12 Nov 11
Originally posted by RJHindsYes. I am familiar with the dogma. It is precisely this kind of misinformation that has gotten us into the pickle we're in.
That is crazy talk, man. If anyone is puting up a barrier, it is the one that
refuses to believe He exists. We have been given free-will and can try not
to sin; but Jesus is the only man able to do it up to now.
(Before we proceed)You do agree with me on that, do you not?
12 Nov 11
Originally posted by karoly aczelMisinformation? Pickle? What am I supposed to agree with? I don't
Yes. I am familiar with the dogma. It is precisely this kind of misinformation that has gotten us into the pickle we're in.
(Before we proceed)You do agree with me on that, do you not?
understand your point.
12 Nov 11
Originally posted by karoly aczel
If Jesus was who he claimed he was, and who is generally thought to be (ie irrelevant of whether he was fictitious or not), then I would expect him to have had an understanding into the true nature of God.
When you say "Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good or bad, how just or how " horrifically" unjust God wa ...[text shortened]... it by everyday , aye, some even cry out for water in the midst of rain.
If Jesus was who he claimed he was, and who is generally thought to be (ie irrelevant of whether he was fictitious or not), then I would expect him to have had an understanding into the true nature of God.
He seemed to know a great deal about the subject. Go on.
When you say "Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good or bad, how just or how " horrifically" unjust God was", I assume that He was talking about God that is the ground of all being, the everything , the all.
And the constant reference to God in the Old Testament makes it clear that He was speaking of the One involved in the history of Israel. The objections have been about the Canaanite conquest, the Noah flood, etc. Without doubt Jesus Christ was refering to this God as His Father.
Go on.
You assume the he was talking about an entity separate from creation,(as in some super-natural,super-intelligent and powerful being,perhaps like an advanced E.T.).
He was obviously talking about the God, as His Father, of whom it was said - []b]"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)[/b]. That means He was talking about the Eternal God who transcends all creation and brought all creation into existence.
I have no question that this is the One of Whom Jesus spoke and to Whom He rendered the most ABSOLUTE consecration, devotion, love, and obedience to the point of crucifixion. The Father is the One Whom He said He knew and knew Him "before the foundation of the world"
"Father, ... You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24)
"And He answered and said, Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female ... Therefore what God has yoked together, let no man separate." ( See Matthew 19:4,5)
Jesus was speaking of the God in Genesis and who was before all creation and brought it into being.
This is where I always get stuck with you and other christians and yet we both know there is only one true god.
It is a shame that you will not consider reading this from my point of view, you are so sure of yourself, that you have the correct interpretation.
I will however, consider that 'God' here is a being separate from creation and follow the rest of your points. Lets see where we end up.
He had to be separate from creation in order to bring creation into existence - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
We can leave aside for the moment the matter of incarnation - "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." (John 1:14)
Perhaps we can set that paradox aside for this issue. Jesus spoke of God. We agree. Jesus spoke of the God of Whom the Hebrew Bible spoke.
I would agree that God some things which were horrific among the multitude of wonderfully gracious and kind things He did, full of mercy, full of love. I would agree that certain acts of judgment were indeed "horrific".
Where I do not agree is that God Himself was horrible, morally speaking. Yes, some judgments carried out by God would have been horrific to those under those judgments. But I am examining the charge that morally, God was horrific.
I question that. And I would like those who feel Jesus was WRONG not to speak of God as "Righteous" and "good" alone, to RANK themselves as compared to Jesus Christ in ethics.
Can't you do this ?
Why hasn't ANYONE yet done this who feels Jesus missed it by not discribing the God Whom He spoke of as horrifically monsterous as to morality ?
1.I believe there were some others who were "christ-concious",(to put it in christian terms), ie elevated to the conciousness of JC. Guatam Buddha. Osho. Mohammed. The Zen masters. Krsna. The thing is, God is so overwhelmingly huge, so impossibly complicated that no 2 enlightened persons will have the same thing to say about It/Him. They will all just have their version, one aspect, of the truth (called "God" ).
On the outside no 2 Zen masters will seem to agree while inwardly they both share the same Mind, the same 'Ground of Being'.
Your issue is interesting. I would like to come back to it. But right now I am interested in those who feel God not only did some horrific judgments but is Himself morally a horrible monster.
These are the ones I wish to RANK themselves in comparison to Jesus since they are in DISAGREEMENT with Jesus. He says there is one good - God. He says God, was His "Righeous Father".
They say, "No. God, if he even was a Father to Jesus, was a HORRIBLE MONSTER. "
I think your issue is slightly off on another subject which we can talk to aside from the ranking scale I came up with.
20 Highest Level of Morality
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1 Lowest level of Morality
Where are you on the scale roughly ?
Where would you put Jesus of Nazareth on the scale roughly?
If you would like to use some Zen master or Buddha on the comparison scale I suppose that is OK with me. But I am more interested in those who loudly and proudly announce that God of the Bible was a horrible monster in terms of morality.
2.Jesus was 'talking up' God because thats what the people of the time needed to hear. By all accounts they were pretty thick back then, and he wanted to keep it clean and simple. He did not inform us of how horrible God is, because It/He isn't. (That was the easy one, the one I suspect we both agree upon).
He did not teach God was horrible. He spoke that only one is good - God. And He called Him His Righteous Father Who loved Him before the foundation of the world. ie. before the creation of the universe.
For this One He was absolute in obedience. He cared NOTHING for Himself. He cared EVERYTHING to do the will of His Father even to the point of being nailed to a cross and bearing in His body the sins of the world. That is being the object of JUDGMENT by this Righteous God.
He became Sodom on the cross. He became the Amorites and the Canaanites on the cross. He became the judged under the flood on the cross. He became this not in the temporal sense but in the eternal sense, in view of the judgment of all eternity.
Why would Jesus be so absolute if He believed this God was really a moral monster ?
And I want those critics who believe Jesus was sadly mistaken, to rank their own goodness in comparison to that of Jesus of Nazareth. Why will not one step forward and boldly do that if they are so sure their ethics is keener than the ethics of Jesus ??
The way I read the intentions (and other subsequent posts) of the OP is this: If the God of the bible was good,loving,etc. then why did he cause so much suffering? much like a meglamaniacal ruler.
Again, I see this as a rational and logical way to interpret the biblegod. Of course both of us know that much violence was perpetuated in the name of biblegod BY PEOPLE. They used the bible as an excuse for murder, torture,etc. God (neither yours or mine) did not intend this, but stepping in would've negated our free will and disturbed the natural (spiritual) evolutionary process.
You're branching off into other matters. Excuse me. For the moment I want to stick with this matter.
Maybe I can come back and talk about your other issues latter.
I will pass on you morality test-I am not an atheist anyway.
I contend that the god who is described as fatherly, who is in heaven, who sees all,etc. is actually an anthropomorphised, watered down version of a being who was responsible for part creation of our world. This being was obviously so powerful that Jesus even bowed down to him/her/it.
God, in the Bible is one who acted in history. My issue is the God who acted in history, ie. the bringing in of the Hebrews to Canaan. At this juncture some throw in the towel and pronounce God as a moral monster.
Jesus did not. He was eminently qualified to speak to the subject.
What ever other ideas you have about God (he / she / it) this thread is about this One who acted in HISTORY. The argument is that the HISTORY of God's actions proves God a monster.
That is the discussion I am trying to focus on here.
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12 Nov 11
Originally posted by karoly aczelThat's mainly a function of my spellchecker, I don't get red wiggly underlines for god lower
You used a capital "s" for satan and a small "g" for god. Be careful or RJ will think you are trying to do the will of satan or some such 🙂
case but do for satan lower case.... fixed that now.
However apart from generally capitalising them if they appear at the beginning of a sentence
I usually don't capitalise god, but I do capitalise actual names, so JC gets caps, as would Thor.
Christianity also gets capitalised.
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12 Nov 11
Originally posted by RJHindsNo it's torture, there is no doing it correctly, it's torture.
The tormenting I am talking about is a mental thing and is not torture.
It is like "waterboarding" which can be torture if taken to extreme, but
if done correctly, it is just tormenting enough to be a highly effective
interrogation technique. 😏
And its a useless interrogation technique, as all torture is.
Again, you Christians and your 'moral' values never cease to amaze.
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12 Nov 11
Originally posted by jaywill
While I digest bbarr's article I would like to repose my questions. I don't see that anyone answered
I believe that in all human history no one I can think of surpasses [b]Jesus of Nazareth in displaying the qualifications to assess the level of "goodness" of God. Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good ...[text shortened]... udge and a few other of the more eloquent skeptics and Atheists on the board.[/b]
For those of you who disagree with Jesus and protest that God was not "good" alone and not "Righteous" but "HORRIFIC!" I would like you to roughly rank your level of morality against that of Jesus Christ.
In my view the writers of the sections of the Bible in which horrific things happen to competing tribes, were rationalizing and justifying those horrific acts (while at the same time, possibly embellishing them) by ascribing them to their god/their god's commands. So it is not a judgement upon the character of the god, to call the acts horrific. They are or are not horrific on their own; but in those days, victory in battle was often followed by mass killing. We only have to look to other examples in history to see that the winners write the history, and in so doing, rationalize and justify their actions or the actions of their ancestors. If the Nazis had won WWII the history books would not use the term "Holocaust" and would perhaps only now be getting around to refer to the program against the Jews as a regrettable but necessary thing, as we historicized the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan. Think about the USA's program of Manifest Destiny and the extermination/resettlement of Native Americans, aided by John Locke's rationalizing the taking of their property, the rationalizations for slavery, etc. These sorts of things also referred to divine approval; the difference being that new sections of the Bible could not be written so instead, reinterpretations and Biblical precedents were relied upon. So, calling God horrific doesn't do it for me.
I am somewhere in the middle to high in my moral ranking, possibly due to a lack of opportunity and motivation.😉 I won't judge the Jesus character.
12 Nov 11
Originally posted by googlefudgecheck
That's mainly a function of my spellchecker, I don't get red wiggly underlines for god lower
case but do for satan lower case.... fixed that now.
However apart from generally capitalising them if they appear at the beginning of a sentence
I usually don't capitalise god, but I do capitalise actual names, so JC gets caps, as would Thor.
Christianity also gets capitalised.
12 Nov 11
2 edits
Originally posted by jaywillYes, I did branch off a bit here and there. As I said, I do not agree that God is "horrific" , but I can see why the biblegod may seem horrific to some.If Jesus was who he claimed he was, and who is generally thought to be (ie irrelevant of whether he was fictitious or not), then I would expect him to have had an understanding into the true nature of God.
He seemed to know a great deal about the subject. Go on.
[quote]
When you say "Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a
That is the discussion I am trying to focus on here.
Now I remember why I dont engage you. It's becsause we both obstinantly refuse to listen (or even seriously consider) the others point of view.
I base my faith on personal experience and think christianity is ok upto a point. Yes, just ok.
You have mentioned before that you have considered other faiths (especially eastern mysticism), and that you have setlled on the God of the bible (and JC) as the "real deal".
So I will not try to engage further thus.
However I will leave you with a question that I'm curious about.
IMO, religion/spirituality should be based on ones personal (direct) experience of the divine. Holy books and other peoples words are of a secondary nature.
Do you base your understanding of spirituality/religion primarily on personal experience or on scripture?
As I have read, out of the christian posters here, only sumydid bases his faith on personal experience. All the rest seem to go on the holy bible first and foremost.
There are some I'm not sure about and you are one of them.
Good day.
edit: i do not wish to engage in your morality test. Frankly i think it is stupid and pointless. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what the point of this would be? Thanks.
12 Nov 11
1 edit
Originally posted by SuzianneSo when your god destroyed all that life on earth it was because HUMANS sinned? Can't you see how incredibly pretentious that is for humanity to believe a god would kill every animal on earth except two because humans sinned? That is so preposterous it's hard to believe ANYONE could fall for that stupid myth.
He is only horrific against sin. He is not known to act without reason. And the reason is usually against sin.
Why would all the animal life on earth need to pay for the sins of humans?
12 Nov 11
Originally posted by sonhouseAllow me to pre-empt RJHind's next rebuttal:
So when your god destroyed all that life on earth it was because HUMANS sinned? Can't you see how incredibly pretentious that is for humanity to believe a god would kill every animal on earth except two because humans sinned? That is so preposterous it's hard to believe ANYONE could fall for that stupid myth.
Why would all the animal life on earth need to pay for the sins of humans?
Why do you HATE God?