Got a problem with God Fire away

Post Reply New Topic

I was being somewhat sarcastic. Trust me, I know just how bloodthirsty the christian god is.

Am I better than Moses? Hell yes I am. I'm not going to go slaughter people because silly little voice in my skull told me too. I have a measure of self control he obviously didn't.

Every atheist? I haven't seen that many atheists on here act quite that aggressively hateful.

As far as logical/reasonable answers--logical proofs of God and defenses of Christianity have been around for centuries. I wouldn't mind taking time out to try to convince someone that Yahweh is God and Jesus is Messiah, but I'd much rather spend that time with someone who really is seeking the Truth than wasting with someone who is only interested in picking a fight. If you don't want to believe, nothing I say nor any amount of evidence is going to convince you.

I'll put it this way: Suppose you were talking to a creationist who denied Big Bang. While it is still true that scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how it all went down, they still accept that something did happen. If someone were to stand up and outright dismiss Big Bang theory, the scientific community would instantly label them and alternative explanations as crackpottery. But suppose also that the creationist defended his position against Big Bang theory using exactly the same evidence that Big Bang proponents use to prove their case. All he'd have to do is offer an alternative that simply interprets the available data differently. So who would be right, the creationist or the Big Bangers? Same evidence, different conclusions. What makes one interpretation of data superior to another? And, most importantly, would Big Bangers likely be persuaded by the creationist's interpretation? My guess is that Big Bang theorists wouldn't even entertain the possibility that the creationist could be right.

Now, take the discussion we're having here. To a Christian who has a personal relationship with Yahweh and recognizes the influence of the Holy Spirit in his life, God, Jesus, and the Bible (among other truths) appear to be self-evident. No alternative explanation you can offer is going to be good enough. The idea that there is no God is utterly foreign to that person, just like the idea that there was never a Big Bang is utterly foreign to a cosmologist.

Your challenge is not much of a challenge. The key to the challenge is the underlying hidden assumption that human understanding is superior to God's understanding. Judgment is being passed on God for what He instructed His people to do. Cultural differences do not make it OK to kill in barbaric ways, but it does help a modern-day observer understand how and why things in the past happened the way they did. You can't expect someone in the ancient world to apply lethal injection to a convicted murderer. The methods by which the guilty would be put to death are unfortunately the ones available. Perhaps our progeny will look at our methods of capital punishment and wonder at how barbaric they are in light of the improvements in putting criminals to death one might see at a future time. Many of the OT laws take into account the sinful nature of each human being--not condoning certain behaviors such as sex slavery, but rather understanding that those things exist within the culture and must be dealt with. Involuntary servitude for non-criminals is not condoned, nor is it condemned in the OT. But laws concerning the treatment of slaves were given because at the time the wickedness of mankind drew mankind to procure and trade other human beings as property. OT laws actually do offer certain types of slaves relief from the abuse of an owner and a certain amount of protected status and privilege, the intent being to contrast the Israelites' experience as a slave class within Egypt.

And so to answer your "challenge," I have to point out that slavery has been virtually eliminated everywhere Christians and Jews have had a significant influence. It's remarkable that the quote you included has "...something your god would have been over joyed to see." Such a statement indicates that the person saying it doesn't have much of a good knowledge of the OT nor any kind of understanding of Hebraic or Christian thought. There is a preoccupation with what one person believes are negative aspects of the religion and scripture. There is an outright refusal to even try to understand what's there and how it applies to the lives of the faithful. It's not an argument worth putting the time and energy into. It's almost as bad as getting into an argument with a child--as soon as you engage a contentious child whose self-centered rejection of all usual mature reasoning causes him to reject even the most impassioned plea, you have already lost. The only way I win arguments consistently with my 3 and 4 yo's is by imposing my will upon them and demanding compliance. Mature adults shouldn't be expected to strong-arm each other in discussions, and I'm not going to go out of my way to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.

Given that I suspect you really aren't all that interested in what I have to say, how about a counter-challenge? Try to convince me that the alternative is superior.

I'll have to look that up. Good stuff. I'd also like to point out that the command from the Lord to kill isn't murder since murder is defined as a specific form of killing. Killing in a state of war, as an example, cannot be considered murder. Very often "Do not murder" is selectively translated as "Do not kill." If we're talking about Exodus, we're talking about a crucial time in the formation of the nation of Israel in which actions against God would have been seen as rebellion and treachery that could have quickly torn the young nation apart before it could ever really get off the ground as an independent nation. Zero-tolerance would have been necessary for the Hebraic theocracy during that stage of their existence. In actual practice, the Israelites failed to maintain it and ultimately had to suffer the same vengeance from the Babylonians that they (the Israelites) inflicted upon the natives of Canaan during the period of the judges.

So in the eyes of the storyteller, the sacrifice of, say, three thousand men isn't too much to save the nation of Israel. In the context of the story (being about Israel and all) it makes sense, but it's also an example of the kind of rationalizations that actual real life killers (sometimes) use, which is probably where abacacus is coming from when he says that God would be happy to see killing in the streets. Incidentally, I doubt that Homer actually wanted to see every jealous husband massacre his wife's suitors, but I'll be darned if his climax to the Odyssey wasn't epic.

It is essentially where I was coming from. To a humans eyes, yes such a sacrifice could easily be rationalized, for many reasons. From an OMNIPOTENT GOD WHO CLAIMS TO BE ALL LOVING AND PERFECT? Not so much. Think about it. Omnipotent and all powerful. Claims he loves us all. Proceeds to not bat an eye when thousands of us are killed. Doesn't make much sense.

There are reasons I continuously go off on the steaming pile that is the bible.

Odyssey was truly awesome.

I really do understand the objections when it comes to all the death and destruction. But the main problem I have with those objections is how terribly one-sided they are. ONLY the human perspective is in mind. If we take into account that our knowledge is limited and God's knowledge is infinite, then we have to accept that things are handled differently than we would handle them due to things we don't know or understand.

I'm also noticing a strong false dichotomy between a God of peace and love and a God of vengeance and wrath. I tend to think our God is God of everything to include the things we don't like as well as the things we do like. My attitude for the purpose of this discussion is there's not much point in trying to convince someone whose mind is already made up and will use any kind of rationalization that suits his purpose to maintain such a hateful outlook. It doesn't make sense to that observer because he doesn't WANT it to make sense. One of the key differences between us is that I'm open to accepting the fact that God doesn't need my approval in order to act as He sees fit to provide the ultimate greatest good for us in this world.

Why did Moses spend four months in the mountain if God swiftly made the letters appear in the stone slabs?

I need to read back up on it to be sure, but there are a few possible explanations that I can think of right away. One possibility is that God writing the law on the tablets "with His own hand" is a reference to the way in which God used Moses to do His work. But even if Moses was physically unassisted, it shouldn't have taken four months to happen.

You do have to account for travel time. There might have been a time of fasting and prayer before Moses received the law. After all, Jesus did the same thing during His early ministry for 40 days. Four months seems appropriate for something that important during that stage of Israel's life.

It's also possible that the Decalogue wasn't the only thing Moses went up to the mountain to receive. Also, it isn't precisely always clear that there is any exact chronology to Torah except where explicitly stated. The four months could have included a time during which Moses was expected to memorize the first God-given law code before reciting it to a scribe at a later point in time. Bear in mind that Torah contains some 613 commandments, not just the 10 we commonly hear about.

Maybe some of the time was spent recovering from whatever happened to his face. When you're climbing up a smoke-covered mountain, accidents happen...

lol

Ok, that was good! Even I have to admit that one.

I do not need to defend my faith to any atheist period.

Christian views on the old covenant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_ ... d_covenant This will answer the atheists quetions about why christians do not follow every law of the Bible.

If you can cherry pick laws, then cherry pick more. Get rid of the stuff that says that men laying with men the same as women will go to hell. Get rid of the - frankly unrealistic - belief that Jesus rose above the grave. And stop being a doomsday cult and admit that John was just on drugs that day.

Ok I will you must admit that this is true about most atheists.

1. You became an atheist when you were 10 years old, based on ideas of God that you learned in Sunday School. Your ideas about God haven't changed since.

2. You think that the primary aim of an omni-benevolent God is for people to have FUN.

3. Although you've memorized a half a dozen proofs that He doesn't exist, you still think you're God's gift to the ignorant masses.

4. You believe the astronomical size of the universe somehow disproves God, as if God needed a tiny universe in order to exist.

5. You spend hours arguing that atheism actually means "without a belief in God " and not just " belief that there is no god", as if this is a meaningful distinction in real life.

6. You can make the existence of pink unicorns the center-piece of a philosophical critique.

7. You're a spoiled fifteen year old boy who lives in the suburbs and you go into a chat room to declare that, "I know there is no God because no loving God would allow anyone to suffer as much as I...hold on. My cell phone's ringing."

8. You believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist, yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded".

9. You believe that priests are only in it for the money, despite the fact that they make less than almost anyone else with their level of education.

10. Your only knowledge of The Bible comes from searching 'bible contradictions' in Google.

11. You believe the movie Dogma gives the most accurate portrayal of Christian theology.

12. You refuse to eat at Church's Chicken, and it's NOT because the chicken's too greasy.

If god is real hes a jerk. Hes basicly an immortal Kim Jong Ill and Immortal dictator for you must obey or else burn in eternaty.

Most sermons at church never bring up hell nor do christians fear hell but in every faith their is a good and bad afterlife it makes sense in a religious point of view. To have a good afterlife and a bad afterlife if you really think that we only talk about hell then your bloody wrong about that. God doesn't force you to believe in him you have a choice to follow his will when you go astray your the one choosing hell God isn't the one sending you their it was your choice to go when you chose not to believe in God.