Using the Bible as an excuse for bigotry

[Outrider]

Whoever.

Good to see you getting to the heart of the matter...

O.

[SteveH]

Good to see you getting to the heart of the matter...

O.

[Spud]

That's getting on for Boris Johnson 'new Nurses' levels of mutilating the language.  If I'm given something, it's mine - whomever gave it to me doesn't have the right to take it back, that's not giving it's lending.  I don't recall the bit where God loaned the breath of life to people...

O.

Adam was given warning that he would die if he ate the fruit. So God would not be just if he let us live forever. He does have the right to take life away.

You asked why God gave them access to the fruit. This was a test to see if he would obey his creator or the creature, represented by the snake. (Romans 1 says man worshiped the creature rather than the creator.)

[Roses]

Adam was given warning that he would die if he ate the fruit. So God would not be just if he let us live forever. He does have the right to take life away.

You asked why God gave them access to the fruit. This was a test to see if he would obey his creator or the creature, represented by the snake. (Romans 1 says man worshiped the creature rather than the creator.)

If that story is true instead of being the myth I believe it to be, god set A&E up. Having created human nature it knew they would eat the fruit, so god is to blame for human faults and failings.

[Outrider]

Adam was given warning that he would die if he ate the fruit.

Right. I work in health and safety, telling people they are at risk is well understood as an ineffective way to ensure their safety, people are incredibly poor at assessing safety risks, and even worse at assessing health risks, which doesn't actually address the point - why is the tree there? If there is a risk, and there is no apparent need for it (it's not as though it's there for anyone or anything else, so far as we can see).

So God would not be just if he let us live forever.

Why not? If you put something enticing in front of a child and tell them not to touch it, you can be reasonably sure they're going to ignore that instruction, that sort of curiosity is intrinsic to humans and understanding of risk is something that comes from experience, not instinct.

He does have the right to take life away.

Does he? Once he's given it to Adam it's Adam's life, not his - why does he have the right to take it back?  Why isn't life 'sacred' if it's God that wants to take it?

You asked why God gave them access to the fruit. This was a test to see if he would obey his creator or the creature, represented by the snake.

He's all-knowing, why does he need to test?  If his creation fails the test, why is that the creation's fault - he's the designer, after all.  If the brakes on your car fail because the attachment points are too weak you don't get sued in court, the manufacturer does...

O.

[Spud]

Repent of what?

Everyone has sinned (Eccl. 7:20).

How can I repent for something someone else has done?

Repent for our own sins is what I meant.

Why am I in line for an ETERNAL punishment for even my temporal transgressions,

Because if we don't repent, our rebellion is ongoing.

let alone someone else's?

Nobody is in line for eternal punishment for someone else's transgressions.

Why are half of these things even sins? Eating shellfish? Getting a dodgy haircut? Having last year's beard style?

They were not sins, they made an Israelite ceremonially unclean. They were outward signs of a change of heart, until the Messiah came.

  But rape and slavery aren't sins?

Forcibly enslaving someone is stealing a person and is forbidden somewhere in the pentateuch, as is rape.

[Stranger]

Everyone has sinned (Eccl. 7:20).

Then (assuming a creator and your notion of sin) it isn't a choice, it's a design flaw.

[Outrider]

Everyone has sinned (Eccl. 7:20).

If Ecclesiastes can say that everyone will sin, generations before I'm born then either a) there really is no free will or b) the bar for 'sin' is set ridiculously low which makes the whole thing a con.

Repent for our own sins is what I meant.

Just a soon as someone explains why they are sins.

Because if we don't repent, our rebellion is ongoing.

Having a different opinion is also a sin - religion is ultimate authoritarian state, where difference of thought is criminal.

Nobody is in line for eternal punishment for someone else's transgressions.

If Adam and Eve hadn't eaten the fruit, as it was explained above, none of us would die and be subject to judgement, right?

They were not sins, they made you ceremonially unclean. They were outward signs of a change of heart, until the Messiah came.

'Ceremonially unclean'?  God's baseless preferences enforced on society to create opportunities for judgement...

Forcibly enslaving someone is stealing a person and is forbidden somewhere in the pentateuch, as is rape.

The Old Testament does not once raise any issue with slavery as a concept, it has some issues with certain types of treatment of slaves.  Rape is not a concept that was known to the Hebrews- at worst it was seen as theft of a man's sexual property, which is disturbing in itself.  Imagine how much better a world we'd be in if the Old Testament had made rape a sin, or suggested that committing rape made you 'ritually unclean'; imagine how much better a world we'd be in if even one passage in the 39/46 books had expressed mild disappointment that people might want to think about owning other people... and then tell me that this is 'the good book'. Your God, apparently had the foresight to ban shellfish in an age before refrigeration, but not the foresight to envision refrigeration, whilst at the same time not being able to ensure that his instructions included even a hint of disapproval for sexual violence or slavery?  Maybe this isn't an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly moral being after all.

O.

[SteveH]

god set A&E up.

We could do with him in Hemel Hempstead: our A&E closed down years ago, and we have to go to Watford for anything serious.

[Roses]

Everyone has sinned (Eccl. 7:20).
Repent for our own sins is what I meant.
Because if we don't repent, our rebellion is ongoing.
Nobody is in line for eternal punishment for someone else's transgressions.
They were not sins, they made an Israelite ceremonially unclean. They were outward signs of a change of heart, until the Messiah came.
Forcibly enslaving someone is stealing a person and is forbidden somewhere in the pentateuch, as is rape.

We should try to make amends for our wrong doings and apologise to any human we have hurt. If god exists it should be repenting of its wrong doings and apologising to humanity for its evil deeds.

[ippy]

Adam was given warning that he would die if he ate the fruit. So God would not be just if he let us live forever. He does have the right to take life away.

You asked why God gave them access to the fruit. This was a test to see if he would obey his creator or the creature, represented by the snake. (Romans 1 says man worshipped the creature rather than the creator.)

Oh dear!

By the way Spud How can you possibly know for certain any of the assertions you've made about Adam or the other assertive statements you've made in your post 252, on this thread, actually did happen?

If you can't substantiate these assertions so typical of your usual approach to this forum what's the point making them?

ippy.

[jeremyp]

Murder is taking someone's life without a justifiable reason.

What justifiable reason was there for murdering lots of innocent people in Egypt? Some of the first born children would have been babies.

Since God gave the gift of life, then perhaps he is justified in taking it away. He will take all of us' lives after all.

God murders everybody? Wow. You really aren't helping your case.

[jeremyp]

Adam was given warning that he would die if he ate the fruit. So God would not be just if he let us live forever. He does have the right to take life away.

Leaving aside the fact that God failed to carry out his threat, the only people to eat that fruit were Adam and Eve. Why does that make it acceptable for God to murder everybody else?

[Spud]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

[Nearly Sane]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

So it created evil people and then kills them because they are evil. Your god is a dick.

[Spud]

So it created evil people and then kills them because they are evil. Your god is a dick.

Thanks for that insightful comment.

[Nearly Sane]

Thanks for that insightful comment.

Truth is often insightful. You worship a thug.

[Outrider]

God does not murder people.

The unborn children in the womb of every pregnant woman in Noah's flood?  The newborn infants of Egypt at Passover?

"Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood"

Then why let them be born?  If every inclination of the human heart is evil, why continue with the project?  Why make people suffer if that's already known?

That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us.

Nothing justifies an infinitely wise entity with the capacity to teach choosing instead to kill because he failed to implement suitable error-catching in the code.

Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

Substitutionary sacrifice is a fundamentally immoral concept in the first place - killing someone or something else to pay for our transgressions is immoral, a deity accepting such a sacrifice is complicit in that immorality.  This is nonsense.

O.

[Christine]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

I agree that substitutionary sacrifice is fundamentally immoral.  But on a less fundamental note, you must not know any nice people.  Even I am inclined to, for example, provide help to homeless people.  Is that evil?  When I take the time and bother to catch a fly that's got into my home and put it outside rather than let it die on my window sill, is that evil?  Wanting to help people I've never met by donating to MSF, is that evil?

You could argue that every action humans take may have "evil" consequences, but that is not the same as the inclination to do the action being evil.  If I could see the biggest picture it might be that giving money to MSF causes more damage to the world and beings in it than not giving would, but my motivation for doing it is to help alleviate the suffering of strangers.

I'm not even a good person, but I know people who are and I'd stand by them and their "evil" inclinations rather than your capricious, vicious, irrational god any day.  (If it was real, which I see no evidence for.)  No wonder sympathy for the devil is evident in Paradise Lost.  Anyone who thinks rationally about Christian theology, even if they think it might be true, would find themselves in the same boat as Milton. 

[Stranger]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

This just tells us how utterly evil your god is. As Christopher Hitchens said, it creates us sick and commands us to be well - and then punishes us for being sick. The amount of doublethink in this type of Christianity is breathtaking.

[Roses]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

And you think a god like that is good?

[Dicky Underpants]

If Ecclesiastes can say that everyone will sin, generations before I'm born then either a) there really is no free will or b) the bar for 'sin' is set ridiculously low which makes the whole thing a con.

A topic worth raising with Alan Burns, in his assertions about free-will (I'll get round to it myself eventually )
Of course, St Paul reiterates the concept in the New Testament (I quote from memory):

"The good that I would I do not, and the evil I would not, that I do. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?"

Well, guess who? Why Jaysus of course.
So do we only have free will if we give our selves up to Jesus? But isn't that surrendering of oneself allowing the entry of the Holy Spirit, which like the wind "Bloweth wheresoever it listeth"?
I realise I'm addressing these questions to the wrong person, Outrider: but they do epitomise the whole contradictory nonsense of the Christian 'human free will argument".

[Dicky Underpants]

God does not murder people. "Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood" Genesis 8:21. That justifies our death, therefore he does not murder us. Isaac needed a substitute, the ram. The Israelite firstborn needed one, we need one, everyone is born with the sinful nature.

But that substitute was God the Son, the second person of the Trinity - in short God himself (There are not 3 Gods, but one God).
Perhaps God might have cut out the middle man.

[Nearly Sane]

But that substitute was God the Son, the second person of the Trinity - in short God himself (There are not 3 Gods, but one God).
Perhaps God might have cut out the middle man.

That wouldn't have been so much fun for a moral thug

[Spud]

I agree that substitutionary sacrifice is fundamentally immoral.  But on a less fundamental note, you must not know any nice people.  Even I am inclined to, for example, provide help to homeless people.  Is that evil?  When I take the time and bother to catch a fly that's got into my home and put it outside rather than let it die on my window sill, is that evil?  Wanting to help people I've never met by donating to MSF, is that evil?

You could argue that every action humans take may have "evil" consequences, but that is not the same as the inclination to do the action being evil.  If I could see the biggest picture it might be that giving money to MSF causes more damage to the world and beings in it than not giving would, but my motivation for doing it is to help alleviate the suffering of strangers.

I'm not even a good person, but I know people who are and I'd stand by them and their "evil" inclinations rather than your capricious, vicious, irrational god any day.  (If it was real, which I see no evidence for.)  No wonder sympathy for the devil is evident in Paradise Lost.  Anyone who thinks rationally about Christian theology, even if they think it might be true, would find themselves in the same boat as Milton.

What about coveting? Keeping up with the Joneses? Losing our temper? Doesn't everyone have the ability to do good and evil?