No Excuses

When an atheist is trying to convince a Christian of the cruelty and torture in the bible, the atheist is typically doing so in an effort to explain to the that Christian that the religion is primitive, and archaic just like the mortal men who penned it into existence. The Christian, however, usually thinks that the atheist's point is that we he or she interprets Christianity as true, but wrong, so the religion is acknowledged and refused. This isn't the case.
Part of my point when I bring up the many evil things God does, or allows to happen in the bible is that even if it was true, I wouldn't waste my devotion on worshipping such a monster. However, the larger point is that the religion isn't logically true, as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and especially all loving creator just wouldn't do the things that the God of the bible does. The larger point that I'm trying to make is NOT that God is real, but he's mean, so I don't like him. It's that the petty, jealous, spoiled child-like God of the bible doesn't behave in tune with how a logical celestial being would behave, and therefore, I don't believe that the bible is actually giving an account of such a being at all.
The typical argument against the evil acts of God found in the old testament is that those acts are taken out of context. Though even when entire chapters are cited, "out of context" is still the Christian cry for help against the arguments that point to their God doing things, allowing things, or commanding things that can only be considered evil by modern standards. Of course, there's never a complaint about context when people cite pleasant verses from the old testament. It's okay to hold modern people to the commands of those verses, but not the ones we now know better about.
Every church service I've been to involves a preacher reading a select few verses from the holy book, and talking about them, trying to explain how they apply to the daily lives of the audience. Never once have I head religious zealots complain that the preacher was taking a few small verses out of context from a very large book, when frankly that's exactly what's being done at every service. Religious people are fine with having the nice parts pulled out and plastered onto nick-knacks and wall plaques, but when we ask them to explain the other parts they aren't so proud about, we are accused of removing verses from their context.
Even if read in their entirety they are considered to be taken out of context of the time when they were written, when such acts as slavery, for example, were more socially acceptable. That argument again plays into the hands of the non-believer. Our point is not that that the people at the time of the writing were not behaving by what we consider morally sound today. Our point is that those people didn't know any better, as civilization was long from reaching the progress it has today. However, an omniscient God, who knows all that is, was, and ever will be is never allowed to have the excuse of committing acts of evil, just because the people he allegedly created didn't know any better at the time.
GOD would know better than to commit genocide, infanticide, and slavery. God's alleged perfection strips away his excuses for not getting everything right the first time. He's supposed to be perfect. Therefore his old testament behavior should be no different than that in the new testament. It makes sense that a person may start off as jealous & cruel, then learn from mistakes and become more benevolent, but it makes no sense for a perfect, omniscient being to have mistakes to learn from in the first place. Am I wrong?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• GrapplingIgnorance
• Grappling
• Ignorance
• No
• excuses

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@Targa7W I'm sorry, but I just can't make sense out of that comment. Religious people today tend to accept that things such as slavery are wrong. We understand and accept that in modern society. When someone points out that their bible condones is rather than condemns it according to orders from their God, they try to blame the context of the time for the ancient standard of morality, but if God is omniscient, he doesn't have the excuse of being ignorant to what we now know about.

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@whitetiger5898 "science" isn't a cause- it's a study of factual explanations for natural occurrences that helps us to understand how things work, and in turn how we can make thing work for us (like your computer ). Do you not see that by your explanations here, you've removed all accountability from your god? If he wanted "population control" then why would he let those children be born in the first place? What are they being punished for? These are questions worth asking of a "perfect" God.

[Matthew1944]

4) It would be much better if they stuck to their NT and didn't try to reach back to a time that has nothing to do with them. They cherry pick out-of-context, mistranslated and misinterpreted verses to try to prove their man-god when the OT, when properly translated says no such thing. The OT is a book that concerns us about as much as the Illiad and the Odessy - it's just another book of another people.

[Matthew1944]

3) Paul had never met Jesus, nor had he studied under the apostles. His new version of Christianity incorporated a pagan man-god which his converts could relate to. The man-god jesus version went across much better because the pagans were already familiar with the god plus virgin equals sacrificial man-god of many previous such stories. The mistake that Christians make is their idea that they have roots in Judaism but in fact, it is more like two different plants in the same garden.

[Matthew1944]

2) Israel at the time of Jesus was being occupied by the Romans and were waiting for a leader/ king/ messiah to lead them in booting them out. There were certain things that a messiah had to do during his lifetime in order to prove his authenticity. Jesus was one of many such messiahs but died before he proved himself and therefore was judged a false messiah. The man-god of the Christians was invented by Paul some 30 years later.

[Matthew1944]

Most Christians cling to the OT because it is incorporated into their bible. In fact, the OT is a book of history, laws, poetry and savagery of a people, the Jews, of 2000 years ago, half a world away, and has nothing to do with Christians. It is a book of an old covenant and Christians will tell you that with the birth of Jesus, they are under a new covenant. In fact, there are two facets to Jesus - that of a man and that of the man-god of the Christians.

[adabsurdum55]

@GrapplingIgnorance Now, what constitutes "extreme evidence"?

[adabsurdum55]

@GrapplingIgnorance Firstly, you mean tenets, not tenants. Secondly, God's infiniteness IS a tenet of Christianity, which has its roots in a given text(s), i.e. Scripture. Thus Scripture is unavoidable when speaking of the Christian God. Yes, you spoke generally, but you spoke erroneously, and I pointed that out--you're welcome. Thirdly, you yourself appealed to a different standard when you spoke of "human standards." Lastly, I agree we can't ignore the parts we don't like, and I won't.

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@adabsurdum55 The standard of evidence is contingent on the nature of the claim in question. If you told me you ate ham for lunch, I'd need no evidence. I'd feel comfortable believing that reasonable claim. If you claimed you owned 3 convertibles, I'd probably need to you to show my their pink slips in your name. That seems reasonable. An extreme claim like God's existence requires extreme evidence, that I don't think a human can produce- God could prove it REALLY easily if he wanted to though.

[GrapplingIgnorance]

@adabsurdum55 What the fuck are you talking about? In what part of my video did I specifically quote scripture? This video is speaking in general terms about basic tenants of Christianity. My point is it does you no good to cherry pick parts of the bible you like, interpret them how you like, & ignore all the negative in it, excusing it all by just saying that God is perfect, then when someone points out his flaws and hypocrisy, you say you mean another kind of perfect, on a different standard.

[adabsurdum55]

@GrapplingIgnorance Wait. Before you respond. You said this: "...doesn't scratch the surface of my standard of evidence for sure monstrous claims of a god." My question: What is your standard of evidence?

[adabsurdum55]

@GrapplingIgnorance Oh, and I believe that it is this human understanding of perfection that can prove God’s existence plausible. I’d be glad to share that with you if you’d like.