Why don't the faithful hold God morally accountable?

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Ragtime
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13 Apr 2012, 8:15 am

Lord_Gareth wrote:

That really coulda been put into a new post for ease of reading. Forum etiquette, my friend. Forum etiquette.

I'll actually address the point later, maybe tonight, more likely tomorrow - for now, I go very shortly to watch Aliens with my wife, and addressing the idea of the nature of moral thought (as far as I think of it) would be a long-ass post indeed.

EDIT: The above was addressed to Ragtime, as Joker ninja'd me like a boss.

It's generally a good idea to give me at least 2 minutes before responding to what I've just written. This is because I am a frequent editor and elaborator of my own posts, as new thoughts occur to me.

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Ragtime
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13 Apr 2012, 8:18 am

abacacus wrote:

Okay then, here's a fair trial:

Why did your god command so many atrocities? You know, human sacrifice, the murder of infants, the murder of entire towns or even nations, horrific punishments such as being burned alive, etc.

I guess if His literally infinite wisdom escapes us, He's guilty. :shrug:

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13 Apr 2012, 8:25 am

Ragtime wrote:

abacacus wrote:

I guess if His literally infinite wisdom escapes us, He's guilty. :shrug:

we have to take your wqord and that of a 2000 old book for that wisdom however,

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Last edited by Oodain on 13 Apr 2012, 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

abacacus
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13 Apr 2012, 12:09 pm

MarketAndChurch wrote:

No, when I say context, I mean that there are two books, the old and the new, and things don't always square up because the old evolved and got a new take when the new came along. One then views the old through the lens of the new, and where there is conflict, one then adopts the new ones interpretation on things, and that is how Christianity made peace with its roots.

Can you name another man who burned his daughter as an offering to God in 4000+ years of Jewish life? What can one possibly learn from this... if there is anything to learn at all... It takes nothing to dump on the bible, any crackpot can cite a verse here and a verse there. Imagine if someone took a few lines from a piece of writing of Shakespeare or Hemingway or Dickens or Orwell out of context and tried to then say that any one of those authors were an idiot, one would immediately demand to know what education they have in literature, or what they degree they hold, but the bible seems free for anyone to dump on without knowing a thing about it.

Because often those who dump on the bible know it better than the people who follow it. You're the one running around making excuses for things I pull out of the bible, not me. You're the one trying to make your god seem like less a deranged psychopath, going so far as to try and claim translation errors.

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abacacus
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13 Apr 2012, 12:15 pm

Ragtime wrote:

abacacus wrote:

That is complete bull :lol:

One could make the same argument and say the politicians who banned paedophilia could freely engage in it, because they created the law and as such they are above it.

Flaw: The politicians create laws which expressly state they are for all people in the state/nation, not certain classes of people therein. God created laws which expressly state they are for all humans, and not for Himself as well.

Also, how would you be able to define being moral when it comes to God? I'll explain what I mean. One law He gave in the Old Testament is not to look upon the nakedness of any family member. Well, being God, he is omnipresent and sees all. So, that moral law would be inapplicable to Him. As would many others. If God kills a human, it's simply reversing His own previous action: creating that human. Whereas, when we murder someone, we violate the Creator's act of having put that person into existence. A person is allowed to inflate, then deflate his own tires; he is not allowed to, after watching someone else inflate their own tires, come over to that person's car and deflate them. Same reasoning goes. God owns us. We do not own each other. Also, his law is not to murder, which is killing for no justifiable reason. Well, when God kills someone, He has His reasons, and being a just God, they are therefore just reasons.

Your entire argument hinges on the bible being correct, which is not something I'm just going to grant you out of thin air for debate purposes. You are what can be called a religious apologist, AKA "well yes he did terrible things BUT...." I'm sorry, but no matter what way you try and spin it, your god is deranged. He is a sadistic psychopath. He orders people killed in hideous ways for what amounts to thought crime in many cases. What if the government in your country passed a law (hypothetically, it'd be very unlikely to happen) that all those who believed in god should be put to death, as it will get them to god sooner. Would you not fight that? Would you not fight against being killed because of your beliefs? And yet your god commands that you kill me, because I don't believe in fairy tales...

Also, if you think god creates people, I have a little test to you. Pray to your god for a son. See how long it takes that son to show up versus the maybe a year of people who just try and get pregnant.

And, if I recall correctly (I could be wrong), god gave his law to the Israelites... not all of mankind.

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13 Apr 2012, 12:46 pm

Ragtime wrote:

abacacus wrote:

I guess if His literally infinite wisdom escapes us, He's guilty. :shrug:

Your God is wise in the same way a brick is wise

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Ragtime
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13 Apr 2012, 1:16 pm

Personally, I've always wondered why there is so much anger against God from non-believers in Him, yet they have absolutely zero problem with Satan. Satan and his angels, whether you believe in him/them or not, are the primary influences toward pain and suffering in this world. So, non-believers in him not even having a theoretical problem with Satan always strikes me as interesting, particularly when I hear so much vitriol uttered against God by the same people. I could pick from so many examples, but Richard Dawkins comes first to my mind: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” It is exceedingly rare -- if not without parallel -- for a fictional character to inspire such a level of feeling.
I've never heard Satan even described as, say, "bad" by a non-believer. It's just really interesting to me. The author of the Holocaust and all other pain, suffering, and death, not considered even "bad". But God, the creator of us all, and the giver of life (air, food, water, etc, etc, etc, etc) to us all, who expects simple obedience and respect, He's called vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, and capriciously malevolent.

I'm not confused by this at all, but on the surface it is quite odd. And it is an incorrect reaction by them, to be sure, even though it's understandable.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:23 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Personally, I've always wondered why there is so much anger against God from non-believers in Him, yet they have absolutely zero problem with Satan.

Well, for one, who has said that they don't have any problems with satan? Just because nonbelievers haven't brought him up doesn't mean that they like/agree with him.
Secondly, no one goes around trying to force satan's laws onto people who don't believe in him. No one who has any political/social merits at least.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:26 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Satan was not the "author" of the holocaust. Or anything. Human beings were. Should I be outraged at a pseudo-deity that does not exist or at the NSDAP? Dawkins was right about the god of the Old Testament. Highly immoral and vindictive. As well as nonexistent

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13 Apr 2012, 1:32 pm

Rocky wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Rocky wrote:

If the faithful are the ones who believe that the Bible is literally true, they might not want to risk criticizing the biggest mass murderer in known history.

Criticism might also be mistaken for disbelief, which according to the New Testament, leads to an eternity of torture in Hell. I may have some of the details wrong, since it was quite some time ago that I read that book.

Poor Job attempted to criticize God and he got a tongue lashing.

ruveyn

If the god of the Bible treated a good man like Job the way he did, the faithful have one more reason not to push their luck. I agree.

How utterly unsurprising that you'd both end the story while Job is at his worst condition, rather than alluding to how things turned out:

From Job 42:

Quote:

10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.
11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.
13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.
14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.
15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.
17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.

Wow, God sure is cruel.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:36 pm

Ragtime wrote:

How utterly unsurprising that you'd both end the story while Job is at his worst condition, rather than alluding to how things turned out:

From Job 42:

Quote:

Wow, God sure is cruel.

Is that like when a husband beats his wife for talking back to him and then he turns around and starts saying how sorry he is and how much he loves her, and didn't mean to hurt her, then takes her out to dinner, buys her new clothes, etc?

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13 Apr 2012, 1:37 pm

Unspecified wrote:

Joker wrote:

abacacus wrote:

SO what you're essentially saying is "god is the father and he knows best but I know better than him"? :lol:

No I am saying that you will not find christians that follow the old convenent laws unless they are a funny

Except when it comes to gays, of course.

Um the only reason the bible says it is a sin for a man to lay with another man is because it was the pharisees who made it a law not God.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:40 pm

Gravechylde wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

Personally, I've always wondered why there is so much anger against God from non-believers in Him, yet they have absolutely zero problem with Satan.

Well, for one, who has said that they don't have any problems with satan?

Lots. I even posted a poll on here several years ago, and more people voted for Satan than for God.

Gravechylde wrote:

Secondly, no one goes around trying to force satan's laws onto people who don't believe in him. No one who has any political/social merits at least.

Hahaha, you'd be surprised how subtle, accepted, and "normal" some of Satan's laws are. Infanticide is one of them, and people willingly practice it in this country by the tens of millions. Child sacrifice was commonly practiced by pagans in the ancient world, and today the gods to which the children are sacrificed are just a bit different: convenience, money, and selfishness. Adultery is another of Satan's laws, and it is comparably popular. Lying is of course ubiquitous. Stealing, murder, you get the idea. And yes, people are coerced into all of these by other people every single day in America alone.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:46 pm

Child sacrfice was a pagan practice and their are a lot of meaning behind cetin bibical laws in the old testement.

Rocky
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13 Apr 2012, 1:48 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Rocky wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Rocky wrote:

Poor Job attempted to criticize God and he got a tongue lashing.

ruveyn

If the god of the Bible treated a good man like Job the way he did, the faithful have one more reason not to push their luck. I agree.

How utterly unsurprising that you'd both end the story while Job is at his worst condition, rather than alluding to how things turned out:

From Job 42:

Quote:

Wow, God sure is cruel.

I was referring to what he was put through before that. I would say the same about Abraham and Issac. How traumatic would it be to know that your father would be willing to kill you, even after the point that he didn't. If this invisible god changes his mind, Issac would still have been in danger of his life.

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13 Apr 2012, 1:49 pm

As I have said repeatedly, He became human, and was killed in a most gruesome and horrific way. I would say that about covers it.

If someone wants to say, "why isn't God held responsible for the deaths he admits he caused, the people he killed?" Well, would the death penalty satisfy you? That's what he received, and as an innocent man no doubt! Even one of the most despotic rulers of the time found no guilt in him, then sent him on to an even more merciful man to be judged, who could find no fault in him either.

So, I would say that taking the rap for what He did, (destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, the plagues on the Egyptians, et al, which He did do,) is exactly what He did in that he was executed!

That's not how most people might spin it, but I will just to satisfy the theologically feeble and morally confused with something to grab on to...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsqJFIJ5lLs[/youtube]

By the way, I have been given the power of live and death over this thread!! ! I am the Mighty Thor!!

Well, maybe not the power of live and death, but a member wrote and asked my opinion...

Last edited by shrox on 13 Apr 2012, 1:52 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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