The "Horrific God" Charge

Originally posted by sumydid
Jesus appeared to me in a dream and took the form of an electrical component.

No joke.

And this wasn't a clue to you that you were having a dream/hallucination and that it wasn't real?

Originally posted by jaywill
I know of no instances where I judge God's actions as so clearly wrong. Maybe you do. I admit that there are instances difficult for me to explain.

And that was my whole point.
You take it as obvious when you think God is right, and give the benefit of the doubt when you think he may be wrong. You then use this biased judgement to conclude that he is always right.
You could equally well have taken as obvious that he was wrong when he appeared to be wrong and given the benefit of doubt when he appeared right (and assumed that he could be wrong). You could then have concluded that he was always wrong.

As for your 'father' analogy, many of us grow up to realise that our fathers were wrong about a great many things.

Originally posted by VoidSpirYeit
that's not the way it works when the people being judged have no clue that they are under probation nor that the alleged god of the hebrews has authority over them.

It doesn't say that. The 400 who escaped from David were not hunted down.

1Ch 4:43 And they [the simeonites] smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and ercion and threats of violence. a "love me or else" psychotic narcissism.

that's not the way it works when the people being judged have no clue that they are under probation nor that the alleged god of the hebrews has authority over them.

You don't know they had no clue. The presence of Gentile prophet Balaam suggests Gentile nations had prophets of God (Numbers 22). We see in Genesis Melchisedec (Gen. 14), apparently a priest of the Most High God who had nothing to do with Israel. We see the true God convicting the conscience of Abimelech king of Gerar (Gen. 20) We also see Jethro (Exo.2) a priest of God in the Gentile nation of Midian. He seems to know something about the true God. And the oldest book of the Bible Job has non- Jewish men who apparantly are not left completely without a knowledge of the true God.

There is no reason for me to be eager to expect God left the Canaanites completely without a divine witness of some kind nor without conviction of God's Spirit in their conscience (Genesis 6:3) .

1Ch 4:43 And they [the simeonites] smote the rest of the Amalekites that were escaped, and dwelt there unto this day.

"And they stuck down the rest of the Amalekites who had escaped; and they have dwelt there to this day."


This concerns events during the reign of Hezekiah (715 - 686 BC).
Your excuse for not believing Amalekites like Haman, "enemy of the Jews," were still alive during the reign of Ahasuerus / Xerxes (486 - 465 BC) is that you reject Esther has having any valid history.

stop trying to skirt around the issue, the amalekites were exterminated to the last.

Haman, the Agagite sometime during 486 - 465 BC is still alive. And judging from the long held disdain in Mordechai for Haman, and refusal to show him homage suggests continued mistrust for Amalekites. Surely, they some were still living.

i don't believe anything that happened in the bible, nor do i hold any beliefs of any sort at all. i'm discussing what is written in the bible and the implications thereof.

I acount for some hyperbolic language in what is written. And it is indicated that after 1 Chron. 4:43 at least one Haman is left to hatch a plot nearly to wipe out the Jews. Probably there were other Amakekites present.

the problem is that your preconceived notions of what god should or should not be have clouded your judgement when it comes to interpreting the nature of god as described by the hebrews.

Judgment which pronounces Jesus Christ as morally bankrupt is more than "clouded". It is as dark as a cave. There is nothing wrong with me reading through the Bible, noticing on the way God's longsuffering, and assuming in this case He has reason for more stringent judgment.

you need to come to the realization that it is not god that you worship. what you worship is the tribal deity of the hebrews.

I doubt that you even know what "worship" is in the New Testatement sense.

And the God of the Hebrews is also the God who "in the beginning created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1) - God. The oldest book of the Bible, the book of [b]Job agrees concerning this God, without any particular connection with the Hebrews.

That the one God sought to work to reach all of mankind through the covenanted descendents of Abraham makes this so-called "tribal god" universal. He is simply definite. Definitness is not necessarily narrowness.

you're wasting your time. the bible says they wiped out the people and moved in, and did so because god had allegedly promised those lands to them. that's the bottom line. it doesn't matter how or when they eventually did it. what matters is that they did it and how they justified it.

[/b]

You may be mad that Israel was told to "drive out" the Canaanites. And in driving them out some were killed. It is apparent that centers of worship were to be destroyed first. And "devoted to destruction" first applied to religious shrines, idols, groves, temples and other material objects of Canaanite worship.

Indeed many were slaughtered in battle. Some they were not able to drive out. Some became slaves of the Israelites. Some made a pact with the Israelites. And some were assimilated into Israel, for better or for worst as the case may be.

Some scholars hold that hyperpolic military talk customary to the age was also employed in these stories. Moab's king Mesha (840/830 BC) bragged that the Northern Kingdom of "Israel has utterly perished dfor always," which statment was over a century premature. The Assyrians actually terminated the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC.

Sennacherib (701-681 BC) also used hyperbolic expressions saying "The soldiers of Hirimme, dangerous enemies, I cut down with the sword; and not one escaped."

In the Merneptah Stele (ca. 1230 BC), Rameses II's son Merneptah accounced, "Israel is wasted, his see is not," which was another premature declaration.

The Bible uses poetic language at times typical of the day and is not totally deviod of cultural enfluences. The belief in Inspiration does not call for the absence of rhetorical expressions of the then contemporary civilizations. Joshua may have used conventional warfare rhetoric which sounds like bragging and exageration to our ears.

We can notice Joshua 10:40 - "Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor, but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the Lord, the God of Israel, had commanded."

There could be the usage of rhetorical bravado typical of Ancient Near Eastern military speak of the day. Here Joshua asserts that ALL the land was captured, ALL the kings defeated, and ALL the Canaanites destryed (comp. 10:40-42; 11:16-23: " Joshua took the WHOLE LAND ... and gave ... it for an inheritance to Israel. Yet Joshua himself acknowledged that this wasn't literally so.

It is readily acknowledged that the book of Judges is literarily linked to Joshua as indicated by the repetition of the account of Joshua's death. Yet Judges shows that the taks of taking over the land of Canaan is far from complete.

Judges 1:21,27-28 asserts that
"[they] did not drive out the Jebusites.";
"[they] did not take possession";
"they did not drive them out completely";
These nations remained "to this day" (Judg. 1:21).

Many Canaanites stuck around. The people who had apparently been wiped out reappear in the story.

But what did Joshua previously say. Something misleading ?

"Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. HE LEFT NOT SURVIVOR, BUT HE UTTERLY DESTROYED ALL WHO BREATHED, JUST AS THE LORD ... HAD COMMANDED"

The book is not trying to deceive. It is just Joshua saying that the enemy got a good trouncing. It says "There were no Anakim left in the land" (Josh. 11:22) and they "utterly destroyed [haram]" in the hill country (11:22). But according to the very same book of Joshua this must be hyperbolic speak and not literally the case. Caleb latter asks permission to drive out the Anakites from the hill country (14:12-15; comp. 15:13-19).


The popular impression of a total crush of the Canaanites may be left over from many people's Sunday School lesson book ideas about the book of Joshua. The actual infitration of Israel was much more nuanced and involved much more than widespread harsh bloodshed. Though, no doubt some very harsh battles took place.

All things considered much of it was not a literal crush but a gradual infiltration. And much of the language of Deutoronmy affirms that it would include this gradual element. Driving out of societies is not always extermination by the sword.

And that is literally all the time I have for this argument this Thanksgiving morning. I don't even have time to check for silly typos right now.

Enjoy Thanksgiving Turkeyday, all who as may be involved in such things.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
How would you?

Scripture
Kelly

Originally posted by jaywill

that's not the way it works when the people being judged have no clue that they are under probation nor that the alleged god of the hebrews has authority over them.

You don't know they had no clue. The presence of Gentile prophet Balaam suggests Gentile nations had prophets of God [b](Numbers 22). We see in Genesis [b]Melchis ...[text shortened]... b] has non- Jewish men who apparantly are not left completely without a knowledge of the true God.

they may have had knowledge of a 'true' god, or even knowledge of their own tribal gods, but not that of the hebrew god. all of this is written in the hebrew books and accounted from the hebrew point of view. no such evidence exists outside of hebrew myths.

There is no reason for me to be eager to expect God left the Canaanites completely without a divine witness of some kind nor without conviction of God's Spirit in their conscience(Genesis 6:3) [/b].

there is no reason for you to be eager to expect that the hebrew god left the canaanites with any sort of divine witness. you're quoting hebrew myths. try to find some evidence in canaanite writings.

This concerns events during the reign of Hezekiah (715 - 686 BC).
Your excuse for not believing Amalekites like Haman, "enemy of the Jews," were still alive during the reign of Ahasuerus / Xerxes (486 - 465 BC) is that you reject Esther has having any valid history.

no, i reject esther of having no historical validity based on various aspects of persion rule that they got wrong and of timeline inconsistencies. this is not something new, even some bible scholars agree that esther is a fictional novella.

this of course has no bearing on writings concerning the extermination of the amalekites.

I acount for some hyperbolic language in what is written. And it is indicated that after 1 Chron. 4:43 at least one Haman is left to hatch a plot nearly to wipe out the Jews. Probably there were other Amakekites present.

only in a story book. the amalekites were long gone.

Judgment which pronounces Jesus Christ as morally bankrupt is more than "clouded". It is as dark as a cave. There is nothing wrong with me reading through the Bible, noticing on the way God's longsuffering, and assuming in this case He has reason for more stringent judgment.

you're just blindly defending your god. your judgement in this case is clouded. jesus is morally bankrupt as is any being who will sentence people to eternal torment based on alleged finite 'sins.'

some of those things he and his father proclaim as 'sins' are also immoral.

I doubt that you even know what "worship" is in the New Testatement sense.

irrelevant. it is enough that you adore and glorify him. this is no different than someone who adores and glorifies stalin or saddam hussein.

And the God of the Hebrews is also the God who "in the beginning created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1) - God. The oldest book of the Bible, the book of [b]Job agrees concerning this God, without any particular connection with the Hebrews.

all according to hebrew writings. make no mistake, when talking about the bible god, we are talking about the hebrew tribal deity and that is the only god we are talking about.

That the one God sought to work to reach all of mankind through the covenanted descendents of Abraham makes this so-called "tribal god" universal. He is simply definite. Definitness is not necessarily narrowness.

no, it makes him the hebrew tribal god. there is nothing universal about it. those are all claims made by the hebrews concerning their tribal deity.

You may be mad that Israel was told to "drive out" the Canaanites. And in driving them out some were killed. It is apparent that centers of worship were to be destroyed first. And "devoted to destruction" first applied to religious shrines, idols, groves, temples and other material objects of Canaanite worship.

religious warfare; another immoral act of the hebrews and biblegod.

Some scholars hold that hyperpolic military talk customary to the age was also employed in these stories.

yessir. you don't have to show me that the bible is inaccurate, i already know.

just employ that hyperbole and rhetorical bravado to include talk concerning the tribal deity and you'll have the bible figured out for what it is.

Enjoy Thanksgiving Turkeyday, all who as may be involved in such things.

thanks, i already did enjoy thanksgiving. i hope you did as well.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
they may have had knowledge of a 'true' god, or even knowledge of their own tribal gods, but not that of the hebrew god. all of this is written in the hebrew books and accounted from the hebrew point of view. no such evidence exists outside of hebrew myths.

[quote]
There is no reason for me to be eager to expect God left the Canaanites completel

thanks, i already did enjoy thanksgiving. i hope you did as well.

they may have had knowledge of a 'true' god, or even knowledge of their own tribal gods, but not that of the hebrew god. all of this is written in the hebrew books and accounted from the hebrew point of view. no such evidence exists outside of hebrew myths.

So we now just exchange assertions. You say you don't trust it because it is myth. I say I trust it as the word of God.

You say, in essence "But we only have the Hebrews' version so it follows that it is biased, slanted, dishonest, and myth." I say, that's your conspiracy theory, suspicion fueled on disdain for the theological implications of the whole tenor of the Bible, ( a fear which I think is largely unnecessary), and expectation that the Jews would ONLY put themselves in the most favorable light. That is a highly dubious theory when the whole Hebrew Bible's story is considered.

I do not have an expert's knowledge of world history. Thank God He doesn't require that for simply faith to enjoy His salvation.

I did find out recently that it would be very uncharacteristic of ancient Egypt to record things which were embassessments to royalty. The tombs of Pharoahs tell us a lot about Egyptian history. However, they boasted of the things which made for the glorification of their kings, and erased, scratched out or cleverly altered tomb histories which became embarressing to them.

I am sure that the Exodus of the slave Hebrews by the power of a greater God would have been an humiliating embarressment no Egyptian royalty would ever have on his legacy.

I would submit that there are other books by the Jews which are refered which apparently had some of this history. They, however, were not ALL included in the canon of the Bible. The were apochraphal to the Jews. I believe they RECOGNIZED which writings were under divine inspiration and which may have been secular or religious but did not have that seal of divine authority.

My point is that a SELECTION was done. Had they ONLY been interested in BRAGGING a biased and slanted history of Israel, I think they would have included books like "The Wars of the Lord" which was apochraphal. In other words, fictionalized bias, self grandizing slant, positive propoganda in national history not purely of the Spirit of God's communication, were already elminated from the Hebrew canon.

Why did not ALL of the Jew's written history make it into the Hebrew canon ?

By the way, the conscpicious absence of the name of God in the book of Esther almost disqualied it from being in the Hebrew canon.

The Assumption of Moses was not piled into the Hebrew canon.
The Book of Enoch was rejected by all as not up to the level of inspired books.

They they may have contained some true things, they were not automatically included in the canon of books from God to man. I am sure that many advantages national matters were included in:

The Book of Jubilee
The Letter of Aristeas
The Book of Adam and EVe
The Martydom of Isaiah
I Enoch
The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs
The Sibylilline Oracle
II Enoch, or the Book of the Secrets of Enoch
II Baruch, or the Great Apocalypse of Baruch
III Baruch, or the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch
III Maccabees
IV Maccabees
The Psalms of Solomon
The Story of Ahikar
Psalm 151
The Fragment of a Zadokite Work

These books did not pass through the inspection of what had the seal of Divine Authority in the writing.

Basically I am saying that I believe the FILTERING you say which should be applied to the Jews writing, has already been applied in terms of a book inspired by God to the world. Whereas you suspect self serving national bias is the basic ingredient of the Old Testament, I believe there IS such a thing as God speaking to mankind through the prophetic books of Jewish people.

I'll have to suspend now and possibly continue latter.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
they may have had knowledge of a 'true' god, or even knowledge of their own tribal gods, but not that of the hebrew god. all of this is written in the hebrew books and accounted from the hebrew point of view. no such evidence exists outside of hebrew myths.

[quote]
There is no reason for me to be eager to expect God left the Canaanites completel

thanks, i already did enjoy thanksgiving. i hope you did as well.

yessir. you don't have to show me that the bible is inaccurate, i already know.

yesiree, your attitude tells me a whole lot about you more than it does about the text of the bible.

just employ that hyperbole and rhetorical bravado to include talk concerning the tribal deity and you'll have the bible figured out for what it is.

And of course Joshua's age did not last forever, nor that style of military speak. And there is plenty of very profound matters in the 66 books of the Bible that have nothing to do with physical warfare.

And the last book of the four Gospels was the Gospel of John rather than the book of Joshua. No reason to discard the whole Bible because of some brutal OT battles of Israelite / Canaanite warfare.

me:
Enjoy Thanksgiving Turkeyday, all who as may be involved in such things.


thanks, i already did enjoy thanksgiving. i hope you did as well.

thanks too.

One thing I didn't do was search through all that delicious meat just to find a bone to choke on. I mean the way you pronounce Jesus as "morally bankrupt" because of a few passages about the Amalekites in the Canaan conquest.

We've run the course now. I plan to see what some others may have to tell me. I'm finished with your line of argument and will see what others may have to say. Post away for your readers, but I've got you on ignore for awhile.

Originally posted by jaywill

So we now just exchange assertions. You say you don't trust it because it is myth. I say I trust it as the word of God.








I'll have to suspend now and possibly continue latter.[/b]

i already know you trust it as the word of [the hebrew] god. i demonstrated that your misplaced trust has no basis outside of hebrew scripture.

You say, in essence "But we only have the Hebrews' version so it follows that it is biased, slanted, dishonest, and myth." I say, that's your conspiracy theory, suspicion fueled on disdain for the theological implications of the whole tenor of the Bible, ( a fear which I think is largely unnecessary), and expectation that the Jews would ONLY put themselves in the most favorable light. That is a highly dubious theory when the whole Hebrew Bible's story is considered.

what's highly dubious is that you can only produce hebrew sources for this god that allegedly made its presence known in the entire known world. all of god's 'wonders.' all of his 'warnings' and 'prophecies' exist only in hebrew myths. there is no corresponding support in history or archeology beyond the mundane.

nobody knew about the hebrew god except the hebrews, and even among the hebrews, it wasn't that certain.

I do not have an expert's knowledge of world history. Thank God He doesn't require that for simply faith to enjoy His salvation.

yes, thank god he doesn't require a skeptical analysis. heaven would be closed if you had to do any sort thinking. the god you have chosen only demands blind obedience and abject adoration.

I did find out recently that it would be very uncharacteristic of ancient Egypt to record things which were embassessments to royalty. The tombs of Pharoahs tell us a lot about Egyptian history. However, they boasted of the things which made for the glorification of their kings, and erased, scratched out or cleverly altered tomb histories which became embarressing to them.

that seems a complete opposite of what is known about the meticulous historical recording of the egyptians. there is certainly some evidence of tampering concerning certain topics, but this is not viewed as characteristic of egyptian history. besides, all such tampering is easily detectable and only lends credence to the notion that the egyptians recorded everything.

i'm curious as to what your source was.

I am sure that the Exodus of the slave Hebrews by the power of a greater God would have been an humiliating embarressment no Egyptian royalty would ever have on his legacy.

if we go by what is 'characteristic' of egypt, it would have been recorded accurately and then the progeny of the pharaoh would scratch it out and we would have a record of scratched out history, or they would have re-told the tale as the pharaoh having victory over the hebrews by driving them out. but there is no evidence of any sort. the hebrews were likely one of many nomadic tribes, too insignificant to get any notice.

Why did not ALL of the Jew's written history make it into the Hebrew canon ?

why does it matter? there is still no corresponding evidence of the hebrew god outside of hebrew myths.

These books did not pass through the inspection of what had the seal of Divine Authority in the writing.

it's really irrelevant what passed the "seal" of divine authority. this line of argument has no relevance to the discussion.

Basically I am saying that I believe the FILTERING you say which should be applied to the Jews writing, has already been applied in terms of a book inspired by God to the world. Whereas you suspect self serving national bias is the basic ingredient of the Old Testament, I believe there IS such a thing as God speaking to mankind through the prophetic books of Jewish people.

what process the jews went through to pick their canon does not warrant the kind of belief which you have dedicated. there is no evidence of god speaking through the jewish people, or through anyone at all. it is an absurd notion to believe that god would pick any particular tribe of people to bring his message to humanity.

Originally posted by jaywill
One thing I didn't do was search through all that delicious meat just to find a bone to choke on. I mean the way you pronounce Jesus as "morally bankrupt" because of a few passages about the Amalekites in the Canaan conquest.

whoa there, the genocide of the amalekites is not the reason i gave for jesus's lack of morality. i thought i made it clear that he is morally bankrupt because he plans on condemning people to eternal torment for finite "sins," some of which are nothing more than thought crimes.

without that dark cloud looming over his head, jesus would actually hold a place beside buddha or perhaps a notch above, it'd have to do a closer inspection then.

We've run the course now. I plan to see what some others may have to tell me. I'm finished with your line of argument and will see what others may have to say. Post away for your readers, but I've got you on ignore for awhile.

as you wish.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Scripture
Kelly

How do you know Scripture is 100% true? The only way to REALLY know is to become christ-concious, or "enlightened" as some like to put it 😉

I know I dont have the whole truth, in fact we NEVER stop learning, even after death, but I do what is right. During the course of my "seeking" I have found the best way to look for "truth" is to eliminate that which it is not. In this way, and given that your TOTALLY honest with yourself, you should be able to narrow down the answer-hopefully before you die-otherwise you'll have to start all over again 😀

Originally posted by karoly aczel
How do you know Scripture is 100% true? The only way to REALLY know is to become christ-concious, or "enlightened" as some like to put it 😉

I know I dont have the whole truth, in fact we NEVER stop learning, even after death, but I do what is right. During the course of my "seeking" I have found the best way to look for "truth" is to eliminate that ...[text shortened]... down the answer-hopefully before you die-otherwise you'll have to start all over again 😀

You take everything you believe on faith, if you want something to be 100%
true then you have nothing you can be sure about from science to religion.
You don't know what is before us after death, you have thoughts about the
matter no doubt, but nothing 100% to hang your hat on.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
You take everything you believe on faith, if you want something to be 100%
true then you have nothing you can be sure about from science to religion.
You don't know what is before us after death, you have thoughts about the
matter no doubt, but nothing 100% to hang your hat on.
Kelly

I have a fair idea what happens when we die. But I will share this on a pubic forum , you can always pm me if you like?

Originally posted by KellyJay
You take everything you believe on faith, if you want something to be 100%
true then you have nothing you can be sure about from science to religion.
You don't know what is before us after death, you have thoughts about the
matter no doubt, but nothing 100% to hang your hat on.
Kelly

I got a hanger,just one. It's for my hat and thats where I hang it. No one else should attempt hang their hats there🙂

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I got a hanger,just one. It's for my hat and thats where I hang it. No one else should attempt hang their hats there🙂

🙂 You have a hat?
Kelly

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I have a fair idea what happens when we die. But I will share this on a pubic forum , you can always pm me if you like?

I'm sure we all have fair ideas about death and what happens, but can we know
without being told?
Kelly