Using the Bible as an excuse for bigotry

[SteveH]

God made them and put them there.  God failed to adequately protect them from the dangers - if you don't want people who have no understanding of right and wrong (akin to, say, children) from eating your fruit, you put fences around the fruit you don't say 'it's wrong to eat the fruit'.  You don't leave bare wires exposed in a house and tell the kids 'don't touch' because you get electrocuted children - that's not their fault, that's yours.  In this instance, God has failed in his duty of care - that's presuming, of course, that it's somehow necessary to punish Adam and Eve for having knowledge, which is questionable in the first instance.

Yep. God's fault, all the way - he's the system designer, he's the architect, he failed to design safety into his garden.

O.

It's an allegory, (Moderator: content removed)! It's typical of aggressive atheists, especially on here, to take the most literalistic, stupidest version of Christianity, and pretend that it is mainstream Christian belief.

[Nearly Sane]

It's an allegory, (Moderator: quoted content removed)! It's typical of aggressive atheists, especially on here, to take the most literalistic, stupidest version of Christianity, and pretend that it is mainstream Christian belief.

Except Outrider was replying to Spud who does appear to take it literally and not as allegory so your little bit of foot stamping is specious.

[Outrider]

It's an allegory, (Moderator: quoted content removed)! It's typical of aggressive atheists, especially on here, to take the most literalistic, stupidest version of Christianity, and pretend that it is mainstream Christian belief.

For some it's an allegory - it's still a bad allegory - but for some it's literal truth.  Regardless, it's still not a good message - fundamentally the lessons here are:

Those who acquire knowledge must be punished;
Those who are descendants of those who must be punished must also be punished for the transgressions of others;
God has no responsibility for the failures of his design.

Unless the concept of 'sin' is also 'allegorical', in which case the whole thing is just a second-rate Roald Dahl story waiting for it's third rate film adaptation.

As it is, I believe Spud (to whom I was replying) DOES think this is the literal case - I'll apologise if I'm misremembering that, but I was under the impression that was the case.

O.

[Enki]

No, Outy, you're not wrong. This is what Spud said in post 685:

We are all descendants of Adam and Eve, and we all, including unborn children, share in the consequence of their choice. They were denied access to the tree of life, and so they and we experience suffering which results in death. We also make choices that have the potential to cause suffering: a woman who smokes during pregnancy, for example.

[Roses]

These days most Christians aren't Biblical literalists, but there are still many who are, Spud being one of them.

[Spud]

Ah Job. That's the book in which God allows an innocent and pious man to be subjected to various psychological and physical torture and allows his children to be slaughtered essentially just to prove Satan wrong about his piety.

Your god is a monster.

The key thing in the Bible is that spiritual separation from God is worse than physical/psychological suffering. Job's trials were apparently a necessary part of the overall humiliation and defeat of Satan. They show how Adam should have acted when tested in the garden: Satan accused God of prohibiting the fruit in order to prevent Adam gaining wisdom. Adam should have refused, as Job refused to curse God (what Satan wanted him to do) when tempted by his wife to do so.

[Spud]

God made them and put them there.  God failed to adequately protect them from the dangers - if you don't want people who have no understanding of right and wrong (akin to, say, children) from eating your fruit, you put fences around the fruit you don't say 'it's wrong to eat the fruit'.  You don't leave bare wires exposed in a house and tell the kids 'don't touch' because you get electrocuted children - that's not their fault, that's yours.  In this instance, God has failed in his duty of care - that's presuming, of course, that it's somehow necessary to punish Adam and Eve for having knowledge, which is questionable in the first instance.

Yep. God's fault, all the way - he's the system designer, he's the architect, he failed to design safety into his garden.

O.

Noted. At this stage I'm just pointing out that Adam and Eve responded in the same way by laying the responsibility for their actions on someone else.

[Spud]

Spud,

The trouble is, Spud, that this was the prevailing position of whole swathes of Christians in the fifties and sixties. Indeed, most churches(including evangelical) and the Salvation Army set up such homes with varying degrees of humanity/inhumanity to their clients. They didn't seem to bother about your particular quote, did they?  The unmarried mother was the one who had sinned and had brought shame to their household. And the churches were happy to collude with the governments of the day in producing 'baby farms' to address the awkward 'immoral' situation of unmarried mothers and illegitimacy.

If their aim was to help single mothers, then there was no problem with housing them or in worst cases, adopting their babies. The problem with the Nuns you mentioned was that they seem to have been doing it for their own profit. The wrongness of single motherhood does not excuse baby snatching, as Job says.

[Spud]

Two thousand years plus since He supposedly said this, and dozens of other things that were to come to pass, and it still hasn't come to pass! Just what is your omnipotent God waiting for before he fulfils all his promises and predictions?

Two thousand years ago is when Jesus defeated death, in fulfillment of Genesis 3.

[SteveH]

These days most Christians aren't Biblical literalists, but there are still many who are, Spud being one of them.

Sanity from an unexpected source! 

[Roses]

Sanity from an unexpected source! 

Thanks so much.

[jeremyp]

Job's trials were apparently a necessary part of the overall humiliation and defeat of Satan.

Satan essentially had a bet with God and God allowed him to do pretty much what he liked to Job in order to win the bet. Why God needs to allow Satan to torture humans in order to beat him is anybody's guess.

They show how Adam should have acted when tested in the garden: Satan accused God of prohibiting the fruit in order to prevent Adam gaining wisdom.

And Satan was  correct. That's exactly why God prohibited Adam from eating the fruit.

Adam should have refused, as Job refused to curse God (what Satan wanted him to do) when tempted by his wife to do so.

And by  eating the fruit  Adam and  Eve escaped slavery in God's garden.

[Owlswing]

Just for laughs;

https://youtu.be/-ZuowNcuGsc

Sorry Walter, I missed this somehow and have only just watched it - the level of English Usage in the messages he receives gives a brilliant demonstration of the fact that it does not require any but the most basic level of intelligence to be  Christian! 

[Owlswing]

With apologies to Monty python:

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

Amen.

I really do not think any apology is necessary as this version is far more accurate and inclusive than the Christian version!

[Owlswing]

People in the world are dying and you can only insult others beliefs...

According to your beliefs yuor God is inflicting these deaths as part of his punishment of the human race, starting from Adam and Eve, for its disobedience of His laws.

The bigots it appears are right here on this thread. Those who insult the Christian God do make themselves as bad as any other bigot. I bet you all feel proud of yourselves. Tell me how does it feel to know you are as bad as any other bigot. Even they believe their beliefs given them right to insult others. Nah you cannot blame God for mans own ugly characteristics.

I think that this paragraph shows all too clearly who the bigot in this conversation is and it is not the Non-Christians!

Look in a mirror, Sassy, and you will see one of the biggest bigots on this Forum.

[Owlswing]

It's typical of aggressive atheists, especially on here, to take the most literalistic, stupidest version of Christianity, and pretend that it is mainstream Christian belief.

Maybe, just maybe, this may be because the most literalistic, stupidest version of Christianity is the version peddled from the Bible that is used to teach young children what Christianity is all about!

[Outrider]

Noted. At this stage I'm just pointing out that Adam and Eve responded in the same way by laying the responsibility for their actions on someone else.

They were half-right - it wasn't their fault, it was God's.

O.

[Enki]

If their aim was to help single mothers, then there was no problem with housing them or in worst cases, adopting their babies. The problem with the Nuns you mentioned was that they seem to have been doing it for their own profit. The wrongness of single motherhood does not excuse baby snatching, as Job says.

True to form, Spud, yet again you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The 'home' that my friend went to was characterized by the cold and judgmental nature of the nuns who looked after them. They showed no understanding of the mothers' needs nor those of their babies. They emphasised the 'sinfulness' of the mother and were strict to the point of harshness in their treatment of them. Whether they sold the babies or had them adopted through the legitimate channels of the day is simply conjecture in this case. The story that my friend told is very little different to others who have told their story of similar treatment. The God you seem to worship, Spud,is one that encourages that type of behaviour in my opinion. Indeed, you seem totally preoccupied by the conjecture that the nuns might have sold the babies for profit without seeing fit to criticise and condemn their callous behaviour. Indeed, all you have got to say on this count, is "If their aim was to help single mothers, then there was no problem with housing them or in worst cases, adopting their babies." I think that says it all. 

[ippy]

True to form, Spud, yet again you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The 'home' that my friend went to was characterized by the cold and judgmental nature of the nuns who looked after them. They showed no understanding of the mothers' needs nor those of their babies. They emphasised the 'sinfulness' of the mother and were strict to the point of harshness in their treatment of them. Whether they sold the babies or had them adopted through the legitimate channels of the day is simply conjecture in this case. The story that my friend told is very little different to others who have told their story of similar treatment. The God you seem to worship, Spud,is one that encourages that type of behaviour in my opinion. Indeed, you seem totally preoccupied by the conjecture that the nuns might have sold the babies for profit without seeing fit to criticise and condemn their callous behaviour. Indeed, all you have got to say on this count, is "If their aim was to help single mothers, then there was no problem with housing them or in worst cases, adopting their babies." I think that says it all.

I think you've got to be a bit odd in the first place to want to be a nun, a shame but but there it is, or it should be a free world and if that's what people wish to do, fair enough.

Regards, ippy.

[Spud]

True to form, Spud, yet again you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. The 'home' that my friend went to was characterized by the cold and judgmental nature of the nuns who looked after them. They showed no understanding of the mothers' needs nor those of their babies. They emphasised the 'sinfulness' of the mother and were strict to the point of harshness in their treatment of them.

So, Exodus 22:16 has this to say,
"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and sleeps with her, he must pay the full dowry for her to be his wife. 17If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, the man still must pay an amount comparable to the bridal price of a virgin.…"

So the nuns may have been right that sex should be for marriage, but there is nothing in the Bible that suggests women should have babies taken away. Their actions should have reflected God's mercy but did not.

The whole point of having a written law for what to do in that situation was to make people think twice before getting into it in the first place. One cannot blame the Bible for the nuns' actions.

[Roses]

So, Exodus 22:16 has this to say,
"If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and sleeps with her, he must pay the full dowry for her to be his wife. 17If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, the man still must pay an amount comparable to the bridal price of a virgin.…"

So the nuns may have been right that sex should be for marriage, but there is nothing in the Bible that suggests women should have babies taken away. Their actions should have reflected God's mercy but did not.

The whole point of having a written law for what to do in that situation was to make people think twice before getting into it in the first place. One cannot blame the Bible for the nuns' actions.

Mercy and the Biblical god is an oxymoron.

[Alan Burns]

For some it's an allegory - it's still a bad allegory - but for some it's literal truth.  Regardless, it's still not a good message - fundamentally the lessons here are:

Those who acquire knowledge must be punished;
Those who are descendants of those who must be punished must also be punished for the transgressions of others;
God has no responsibility for the failures of his design.

Unless the concept of 'sin' is also 'allegorical', in which case the whole thing is just a second-rate Roald Dahl story waiting for it's third rate film adaptation.

As it is, I believe Spud (to whom I was replying) DOES think this is the literal case - I'll apologise if I'm misremembering that, but I was under the impression that was the case.

O.

You totally miss the point.

The Adam and Eve story illustrates two fundamental realities:

1.  The existence and power of human free will.

2.  The nature and source of temptation which exploits this free will.

[Outrider]

The Adam and Eve story illustrates two fundamental realities:

1.  The existence and power of human free will.

2.  The nature and source of temptation which exploits this free will.

So it's a fairy story about a facet of human consciousness which probably doesn't exist, supported by the second deity in this monotheistic display?  It doesn't demonstrate any 'fundamental realities' it just throws more unsubstantiable nonsense into an already irreconcilable pile of pseudo-mythic incompatibilities that still clearly puts any blame on the god figure within the narrative.

If 'free will' is bad enough to merit punishment, why are Adam and Even (made with curiosity but not imparted with the capacity to tell right fro wrong) put in a position to access the tree?  If Adam and Eve didn't have this free will, which is apparent intrinsic to humans, in what way were they human?  Why is everyone in history subject to punishment because of what they did?

It's just palpable nonsense even at an allegoric level.

O.

[jeremyp]

So, Exodus 22:16 has this to say,
"... man still must pay an amount comparable to the bridal price of a virgin.…"

You should ponder on the implication of that sentence.

[Roses]

You should ponder on the implication of that sentence.

Yes he should.