them, now that I analyze it in more detail) that your “Truth” doesn’t actually concern itself with truth, but is merely a refuge, a place you can retreat to and think happy thoughts without having to make up your mind about anything that disagrees with you or is unpleasant in any way.
Sorry, that isn’t for me. Any kind of system that uses itself to confirm itself – while shying away from difficult topics – is a system I will avoid like the plague.
Its not a “system” at all TRJ that one comes to. Its not belief “system” or even a theology, a doctrine but rather a Person (Jesus speaking, you search the scriptures that you may find eternal life, but you are unwilling to come to Me that I might give it to you” John 5:39-40.
You are correct when you said that this truth (if there is such a thing) is not secular, not logical as we understand logic. This truth is “from above” meaning superior, higher realm, heaven which is the realm of Kingly dominion, spiritual truth and ironically it is also within us (Jesus sharing that the kingdom of heaven is within us). This is why we are naturally intrigued by such things, they are inherent within the deepest aspects of our being even though many here are working hard to rid us of the supernatural but its impossible as we are made in the very image and likeness of God however encased in flesh and “earth” we may currently be.
None of this conforms to me as you suggest, I have no warm fuzzy feelings. Warm fuzzies are not spirit born manifestations. Rather, as scripture declares (Romans 8:28-29) that as many as He foreknew He pre-destined them to be conformed to the image of His Son (Christ) that He might have many sons (spiritual offspring) by adoption. He changes us from the inside out.
As I’ve said before, the truth of God, His love, His heart toward us is far greater than we know. I speak from a quarter century of journeying w/Him in the spirit and can attest to the fact that He is Love. In fact, He’s a lot like…Jesus.
JC – “we are made in the very image and likeness of God”
is that strictly mentally speaking or soulish speaking as I find it hard that this little girl was made in the image of God:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP7hq4unnSU
Doesn’t it strike you as scary or horrifying that “God” would create such a person? Or maybe she is here as a sign for the rest of us?
Vidlord…
God is Spirit (John 4) not flesh. When He says we are made in His image, He is intending that to mean our inner construct, man who is a tri-partate being yet we only “see” one aspect, the outer, the body and so we are fleshly/physically oriented. Sin is the same thing as death and it has brought on this race all manner of deformity, of evil. Fairness in this life is not an entitlement, it is a messed up…mess of a world indeed.
Is there a great surprise in store for all of mankind? A Fairy tale ending? A happy ever after? And what does this verse mean “as in adam all died (a spiritual death) so in Christ shall all be made alive”? All means all right?
The OT, its like this…Each man within himself has Moses & the Israelites, the Sadducees & the Pharisees, the Patriarchs and the kingdom of heaven & hell. Thus the events described in the bible, and looked upon by the pious as being things of a past history, are actually descriptions of eternal processes taking place within the constitution of man…himself.
“I cannot reconcile the GOD revealed in Jesus of Nazareth with a few of the depictions of YHWH in the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, this is a significant problem for me. I’m currently wrestling through this issue, and I’ve tentatively arrived at some very uncomfortable positions. It appears that only a Christological reading of the Hebrew scriptures can solve this dilemma. But But I take a more radical position than Daniel Kirk appears to take.
If, as I believe, Jesus fully reveals to us the identity of God, and we are to live and decide what’s right and wrong within the trajectory of Jesus’ teachings, actions, ethics, life, etc. (the NT), why can’t we read the Hebrew scriptures retrospectively, and through the lens of Jesus, assess whether or not Israel got it right when they heard God? I realise this sounds slightly like Marcion, but I have no desire to throw out the Hebrew Scriptures. However, I’ve got to question whether or not they (Israel or the particular writers of these traditions) heard right, or faithfully represented the intentions of YHWH when engaging in such horrific acts. I’m perfectly happy to concede that we are quite ignorant concerning the surrounding circumstances of these events and actions, and so our conclusions are tentative, but I think this Christological approach may help us.
…
While I would not advocate deleting these traditions, it would then be possible to see them as instances where Israel or a prophet appealed to the authority or agency of God for these horrific events, but were in fact wrong to do so. AGAIN these are tentative thoughts which I find very uncomfortable because it challenges what I believe about the Bible. But I can’t help but think this may be a better solution to the problem than just claiming we don’t have enough information to make an informed decision. Or perhaps I’m wrong.”
http://primalsubversion.blogspot.com/2009/07/god-of-intolerable-violence.html
We’re not silent on the issue. We just don’t make the news because we don’t go around shoving our thoughts on the issue down everyone’s throats.
James McGrath, another guy I’d recommend (http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/). He talks about the fallibility of the Bible freely.
That’s intriguing, brgulker.
Well, you are not a pro-life, are you?
And I’m pretty sure you have thought about that, but for the sake of any other readers, and because I can’t be quiet, I’m going to say it anyway:
Jews got wrong God’s message? How can an omniscient and almighty being not expect that? He let them missunderstood Him, on purpose? Can we be sure that christians got the right message?
Muslims claim they did, and we misinterpret jesus’s teachings.
I know it’s a big issue to conciliate NT and OT. I have an explanation: OT is kinda a legendary book about Jews history, where they explain how his nation came to be and they elevate past kings to mythical figures. Is that so different from legends about other ancient nations? Is it more pausible than a vengative, genocidal and sadic God? The question is why those books are still on christian’s bibles
Well, you are not a pro-life, are you?
I think abortion is undesirable, and I have moral objections to the vast majority of abortions that happen in my home country. But I think there are situations in which it is probably the best available choice. I don’t think we should outlaw it; outlawing it would create an entirely new set of undesirable situations. I agree with President Obama (and it looks like Daniel at least on this point) about abortion. We should do everything within our power to minimize abortions. I think that’s the best option for public policy that’s available.
The question is why those books are still on christian’s bibles
Can we learn from the mistakes of the past? In other words, could we learn how to do something by learning from someone who got it wrong?
Can we learn from the mistakes of the past? In other words, could we learn how to do something by learning from someone who got it wrong?
Assuming the existence of a personal God, the most likely scenario of the Bible IMO, is that it is a recorded history of the Israeli’s relationship with God on through to Jesus. But it is from the point of view of the people and not God.
bgulker, why do you suppose it is so important that the Bible be so overwhelmingly authoritative to Christians? Truly, when you see some exchanges (with the more conservatives folks especially), people have made the Bible more important than God. That is when Christianity moves into cult status (IMO).
bgulker, why do you suppose it is so important that the Bible be so overwhelmingly authoritative to Christians?
As an armchair sociologist, I would probably answer with, “Certainty.” Uncertainty can create cognitive dissidence. Certainty eliminates that.
, people have made the Bible more important than God. That is when Christianity moves into cult status (IMO).
Bibliolatry is actually a word we progressive-to-liberal folks use in conversation with the more conservative folks when discussing the issue with them. I’ve had more than a fair share of Christians say that I’m not a Christian because I don’t buy inerrancy. That’s a case in point example of what you’re talking about.
@ ” I’ve had more than a fair share of Christians say that I’m not a Christian because I don’t buy inerrancy. ”
mark: What is your response to christians when they make such claims. I mean do you point out some of the verses that clearly contradict each other? Plus how can christians argue about the innerancy of the bible when there are clear mistakes such as the two different creation accounts?
Just asking out of curiosity.
Haha! I’m actually making a joke at the expense of christians now:
Q: ‘how can christians argue about inerrancy’?
A: ‘christians can argue about anything!’
Y’all are a bad influence on me…
“Bibliolatry” That is interesting. I’ve been describing the Bible as an idol for some time now. Isn’t the entire Christian religion Bibliolatry? If not what makes some forms of Christianity Bibliolatry and others not?
John C: I digress, but I want to ask why you think Jesus/God has not revealed himself objectively to the world as he has supposedly done in the past? Why stack the odds against us? Why did God choose to reveal himself in the most illiterate of places in the world and not a place as developed as say China. After about 100,000-200,000 years of unimaginable suffering and fear. Is this Omniscience? Did he not realize that a 2000 year old story passed on generation to generation will not be believed by a great amount of people in the age of science?
Michael…thx. Obviously, I dont have all the answers I can only share from my personal story. The gospel (good news) is not understood even by most Christians. What if, instead of having to know of this Christ from a historical, physical perspective He were actually our true identities, our inner Man? I know that’s a stretch, but consider the following: Jesus said (speaking of acts of severe mercy, kindness, love to the impoverished, sick, imprisoned, etc) that when we did those things to others that we were actually doing them to Him. How is this unless Christ (spiritual offspring of God) is who we really are? He chooses to identify with and in humanity. He is the humble King. So instead of having to hear stories passed down, we recognize Him (Christ who is our life) as scripture says from within, an inner knowing, His spirit joined to ours and attesting to the fact that we belong to Him. Scripture says He is the Light that lights every man but that most dont comprehend it (this internal light). But if we did how would that change things?
We can’t know a dead, crucified, historical Christ, but we can know (intimately) an indwelling, resurrected One. That is Christianity, Him living His (uncreated, eternal) life through our temporal, physical lives. Scripture says that our old man (adam) died on the cross with Him that same day and now we are resurrected to new life, His. Its His nature within us, love, mercy, etc that He imparts as an exchanged life. Then we live from His life within and not our own being freed from our old, inherited, faulty natures. So instead of being distant, historical He is actually within us all the time awaiting recognition.
My views are a bit unorthodox I realize, I wish you all the best on your journey.
This is a mystery as scripture says…Christ IN you the mystery of the ages (Col 1:27).
Cool. If christ is in me, then I’m god. I command you to quit believing nonsense. Also, stop praying. I’ll be on vacation in the Bahamas for infinity, and I can’t be bothered.
On a more serious note, you open a galactic sized can of worms by positing that jesus resides in each of us. Follow that train of thought a little further and see where it takes you.
You must be new here my friend…I’ve been sharing the truth of an indwelling Lord since Dec 2008. They all know me, love me, ha.
All the best Michael, all the very, very best.
nice try :-p
“My views are a bit unorthodox I realize”
A bit?? Really, I think your views are a mixture of christianism and oriental religions…you would probably been burned as an heretic in other times. Ok, most nowadays christians would. Glad we didn’t have Inquisition anymore :-)
I ask again, if Jesus is Truth and the Truth is indwelling – and therefore inside every and each one of us, regardless of origin – then why people all around the world do not spontaneously discover it, sans missionaires and Bibles?
Unless each and every god, spirit or creature ever worshiped is a manifest of Jesus. In which case names are pointless and holy books even more so – and being a Christian is no different from being a Hindu, except for specific cultural details, and every believer is right.
…or every believer is wrong, it depends on what question are they trying to answer.
There is a God? Then every believer would be right.
hwat happens after death? “Every” believer would be wrong
What have I to do according to please God? Every believer -appart from deists?- will be wrong.
True. Every believer would be simultaneously right in that God exists (assuming Jesus = God = indwelling truth = every manifestation of religion ever conceived, from Loki to Baal through Quezcoatl and Horus and Zeus and…) and every believer would be simultaneously wrong in the specifics (since they all contradict each other in the nitpicks, if not in everything).
Therefore everyone is damned except those who somehow managed to guess it correctly. Nice, eh?
A really fair game. You have to pick the correct religion between an awful lot of them, all having the same “proofs” in their favour. But don’t worry, if you fail, you may be eternally tortured.
Indeed, He is a loving father.
I have to completely agree with you on this. If christians really have a personnel relationship with Jesus and god, why do they need to refer to the bible and seek guidance from churches and other christians? They shouldn’t need anything but themselves if they really are having one on ones with their god.
John C. I still find that your position ties us back to the OT because we would have to accept that this “misunderstood” scripture is what anchors us to our “inherited” sin, thus we need the indwelling christ to give us a recaptured new life, otherwise he doesn’t need to be in there (in here?). How does this work if the OT is kind of swept aside? I’m genuinely inquiring about clarifying this, thanks
Kan82…we dont necessarily need to “sweep aside” the OT. The NT is a “New and better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6) compared to the old. This is part of man’s journey into his understanding of the Father, part of a progressive unveiling if you will. The OT is primarily God seen thru the knowledge of good & evil, the NT is God seen clearly in Christ thru the ministry of grace & truth. The problem is that “religion” has so deformed the true message of Christ having layered over it with endless and burdensome rules and rituals, etc that most can no longer disassociate Christ from the Institutional Church (IC). So we have to essentially shed religion to find God.
The so called Christian life is not intended to be lived by an external book (Bible) but rather thru an indwelling Spirit. So Paul says “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ living thru me” (Gal 2:20). That’s a clearer picture of the life intended which is liberating as opposed to burdensome rule-keeping (religion). So its not so much about the external print (Bible) but rather the internal blue-print (His nature within us).
All the best.
Except that the external book “documents” and establishes the “fall” from which we are “saved”:
“Then we live from His life within and not our own being freed from our old, inherited, faulty natures.”
What I am saying is that the original fall created the need for his “indwelling spirit.” If the old, dusty rules are simply a perspective of good and evil, how did Jesus become so necessary to save us – are we not evil at birth ( which I do not believe)? If so, what are we being liberated from? What is this relationship for? This doesn’t follow, in my mind, sorry.
John C wants to retcon his own god.
I spent the better part of my day reading this page and wondering a great deal. Very interesting. Thought I would see more christians putting up an input, funny thing to me was that more non believers were quoting the bible. You do realize you are “speading the message” when you do that, correct? Again, funny thing…the conversation on abortion issues vs non prolife bible messages still turned into a debate about Life after death…It is always about life isn’t it? Either here or there. One thing I don’t get about unreasonable faith…if faith isn’t important to you why talk about it so much? Just wondering what the site is really about?
Way to miss the point. If you knew anything about the pro-life argument, you’d know that it has nothing to do with when God decides to take a life, but when PEOPLE decide to do it. God can abort as many babies as he wants, but we are not God. Duh. This site is ridiculous, almost every article I’ve read is poorly argued.
Not Pro-life or Pro-abortion, just reasonable (unlike most of this site). I AM Christian though and I can tell you that simply reading the bible will not tell you how to argue with a Christian. It’s all about interpretation, and just now you argued against an interpretation that hardly exists in most Christian minds.
“Way to miss the point.”
Way to miss the end of a thread by just how many months?
So there is a problem with people new to a site joining existing threads that are still up, sometimes even “featured”?
Way to go Jabster. That’ll encourage new folks.
I don’t need the sarcasm tag there, you get it, right?
That’s just how “my people” say “Hello, how are you doing?”
“don’t need the sarcasm tag there, you get it, right?”
Don’t tell me you are Blake.
Yes, because he is so just and moral and full of love.
Anyway, we’re not discussing the human views on abortion, but how God according to the Bible has little care for unborn and infants. So it appears to be you who is missing the point here.
The God of Abraham in no way is depicted as “little care” for unborn or infants.
“It’s all about interpretation, and just now you argued against an interpretation that hardly exists in most Christian minds.”
What biblical interpretations are you talking about and which interpretation of the bible been argued against that does not exist in christian minds?
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