Subject:
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Re: The Brick Testament parts the Red Sea
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 6 Dec 2002 02:44:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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2014 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> Seriously. Consider for a moment that you may be referring to the entity that
> created you, and quadrillions of other living things that are/were but a speck
> on this insignificant planet in the course of time and history of the universe.
> Has your self-imposed title clouded your ability to actualize how really
> insignificant you and I really are.
I don't think it makes sense to speak of things being objectively
significant or insignificant. I consider myself of extreme significance to
me, though.
> There could be a design that is infinitely
> larger than our finite brains could even begin to grasp.
Sure, there could be, but if my finite mind can't begin to grasp it, then
how can properly evaluate whether it's a good design or an terribly evil one?
> I think that anything greater would infringe upon our free will and free
> thinking. Anything more definitive would make the response a "no brainer" and,
> in a way, coerced.
I'll let you respond to Dave! on this issue, since I agree with his
assesment that free will is not at all impaired by having greater knowledge.
I also addressed this in my response to Nathan.
> Well then, didn't you just answer your question for me? Neither way seems like
> a slam dunk, does it:-) My response was merely speculation; nobody really
> knows why God acts the way God does, and in the final analysis, I don't think
> its particularily helpful to question it (if you were expecting an answer, that
> is).
I'm not sure we can have a meaningful debate about the nature of God as
presented in the Bible if we don't question why God does what he does.
If I point out an action of God that seems arbitrary and cruel, you can
always come back with "yes, but if you knew God's grand scheme of things,
you would see that what seems arbitrary and cruel is actually perfectly good
and right." But you can't really say that without assuming from the start
that God is perfectly good, and that therefore all his actions must be
perfectly good, and then you are taking as a given what we are trying to debate.
Maybe Hitler was a super-intelligent man whose intellect so far outshined
ours that we could not see that his plans for the world were actually
perfectly good in his the grand scheme of things, and killing 6 million Jews
was, if you knew all that Hitler did, somehow a good thing.
My point is that, just because there could be an super-intelligent being
whose grand schemes we cannot truly grasp as lesser beings, it doesn't shed
any light on whether that being is good or bad, benevolent or malicious.
> > So I think my point is still valid that if God has some important message
> > for his people, he should not beat around the bush, using incompetent
> > messangers, and revealing pieces of the puzzle over thousands of years, but
> > just come right out and say it clearly and consistently to everyone.
>
> But that's my point. Any message, no matter how clear and concise, will break
> down in time. Haven't you ever played the game "telephone"?
But God doesn't *need* to play telephone with us. He could appear to
everyone on Earth right now and deliver his message in person. He could
deliver it directly to everyone, everyday if he wanted to.
If there is no benefit to delivering a garbled message through an ancient
book and sinful evangelizers, it would certainly seem that God is not doing
nearly all he can to get his important message across.
> Add to that the
> fact that the OT concerned an Eastern nomadic Semitic race that probably
> couldn't be more opposite than Western modern culture. That we can understand
> *anything* in the OT is a miracle!
It's not a miracle, but it does help explain why so much in the Old
Testament seems totally bizarre, irrelevant, and morally questionable by
today's standards. I don't think the New Testament is all that much
different, though, in that respect.
> > Why not hit us up with Jesus right from the start? What was up with having
> > a chosen race of people for a few thousand years first? I don't see why an
> > all-knowing God would change his policies over time.
>
> Well, that's a matter of perspective. Jesus was, to many, the *fulfillment* of
> Judaism. He was the ultimate intervention by God that started with Abram.
> Jesus wasn't a policy change, he was the policy's *culmination*.
How exactly is Jesus supposed to be a culmination of God's covenant with the
Israelites? Throughout the Old Testament, God's promise to the Israelites
from Abraham on is pretty much the same -- that he will make them as
numerous as the stars and that he will give them a land of milk and honey,
Palestine, for all eternity. God never says, "and one day I will send my
son Jesus, who will be myself incarnate, to preach to some Jews and then die
on a cross at the hands of the Jewish oppressors of that time."
Did Jesus make the Israelites as numerous as the stars? No.
Did Jesus ensure that the Israelites had a land of milk and honey in
Palestine for their home for all eternity? No.
> I make a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. There are many people out
> there who have a lot of knowledge about "things". It's been my experience that
> the more knowledge one accumulates, the more one tends to think of one's self.
> Knowledge so often leads one down the path of pride and arrogance.
>
> What academics tend to lack is the wisdom and humility to temper their
> knowledge.
I'll let you resopond to Dave!'s comments on this. Thanks for fleshing out
your opinions on the matter, though.
> Let me clarify what I meant by "writing it off". What are we actually talking
> about when we consider the OT? It is a collection of stories (oral and
> written), laws, documents, histories (some borrowed), poems, songs, etc. It is
> a mish-mash, redacted from various traditions over 100 of years. And by whom?
> A culture of nomadic desert-dwellers who lived 1,000s of years ago! Imagine
> that for a moment. The story of Moses is over 3,000 years old! That's
> incredible! We can't even begin to imagine the mindset of such an ancient,
> pre-science culture.
Agreed so far...
> And yet God somehow appears to one of them and it all
> begins.
Why should this be impressive? God could presumably appear to anyone at
anytime, so that he only makes sporadic appreances in the ancient past just
seems weird more than anything else.
> Knowledge about Yahweh was a *process*-- heck, it took the Israelites
> 100s of years to get the fact that there was only 1 God Yahweh!
Imagine that, God appears *in person* to the Israelites, talks with them
*directly*, and yet they *still have the free will to disobey him*.
> So when I read OT stories, it is through the eyes of one who takes these things
> into consideration. Yeah, Yahweh is dropping folks right and left... or so
> those ancients thought.
By the same token, why not say, "Yeah, Jesus was the son of God... or so
those ancients thought."
I'm sure that for every time Jesus is called the son of God, the an example
of God dropping someone in the Old Testament, so I don't think you can argue
that the number of attestations is the deciding factor here.
> I think that taking those stories at face value is
> being more than disingenuous to the historical context of them. Now, some
> Christians (or Jews) may call my view heretical, but it certainly isn't unique.
No, it seems quite common for Christians to doubt the historical, and even
theological accuracy of the Old Testament. I just don't see why they don't
apply those same standards to the New Testament.
> Ironically, it is the scholarly tact for which I just got done ripping above.
> So does that mean that am I hoisted by my own Petard? Perhaps, but the
> knowledge of critical biblical study hasn't destroyed my faith as it has so
> many who teach at the University level and above.
> >
> > > The true nature of God was fully revealed by Jesus.
> >
> > How can you be sure that the Jesus part isn't the one that was written with
> > an incomplete knowledge of the nature of God? Maybe that's the part that
> > was garbled by incompentent humans, and you should be writing off most of
> > the New Testament. How do you make these judgements about which parts of
> > the Bible are accurate and important, and which parts should be written off?
>
> A fair question. And I don't deny the possibility that some of Jesus' recorded
> teachings could've been attested to him, but considering his overall message,
> what people believed about Him, what they said about Him,
Is this any different than what I am doing for the Old Testament? Am I not
considering God's overall message, what people believed about him, and what
they said about him?
> and how His message
> has been changing lives continuously for almost 2,000s years, I'd say that that
> part was pretty important.
I'll defer to Dave!'s reponse to this part.
> > That comes off to me like a total cop-out response. If God's actions are
> > beyond questioning, and you just take as an axiom that God is perfect, then
> > you never really evaluate his actions in any real sense, instead you just
> > assume they are perfectly right every time no matter what they are.
>
> The reason you don't judge God's actions is because you can never be sure of
> what they actually are.
But the Bible purports to tell you exactly what God's actions were, and so
that is what I have used in my judgment. In my opinion, the God if the
Bible is a hot-tempered, homicidal maniac.
If you want to talk about concepts of God that aren't from the Bible, that's
fine, but it seems like a different debate.
> > I think the first big step for me in becoming an atheist was to drop that
> > line of reasoning. If you don't assume from the start that God is perfect,
> > you can then properly evaluate whether or not that is a reasonable belief.
> > Instead of judging God's actions by his nature, you judge God by his actions.
>
> Again, you have no idea what God's actions are, so you simply cannot judge
> them. Because in the final analysis, *nobody* can be certain of anything God
> does or doesn't do. Now, that's not to say that one can't perceive *through
> the eyes of faith* what God's actions are, but that is all.
So the Bible is useless as an indicator of God's actions? It seems like
you'd be better off dropping it altogether for a religion that is purely
based on faith.
> Assuming God is
> perfect is, to me, by definition. Of course you cannot have faith in an
> imperfect and unfair God. Who wants that?
As Dave! pointed out, what does want have to do with it? Maybe there's a
perfectly good God, and maybe there's a perfectly evil God, but I can't see
how what anyone *wants* there to be affects what actually exists.
> Go back to thinking of God as a
> perfect entity that is everywhere, in every one of your thoughts. Imagine God
> to be the kind of God you'd like to have around, if you dare.
Well, first of all, it wouldn't be a God who is everywhere and in all my
thoughts! @8^) I'm not sure I see where you're going with this. I'll
indulge you by providing a description of the most-desireable type of God I
can think of, if you really want, but I'm not sure what the point is.
> Yikes;-) By definition, I'd say "no", but if God actually gives us free will
> and desires us to acknowledge Him and we don't, is that a failure?
Well, it's one thing for him to merely *desire* us to acknowledge him. You
can't fail at desiring something. But if he *tries* to gain our
acknowledgment, then there's something he could seemingly fail at.
> And if God
> is perfect and has perfect knowledge, He would know that we would reject or
> accept Him before we'd actually do it, and so it would appear that we would be
> predestined to either accept or deny Him. But you are wise to eschew a debate
> on free will-- it makes my head hurt:-p
Yes, I'll let the others take up the free will debate.
> Instead of a rather uncritical and literal interpretation, try evaluating God
> through a critical eye, based on what ancients *supposed* about Him.
I'm not sure what you mean by "by what the ancients *supposed* about him".
Is that different from what the believed about him, and what the wrote about
him?
When I read the Bible, I try to keep two separate viewpoints in mind. One
view is to take everything at face value, and this is the view I have
generally taken during this debate. For this, I assume that God exists, and
that what the Bible says about him is true. This is the view I use in
forming my opinion about God as he is presented in the Bible. The second
viewpoint is an academic one, in which I try to think about what's really
behind all these Bible stories. In this view, I assume as I do in the rest
of my life, that God does not exist, and in light of that, I try to make
sense of why these stories were written. I compare them to similar stories
from other religions, I consider what value these stories had to their
original audience, and I try to figure out the different authors' intentions
for writing just what they did. It's the same for both the Old and New
Testaments.
> > I do hope there's an afterlife.
>
> Really? If fundamental Christians are correct, you may not want it;-)
I do not hope for a Christian fundamentalist afterlife. @8^)
> > Just knowing that things will probably get better within my lifetime is
> > generally all I need to get me through the rough times.
>
> lol What assurance do you have of that?
No assurance, it just tends to be what happens -- sometimes you're up,
sometimes you're down. So if you're down, chances are you'll be up again.
I know this from experience, so I keep it mind during rough times, and I get
through them. What's the big mystery?
> lol, my take (the exact opposite of yours): A person who believes in an
> afterlife has the hope to endure depression or hardship because they know that
> one day, they will be free and at peace.
Why endure a crummy life when you could just end your fleeting existence on
Earth and spend the rest of eternity in heaven? If you are so sure a
bissful afterlife awaits, I don't see any reason to put up with even the
slightest bit of crap in this life. Why postpone paradise for enduring
hardship?
> Someone without a belief in an
> afterlife who is depressed or experiencing hardship will simply say, "what the
> hell, this sucks, and what's the difference if I live or die".
Because they know the only other choice is complete non-existence! I could
see being suicidal and atheist only if you are really, really suffering, and
there's little to no chance of things getting better.
> As I mentioned before, this is a brave position to take. If you have a great
> life, full of friends and stuff to distract you, you could probably do it.
Distract me from what? It's not as hard as you're making it out to be.
> What about if your life sucks? You are ill, infirmed, poverty-striken? That's
> a pretty tough pill to swallow.
You just enjoy life as much as you can considering your conditions, because
as I said, you only get one shot at enjoying life. Sure, there are some
really awful conditions you could be living in, but at that point I don't
suspect even religion would be a significant morale-booster. I would guess
that since most people are religious, most depressed people are religious
too. I've never heard about any study showing that religion keeps people
from ever falling into depression, and would think that if it were true,
that would be newsworthy.
> > Any *one* of the above examples is enough to convict God in my book, and
> > there are plenty more examples I could give. There is nothing in the New
> > Testament that denies the accuracy of these stories or the Old Testament as
> > a whole, and in fact, it is appealed to by Jesus and the apostles as
> > authoritative.
>
> Hmmm, all from the early OT. I'm sure it would make a lot of sense to a 3,000
> year old Bedouin, but not me.
And yet you don't dismiss the New Testament, saying, "I'm sure it would make
a lot of sense to members of fledgling gentile churches of the early Jesus
Movement scattered around to Mediterreanean 2,000 years ago, but not me."
> Perhaps it would be analogous to extremist
> Muslims justifying "Jihad" (Holy War-- a better oxymoron than military
> intelligence;-) today.
There's plenty of stuff in the Christian Bible that can and has been used to
support holy wars. I guess the question is, how is it that *you* can read
the Bible and be absolutely sure that God would not be in favor of war, and
yet *someone else*, just as earnestly, can read the Bible and then go on a
crusade to libaerate the Holy Land, absolutely sure that God is fighting on
their side.
> Jesus refers to the OT to correctly interpret it for
> the Pharisees et al. He was constantly convicting *their* interpretations.
Jesus refers explicitly to The Flood, comparing its sudden tragic events
with what to expect when the son of Man comes. There is no indication that
he doesn't take The Flood story at face value. He refers to the story of
Moses and the burning bush, and makes several references to Abraham as the
universal ancestor of the Jews. I don't see any evidence that he does not
take the stories of the Old Testament at face value.
> > > But what an amazing story. God coming to earth, not as a king, but as a
> > > servant.
> >
> > What kind of servant was Jesus?
>
> He wasn't a servant-- He was the Messiah, the King of the Jews, humbling
> Himself *as* a servant.
How was he *as* a servant, but not a servant?
> > And what
> > kind of servant goes around telling people how to live?
>
> The kind who is actually, in fact, your Master.
Ah, so he came to Earth, not as a king, but as our Master. That's humble.
> > I thought servants
> > were supposed to *take* orders from people.
>
> He the order to be executed...
Does it say that in the Bible? He certainly predicts his own death many
times over, but does he issue the order?
> > Again I have to ask, what makes you doubt the accuracy of certain parts of
> > the Bible while being absolutely sure of the accuracy of other parts? Both
> > the Old and New Testaments purport to tell you *exactly what God said and
> > did*, not merely their authors' best understanding of God.
>
> That is merely one interpretation, and a rather literal and uncritical one
> at that.
>
>
> > Why would you
> > believe the New Testament writers and not the Old Testament ones?
>
> There is a lot of unpacking to do in the NT as well. But for me, it would be
> because of its message.
Is it just because you *like* the message of the NT that you believe it, or
because there's some particular reason(s) beyond that to believe the message
of the NT?
-Rev. Smith
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: The Brick Testament parts the Red Sea
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| (...) What I am contending is that we don't know much about what God does, so we can't begin to question why He does what He does. What I *know* God has done: 1) Created the universe (but not Adam and Eve specifically BTW) 2) Made a covenant with (...) (22 years ago, 6-Dec-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: The Brick Testament parts the Red Sea
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| (...) Bzzt!!!!! (1) Darn. You were winning, too. It's a darn shame. Well, at least the thread is over, anyway. 1 - half in jest, we subscribe to Godwin's law here: (URL) (2) ... or at least we say we do because it's fun... 2 - not the only Jargon (...) (22 years ago, 6-Dec-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Brick Testament parts the Red Sea
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| (...) Seriously. Consider for a moment that you may be referring to the entity that created you, and quadrillions of other living things that are/were but a speck on this insignificant planet in the course of time and history of the universe. Has (...) (22 years ago, 5-Dec-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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