Common Sense Atheism - Latest Comments in God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

MountainKing — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:00:39 -0000

My previous reply seems to be lost, so again: I don´t see how what youre citing specifically concerns atheism. So what is your point exactly? I guess you mean something like what you posted in another thread:

"Materialistic, scientific criteria are by definition limited; however, science cannot prove that this is, in fact, proper. When it's all boiled down, science relies on faith in materialistic presuppositions. You have no basis, therefore, to question Christianity at all, except by experience and choice."

The main argument for naturalistic science is: it works. You have to claim there are different ways of gaining knowledge in a non-naturalistic way. You believe in a god who interfered with our naturalistic world and you wouldn´t have any knowledge about him if he didn´t. Every miracle, vision, prophesy, the creation, the resurrection and whatever your faith relies on: it all showed "naturalistic" results. People (supposedly) SAW jesus after he died, they SAW him walking on water and so on, they used their naturals senses. Theres no reason why you couldn´t test naturalistic events with the mnethods of natural sciences even if they had non-natural causes. You could still verify that they exist, just maybe not where they came from.

But according to what we know at the moment and how tests of similar claims worked out it seems highly unlikely that they did really happen. We will never be able to prove they didn´t , thats true but it is NOT true that they are beyond science.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

marcion — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:10:38 -0000

Or actually, that one was Elisha, because it was after Elijah had been taken up by a whirlwind into heaven. That's why the kids were saying "Go up thou bald head!" In other words, "Why don't you ascend to heaven too, and get out of here?!!"

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

marcion — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:09:13 -0000

Actually I think Elijah came up with that one and God supposedly said "Ah! Good idea Elijah!"

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Scott Breitbach — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:13:25 -0000

Regarding the Dawkins quote:

“the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”

Have you seen the post about it over at Dwindling in Unbelief?:
http://dwindlinginunbelief....
They go through each claim and justify it with verses from the bible.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

anselm — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:58:04 -0000

Cool! The Tetragrammaton! Socrates (as portrayed by Peter Kreeft) would be impressed! see http://tinyurl.com/ca2eqe

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

MountainKing — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:38:35 -0000

I don´t see how that effects atheism specifically or in any way more than faith-based systems, if its based on critical rationalism and the use of temporarily axioms/"dogmas" and if we are aware that our knowledge is always imcomplete. Scepticism is great but if you attack atheism with that concept it falls right back to you because you gain your supposed knowledge of god just the same way, thinking in causalities for instance. Sure, you just invent a supernatural being that fills out the area where we can´t have knowledge about but then the question is, how did YOU get the knowledge about him/her then?

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

lukeprog — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:36:49 -0000

Check it out. I was looking at my reply to you, where I wrote "Dang, I was hoping how you would explain..."

On the page, the word "AM" appeared right on top of the "was", so that it looked like those famous words of Yahweh "I AM." I was like "Woah, God is talking to me on my own atheist blog!"

And then I realized it was really just that when a threaded conversation gets so squished over to one edge like this, the date gets pushed onto a second line, as in:

Yesterday 11:06
AM

instead of

Yesterday 11:06 AM

Here's a screenshot.

Funny!

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

FrodoSaves — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:27:22 -0000

You've got to hand it to him at least. He was certainly imaginative. Sending bears to dismember children? That's the kind of thing only an omniscient mind could come up with. Or maybe nature.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Kevin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:18:24 -0000

The red herring in your original reply consisted of changing the subject to the "claims and presuppositions" of atheism, instead of dealing with the issue of God violating his own rules. I'm accusing God of not being consistent with his own moral rules, not with being inconsistent with secular morality.

As for Romans 9, I don't see any logic here, just assertions and appeals to power and fear. This passage is useful for deflecting uncomfortable questions, but it does nothing to adequately address why we either can't ask such questions or why we can't expect an answer. Other than the fact that God doesn't want to be bothered by the inquisitiveness he supposedly gave me, why can't I ask questions of him? Because He said so, I guess.

This line of defense--that we cannot question the ways of God--has other problems too. If we humans are not in a position to judge God, then not only can we not condemn his actions, we can't praise them either. If we cannot judge God, then we cannot judge that he is good and holy. We just have to take God's word for it that he is, in spite of his actions, or decide to believe that whatever God does is good because, and only because, it is God doing it.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Alden — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:27:14 -0000

What red herring?

In answer to your questions, which I no doubt you'll find completely inadequate, here's Paul's rhetorical argument from Romans 9:

"But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?"

You may not like it, but the logic is irrefutable. That's not to say that God is arbitrary as most man-made gods; but the fact remains that if He is God, our opinion isn't worth a whole heck of a lot.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Alden — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:19:33 -0000

You can start with Godel's Theorem, or the history of epistemology. You can start with Hume's attack on causality, which no one to date has been able to refute. The only way most atheistic arguments can stand is to ignore these issues.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Alden — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:55:47 -0000

Tele, to start with the basics, all Christians adhere to the Apostle's Creed. Most, if not all, adhere to the Nicene Creed (with some disagreement between east and west on a fairly insignificant phrase that was added by the West). There are disagreements on many things, but not the essential elements of Christianity.

These creeds were established early on in the Church; there may be some who call themselves "Christian", but if they deny the core elements of the faith, they define themselves as outside of orthodoxy (small "o" - distinguishes it from Eastern Orthodox), or in other words, heretics. Ignore the heretics, focus on the orthodox.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Alden — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:45:53 -0000

Not at all. Judaism and Christianity, for example, only claim to have partial revelations of who God is. It's actually written in both Testaments. It is illogical to try to show that God doesn't exist because our understanding of him is incorrect. It's like saying Lincoln didn't exist because the various biographies of him are inconsistent and perhaps incorrect.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

lukeprog — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:06:29 -0000

Dang, I was hoping how you would explain that something like "A special realm outside of spacetime where good people go exists" could logically follow from "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead." I'm still dumfounded by that.

Perhaps we'll have to come back to this after I've read your perspective.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

anselm — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:26:36 -0000

I think we have hit a wall because we are almost speaking different languages, particularly regarding the concept of "historical context." It is probably because we have read different material in our intellectual development. It is lengthy, but I would recommend you read N.T. Wright's trilogy on "Christian Origins and the Question of God" (see http://tinyurl.com/dmcppl ). (Of course, I would be glad to read a selection of your choice, too). This common reading would more likely give us more common intellectual ground.

You reaction to these works would make an interesting series of blog posts, as well :)

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Codswallop — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:32:23 -0000

"No standing?" So the notion that atheists can't comment on violence and oppression stems from the idea that they're just as bad as believers? By your own standard, you have no standing either.

Your real issue seems to be not with atheism, but with maniacal power, totalitarian control and cults of personality, examples of which litter the Bible and subsequent history like used Dixie cups at a Protestant Eucharist. Stalin, Mao et al certainly qualify, but so do the god of Israel and his proxies, including Moses, Joshua and the many warlike kings of the Bible. The despotisms that characterized Christian Europe from the time of Constantine until very recently do not speak well for believers over non-believers. Do the perpetrators of Christian atrocities have "standing?"

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

MountainKing — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:26:15 -0000

"Most atheistic arguments depend on claims and presumptions which have not been proven in themselves"

Could you specify that?

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

marcion — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:10:25 -0000

One of the ingredients in the anointing oil or incense used by the Hebrews is "sweet Cinnamon" (otherwise translated as sweet calamus) according to most translations. The Hebrew phrase, however, is something to the effect of kana bineh, and some people have conjectured that it actually means Cannabis. Isn't it at least possible that the glory of the Lord really did fill the Tabernacle way back in Moses day in the form of smoke from incense and that Jehovah really did appear and talk to them....howbeit in a narcotically induced hallucination? or that the anointing oil poured on the heads of the priests really did set them apart from the regular people by enabling them to have visions that the unanointed could never have since they were not high?

see here for some sources
http://www.equalrights4all....
http://www.jesus-is-savior....

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

lukeprog — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:11:38 -0000

Good points. I am now persuaded. :)

Wait, you're not serious, right?

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

marcion — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:58:13 -0000

"Third, why couldn’t God just have these other people groups move, for Christ’s sake? There was plenty of empty land available! Heck, even shoving them off to Siberia is better than cutting to pieces all the men, women, children, animals, and fetuses of neighboring tribes. What a maniacal twat!"

Because a god who only appears to you in incense or anointing oil (i.e. canabis) induced religious visions (i.e. hallucinations) can only speak to the people who are using. Plus, a tribal god never talks to the other tribe, so how could he tell them to move?

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

lukeprog — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:35:14 -0000

I'm dumfounded. Sorry, I just don't get it. Can you try once more to explain to me how the truth of the Bible follows from "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead"? To me, this is like saying that the truth of "War and Peace" follows from the fact that the War of 1812 happened.

No, the resurrection, if it happened, would not have occurred in a vacuum. It happened in a religious context, a social context, a political context, a philosophical context, a geographical context, and much more - just like everything else that has ever happened. How does this support the notion that the truth of the Bible follows from the proposition "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead"?

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

anselm — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:49:12 -0000

Given the religio-historical context in which Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead, I'm afraid it DOES follow that the bible which preserves the evidence of that resurrection is vindicated; the resurrection did not occur in a vacuum, as Pannenburg (and all mainstream scholarship) points out. However, we obviously will have to agree to disagree on that issue :)

However, any individual who accepted the proposition "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead" yet simultaneously believed that the truth of that proposition had no implications for the veracity of the bible or the Christian faith would have a very, very strange mental process.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

lukeprog — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:36:31 -0000

No, (3) does not follow from "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead.

Obviously, I do not concede the proposition "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead." In fact, I find it absurd. But that is another debate, one that I shall happily have as I write for this blog. :)

All I'm saying is that the hundreds of propositions that make up Christianity do NOT follow from "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead." This would certainly defeat naturalism and atheism, but it would not demonstrate Christianity in all its bizarre codes and creeds.

It does not even follow that Yahweh is all-powerful, or all-good, or reveals himself to humanity truthfully. It does not follow that Yahweh revealed himself in Genesis, or in The Wisdom of Solmon, or in Gnostic texts. It does not follow that heaven or hell exist. It does not follow that "failed apocalyptic prophet" is the correct historical view of Jesus, nor that "Jesus the revolutionary" is correct, nor that "Jesus the wisdom sage" is correct, nor that "Jesus the cosmic atoning Savior" is correct. It does not follow that our surviving accounts of his claims to divinity are reliable. None of these follow from "Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead."

This is, however widely accepted, a Christian conceit - an attempt to smuggle in even more un-evidenced "truth". Christians hate to provide proper justification for the propositions they so confidently assert - probably because they don't have proper justification for such ideas as heaven, hell, cosmic atonement, souls, Jesus' magical powers, God's loving nature, or even the existence of God.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Kevin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:02:16 -0000

Nice red herring. Care to address the issue at hand? Even on the Christian view of things, is it not internally inconsistent to claim that action X is immoral, but then say it is acceptable for God to do action X? If you have a defense of this notion that God can do whatever he likes with us, I'd like to hear it. I don't see how any defense of this can end without either denying that God is morally good or denying that such atrocities as genocide, the murder of innocents, and so on are morally good.

Re: God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament

Geoffrey of Ballard — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:18:31 -0000

One can see why Marcion had such a strong following for hundreds of years. He dropped the Hebrew Bible altogether.

Even now, it's hard to find Christians who fully embrace the Old Testament as a timeless source of morality.