God's Emotions 5: A God with a Temper

In his famous 1741 sermon, Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards used the word anger three times, "angry" six times, "fierce" seventeen times, and "wrath" fifty one times. He clearly wanted to make a point about God's feelings. ...

Music composed and performed by TruthSurge.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• trustingdoubt
• Valerie Tarico
• affective science
• psychology of religion
• cognitive science

[boenrobot]

@kvj1989 "To answer your question, i know because of the bible."

And you know the bible is true how? Before you answer, take a look at this:

i203.photobucket(dot)com/album­s/aa113/casherad/infiniteregre­ss-1.jpg

Once you understand the graphic (hint: replace "bible" with something else... like Quran for example), go for it.

[TrustingDoubt]

@boenrobot - I couldn't get the image to work.

[mard420]

its likel Monty Python "what have the romans ever done for us?" Aquaducts, healthcare, Roads, Max Weber's Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic,

God and Religion are Abstract definitions of something greater than the humans and allegory for people with imagination. If you read it like Socrates or Plato, without prejudging it as religion, than its just an interesting story book. Job just keeps on keepin on, etc. David can beat goliath, NOT religion, but self help.

[TrustingDoubt]

@mard420 The problems with sanctioning religion as an abstract metaphor are: 1. Somewhere around half of humans take it as literal fact, which makes it fantastically powerful. 2. Many of the metaphors or "self-help" stories are far from benign. They directly or indirectly support misogyny, violence, tribalism, ignorance, competitive breeding, arrogance, passivity, and so forth. To write or promote a self-help book that had these effects would be a violation of most ethical codes.

[LordSauceness]

When the bible is read with the correct context, can there be any doubt that it was indeed 'God' who was made in the image of man?-- this video does a great job of proving that.

[UrukEngineer]

Another outstanding video.  Thank you

[Akira625]

If God is supposed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, it seems rather strange to me that he would have any reason to be angry, or even surprised about any of his creation's actions. But then again I'm thinking about this logically, and logic does not always apply to religion. Invoking the image of an angry God would certainly make for a useful social control mechanism for rulers over their people, especially when backed up with the threat of actual force at the behest of God.

[boenrobot]

@TrustingDoubt It seems photobucket decided to delete it. Oh well, here's another URL:

blogforthelordjesuscurrenteven­ts.files.wordpress(dot)com/201­1/12/break-the-cycle.jpg

(I'm willing to bet you've seen this same image before... I have yet to meet an atheist on YouTube who hasn't LOL)

[TrustingDoubt]

@TruthSurge - Thanks for filling in. You are right. I also think Saddam was a particularly good parallel to the Biblical (iron age) kings of the Ancient Near East upon which Yahweh was modeled. He suppressed conflict among otherwise warring tribal factions -- but did so by wielding brute, sadistic power. Ironically, for subjects who managed to stay out of his way, his reign provided a higher quality of life than the instability of tribal violence. And yet we now have much better options.