Using the Bible as an excuse for bigotry

[SteveH]

Give an example of the good bits.

The sermon on the mount, much of Isaiah, quite a lot of the other prophets, and much more.

[Roses]

The sermon on the mount, much of Isaiah, quite a lot of the other prophets, and much more.

You haven't stated what is good about these things.

[ippy]

It's not just conservative Christians who use the bible as an excuse for bigotry; so do some atheists, in a negative way - picking out all the nasty bits, qhoting them out of context, and ignoring all the good bits. Thank heavens no-one on here would dream of doing that! 

I thought that in the larger proportion of fiction like the bible you get the good and bad most of the time and I'm even sure workshop manuals do something similar too?

ippy.

[Roses]

There are some good bits in the Bible, amongst the truly awful bits. That book is a very human creation with no input from any god, imo.

[Outrider]

God created us "good".

Then why did the knowledge of good and evil lead us astray?  I appreciate that much of Christian history has been punctuated by episodes of suppressing knowledge, but I figured that was purely temporal power-mongering, not a moral imperative?

He set things up so that he is in authority over us, as we were in authority over the animals.

So we're glorified pets? Or cattle? That's not a healthy relationship.

If your employer leaves £5 on his desk, it isn't hard to not steal it, he already pays you enough.

More money is always better than less money - we don't avoid stealing because we have enough, we avoid stealing because we have moral integrity (especially if you're one of the many, many people who aren't payed enough for what they do).

In Eden the situation arose where we rejected his authority (see below), so he cut us off from Eden and the tree of life.

But how can he punish people who, literally, had no concept of right and wrong?  A knowledge of good and evil was only present after they'd eaten the fruit - you don't punish children for not knowing right and wrong, you teach them. You certainly don't punish their descendants.

Eventually our body dies, at which point we are permanently cut off from God,  no longer able to speak to him and separated from him for ever.

Everybody has to get out of an abusive relationship at some point.

While we live we can still turn back to him, and submit to his authority, but we still have the tendency to rebel and need to keep turning back.

Whilst we live there is hope we can realise we don't need that sort of 'authority' figure punishing us for his failings - we need refuges from God, not on his behalf.

If person A steps forward and allows it to happen?

Then Person A is making the sacrifice, not God.

How does the sacrifice work, is the first question.

No the first question is 'Why do we have anything that we need to make up for', then it's 'Does sacrifice actually work'... given that those are both 'no' then anything after that is academic anyway.

After Adam and Eve sinned,

What's 'sin'? What of God's sin of failing to adequately care for his creation, failure to adequately control access to the dangerous tree, failure to adequately train people in his care?

God promised that Eve's offspring would crush the head of the serpent who had deceived them.

Excellent, keep the cycle of violence going, in honour of that whole 'thou shalt not kill' motif, right?

The way this works is that first God loves us so much that he sent his son, the second person of the trinity, to be born as the offspring of Eve, in order to crush the head of the serpent.

Why?  Why can't the all-powerful god crush the serpent?  Why does he need to physically reincarnate to perform a spiritual act, or is there a literal snake somewhere?

With the devil gone, paradise (communion with God) will one day be restored, and God promises that by faith we can inherit this promise.

Talking to an abusive parent-figure is not 'paradise' it's spiritual terrorism.

However, in the process of the serpent being crushed, the Adam's offspring's heel would be struck by the serpent, picturing the death of the Son as he defeated the devil.

Sounds like a desperate rehash of the Achilles legend to me - it's almost like someone wrote it trying to hijack the popular culture of the day.

Jesus faced the devil and overcame temptation, but in the process was struck by the devil, through the people who killed him.

Why should be we impressed that Jesus (who is, after all, God) overcame temptation - he knows he has absolute power, what can the Devil tempt him with?  As for people killing him, surely if he'd come as a sacrifice that already had to be the end result, he knew it was coming, it's the point.  You can't suggest that it was the Devil's doing if it's purposefully what God incarnated an avatar in order to achieve - at best that's entrapment.

This is the sense in which Jesus was a sacrifice.

That's the mechanism by which the sacrifice was done, it doesn't explain in any way why an all-loving deity couldn't just exercise forgiveness off his own back.

The animal sacrifices go back to the garden of Eden, where God had to kill animals to cover A&E and deal with their shame.

Why did God make them feel shame? Why were animal sacrifices necessary given that we can cover up with plant material?

I'm still not completely sure why God instructed Israel to make sacrifices, but they seem to have been an outward sign of repentance and a way in which they could be assured of God's forgiveness.

Sating a bloodthirsty deity given that it seems originally Yahweh had been a war-deity of a larger pantheon?

They were worthless without obedience to God (Hosea 6:6, 1 Samuel 15:22, Matthew 9:13, Mark 12:33).

Nobody is worthless.  That your deity operates on that understanding fundamentally undermines anything that comes after that, even without the individual failings of each step.  Abusive, controlling spouses tell their partners they're worthless; sex traffickers and pimps tell people they're worthless; authoritarian regimes tell people that foreigners are worthless; slave owners tell slaves they are worthless.  Dehumanising people is evil.

They signified faith in God's promise to restore mankind to fellowship with him; this was the part they played in defeating the devil - they enabled the people of God to continue to worship him while the nations around worshiped false gods, thus eventually the Messiah would be born to complete the work of defeating Satan so that mankind could, at his return, be restored to 'paradise'.

So in fear they enabled an abuser to keep on abusing...

God knew all this would happen. He did it to demonstrate the fullness of his nature and glory.

Self-important prick, is essentially what you're saying. The all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful deity operates an ongoing fear-mongering relationship with humanity on the threat of trivialising someone's death in order to show everyone what a big man he is?  I know that guy, he's a dick, he's not God. He's the twat that's jabbing his finger in someone's face at the end of the works Christmas do telling everyone how much money he brought in this year as though that justifies his shitty attitude... if that's your God, there is no God.

O.

[Spud]

Firstly, people born after Eden didn't make the choice to reject god's authority

Of course they did. Cain was told, "sin is at your door and desires to have you. You must master it".

and yet, as you said, we are born with a "sinful" nature - that's being created ill ("sinful") and being commanded to be well (free from "sin"). Your twisted god is punishing us for being the descendants of Adam and Eve by making us "sinful" and then threatening us with punishing us again for being the way it made us. It's perverse, unfair, and evil.

Secondly, the forbidden fruit was of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so presumably poor old Adam and Eve didn't know good from evil before, so couldn't have known that disobeying god was bad. More perversity.

If they were told that they would die when they ate it, I think they would have made the following connection: "Good and evil? What are they? Well, if I'm going to die if I eat it, then eating it must be evil. Therefore not eating it must be good.

"Knowing" good and evil meant experiencing it. They would have understood what good and evil were without having to eat it, just from what God told them.

[Roses]

Of course they did. Cain was told, "sin is at your door and desires to have you. You must master it".

If they were told that they would die when they ate it, I think they would have made the following connection: "Good and evil? What are they? Well, if I'm going to die if I eat it, then eating it must be evil. Therefore not eating it must be good.

"Knowing" good and evil meant experiencing it. They would have understood what good and evil were without having to eat it, just from what God told them.

Obeying the Biblical god is like obeying Hitler.

[Outrider]

It's not just conservative Christians who use the bible as an excuse for bigotry; so do some atheists, in a negative way - picking out all the nasty bits, qhoting them out of context, and ignoring all the good bits.

Picking out the nasty bits of what is supposed to be a moral guideline inspired/written by a perfect being is not 'bigotry', it's pointing out the inherent flaws in what's supposed to be the greatest work of morality in existence.

Quoting out of context?  What's the context where 'take the women of your fallen enemies for your own' is acceptable?  What's the context where any treatise on how to treat a slave that doesn't include 'don't keep slaves' is acceptable?

As to ignoring 'the good bits', the whole thing is an attempt for to justify the jealous bloodthirstiness of a bronze age myth in order to justify maintaining a pretense of relevance in the modern world - what are the 'good bits'? Are they the bits that everyone in pretty much every decent moral philosophy has emphasised, both before these pieces got written or aggregated? The 'golden rule' of 'don't be a dick'?

O.

[Stranger]

Of course they did.

Nonsense - there is no good reason I have seen to think that there even is a god whose authority I can either accept or reject. If your god exists, it's playing an evil game of hide-and-seek and blaming us for not finding it.

Cain was told, "sin is at your door and desires to have you. You must master it".

The point here is that if nobody masters it, then it can't be a genuine choice. If everybody fails a test, the test is inappropriate. If god was going to set that test, it should have made people who are able to pass it. The idea of "original sin", where we inherit a sinful nature because of what Adam and Eve did, is manifestly unfair and unjust - but whatever the reason is, setting a test that nobody can pass is unjust and unfair - doubly so if it's not even clear that there is a god or a test.

[ippy]

Of course they did. Cain was told, "sin is at your door and desires to have you. You must master it".

If they were told that they would die when they ate it, I think they would have made the following connection: "Good and evil? What are they? Well, if I'm going to die if I eat it, then eating it must be evil. Therefore not eating it must be good.

"Knowing" good and evil meant experiencing it. They would have understood what good and evil were without having to eat it, just from what God told them.

You're living in a very strange world Spud.

ippy.

[jeremyp]

If they were told that they would die when they ate it, I think they would have made the following connection: "Good and evil? What are they? Well, if I'm going to die if I eat it, then eating it must be evil. Therefore not eating it must be good.

In an earlier post you said God created them good. How then did they choose the evil option?

[Outrider]

Of course they did. Cain was told, "sin is at your door and desires to have you. You must master it".

Aren't we all born sinful?

If they were told that they would die when they ate it, I think they would have made the following connection: "Good and evil? What are they? Well, if I'm going to die if I eat it, then eating it must be evil. Therefore not eating it must be good.

Wouldn't that require the knowledge of good and evil that they didn't get until after they'd eaten it?

"Knowing" good and evil meant experiencing it. They would have understood what good and evil were without having to eat it, just from what God told them.

Then what was the mystic power of the fruit that they suddenly realised their nudity having eaten it?  Did the fruit suddenly remove their clothes?

O.

[Dicky Underpants]

Picking out the nasty bits of what is supposed to be a moral guideline inspired/written by a perfect being is not 'bigotry', it's pointing out the inherent flaws in what's supposed to be the greatest work of morality in existence.

I'm an atheist, but I'm going to take the part of the liberal Christians here (I often do).

I'd say it was only the Judaeo/Christian fundamentalists who need to have them pointed out. These are also the only ones who think the Bible is 'greatest work of morality in existence'. It is odd that you can't see an evolution of morality between, say, Numbers 31 and the 1st and 2nd chapters of Isaiah.

Quoting out of context?  What's the context where 'take the women of your fallen enemies for your own' is acceptable?  What's the context where any treatise on how to treat a slave that doesn't include 'don't keep slaves' is acceptable?

Numbers 31 was much worse than that: it was an injunction to take young girl virgins and rape them (meanwhile killing off all men women and boys). As I say, the morality changes and evolves from prophet to prophet. Stop looking at the Bible as a single book (fundamentalist trait) and realise it's a library.

As to ignoring 'the good bits', the whole thing is an attempt for to justify the jealous bloodthirstiness of a bronze age myth in order to justify maintaining a pretense of relevance in the modern world - what are the 'good bits'? Are they the bits that everyone in pretty much every decent moral philosophy has emphasised, both before these pieces got written or aggregated? The 'golden rule' of 'don't be a dick'?

Again, it's the fundamentalists who try to justify 'the bronze age myth' (such a trite phrase by now), and poor old Spud is the perhaps the only representative here of that benighted breed (though Ad orientem shows some fundi traits in his Orthodox makeup). According to Karl Jaspers, the 'axial age' brought in a number of contemporary thinkers and prophets from diverse backgrounds, who shared a similar moral outlook, whether they were Greek, Jewish or whatever - including the Golden Rule. The Greeks prior to Plato were a bloodthirsty lot (most ancient peoples were) if we trust any of the myths of Homer as containing as much historical truth as the OT myths. And Plato approved of slavery too.

I'm an atheist: here's what the arch-atheist Nietzsche said about the Old Testament compared with the New:

In the Jewish "Old Testament," the book of divine justice, there are men, things, and speeches of such impressive style that the world of Greek and Indian literature has nothing to place beside them. We stand with fear and reverence before these tremendous remnants of what human beings once were and will in the process suffer melancholy thoughts about old Asia and its protruding peninsula of Europe, which, in marked contrast to Asia, would like to represent the "progress of man." Naturally, whoever is, in himself, only a weak, tame domestic animal and who knows only the needs of domestic animals (like our educated people nowadays, including the Christians of "educated" Christianity), among these ruins such a man finds nothing astonishing or even anything to be sad about - a taste for the Old Testament is a touchstone with respect to "great" and "small": - perhaps he finds the New Testament, that book of grace, still preferable to his heart (in it there is a good deal of the really tender, stifling smell of over-pious and small-souled people). To have glued together this New Testament, a sort of rococo of taste in all respects, with the Old Testament into a single book, as the "Bible," and "the essential book," that is perhaps the greatest act of daring and "sin against the spirit" which literary Europe has on its conscience.

(Beyond Good and Evil, section 52)

You see, Nietzsche, subject to his own confirmation bias, was able to look at things in context. It's a pity some here aren't able to do the same.

[Dicky Underpants]

You haven't stated what is good about these things.

You claim to have read them - you should know.

[Dicky Underpants]

There are some good bits in the Bible, amongst the truly awful bits. That book is a very human creation with no input from any god, imo.

It is indeed a very human creation, written or transcribed from oral memory by very different human beings at different times and in different circumstances.

[Outrider]

I'm an atheist, but I'm going to take the part of the liberal Christians here (I often do).

Playing Devil's Advocate, so to speak...

I'd say it was only the Judaeo/Christian fundamentalists who need to have them pointed out. These are also the only ones who think the Bible is 'greatest work of morality in existence'. It is odd that you can't see an evolution of morality between, say, Numbers 31 and the 1st and 2nd chapters of Isaiah.

Do we know what order they were allegedly written in? Do we know why these works were included and others weren't? At best they are evidence of the capricious inconsistency of the character, at worst they are attempts to rewrite earlier passages for better/worse effect - fundamentally, though, even if one of them is 'less' immoral than the other, neither of them represents an acceptable behaviour.
 

Numbers 31 was much worse than that: it was an injunction to take young girl virgins and rape them (meanwhile killing off all men women and boys). As I say, the morality changes and evolves from prophet to prophet. Stop looking at the Bible as a single book (fundamentalist trait) and realise it's a library.

It may have emerged as a library of writings, but it's become a book - 'The' book, in fact.  Whilst the more conflicted believers might try to pitch it as symbolic, that's not how it was presented during the early life of the Church, that's not how it's used to suppress homosexuality in sub-Saharan Africa, that's not how it's used to prop up Prosperity Gospel nonsense in the US.  Even if it is 'symbolic', it's still suggesting that the best God can teach people is a slightly less vile way of living - that's not in keeping with the concept of an all-knowing, all-loving God. If such a being existed this work would not be representative of its behaviour, or it would have inspired something that put it right.

Again, it's the fundamentalists who try to justify 'the bronze age myth' (such a trite phrase by now), and poor old Spud is the perhaps the only representative here of that benighted breed (though Ad orientem shows some fundi traits in his Orthodox makeup).

And, to be fair, it was Spud that I was addressing.  It is, though, a bronze age myth - whilst others have died away, this one has been kept alive, reshuffled, reimagined, had sequels published (although there are all sorts of arguments as to which ones, if any, are canon), but it's a bronze age myth through and through.  Trying to put a modern interpretation on it, trying to find underlying morals and concepts is fine, but it's a benightedly primitive conceptualisation.

According to Karl Jaspers, the 'axial age' brought in a number of contemporary thinkers and prophets from diverse backgrounds, who shared a similar moral outlook, whether they were Greek, Jewish or whatever - including the Golden Rule. The Greeks prior to Plato were a bloodthirsty lot (most ancient peoples were) if we trust any of the myths of Homer as containing as much historical truth as the OT myths. And Plato approved of slavery too.

And?  That other early cultures also approved of slavery doesn't mean that the Old Testament is allowed a pass for tolerating it.

I'm an atheist: here's what the arch-atheist Nietzsche said about the Old Testament compared with the New:

Nietzche's Eurocentrism aside, I fail to see what that adds?

You see, Nietzsche, subject to his own confirmation bias, was able to look at things in context. It's a pity some here aren't able to do the same.

I'm capable - I pitch my discussion at the people I'm responding to.  If I get someone who doesn't rely on scripture, I discuss from the point of view they're expressing, but if someone cites scripture then I discuss the scripture.

If the scripture isn't to be read literally fine, but it has been and still is - a divinity should have seen that coming.  If it was inspired by a God and intended to be read as parables, then that inspiration manifestly failed, and it's not obvious why it should be read so, and at least some of the parables it conveys are still undeniably barbaric.  If it wasn't inspired by a god at all, then it stands on its own lack of merits.

O.

[jeremyp]

It is, though, a bronze age myth

Can we just dispel this... myth?

The earliest parts of the Bible were probably not written before the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. It's unlikely that any of it was written before the start of the Iron Age in the Middle East. Some of the stories may have their origins in earlier times, but as written in the Bible, they are definitely iron age myths.

The writers weren't ignorant goat herders either.

[bluehillside Retd.]

jeremy,

The writers weren't ignorant goat herders either.

To the extent that they were necessarily ignorant of the reasoning and evidence that came after them that made redundant their folkloric explanations for the world, yes they were. That's not to say that (some of them at least) didn't have remarkable knowledge of maths and cosmology and so on, but it is to say that spooks and ghosts and ghoulies and "miracles" as explanations had a much more receptive audience then than they have now. That there are still Spuds about who think there literally was a garden of Eden, that there really was an Adam & Eve etc is just evidence for the persistence of myth even now in exceptional cases.

[Nearly Sane]

jeremy,

To the extent that they were necessarily ignorant of the reasoning and evidence that came after them that made redundant their folkloric explanations for the world, yes they were. That's not to say that (some of them at least) didn't have remarkable knowledge of maths and cosmology and so on, but it is to say that spooks and ghosts and ghoulies and "miracles" as explanations had a much more receptive audience then than they have now. That there are still Spuds about who think there literally was a garden of Eden, that there really was an Adam & Eve etc is just evidence for the persistence of myth even now in exceptional cases.

This just shows an ignorance of the writings. Read Ecclesiates and tell me how ignorant it is, and how it fits in with your caricature.

[jeremyp]

jeremy,

To the extent that they were necessarily ignorant of the reasoning and evidence that came after them that made redundant their folkloric explanations for the world, yes they were. That's not to say that (some of them at least) didn't have remarkable knowledge of maths and cosmology and so on, but it is to say that spooks and ghosts and ghoulies and "miracles" as explanations had a much more receptive audience then than they have now. That there are still Spuds about who think there literally was a garden of Eden, that there really was an Adam & Eve etc is just evidence for the persistence of myth even now in exceptional cases.

You know I'm talking about the people who wrote the myths, not the people who read - or more likely heard - them? They were not ignorant by the standards of the day, nor were they goat herders.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

This just shows an ignorance of the writings. Read Ecclesiates and tell me how ignorant it is, and how it fits in with your caricature.

I have - or at least I read the bits I was given to read by a zealous teacher way back when. You've missed the point though - Thor made sense enough as an explanation for thunder when you were ignorant of negative and positive charging, the expansion and collapsing air channels etc. Miracle stories abounded and had a ready audience when the bible stories were written. Perhaps you're conflating "ignorant" (which they were) with "stupid" (which they weren't)?

[Outrider]

Can we just dispel this... myth?

The earliest parts of the Bible were probably not written before the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE. It's unlikely that any of it was written before the start of the Iron Age in the Middle East. Some of the stories may have their origins in earlier times, but as written in the Bible, they are definitely iron age myths.

The writers weren't ignorant goat herders either.

I'm not saying the people who wrote it were ignorant goat herders, to be literate in that era was to be in the upper echelons of the intellectuals of the society.

That it was being written in the iron age, though, doesn't reflect the fact that the stories were already established at that point - they were written in the iron age, but they likely originate from the bronze age.

O.

[jeremyp]

I'm not saying the people who wrote it were ignorant goat herders, to be literate in that era was to be in the upper echelons of the intellectuals of the society.

That it was being written in the iron age, though, doesn't reflect the fact that the stories were already established at that point - they were written in the iron age, but they likely originate from the bronze age.

O.

I don't think the story of The Fall is a Bronze Age myth. There is some evidence that it has its roots in earlier Bronze Age myths but these myths tended to be substantially different in their message. For example, there is one myth in which the equivalent of the Serpent is the good guy who rescues Adam and Eve from eternal servitude to the bad guy (God). The story makes much more sense with that spin.

The concept of original sin isn't even pre-Christian.

[Dicky Underpants]

NS,

I have - or at least I read the bits I was given to read by a zealous teacher way back when. You've missed the point though - Thor made sense enough as an explanation for thunder when you were ignorant of negative and positive charging, the expansion and collapsing air channels etc. Miracle stories abounded and had a ready audience when the bible stories were written. Perhaps you're conflating "ignorant" (which they were) with "stupid" (which they weren't)?

Hi Blue

NS was specifically referring to Ecclesiastes, which is one of the more unusual texts in a body of writings which are in themselves incredibly diverse. 'God' is referred to a few times, but not exactly with fervent belief - in fact 'he' is a rather nebulous presence there  - this is why the original compilers of the Old Testament canon had a bit of a problem whether to include it  (they had an even bigger problem with The Book of Esther, which doesn't mention 'God' at all). Miracles in Ecclesiastes are certainly at a premium. The text is redolent with the most extreme pessimism, which bears comparison with Theravada Buddhism. The writer seems to try to console himself that gaining wisdom is the best that can be done to ward of the slings and arrows of fate, but even here he doesn't sound as though he's convinced himself. Try a few quotes:

For of the wise man as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise man dies just like the fool!

2:16

In my vain life I have seen everything; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil-doing.

7:15

Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance* happen to them all.

9:11

There is no 'Vengeful God of the Bible' here. The writer seems to bring up the idea of 'God' as a possible way of making the non-sensical pattern of existence meaningful, rather as Nirvana is posited in Buddhism as the escape route from an existence of meaningless suffering. But, as I said, he doesn't sound very convinced of the matter.

(I should say that the text is, like its counterpart Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha, rather misogynistic in places. Perhaps the writers of each had similar temperaments - or maybe they were just both unhappily married).

*Alluded to in the title of Jim Callaghan's autobiography, if there are any old Labour supporters out there.

[Dicky Underpants]

there is one myth in which the equivalent of the Serpent is the good guy who rescues Adam and Eve from eternal servitude to the bad guy (God). The story makes much more sense with that spin.

I don't know when this myth was originally propounded, but it was certainly a favourite with the Gnostics, particularly the Ophite Gnostics (Ophis: Greek, serpent). As you say, the story makes much more sense interpreted like this: you certainly don't have to twist the text to make it fit.

The concept of original sin isn't even pre-Christian.

Insofar as the story of Adam and Eve's 'sin' is never again referred to in the Old Testament, it does seem extraordinary that the Christians made so much of it. I say 'Christians' - of course, it was really all down to St Paul, who first adumbrated the idea - which then filtered into the later Christian scriptures. And old St Augustine went the whole hog and made the doctrine central to his version of Christianity, with the particular emphasis that this was all about SEX!