Page 1 of 8

Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:56 am
by shran
Captain Seafort wrote:
Nickswitz wrote:That would be completely contradictory of 90% of the bible... if it did, I would stop reading it and move on to something else that isn't contradictory.
:lol: :lol: :lol: Christ said "I bring not peace but a sword". His old man killed a good chunk of the Egyptian population and ordered the annihilation of the population of Jericho.
- Bringing a sword doesn't neccesarily mean he's going to kill anyone.
- His old man killed said chunk pof the population before the ten commandments were issued and thus cannot apply yet.

Split from the Medical Beliefs Vs Religious Beliefs thread. [SG]

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:24 am
by Captain Seafort
shran wrote:- Bringing a sword doesn't necessarily mean he's going to kill anyone.
When said sword bringing is stated specifically to refute the notion of bringing peace to the world, and is expanded on by declaring an intention to turn family members against each other, I would like to hear another explanation
- His old man killed said chunk of the population before the ten commandments were issued and thus cannot apply yet.
So, because there wasn't a law against it, the mass murder of every firstborn child in Egypt is OK is it? :roll: What about Jericho? What about the instruction to wipe out the native population of Cannan?

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:56 pm
by Tsukiyumi
Don't forget the Great Flood. :wink:

Personally, I like the angry Old Testament God. Much more style.

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 12:59 pm
by Tyyr
shran wrote:- His old man killed said chunk pof the population before the ten commandments were issued and thus cannot apply yet.
That's an incredibly weak rationalization especially given that God is supposed to be eternal and unchanging so if that's the only reason it's kosher then it would also imply that he changed his mind on something.

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:13 pm
by Captain Seafort
Tsukiyumi wrote:Don't forget the Great Flood. :wink:
The Great Flood, Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, and probably a bunch of others I've never heard of. I was leaving them out to drive home the point that Sinai didn't represent either repentance or a mending of his ways on God's part.

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 1:47 pm
by Mikey
I agree that saying the rules for G-d are different before and after Sinai is ridiculous; the Ten Commandments are meant for man, not G-d. However, it just can't be reasoned that G-d shouldn't be able to change His mind due to His eternal nature. That describes His existence rather than His mindset, and we can't ascribe human qualities to His thought process in any event. Getting back to Seafort's criterion of proof being needed for non-traditional medicine being an OK treatment option; remember that vaccines with thimerasol were "proven" to have a positive correlation with autism... until the research was found to be fraudulent and the Lancet had to print a retraction and big sloppy apology. Well, the proof was there; should I have stopped getting immunizations for my kids?

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:54 am
by stitch626
Captain Seafort wrote:
shran wrote:- Bringing a sword doesn't necessarily mean he's going to kill anyone.
When said sword bringing is stated specifically to refute the notion of bringing peace to the world, and is expanded on by declaring an intention to turn family members against each other, I would like to hear another explanation
- His old man killed said chunk of the population before the ten commandments were issued and thus cannot apply yet.
So, because there wasn't a law against it, the mass murder of every firstborn child in Egypt is OK is it? :roll: What about Jericho? What about the instruction to wipe out the native population of Cannan?
1) You can't bring peace without removing the non-peaceable. Thats like trying to get rid of an infection without removing the bacteria.

2) If you have gangrene, do you let it sit, or do you remove the problem? In the process of removing the gangrene, do you remove every spec of bacteria in your body?

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 7:32 am
by Reliant121
So your equating an entire populace as a disease? :shock:

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 1:15 pm
by Aaron
No matter which way you cut it, murdering every first born child in Eygpt is a heinous act. Theres no way to justify that, even in our most destructive wars we never purposely targeted an entire nations kids.

Re: Medical Help Vs. Religious Beliefs

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 1:33 pm
by Sionnach Glic
Indeed. Were any human to do that he'd be swinging from the nearest suitably high object the instant someone with a big enough stick came along to make him account for his actions. People have been charged with war crimes for far less. What possible rationalisation can be made for it?

"It's all the Pharoah's fault?" No it isn't. If you want to smite someone - smite his army. At least that's a valid target since they're the ones enforcing his orders. The children of Egypt have no say in whether or not to let the Jews go.

"There were religious laws against it back then?" There were no laws against war crimes back in the early 1940's. The Nazi leadership still swung for their actions, though.

Really, there's only one possible way to "justify" such an act: He's God, therefore he can do whatever the hell he likes. The mass-murder of kids is perfectly fine, as long as the Big Guy gives you the thumbs up before you do it.

And this is all getting a bit off-track. Time for a thread split.

Re: Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:24 pm
by Mikey
Sionnach Glic wrote:He's G-d, therefore he can do whatever the hell he likes.
As difficult as this sounds to an atheist, that's about how I see it. For a believer, G-d is the ethical authority, the paragon and template of a moral compass. Trying to ascribe morality to His actions is like trying to delineate the wetness of water.

Re: Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 4:40 pm
by Sionnach Glic
So God can do nothing immoral?

Re: Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:06 pm
by Sonic Glitch
Sionnach Glic wrote:So God can do nothing immoral?
Or: Whatever God does is moral?

Re: Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:09 pm
by Mikey
Sionnach Glic wrote:So God can do nothing immoral?
Sort of what I was getting at. It's difficult for me to describe, because we're talking about things that are, according to my belief system, beyond the ken of the human brain. Similar reason as to why Jews have no portrayals of the appearance of G-d. Sure, for the sake of discussion, we could say that things G-d has done are immoral by our own standards; but further than that, I believe that applying our own standards to G-d is an excercise in futility.

I know this is a slippery thing, and that for atheists the idea of accepting a tenet simply on faith goes against the grain. Let me put it in the reverse situation and see if it's clearer:

We in general would consider making love to someone, and then killing them and eating their body, to be immoral. However, we'd be considered lunatics if we proclaimed mantises and black widow spiders to be sinners for doing that very same thing. What those animals do isn't immoral, because they can't be judged by a human moral compass. Flip it and go higher up the chain rather than lower, and it's sort of what I'm saying about G-d.

As I said, if you want to say that for argument's sake, Old Testament G-d kicked ass six ways from Sunday, and did things that we would generally consider immoral, then fine. My point is that we can discuss this all you want; but for us to go from "G-d" did some bad things" to "G-d is an immoral being" doesn't fly.

IMHO as a believer, of course.

Re: Justification Of God's Dubiously Just Acts

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 5:11 pm
by Mikey
Sonic Glitch wrote:
Sionnach Glic wrote:So God can do nothing immoral?
Or: Whatever God does is moral?

Again, this is going around the perimeter of what I was trying to say. No, not really, because our morality and G-d's may be very different. Our concepts of ethos and morals are based in part o G-d's teachings - which were meant for us, not HIm - but in larger part (IMHO) on the idea of free will, and the fact that we can decide the poles of righteousness and evil for ourselves.