Hitchens and mortality...

Vernon on 10/8/2010 at 02:05

One could have said smoking and drinking but that would have been in poor taste, right?

fett on 10/8/2010 at 05:36

Quote Posted by Harvester

Really? So if you knew for certain the biblical God does exist after all and everything the Bible says is true, you would flat out reject Him, knowing full well the punishment for such an act? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm honestly interested in your reaction, because from your de-conversion thread, I got the feeling that you came to disbelieve in the existence of God over time, but did your feelings also change from believing the biblical God is just and loving, to believing the biblical God is not a just, loving God that is worth following? Because it seems to me there's a difference between stopping to believe in God and not even wanting to follow Him even if you knew He does exist after all, and I'm curious to know where you stand and why.

Hindsight and distance has allowed me to view the theology objectively, which in turn has led me to believe that IF the biblical god does exist, he is either cruel or impotent, and most likely both. DDL hits the nail on the head and touches on the fundamental flaw of biblical (and most religious) theology. The entire system of freewill/pre-destination, temptation. sin, repentance, eternal destination, etc. was created by this god without input from those it would affect most. Not only is it incoherent to the common man, it is inexcusable from a supposedly loving and wise deity.

It boggles the mind to imagine a loving God who is so concerned for the eternal well-being of his children that he would die for them, yet at the same time, creates a rather vague instruction as to how this well-being is to be achieved as it relates to his sacrifice. After all, what is "believing in Yeshua?" How does God define phrases like "trust in" "cling to" "rely on" - as "believe" implies in the Greek? What does it look like? What does it mean to "abide in?" After all, we risk eternal hell if we don't properly define and then practice that belief. Some more concrete instruction would be nice, and if I can't find that instruction after having read the entire book 7 times (twice in it's original languages), then, why the fuck not? This is important right?

If I wanted to deliver a message to my kids about THE MOST IMPORTANT DECISION THEY WILL EVER MAKE IN ALL OF THEIR ETERNAL EXISTENCE, I would not encrypt it in parables or proverbs, related through 3rd and in some cases 5th and 6th hand accounts, in three languages that I knew would be dead before they were old enough to learn them. I would not leave them believing that that message can be related to them by men who intended ill will to their financial security, and I certainly would not lead them to believe that that message could only be obtained through men who wanted to butt fuck their kids. I would look them straight in the eyes, speak clearly in a language they could understand, and I WOULD FUCKING TELL THEM. Because I love them, and it's their eternity at stake. To do otherwise would cast into grave doubt my love and concern for them.

Blame the current state of the gospel message on a fallen world, corrupt church, or Hanna Montana if you want, but in the end, God claims to be all powerful and all loving - "that none should perish" - yet he leaves the majority of mankind in a state of abject confusion and frustration as they try through every means possible to discern what he wants from them. The "test of faith" argument fails miserably in light of this perspective because I would not risk my kids suffering eternal hell just to find out whether or not they really trusted me. In fact, I wouldn't have created a situation in which they could be separated from me for all eternity to begin with, because I love them so much I died for them, remember?

Any god who can't see the flaw in that definition of "love" is either so stupid or so evil that I would rather take my chances in the other camp. What I've seen in my 26 years of ministry on this earth in the name of god's love, is far far worse than my most vivid imagination of hell.

fett on 10/8/2010 at 05:58

Quote Posted by DDL

Anyway, "free will, but this is how you do it, or you get the PAIN MONSTER" is a pretty shitty kind of free will, I think we can all agree?

Also this. Why even create such a system to begin with? Either you're not smart enough to come up with something that doesn't end bad (like say, as dumb as a human) or you're just fucking around with your creation to see what it will do within certain parameters. Then you blame them for not getting it right. This would be perfectly understandable if the bible didn't go so far out of its way to explain just how much the entity that created this system to begin with LOVES mankind so much. This is not the behavior of a loving entity, as we, created in god's image, have been taught by the very book that lauds this system as a vehicle of God's unmerited favor toward his creation.

Note for you seminarians out there: I realize I'm coming at this from a slightly Calvanistic bent, but if you believe the bible at all and aren't Reformed, your heurmaneutic is fucked from the get-go. Shout "free will" all you want but every word from Eden to judgement calls bullshit. Limited Atonetment is the poster child for the dichotomy between loving god and vengeful judge and you can't wiggle out of it no matter how many times you re-interpret Romans. So don't start that shit with me. ;)

jtr7 on 10/8/2010 at 07:21

It's weird. God created everything but sin, and yet, sin took hold in Lucifer's mind. There was the uprising and defeat of Lucifer and his corrupted followers, and the creation at some point of Hell for Satan and his minions. But, accepting that, the real sticking points are that God cast them down to earth, where Satan would meet up with Eve, instead of sending Satan to Hell immediately and forever. It gets worse from there.

Epos Nix on 10/8/2010 at 07:46

Quote:

Then you blame them for not getting it right.

Rather than Hell being a punishment of sorts, I tend to think of it as hitting the 'delete' key ;)

What I think will be fascinating is if in the future mankind 'evolves' AI beyond the rudimentary specimens you can read about (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/08/0110222/Artificial-Life-Forms-Evolve-Basic-Memory-Strategy) here (Slashdot link), how will it perceive us? The lab techs have forced strife on these "beings" merely to observe and collect data and breed more advanced versions of these virtual creatures. This would appear cruel to any intelligent AI that could ponder such things, but the AI would also be deprived of an over-arching knowledge of the reasons behind this experiment. Even though the lab techs readily discard the "losers" and favor the evolutionary winners in their program, they do so to further the virtual species as a whole.

I tend to view God in the same manner, especially given stories like that of (http://www.888c.com/zJdg07.htm) Gideon, whose army was chosen simply because they didn't lap water from a river like a pack of dogs. I'm probably misinterpreting the significance of that one detail, but to me it seems like God is attempting to favor those humans who have mentally evolved a bit so that they might further evolve the species. This isn't an argument for or against a "good" God as we've come to understand he should be, no more than humans breeding virtual creatures just to discard the failed attempts with the stroke of a key is a good or bad moral decision.

Nicker on 10/8/2010 at 09:06

Quote Posted by fett

This is not the behavior of a loving entity, as we, created in god's image, have been taught by the very book that lauds this system as a vehicle of God's unmerited favor toward his creation.

It could be construed as the love of a stage mother for her little angel. "Don't you want to be happy, darling?"

Thanks for the fine rant, fett. Spot on about the twisted love thing. For me that's like the issue of missionaries imperiling the souls of those immune from damnation, due to their ignorance of the gospel. If your object is to save their souls, don't force them to make a decision they might fuck up when they are already safe. A missionary call should go something like...

"Have you heard of Jesus Christ?"

"Why, no I haven't."

"Wonderful! Enjoy your day."

Beleg Cúthalion on 10/8/2010 at 10:30

@fett: I cannot help myself but it seems to me you're mixing the "outer" elements of the Judaeo-Christian religion, including the (literal) ways in which this religion was formed but also the obvious social self-preservation rules (like no children without a identifiable = married father etc.) with the "inner" spirit which theology evolved over the times. You mentioned Calvinism, I don't know if it is one of those Protestant sola scriptura issues, basing religion just on the writings and perhaps not always including a reasonable perspective (that's what IMHO happened with Creationism which is, as far as I know, a largely Protestant phenomenon, correct me if I'm totally wrong).
The whole purgatory thing isn't a part of this "inner" religion for...how many years now? Wasn't it the Protestant explanation that you should do good things because you are thankful for what god/Jesus did for you and NOT because you'd otherwise be thrown into the fire ~~and drink purulence~~...? (OK, cut the last part, wrong religion) Once you've accepted that religion can actually change this way, you have to worry far less about your love vs. "religious" penalty problem.

And on a philosophical level... how many examples of gods do we know so we can reasonably from a statement like "he would or would not..."?

Brian The Dog on 10/8/2010 at 13:00

Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion

(that's what IMHO happened with Creationism which is, as far as I know, a largely Protestant phenomenon, correct me if I'm totally wrong)

If you mean people who believe in a literal 7-day creation, then yep, I think it's only 20th century evangelicals, mainly in the States, that believe it. The Catholics, Orthodox, Church of England, Methodists etc all don't. I've never met anyone here in the UK who believes it literally.

Fett, I generally agree with you except where you say that:

I would not encrypt it in parables or proverbs, related through 3rd and in some cases 5th and 6th hand accounts, in three languages that I knew would be dead before they were old enough to learn them

which may have been true for Ridley, Cranmer and Lattimer, but not today - there's a great emphasis on translating the bible into many different languages. Even Islam, which says only the original language is strictly valid, will happily let you read a translation to work out what is going on.

DDL on 10/8/2010 at 13:18

The koran and the the bible aren't strictly comparable, though: a central tenet of islam is you do not fuck with the koran: it remains in its original written language, unchanged (but hell, even then you have arguments over interpretation). You can translate it, but you're always translating from the original text.

The bible is more of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a..well, you get the idea.

In a way, it seems remarkable that the bible is STILL so obfuscatory, given that it has clearly had far more opportunity to adapt to the times.

Brian The Dog on 10/8/2010 at 13:31

Again, that may have been true with the Vulgate and KJV, but modern translations are a whole lot better than that, they use the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Old Testament, and try to use as early as possible ones for the New.

Part of the problem with stuff being translated is that idioms were used in the Greek, and since informal Greek wasn't written down much (at least, that's survived to today) we're not too sure what they actually meant by bits of it. Also, some words don't have exact translations, as I'm sure you non-English-speaking members of TTLG know all too well.

Another part of the problem is that it hasn't moved with the times - civilisation has moved, and so some of the parables etc which would have made sense to the people make very little sense to us or have lost their impact (Prodigal Son being the obvious one).