The Ways Of The Christian God

[steve_bank]

We should always do as god does.

Create a race of creatures called human and destroy all but a few with a flood because you don't like the way it turned out.
Sire a human child with expectation it will grow up to be tortured and executed.
Test a human by commanding him to execute his son.
Make a bet with your arch enemy Satan on a man named Job and rain pain and devastation on him as a test.
Destroy two cites Sodom and Gomorrah because hey displease you.
Turn a man's wife to salt, Lot's wife.

 

[Politesse]

You have some funny ideas about God.

 

[TomC]

You have some funny ideas about God.

They're really not funny, exactly.

But I know where they come from. Devout Christian people make all these claims, although they phrase them differently.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

You have some funny ideas about God.

They're really not funny, exactly.

But I know where they come from. Devout Christian people make all these claims, although they phrase them differently.
Tom

Then they have funny ideas, too. I'm not going to use someone else's unqualified reading of the Bible as a personal moral guide.

 

[TomC]

I'm not going to use someone else's unqualified reading of the Bible as a personal moral guide.

What else is there when using the Bible as "a personal moral guide"?

That's kinda the problem.
Tom

 

[Politesse]

I'm not going to use someone else's unqualified reading of the Bible as a personal moral guide.

What else is there when using the Bible as "a personal moral guide"?

That's kinda the problem.
Tom

If the book contains genuine wisdom or advice, it should be more than possible to rationally explain what and why.

 

[Politesse]

Not much to do with a thread like this, really. If someone were making an earnest, good-faith argument, I could ask critical questions about what they are claiming, why, and on what basis.

But of course, this thread is not in good faith - Steve is not, in fact, arguing for any of these positions, and neither is able to nor would want to defend them. The whole point is to go "Gosh, that sounds awful, sure am glad I'm already an atheist!"

 

[steve_bank]

I don't think Job or Lot's wife thought it was funny.

All the actions of god in the bible are told and retold as truth by Christians. Plus a thousand years of accumulated enbbelishments and interpretations. The American mix of religion, war, and conquest backed by a deity comes right out of the OT 'ways of god'. The Jeish culture.

Battle Hymn Of The Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.


In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,[15]
While God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

 

[AdamWho]

You have some funny ideas about God.

Are you really going to use the "Its just a metaphor" argument for the bad stuff? Because we have already heard that one... for decades.

 

[Politesse]

You have some funny ideas about God.

Are you really going to use the "Its just a metaphor" argument for the bad stuff? Because we have already heard that one... for decades.

How on earth did you derive that from my post?

All speech employs metaphor, though.

 

[AdamWho]

You have some funny ideas about God.

Are you really going to use the "Its just a metaphor" argument for the bad stuff? Because we have already heard that one... for decades.

How on earth did you derive that from my post?

All speech employs metaphor, though.

I got that idea from your subsequent posts. I am not interested in deflection.

Are the examples that Steve outlined descriptive of Bible gods character or not?

 

[steve_bank]

I think bible 'god of love' is a New Ager variation.

The OT god of the Jews supported Jewish aggressiveness as long as they believed.

We se it in modern Israel. Natanyahu is the Jewish version of the Christian literalists. Zionism. Jews have a right to sieze land in Plaestine bcuase god gave it to them.

To be fair not all Israelis are Zionists, there is opposition tp the conservatives, we don't see it in our media reporting.

 

[bilby]

I'm not going to use someone else's unqualified reading of the Bible as a personal moral guide.

What else is there when using the Bible as "a personal moral guide"?

That's kinda the problem.
Tom

If the book contains genuine wisdom or advice, it should be more than possible to rationally explain what and why.

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all.

And if we can't, it can't help us.

Morality, like the societies from which it arises, changes dramatically over time. The older your source material, the more likely it is to be so badly outdated as to be useless.

A physics textbook from 1900 is distinctly less useful to a physics student than one from 1950, which in turn is less useful than one from 2000. The same holds for all disciplines, including morality, although the rate of change in "softer" disciplines has generally been somewhat slower.

The idea that older sources have more wisdom, more value, and more importance than newer ones, needs to die. But it's been deeply etched into European thought since the Early Medieval period.

The ancients weren't closer to the Gods who made us all; They're just a minuscule fraction closer to the pond scum from which we all evolved.

There's plenty of wisdom in the past, and good ideas shouldn't be discarded just because they're old. But that's never been much of a problem; Certainly the tendency to hold on to unwise beliefs and bad ideas, just because they're old, massively outweighs any discarding of oldies but goodies.

Good ideas tend to stand the test of time; Any good ideas from the Bible will also crop up in more recent contexts, and the only benefit to knowing the oldest surviving sources of a particular idea is to give credit where it's due - which is rather less important when those being credited have been dead for centuries, and even less important again when it's not clear whether they're the original, or were just copying earlier sources without giving them the credit they deserved.

The study of morality in religious texts should be a minor footnote to the study of morality as a subject. The dominance of religion in this field, and particularly that of ancient religious texts, is doing far more harm than good.

 

[Politesse]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

 

[bilby]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

I read more than pretty much anyone else I have ever met.

And I didn't say that the book had become irrelevant, I said we didn't need it.

Moral authorities, whether people, books or gods, are an impossibility. The Bible is, in general, a shit guide to morality, and where it isn't, we only know it isn't if we already know what is or is not moral. Rendering it needless as a moral guide.

 

[Politesse]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

I read more than pretty much anyone else I have ever met.

And I didn't say that the book had become irrelevant, I said we didn't need it.

Moral authorities, whether people, books or gods, are an impossibility. The Bible is, in general, a shit guide to morality, and where it isn't, we only know it isn't if we already know what is or is not moral. Rendering it needless as a moral guide.

What do you mean by "need"? We need few books absolutely, but many are beneficial.

 

[abaddon]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

I read more than pretty much anyone else I have ever met.

And I didn't say that the book had become irrelevant, I said we didn't need it.

Moral authorities, whether people, books or gods, are an impossibility. The Bible is, in general, a shit guide to morality, and where it isn't, we only know it isn't if we already know what is or is not moral. Rendering it needless as a moral guide.

What do you mean by "need"? We need few books absolutely, but many are beneficial.

Depending on the person. A book of "wisdom literature" might be beneficial to one person and not another.

Maybe what's missing in this exchange between the two of you is the acknowledgement that the MANY sources of "wisdom" means it's the person's choice which one he wants to devote himself to (if any). Too many people look for that one-size-fits-all rule that doesn't, and shouldn't, exist.

 

[bilby]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

I read more than pretty much anyone else I have ever met.

And I didn't say that the book had become irrelevant, I said we didn't need it.

Moral authorities, whether people, books or gods, are an impossibility. The Bible is, in general, a shit guide to morality, and where it isn't, we only know it isn't if we already know what is or is not moral. Rendering it needless as a moral guide.

What do you mean by "need"? We need few books absolutely, but many are beneficial.

I mean that it's perfectly possible to develop a solid and sound morality without the Bible, and simultaneously impossible to do so with ONLY the Bible.

The Bible has some benefits as a part of a far wider bibliography on moral questions, albeit more often as a guide on many ways in which development of morality shouldn't or couldn't be done. But it's not centrally important, it's a minor contributor whose omission would not be of great concern.

Very few Christians in history would agree with me. But idiots gonna id.

 

[Politesse]

If we can decide what parts are genuinely wise or genuinely good advice, then we don't need the dated and confusing book at all

I take it you don't read much? This is a ridiculous, books do not become irrelevant just because it is possible to critically analyze their contents.

I read more than pretty much anyone else I have ever met.

And I didn't say that the book had become irrelevant, I said we didn't need it.

Moral authorities, whether people, books or gods, are an impossibility. The Bible is, in general, a shit guide to morality, and where it isn't, we only know it isn't if we already know what is or is not moral. Rendering it needless as a moral guide.

What do you mean by "need"? We need few books absolutely, but many are beneficial.

I mean that it's perfectly possible to develop a solid and sound morality without the Bible, and simultaneously impossible to do so with ONLY the Bible.

The Bible has some benefits as a part of a far wider bibliography on moral questions, albeit more often as a guide on many ways in which development of morality shouldn't or couldn't be done. But it's not centrally important, it's a minor contributor whose omission would not be of great concern.

Very few Christians in history would agree with me. But idiots gonna id.

"Very few" he says of really quite a lot of people.

Don't know how to reply to this post any more than Steve's. It seems like a critique of some version of moral absolutism based on a literal reading of the Bible. Is that correct? I haven't advocated for that position and neither have you, so what's to discuss? You seem aware that it would be possible to take a measured view on the Scriptures, which is closer to what I would recommend than the strawman version. Maybe Learner will stop by to make the hermeneutic point you wish to argue against, though I doubt he would agree with Steve's notions about what the intended morals of all these stories might be.

 

[steve_bank]

Tor rational people things become irelevant when they are seen for what they are.

Oter than an histcvical context for relgion I have to deal with today, the bible is irrelevant. A not so great mythology. Not mearly as elegant as the Greelks and Gindus. In comparionn the buble as literature is cheap 'pulp fiction'.