A covenant is only a relationship in the loosest sense of the word.
(Bible) an agreement between God and his people in which God makes certain promises and requires certain behavior from them in return
That might be a relationship, but it is devoid of all meaning except doing what God says in order to get something. It is no different from a dog that obeys it's master in order to get food.
I truly feel sorry for you titmouse, because you do not understand this basic Christian principle at all.
This principle teaches us not to obey God because it is in the rules (legalism), not because you are in fear of what God may to do you (Death, Disease, or Hell), not because you will rewarded with some earthly treasure (new car, new job), but you obey God because he loves you and wants a relationship with you.
In fact as a Christian I believe that God loved all of us so much that God became a man named Jesus. Christians believe Jesus died (earthly body died) on the cross in order to remove the barrier of legalism (no one could perfectly keep the old law) that stood between us and God.
Titmouse, Christians obey God not because they forced to obey his rules. They obey God because they want to obey God's rules. All the other stuff about avoiding punishment or expecting a reward is not the primary motivation. Titmouse when you suggest that it is the primary motivation it makes me because I have found peace through Jesus Christ. I can not completely explain this peace in my life, and it frustrates me that you do to even understand the basic premise which I have built my life around.
The whole bible, old and New Testament can be seen as God searching for us. I believe I have found "him" and that brings me peace. I also believe that everyone in this thread could find him and also experience that same peace.
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
In fact, in both of your quotes slavery is being used to illustrate willing obedience, not immoral or exploitative dominance.
I think Christopher Hitchens has used the term "Celestial North Korea". I'm not certain about the nature of the North Korean's devotion, but it may be more apt an analogy than slavery if the Juche ideology/religion is as dominating as it appears.
In fact, in both of your quotes slavery is being used to illustrate willing obedience, not immoral or exploitative dominance.
I think Christopher Hitchens has used the term "Celestial North Korea". I'm not certain about the nature of the North Korean's devotion, but it may be more apt an analogy than slavery if the Juche ideology/religion is as dominating as it appears.
Yeah, if Kim was omniscient and benevolent and the people inside it were happy. But he's not and they aren't.
Which kind of makes me wonder why call it like North Korea at all - oh yeah Chris Hitchens hates religion. Also, did you even understand my objection to the slave metaphor.
In fact, in both of your quotes slavery is being used to illustrate willing obedience, not immoral or exploitative dominance.
I think Christopher Hitchens has used the term "Celestial North Korea". I'm not certain about the nature of the North Korean's devotion, but it may be more apt an analogy than slavery if the Juche ideology/religion is as dominating as it appears.
Yeah, if Kim was omniscient and benevolent and the people inside it were happy. But he's not and they aren't.
Ah, here it is:
It would be horrible if it were true that we were designed and then created and then continuously supervised throughout all our lives waking and sleeping and then continue to be supervised after our deaths - if that were true, it would be horrible. I'm very glad there's absolutely no evidence for it at all. It would be like living in a celestial North Korea. You can't defect from North Korea but at least you can die. With monotheism they won't let you die and get away from them. It's the wish to be a slave. Who wants that to be true? It's demanding the servile condition.
It wasn't really related now that I read it, actually. Were he talking about Juche, I think the analogy would be more apt. Juche is the quasi-religion of North Korea, and it is sold in a similar sense as "God wants us to be obedient as slaves are obedient".
Regardless, the whole "willing obedience" thing that you were talking about earlier is shit. It's a coerced willing obedience, as if you don't do it, you get sent to hell. Coercion doesn't jive with "willingness" so much, at least, no as far as I can understand the words.
Manning'sEquation, sorry for not being forthcoming about my exact position earlier. I just read two pages into your link, and I don't particularly disagree with it- but I don't feel that there is a truly proper way to read scripture. There are a myriad of theological traditions with regards to approaching the bible and I don't see any means to establish one as "more correct" in any objective sense, as long as you aren't talking about examining the bible as one would any ancient document or collection of documents as a historian would.
The whole bible, old and New Testament can be seen as God searching for us. I believe I have found "him" and that brings me peace. I also believe that everyone in this thread could find him and also experience that same peace.
How comforting a belief is does not make it correct.
In fact as a Christian I believe that God loved all of us so much that God became a man named Jesus. Christians believe Jesus died (earthly body died) on the cross in order to remove the barrier of legalism (no one could perfectly keep the old law) that stood between us and God.
That leads to the question of why God created the laws in the first place if he intended to undo them later on. There is no good reason why he couldn't have done it before he killed nearly every creature on Earth by flooding the world.
This principle teaches us not to obey God because it is in the rules (legalism), not because you are in fear of what God may to do you (Death, Disease, or Hell), not because you will rewarded with some earthly treasure (new car, new job), but you obey God because he loves you and wants a relationship with you.
Then why does God send anybody who doesn't believe in him to hell? A loving father doesn't send a person to eternal torment. He realizes everybody makes mistakes and would never give up trying to fix that mistake. The popularity of the various sects that put an emphasis on healing and other miracles suggests that at least a great many people are Christians because of fear of damnation or hope of a reward in the afterlife. A perfect example of preaching aimed at creating a fear of damnation is the sinners in the hands of an angry god sermon.
You are of course welcome to your own interpretation of the Bible, Shinto, but I certainly didn't see you quoting any chapters or verses in support of your argument.
Sigh.
I have a feeling you are one of the thick people who are just not going to get it, but I'll give this a shot anyway.
I have a feeling that there's absolutely no call for you to be so condescending.
Slavery in the negative sense of the word conotes the abusive dominance of one person by another. When you use the word in this negative sense it is not logically consistent with the Christian God. There is a difference between saying "God wants us to be fucking slaves!" and "God wants us to be obedient as slaves are obedient". In fact, in both of your quotes slavery is being used to illustrate willing obedience, not immoral or exploitative dominance.
I made no value judgment of "immorality."
However, God does not merely want us to be obedient. God threatens us if we are disobedient. In the Old Testament, he threatens us with a litany of earthly tortures, including boils, slavery, and eating our children (Deuteronomy 28). In the New Testament, he threatens us with hellfire, and all the tortures of Revelation.
That is the penalty for us, as slaves, if we are disobedient towards our master's will. Whether or not this is "abusive" or "fucking slaves!" or whatever is a personal judgment.
Moreover, at no point did I intend to convey that the Christian God was distant. You've entirely misread me.
My point was that human relationships cannot serve as accurate metaphors for relationships with God. The negative aspect of the slavery relationship especially is invalid. Not that there are no relationships with God.
But Jesus repeatedly compares our relationship to God as slave and slavemaster. Paul explicitly says we are slaves of God/Christ.
God threatens us with torture if we are disobedient.
I don't really understand what you're arguing here. You're agreeing we're slaves—but not the "bad kind" of slaves?
This principle teaches us not to obey God because it is in the rules (legalism), not because you are in fear of what God may to do you (Death, Disease, or Hell), not because you will rewarded with some earthly treasure (new car, new job), but you obey God because he loves you and wants a relationship with you.
You sound like a battered wife.
"My husband makes me follow all these rules and if I disobey he beats me, and sometimes he threatens to torture and kill me if I don't listen to him ... but he says he loves me so I listen to him."
In fact as a Christian I believe that God loved all of us so much that God became a man named Jesus. Christians believe Jesus died (earthly body died) on the cross in order to remove the barrier of legalism (no one could perfectly keep the old law) that stood between us and God.
God is the one made the rules in the first place. If God loved us he wouldn't be so disgusted with our physical presence and the state of nature which he created us. He wouldn't require us to sacrifice animals to become ritually pure, or to have blind faith in an obscure mystery cult.
If any other deity behaved this way towards humans would you think twice about calling him a sadistic monster? Would you ever even consider calling him loving?
Ea Enki or Prometheus, there are some gods who seem to actually give a shit about me.
The whole bible, old and New Testament can be seen as God searching for us. I believe I have found "him" and that brings me peace. I also believe that everyone in this thread could find him and also experience that same peace.
I had an ex girlfriend who made the same argument. She was fairly messed up and Christianity seemed to help her control herself, because she needed some system to unquestionably obey.
But I really don't know. If your peace is based on lies—and I think at the bottom of it, most intelligent Christians know what their religion is—how fragile is that peace? Muslims brainwash their women into unquestioning obedience and I've heard Muslim woman's extoll the virtues of the hijab and in blindly trusting their husband's will—a more peaceful and harmonious existence, they say. Part of me wants to let such people lead their own lives and part of me wants to save them.
I guess when it comes down to it, I've had a pretty lucky life so I don't know what kind of crap you've been through. Maybe Christianity does make your life better or easier to live. But that doesn't mean Christianity is true and it certainly doesn't mean it's worth believing in.
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
Thanks for the respect and props back to you. I can't read the article though. What does it say?
I can screen capture it for you save it as a jpeg and email it to you if you send me your email in a PM. The theory discussed in the article is one of the predominate schools of thought that Christians use to link the Old Testament to the New Testament. It does not fully explain the theory in every detail, but you should be able to get the basic structure of the agruement.
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
Thanks for the respect and props back to you. I can't read the article though. What does it say?
I can screen capture it for you save it as a jpeg and email it to you if you send me your email in a PM. The theory discussed in the article is one of the predominate schools of thought that Christians use to link the Old Testament to the New Testament. It does not fully explain the theory in every detail, but you should be able to get the basic structure of the agruement.
Not to sound pretentious but I might have heard of it before (I've been hanging out at a Christian message board for about 4 years now). Can you summarize?
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
Thanks for the respect and props back to you. I can't read the article though. What does it say?
I can screen capture it for you save it as a jpeg and email it to you if you send me your email in a PM. The theory discussed in the article is one of the predominate schools of thought that Christians use to link the Old Testament to the New Testament. It does not fully explain the theory in every detail, but you should be able to get the basic structure of the agruement.
Not to sound pretentious but I might have heard of it before (I've been hanging out at a Christian message board for about 4 years now). Can you summarize?
I do not have the time right now to explain it as full as this man has. I am so busy with school, you feel me Loren?
Eight Pages Linked: They are in the right order even though the numbers are in a wierd order.
"Whatever one's opinion is on the arrangement ... one thing is certain: God does come to man."
Well, I deny that premise outright.
I'm sorry—I don't mean to be glib when you've gone through so much work to put this up. But theological treatises like this have always reminded me of, well, Star Wars apologists. You know the kids who spend hours agonizing over ways to reconcile the plot holes in the Star Wars movies? I'm sure some of them make convincing arguments that the movies seamlessly flow together in a flawless narrative structure, if they try hard enough and are selective enough in their rationalizations. But as we all know, in reality George Lucas, a human, wrote Star Wars and there's no reason to assume he had perfectly thought out the movies in advance, or even to believe him when he claims to have done so. There's also no reason why we shouldn't judge Star Wars by the same criteria we judge any other work of film.
The problem with this essay is that it assumes from the outset that not only does God exist but a specific God exists—Yahweh—and this God has revealed himself through the Bible. If you read the Bible with this assumption then it's a bit like watching Star Wars with the assumption that they're flawless god-inspired movies and any problem you have reconciling aspects of them is your fault, not the moviemaker's.
It also carries with it the implicit assumption that the Yahweh of Genesis is the same Yahweh as the Yahweh of the Prophets, or indeed the Yahweh of the New Testament—or, for that matter, that the Yahweh of Genesis 1 is the same as the Yahweh of Genesis 2-3. (The documentary hypothesis disagrees)
One example of how the author's assumptions contradict my personal reading: on page four he discusses the interesting topic of "divine kings," and how the Israelites, like all cultures at the time, believed their king was a divine conduit to God. I had never really thought of this and it makes a lot of sense. However, where I part ways with the author is the following:
"When we discuss the divine nature of Israelite kings there immediately comes to mind the question of the divinity of Jesus."
No, this does not immediately come to mind because I see absolutely no reason to believe the authors of the Old Testament had Jesus in mind at all. This isn't simply an atheist nitpick: no Jew would have this interpretation either. It is a Christian interpretation that comes not from an honest and objective reading of the Bible but rather by superimposing what you've assumed to be true (that the Bible is a coherent and god-inspired text) onto the text.
Something else I found offensive: the author agrees with my "God is a fucking dick" interpretation of Job—that is to say, he agrees that the moral message of Job, the answer to the questions "why do good people suffer" and "does God care" is essentially "shut the fuck up." He admits my interpretation (though probably not my word choice) "has some truth to it."
But then what does he do? He sycophantically attempts to mitigate Yahweh's assholery by claiming that God was actually being nice because an ANE king would be showing favor to grant an audience to a subject! Who fucking cares? So you're admitting that your God is essentially as moral as a despotic, capricious ANE king? Only someone who assumes that their God was the font of morality would even attempt to make such a pathetic excuse for his behavior. Pardon me for not feeling "honored" on Job's part that Yahweh grants audience to the man he is torturing to win a bet with Satan.
As for his overall point, that God is really looking for man as much as we're looking for him: I just don't see this anywhere in the Bible. He skips over, for example, the ritual purity laws—God is so disgusted with our presence that we have to basically bathe in sacrificial blood before we can even be in the presence of his tabernacle. He skips over Dt. 28, which says that if we break any of the laws then God will "take pleasure in our destruction." Of course such interpretations are not amenable to someone who has assumed that God is moral and loves us—hence an overarching assumption that he's "looking out for us." The problem is that much of the OT explicitly contradicts this idea.
In conclusion, the article brought up a few interesting things I hadn't thought of (mostly about ANE views on kings). But I think his interpretation of the Bible is utter nonsense. The Bible is a mishmash of ancient texts written by a variety of people, in a variety of cultures, in a variety of circumstances. I believe a far more insightful way to read this book is by evaluating each story in terms of its own cultural mileu, comparing it to other contemporary sources (I notice that the author failed to compare Yahweh's "kingship" over his fellow gods and divine beings to that of other ANE mythological deities, such as Marduk). I can certainly understand why a Christian would not be amenable to such a reading—because it relegates the Bible to essentially one of many ANE and, later, Roman myths/mystery cults. But this is how scholars read any other ancient text and I don't see why the Bible should get the special "Star Wars apologist" treatment from its interpreters.
And I'm still not sure why you showed it to me. Are you trying to convince me that your God is actually not a giant asshole? Anyways, thanks for posting it.
Qingu: Just a quick thing: The accusing character in that story is basically an "accuser angel." It's not Lucifer. I don't think they even mention Lucifer much, or at all, in the OT, like with an afterlife, since they didn't have those notions then. In Job's time, when you died, you're just -dead-. Which is why the covenant was such a huge deal, and why YHWH's actions were so extra horrific.
Qingu: Just a quick thing: The accusing character in that story is basically an "accuser angel." It's not Lucifer. I don't think they even mention Lucifer much, or at all, in the OT, like with an afterlife, since they didn't have those notions then. In Job's time, when you died, you're just -dead-. Which is why the covenant was such a huge deal, and why YHWH's actions were so extra horrific.
"Satan" just means "He who opposes."
At the time Job was written, the character was probably nothing like the Satan familiar to most Christians. Reading Job, he almost seems like God's sidekick. I've heard suggestions that at first, the character of Satan was an addition to the OT influenced from the Zoroastrians' opposing deity. Not sure if I buy it, but elsewhere in the Bible Yahweh is depicted as ruling over a heavenly court, and in the Psalms he is pictured as defeating rival gods (Rahab, the sea) in combat. In the tradition of Marduk and other ANE deities, Yahweh can be seen as the supreme king of a conquered race of deities (like Zeus but with the other gods being much more subjugated)—and Satan in Job can be seen as one of these gods who Yahweh just sort of jives with every now and then.
Yahweh's "council of gods" later gets relegated to angels when Yahweh's monotheism because more explicit and philosophically-based, but I see no reason to interpret them as such from the original text.
It's a different entity with a different role. He's an "Accuser angel." He's basically a snitch.
He's not an "Adversary" any more than the Serpent was.
The serpent was just a serpent.
And I wouldn't say Satan in Job is a worthy adversary. "He who opposes" doesn't necessarily imply that. I wouldn't call him a snitch either. More like a nitpicker. I think it makes sense to see him (in Job) as a defeated god in Yahweh's pantheon who's just hanging out on earth and likes to criticize.
I'm not taking issue with your general point Evander, but you might want to avoid expressing it by comparing cheeseburgers with gay marriage if you are in an argument with an actual fundamentalist Christian.
Jesus specifically nullified the old dietary restrictions (Matthew 15:11), but never specifically nullified the previous teachings about homosexuality.
then substitute cheeseburgers for something else that was only nullified implicitly.
In Judaism heaven exists, but it is not a place that people go when they die, it is basically just God's office. Jewish God doesn't want you to believe in him blindly, he wants you to study his laws, and question them, before eventually finding a way to be a good person through them.
I agree with you about heaven but I call bullshit on the rest.
God commands Abraham to kill his beloved son in a sacrifice. Does Abraham question? Does Abraham study laws? No, he gets a knife and he gets to work. For such unswerving loyalty God rewards Abraham.
Look at Job, God's most faithful servant. He inflicts Job with boils and disease and kills his whole family. Job doesn't lose faith but at a certain point he has the gall to question "why is this happening to me." What is God's response? "SHUT THE FUCK UP, JOB, I CREATED THE WORLD, I AM AWESOME, OBEY."
How did God reward Adam and Eve for questioning his command? He tortured them and kicked them out of his garden.
In Judaism, we are God's slaves. He created us as his worker slaves to till his garden. When we disobeyed, we were tortured and kicked out to the fields. God does not want us to learn and question. He didn't want us to eat the fruit of knowledge. He wants us to be obedient slaves. Deuteronomy 28 is a compelling example of what God expects from us—and what we have coming if we even disobey him a little.
The Talmud might have a different interpretation but the Talmud is full of shit.
You don't get to reinterpret the Jewish bible, and then condemn it based on your interpretations (which are NOT shared by the Jewish people. You decried the Talmud, which IS the Jewish interpretations.)
Abraham is punished for trying to kill Isaac, I went over that. God never speaks to him again.
Adam and Eve didn't question God, they flat out disobeyed him. The idea that God kicked them out of the garden simply to punish them is a christian one (of original sin, and all that.) Judaism looks on it not as a tragedy, but more as a thing that happened. It could be easy to look at it and say that, once Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge, they were unable to leave in Eden anymore, so God HAD to move them out of it. Adam and Eve made the choice to take the blue pill. Or was it the red pill? That part of the movie always confused me.
And as for Job, I've always seen i as a reminder that God is not some purely benevolent force. Remember that Judaism has no devil, so the character arguing with God is actually often interpreted to be God's own evil inclination (Judaism considers all people to have within them both the inclination for good and the inclination for evil). It's also an allegory to show that even when things are at their worst, they can work out fine in the end.
If you were to interpret ANYONE as being God's slaves, acording to Judaism, then it would ONLY be the Jews. If Jews want to believe that they are slaves to God, and everyone else is free, then why would you even care?
I think the interpretation of "God wants us to be slaves" with the accompanying resentful baggage isn't intellectually sound.
God is not a person. Describing the relationship of an individual to God by using the metaphor of a relationship that two individuals have - like slavery - doesn't work.
To be perfectly fair, Judaism VERY often uses either a father/child or husband/wife metephor for the relationship between God and humanity or God and the Jewish people (not at the same time, of course.)
The very concept of God as "good" is completely flawed anyway. He's the omnipotent creater with infinate power and yet allows bad shit to happen all the time. Sorry, the whole testing us/free will whatever debate does not preclude his responsibility in this matter.
I can break for animals and give to charity, but if it is within my power to stop a child killer with the snap of my fingers, not doing so makes me just as culpable.
The big picture as I understand it is either: There is no god, or god is a sociopath
Are you a sociopath when you don't stop your pet dog from eating grass, affectively killing a living thing for no real purpose?
The concept of God as good IS flawed, but that is not a strike against God, only against the idea of God being God or of God being an unequaled force in the universe.
According to Judaism, Abraham was a great man because he tried to talk God out of sdestroying towns filled with nothing but sinners; daring to question God's decisions.
I disagree with Judaism on this point. If Abraham had been a great man, he would have told God to change those sinners who so offended Him into good people, thus negating the need to smite them. Then he would have gone back to doing whatever he was doing before YHWH interupted him.
You are making assumptions about the nature of God and free will that Judaism does not make.
YHWH doesn't have free will, then?
God I hate that "YHWH' thing. I mean, if want to say "yood hay vav hay", go for it, but pretended you can say the same thing in English letters just feels patronizing towards the Hebrew language. That wasn't a personal attack, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that the Jewish God has always seemed to place a large importance on free will, rather than making people do what he wanted he would tell them what to do and punish them if they diobeyed, or reward them if they obeyed. In fact, other than changing Pharoeh's mind when he almost let the Jews go once or twice, I cannot think of a time in the bible when God affected the actions of a person directly.
Abraham wouldn't have wasted time telling God to make the people not be sinners if he knew that God would never do that, so instead he asked God to spare the sinners for the sake of innocent people who might be killed as well.
Qingu: Just a quick thing: The accusing character in that story is basically an "accuser angel." It's not Lucifer. I don't think they even mention Lucifer much, or at all, in the OT, like with an afterlife, since they didn't have those notions then. In Job's time, when you died, you're just -dead-. Which is why the covenant was such a huge deal, and why YHWH's actions were so extra horrific.
The Hebrew word used in the book of Job is "HaSatan", which translates as "The Adversary".
There is NO notion of a devil in Judaism, meaning that this character was either a piece of God himself, or else an angel up in Heaven with God. If it was the former, that goes back to something I said in an earlier post, and if it was the latter, then it is all the more illustration of God's openness to being questioned.
Quingu, I appreciate that you have strong feelings, and have even put a bit of time into studying these things, but you can't pick and choose pieces of religious belief to represent out of context or reinterpret in order to present as false. When you start quoting Judaic scripture and interpreting it verbatim, but turn around and throw out the whole of the Talmud, you are not looking at all at what Judaism actually is; you are creating a "new" Judaism for the sole purpose of disproving it.
As a person who bases his beliefs in reason, I do not personally believe in God, nor do I believe in the nonexistance of God. I can, however, appreciate the ways in which various religions, and various atheistic groups, treat their various beliefs. Even when I find a particular belief to be "silly", the LAST thing I'd do is misinterpret it simply to disprove it. If there is not enough there to disprove it on it's own, then I am willing to, at the very least, accept it as an unlikely possibility.
The very concept of God as "good" is completely flawed anyway. He's the omnipotent creater with infinate power and yet allows bad shit to happen all the time. Sorry, the whole testing us/free will whatever debate does not preclude his responsibility in this matter.
I can break for animals and give to charity, but if it is within my power to stop a child killer with the snap of my fingers, not doing so makes me just as culpable.
The big picture as I understand it is either: There is no god, or god is a sociopath
Are you a sociopath when you don't stop your pet dog from eating grass, affectively killing a living thing for no real purpose?
If the grass was capable of feeling pain and could communicate and form agreements with you, then yes, you are a sociopath.
In Judaism heaven exists, but it is not a place that people go when they die, it is basically just God's office. Jewish God doesn't want you to believe in him blindly, he wants you to study his laws, and question them, before eventually finding a way to be a good person through them.
I agree with you about heaven but I call bullshit on the rest.
God commands Abraham to kill his beloved son in a sacrifice. Does Abraham question? Does Abraham study laws? No, he gets a knife and he gets to work. For such unswerving loyalty God rewards Abraham.
Look at Job, God's most faithful servant. He inflicts Job with boils and disease and kills his whole family. Job doesn't lose faith but at a certain point he has the gall to question "why is this happening to me." What is God's response? "SHUT THE FUCK UP, JOB, I CREATED THE WORLD, I AM AWESOME, OBEY."
How did God reward Adam and Eve for questioning his command? He tortured them and kicked them out of his garden.
In Judaism, we are God's slaves. He created us as his worker slaves to till his garden. When we disobeyed, we were tortured and kicked out to the fields. God does not want us to learn and question. He didn't want us to eat the fruit of knowledge. He wants us to be obedient slaves. Deuteronomy 28 is a compelling example of what God expects from us—and what we have coming if we even disobey him a little.
The Talmud might have a different interpretation but the Talmud is full of shit.
You don't get to reinterpret the Jewish bible, and then condemn it based on your interpretations (which are NOT shared by the Jewish people. You decried the Talmud, which IS the Jewish interpretations.)
Like hell I don't. It's a free country!
Abraham is punished for trying to kill Isaac, I went over that. God never speaks to him again.
Directly contradicted by scripture.
Gen 22:16
By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.
God specifically says he is rewarding Abraham because he was willing to kill his son. Where in the hell do you see Abraham being punished for wanting to kill his son, Evander? God was the one who told him to do it!
Adam and Eve didn't question God, they flat out disobeyed him. The idea that God kicked them out of the garden simply to punish them is a christian one (of original sin, and all that.)
Actually it's also a Babylonian one. The gods punish humans in Babylonian myths for annoying/disobeying them as well. I certainly grant that "original sin" is a Christian invention but did you see that term anywhere in my exegesis?
Judaism looks on it not as a tragedy, but more as a thing that happened. It could be easy to look at it and say that, once Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge, they were unable to leave in Eden anymore, so God HAD to move them out of it. Adam and Eve made the choice to take the blue pill. Or was it the red pill? That part of the movie always confused me.
I absolutely disagree.
God creates Adam as his worker-slave.
Gen 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Like good house slaves, he is treated nicely. Until he disobeys. Then he is tortured, and thrown out to work in the field. God also seems threatened by the idea of Adam eating his food.
And as for Job, I've always seen i as a reminder that God is not some purely benevolent force. Remember that Judaism has no devil, so the character arguing with God is actually often interpreted to be God's own evil inclination (Judaism considers all people to have within them both the inclination for good and the inclination for evil). It's also an allegory to show that even when things are at their worst, they can work out fine in the end.
Except for his dead family members.
If you were to interpret ANYONE as being God's slaves, acording to Judaism, then it would ONLY be the Jews.
That's because, according to the Hebrew Bible, anyone else isn't even worthy of slavery to God. They're just fodder for genocide.
Quingu, I appreciate that you have strong feelings, and have even put a bit of time into studying these things, but you can't pick and choose pieces of religious belief to represent out of context or reinterpret in order to present as false. When you start quoting Judaic scripture and interpreting it verbatim, but turn around and throw out the whole of the Talmud, you are not looking at all at what Judaism actually is; you are creating a "new" Judaism for the sole purpose of disproving it.
I throw out the Talmud because it is FULL OF SHIT. At least the parts that I've read. It is utter nonsense. The interpretations are, more often than not, absolutely contrary to the literal text of the Bible—when they aren't inventing new episodes of scripture outright.
As a tool for interpreting the Bible the Talmud is about as worthless as it gets.
That said—of course I recognize that the Talmud is even more important than the Bible in modern Jewish tradition. This explains why no Jews are actually willing to follow the literal Bible anymore. My entire family is Jewish (though most of them have recently deconverted to atheism ) and I'm not condemning Jews here—at least, I'm not condemning them beyond the fact that their religion is ultimately based on an immoral, disgusting book. I am first and foremost concerned with condeming the Bible, as it is written.
As a person who bases his beliefs in reason, I do not personally believe in God, nor do I believe in the nonexistance of God. I can, however, appreciate the ways in which various religions, and various atheistic groups, treat their various beliefs. Even when I find a particular belief to be "silly", the LAST thing I'd do is misinterpret it simply to disprove it. If there is not enough there to disprove it on it's own, then I am willing to, at the very least, accept it as an unlikely possibility.
Why on earth do you think I'm "misinterpreting" the Bible, Evander? I've supported everything I've said, both with scripture and with references to contemporary cultures at the time the Bible was written. Are you saying that any interpretation of the Bible that contradicts the Talmud is a "misinterpretation"?
However, God does not merely want us to be obedient. God threatens us if we are disobedient. In the Old Testament, he threatens us with a litany of earthly tortures, including boils, slavery, and eating our children (Deuteronomy 28). In the New Testament, he threatens us with hellfire, and all the tortures of Revelation.
I..what?! The hellfire thing is purely an invention of the puritan reformation, trying to put fear into people's faith. And Revelation isn't a threat. It's a "hey, this is gonna happen when the world ends and when Jesus comes back." It's also somewhat widely believed to actually be a reference to the Romans, and not a foretelling of the end of the world.
Also, Qingu. You seem to be calling God an asshole based on your own concept of morality. Keep in mind that with a deity of omniscient power and whatnot, he's sorta above your human definitions of morality. That you even exist is due to him. Your ability to act, think, and rebel against him was given to you, by him. It seems somewhat suspect then to try and base an arguement on "god's a dick!"
Also, Qingu. You seem to be calling God an asshole based on your own concept of morality. Keep in mind that with a deity of omniscient power and whatnot, he's sorta above your human definitions of morality. That you even exist is due to him. Your ability to act, think, and rebel against him was given to you, by him. It seems somewhat suspect then to try and base an arguement on "god's a dick!"
The natural response Qingu will mkae is that no sort of action is "above" moral judgment, no matter the actor. There are actions that are below moral judgment because the actor is not moral (like a rock hitting the moon), but that's not the view of God I think you want to embrace. I think the argument you want would be something like:
God necessarily has different values than us, but that doesn't mean He can't be good in our terms. For example, to us pleasure and and the avoidance of pain are ends in themselves. Maybe not the most important ends, but they count on their own, not just for what they cause. God, as creator of both pleasure and pain, seems not to see them as ends in themselves, but only instrumentally. In Christianity, at least, God's ultimate end is that his creations develop something like a peer relationship with Him (become the Sons and Daughters of God). This requires the possibility of suffering and the possibility of inflicting it.
This is a very sketchy form of the argument and there are many possible objections here, from "Then he's still a dick" to "the suffering in the world doesn't appear to serve this purpose," but I'm in too much of a hurry right now to take them up.
Also, Qingu. You seem to be calling God an asshole based on your own concept of morality. Keep in mind that with a deity of omniscient power and whatnot, he's sorta above your human definitions of morality.
Because you say so?
...right.
That you even exist is due to him. Your ability to act, think, and rebel against him was given to you, by him. It seems somewhat suspect then to try and base an argument on "god's a dick!"
By that logic, abusive parents can't possibly exist.
Loren Michael on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Also, Qingu. You seem to be calling God an asshole based on your own concept of morality. Keep in mind that with a deity of omniscient power and whatnot, he's sorta above your human definitions of morality. That you even exist is due to him. Your ability to act, think, and rebel against him was given to you, by him. It seems somewhat suspect then to try and base an arguement on "god's a dick!"
Put it this way. If we have an omnipotent and omniscient creator, then his plan is quite convoluted more than necessary, as not only is It responsible for all Evil (That woud be both evil we think of, and big E Evil.) But Evil is also doing exactly what It wants it to do. (which seems pretty dickish to me) and the whole conflict is pretty much arbitrary.
According to Judaism, Abraham was a great man because he tried to talk God out of sdestroying towns filled with nothing but sinners; daring to question God's decisions.
I disagree with Judaism on this point. If Abraham had been a great man, he would have told God to change those sinners who so offended Him into good people, thus negating the need to smite them. Then he would have gone back to doing whatever he was doing before YHWH interupted him.
You are making assumptions about the nature of God and free will that Judaism does not make.
YHWH doesn't have free will, then?
God I hate that "YHWH' thing. I mean, if want to say "yood hay vav hay", go for it, but pretended you can say the same thing in English letters just feels patronizing towards the Hebrew language. That wasn't a personal attack, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that the Jewish God has always seemed to place a large importance on free will, rather than making people do what he wanted he would tell them what to do and punish them if they diobeyed, or reward them if they obeyed. In fact, other than changing Pharoeh's mind when he almost let the Jews go once or twice, I cannot think of a time in the bible when God affected the actions of a person directly.
Then what is an acceptable English version of the Jewish God's name? I'd prefer not to call him 'God', as that is a class of beings, not a name.
As for free will, hardening Pharaoh's heart is a pretty big exception to the respecting free will element of His character.
-YHWH is used because, last I checked, the language it comes from has no written vowels (Seriously, fuck that language). It's that or I'm stuck with "The Abrahamic deity."
-If humanity's moral notion is different than the "true" moral notion that was created in the universe by the Abrahamic deity, then we're SUPPOSED to think with that moral notion. The entity is rather famous for making sure we consider it an abomination. It is described as wanting to be loved because of its POWER, not because of its BEHAVIOR or ETHICS. The conceptual entity has a bondage kink of epic proportions.
-Plants have demonstrated a "pain" response, complete with screaming and sweating in terror. I shit you not.
Incenjucar on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
-YHWH is used because, last I checked, the language it comes from has no written vowels (Seriously, fuck that language). It's that or I'm stuck with "The Abrahamic deity."
It's not a nature of the language, it's the fact that no one is actually supposed to say the real name of God. Hence Moses' "I am sent me" etc.
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I truly feel sorry for you titmouse
This principle teaches us not to obey God because it is in the rules (legalism), not because you are in fear of what God may to do you (Death, Disease, or Hell), not because you will rewarded with some earthly treasure (new car, new job), but you obey God because he loves you and wants a relationship with you.
In fact as a Christian I believe that God loved all of us so much that God became a man named Jesus. Christians believe Jesus died (earthly body died) on the cross in order to remove the barrier of legalism (no one could perfectly keep the old law) that stood between us and God.
Titmouse, Christians obey God not because they forced to obey his rules. They obey God because they want to obey God's rules. All the other stuff about avoiding punishment or expecting a reward is not the primary motivation. Titmouse when you suggest that it is the primary motivation it makes me
The whole bible, old and New Testament can be seen as God searching for us. I believe I have found "him" and that brings me peace. I also believe that everyone in this thread could find him and also experience that same peace.
Now enough with all the "I feel like this, or I feel like that stuff." For the people in this forum whom I highly respect like shinto, qingu, Irond Will, and Loren here is a better written article with references. Please take the time to read it so you will better understand my position.
Link: http://www.jstor.org/view/08852758/ap050072/05a00030/0
I think Christopher Hitchens has used the term "Celestial North Korea". I'm not certain about the nature of the North Korean's devotion, but it may be more apt an analogy than slavery if the Juche ideology/religion is as dominating as it appears.
Yeah, if Kim was omniscient and benevolent and the people inside it were happy. But he's not and they aren't.
Which kind of makes me wonder why call it like North Korea at all - oh yeah Chris Hitchens hates religion. Also, did you even understand my objection to the slave metaphor.
Ah, here it is:
Regardless, the whole "willing obedience" thing that you were talking about earlier is shit. It's a coerced willing obedience, as if you don't do it, you get sent to hell. Coercion doesn't jive with "willingness" so much, at least, no as far as I can understand the words.
That leads to the question of why God created the laws in the first place if he intended to undo them later on. There is no good reason why he couldn't have done it before he killed nearly every creature on Earth by flooding the world.
Then why does God send anybody who doesn't believe in him to hell? A loving father doesn't send a person to eternal torment. He realizes everybody makes mistakes and would never give up trying to fix that mistake. The popularity of the various sects that put an emphasis on healing and other miracles suggests that at least a great many people are Christians because of fear of damnation or hope of a reward in the afterlife. A perfect example of preaching aimed at creating a fear of damnation is the sinners in the hands of an angry god sermon.
I made no value judgment of "immorality."
However, God does not merely want us to be obedient. God threatens us if we are disobedient. In the Old Testament, he threatens us with a litany of earthly tortures, including boils, slavery, and eating our children (Deuteronomy 28). In the New Testament, he threatens us with hellfire, and all the tortures of Revelation.
That is the penalty for us, as slaves, if we are disobedient towards our master's will. Whether or not this is "abusive" or "fucking slaves!" or whatever is a personal judgment.
But Jesus repeatedly compares our relationship to God as slave and slavemaster. Paul explicitly says we are slaves of God/Christ.
God threatens us with torture if we are disobedient.
I don't really understand what you're arguing here. You're agreeing we're slaves—but not the "bad kind" of slaves?
"My husband makes me follow all these rules and if I disobey he beats me, and sometimes he threatens to torture and kill me if I don't listen to him ... but he says he loves me so I listen to him."
God is the one made the rules in the first place. If God loved us he wouldn't be so disgusted with our physical presence and the state of nature which he created us. He wouldn't require us to sacrifice animals to become ritually pure, or to have blind faith in an obscure mystery cult.
If any other deity behaved this way towards humans would you think twice about calling him a sadistic monster? Would you ever even consider calling him loving?
Ea Enki or Prometheus, there are some gods who seem to actually give a shit about me.
I had an ex girlfriend who made the same argument. She was fairly messed up and Christianity seemed to help her control herself, because she needed some system to unquestionably obey.
But I really don't know. If your peace is based on lies—and I think at the bottom of it, most intelligent Christians know what their religion is—how fragile is that peace? Muslims brainwash their women into unquestioning obedience and I've heard Muslim woman's extoll the virtues of the hijab and in blindly trusting their husband's will—a more peaceful and harmonious existence, they say. Part of me wants to let such people lead their own lives and part of me wants to save them.
I guess when it comes down to it, I've had a pretty lucky life so I don't know what kind of crap you've been through. Maybe Christianity does make your life better or easier to live. But that doesn't mean Christianity is true and it certainly doesn't mean it's worth believing in.
Thanks for the respect and props back to you. I can't read the article though. What does it say?
I can screen capture it for you save it as a jpeg and email it to you if you send me your email in a PM. The theory discussed in the article is one of the predominate schools of thought that Christians use to link the Old Testament to the New Testament. It does not fully explain the theory in every detail, but you should be able to get the basic structure of the agruement.
I do not have the time right now to explain it as full as this man has. I am so busy with school, you feel me Loren?
Eight Pages Linked: They are in the right order even though the numbers are in a wierd order.
http://www.sourimage.com/links/169/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/28/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/317/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/45/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/545/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/63/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/71/
http://www.sourimage.com/links/82/
P.S.- I have never hosted anything on the web before, I hope this is o.k., if not please tell me and I will take it down or do whatever I need to do.
Edit: testing a link
Edit2: I am tring Nexus Crawler
Edit3: Done and enjoy Qingu
http://www.christianguitar.org/forums/
edit: DON'T START POSTING THERE ACTING LIKE AN ASSHOLE. Like I said, I've been there almost four years and I consider a lot of them my friends.
"Whatever one's opinion is on the arrangement ... one thing is certain: God does come to man."
Well, I deny that premise outright.
I'm sorry—I don't mean to be glib when you've gone through so much work to put this up. But theological treatises like this have always reminded me of, well, Star Wars apologists. You know the kids who spend hours agonizing over ways to reconcile the plot holes in the Star Wars movies? I'm sure some of them make convincing arguments that the movies seamlessly flow together in a flawless narrative structure, if they try hard enough and are selective enough in their rationalizations. But as we all know, in reality George Lucas, a human, wrote Star Wars and there's no reason to assume he had perfectly thought out the movies in advance, or even to believe him when he claims to have done so. There's also no reason why we shouldn't judge Star Wars by the same criteria we judge any other work of film.
The problem with this essay is that it assumes from the outset that not only does God exist but a specific God exists—Yahweh—and this God has revealed himself through the Bible. If you read the Bible with this assumption then it's a bit like watching Star Wars with the assumption that they're flawless god-inspired movies and any problem you have reconciling aspects of them is your fault, not the moviemaker's.
It also carries with it the implicit assumption that the Yahweh of Genesis is the same Yahweh as the Yahweh of the Prophets, or indeed the Yahweh of the New Testament—or, for that matter, that the Yahweh of Genesis 1 is the same as the Yahweh of Genesis 2-3. (The documentary hypothesis disagrees)
One example of how the author's assumptions contradict my personal reading: on page four he discusses the interesting topic of "divine kings," and how the Israelites, like all cultures at the time, believed their king was a divine conduit to God. I had never really thought of this and it makes a lot of sense. However, where I part ways with the author is the following:
"When we discuss the divine nature of Israelite kings there immediately comes to mind the question of the divinity of Jesus."
No, this does not immediately come to mind because I see absolutely no reason to believe the authors of the Old Testament had Jesus in mind at all. This isn't simply an atheist nitpick: no Jew would have this interpretation either. It is a Christian interpretation that comes not from an honest and objective reading of the Bible but rather by superimposing what you've assumed to be true (that the Bible is a coherent and god-inspired text) onto the text.
Something else I found offensive: the author agrees with my "God is a fucking dick" interpretation of Job—that is to say, he agrees that the moral message of Job, the answer to the questions "why do good people suffer" and "does God care" is essentially "shut the fuck up." He admits my interpretation (though probably not my word choice) "has some truth to it."
But then what does he do? He sycophantically attempts to mitigate Yahweh's assholery by claiming that God was actually being nice because an ANE king would be showing favor to grant an audience to a subject! Who fucking cares? So you're admitting that your God is essentially as moral as a despotic, capricious ANE king? Only someone who assumes that their God was the font of morality would even attempt to make such a pathetic excuse for his behavior. Pardon me for not feeling "honored" on Job's part that Yahweh grants audience to the man he is torturing to win a bet with Satan.
As for his overall point, that God is really looking for man as much as we're looking for him: I just don't see this anywhere in the Bible. He skips over, for example, the ritual purity laws—God is so disgusted with our presence that we have to basically bathe in sacrificial blood before we can even be in the presence of his tabernacle. He skips over Dt. 28, which says that if we break any of the laws then God will "take pleasure in our destruction." Of course such interpretations are not amenable to someone who has assumed that God is moral and loves us—hence an overarching assumption that he's "looking out for us." The problem is that much of the OT explicitly contradicts this idea.
In conclusion, the article brought up a few interesting things I hadn't thought of (mostly about ANE views on kings). But I think his interpretation of the Bible is utter nonsense. The Bible is a mishmash of ancient texts written by a variety of people, in a variety of cultures, in a variety of circumstances. I believe a far more insightful way to read this book is by evaluating each story in terms of its own cultural mileu, comparing it to other contemporary sources (I notice that the author failed to compare Yahweh's "kingship" over his fellow gods and divine beings to that of other ANE mythological deities, such as Marduk). I can certainly understand why a Christian would not be amenable to such a reading—because it relegates the Bible to essentially one of many ANE and, later, Roman myths/mystery cults. But this is how scholars read any other ancient text and I don't see why the Bible should get the special "Star Wars apologist" treatment from its interpreters.
And I'm still not sure why you showed it to me. Are you trying to convince me that your God is actually not a giant asshole? Anyways, thanks for posting it.
At the time Job was written, the character was probably nothing like the Satan familiar to most Christians. Reading Job, he almost seems like God's sidekick. I've heard suggestions that at first, the character of Satan was an addition to the OT influenced from the Zoroastrians' opposing deity. Not sure if I buy it, but elsewhere in the Bible Yahweh is depicted as ruling over a heavenly court, and in the Psalms he is pictured as defeating rival gods (Rahab, the sea) in combat. In the tradition of Marduk and other ANE deities, Yahweh can be seen as the supreme king of a conquered race of deities (like Zeus but with the other gods being much more subjugated)—and Satan in Job can be seen as one of these gods who Yahweh just sort of jives with every now and then.
Yahweh's "council of gods" later gets relegated to angels when Yahweh's monotheism because more explicit and philosophically-based, but I see no reason to interpret them as such from the original text.
He's not an "Adversary" any more than the Serpent was.
And I wouldn't say Satan in Job is a worthy adversary. "He who opposes" doesn't necessarily imply that. I wouldn't call him a snitch either. More like a nitpicker. I think it makes sense to see him (in Job) as a defeated god in Yahweh's pantheon who's just hanging out on earth and likes to criticize.
I'm not saying "He totally changed."
I'm saying there's nothing that even puts them in the same category of angel.
We did a whole thing on it in my lit class with one of the profs who taught religious lit.
The association is wholly an invention, like the Serpent thing.
then substitute cheeseburgers for something else that was only nullified implicitly.
You don't get to reinterpret the Jewish bible, and then condemn it based on your interpretations (which are NOT shared by the Jewish people. You decried the Talmud, which IS the Jewish interpretations.)
Abraham is punished for trying to kill Isaac, I went over that. God never speaks to him again.
Adam and Eve didn't question God, they flat out disobeyed him. The idea that God kicked them out of the garden simply to punish them is a christian one (of original sin, and all that.) Judaism looks on it not as a tragedy, but more as a thing that happened. It could be easy to look at it and say that, once Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge, they were unable to leave in Eden anymore, so God HAD to move them out of it. Adam and Eve made the choice to take the blue pill. Or was it the red pill? That part of the movie always confused me.
And as for Job, I've always seen i as a reminder that God is not some purely benevolent force. Remember that Judaism has no devil, so the character arguing with God is actually often interpreted to be God's own evil inclination (Judaism considers all people to have within them both the inclination for good and the inclination for evil). It's also an allegory to show that even when things are at their worst, they can work out fine in the end.
If you were to interpret ANYONE as being God's slaves, acording to Judaism, then it would ONLY be the Jews. If Jews want to believe that they are slaves to God, and everyone else is free, then why would you even care?
To be perfectly fair, Judaism VERY often uses either a father/child or husband/wife metephor for the relationship between God and humanity or God and the Jewish people (not at the same time, of course.)
Are you a sociopath when you don't stop your pet dog from eating grass, affectively killing a living thing for no real purpose?
The concept of God as good IS flawed, but that is not a strike against God, only against the idea of God being God or of God being an unequaled force in the universe.
God I hate that "YHWH' thing. I mean, if want to say "yood hay vav hay", go for it, but pretended you can say the same thing in English letters just feels patronizing towards the Hebrew language. That wasn't a personal attack, I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that the Jewish God has always seemed to place a large importance on free will, rather than making people do what he wanted he would tell them what to do and punish them if they diobeyed, or reward them if they obeyed. In fact, other than changing Pharoeh's mind when he almost let the Jews go once or twice, I cannot think of a time in the bible when God affected the actions of a person directly.
Abraham wouldn't have wasted time telling God to make the people not be sinners if he knew that God would never do that, so instead he asked God to spare the sinners for the sake of innocent people who might be killed as well.
The Hebrew word used in the book of Job is "HaSatan", which translates as "The Adversary".
There is NO notion of a devil in Judaism, meaning that this character was either a piece of God himself, or else an angel up in Heaven with God. If it was the former, that goes back to something I said in an earlier post, and if it was the latter, then it is all the more illustration of God's openness to being questioned.
As a person who bases his beliefs in reason, I do not personally believe in God, nor do I believe in the nonexistance of God. I can, however, appreciate the ways in which various religions, and various atheistic groups, treat their various beliefs. Even when I find a particular belief to be "silly", the LAST thing I'd do is misinterpret it simply to disprove it. If there is not enough there to disprove it on it's own, then I am willing to, at the very least, accept it as an unlikely possibility.
If the grass was capable of feeling pain and could communicate and form agreements with you, then yes, you are a sociopath.
Directly contradicted by scripture.
By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.
God specifically says he is rewarding Abraham because he was willing to kill his son. Where in the hell do you see Abraham being punished for wanting to kill his son, Evander? God was the one who told him to do it!
Actually it's also a Babylonian one. The gods punish humans in Babylonian myths for annoying/disobeying them as well. I certainly grant that "original sin" is a Christian invention but did you see that term anywhere in my exegesis?
I absolutely disagree.
God creates Adam as his worker-slave.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Like good house slaves, he is treated nicely. Until he disobeys. Then he is tortured, and thrown out to work in the field. God also seems threatened by the idea of Adam eating his food.
Except for his dead family members.
That's because, according to the Hebrew Bible, anyone else isn't even worthy of slavery to God. They're just fodder for genocide.
As a tool for interpreting the Bible the Talmud is about as worthless as it gets.
That said—of course I recognize that the Talmud is even more important than the Bible in modern Jewish tradition. This explains why no Jews are actually willing to follow the literal Bible anymore. My entire family is Jewish (though most of them have recently deconverted to atheism
Why on earth do you think I'm "misinterpreting" the Bible, Evander? I've supported everything I've said, both with scripture and with references to contemporary cultures at the time the Bible was written. Are you saying that any interpretation of the Bible that contradicts the Talmud is a "misinterpretation"?
I..what?! The hellfire thing is purely an invention of the puritan reformation, trying to put fear into people's faith. And Revelation isn't a threat. It's a "hey, this is gonna happen when the world ends and when Jesus comes back." It's also somewhat widely believed to actually be a reference to the Romans, and not a foretelling of the end of the world.
Also, Qingu. You seem to be calling God an asshole based on your own concept of morality. Keep in mind that with a deity of omniscient power and whatnot, he's sorta above your human definitions of morality. That you even exist is due to him. Your ability to act, think, and rebel against him was given to you, by him. It seems somewhat suspect then to try and base an arguement on "god's a dick!"
God necessarily has different values than us, but that doesn't mean He can't be good in our terms. For example, to us pleasure and and the avoidance of pain are ends in themselves. Maybe not the most important ends, but they count on their own, not just for what they cause. God, as creator of both pleasure and pain, seems not to see them as ends in themselves, but only instrumentally. In Christianity, at least, God's ultimate end is that his creations develop something like a peer relationship with Him (become the Sons and Daughters of God). This requires the possibility of suffering and the possibility of inflicting it.
This is a very sketchy form of the argument and there are many possible objections here, from "Then he's still a dick" to "the suffering in the world doesn't appear to serve this purpose," but I'm in too much of a hurry right now to take them up.
Because you say so?
...right.
By that logic, abusive parents can't possibly exist.
Put it this way. If we have an omnipotent and omniscient creator, then his plan is quite convoluted more than necessary, as not only is It responsible for all Evil (That woud be both evil we think of, and big E Evil.) But Evil is also doing exactly what It wants it to do. (which seems pretty dickish to me) and the whole conflict is pretty much arbitrary.
Then what is an acceptable English version of the Jewish God's name? I'd prefer not to call him 'God', as that is a class of beings, not a name.
As for free will, hardening Pharaoh's heart is a pretty big exception to the respecting free will element of His character.
I'm totally not biased.
Trust me.
-If humanity's moral notion is different than the "true" moral notion that was created in the universe by the Abrahamic deity, then we're SUPPOSED to think with that moral notion. The entity is rather famous for making sure we consider it an abomination. It is described as wanting to be loved because of its POWER, not because of its BEHAVIOR or ETHICS. The conceptual entity has a bondage kink of epic proportions.
-Plants have demonstrated a "pain" response, complete with screaming and sweating in terror. I shit you not.
It's not a nature of the language, it's the fact that no one is actually supposed to say the real name of God. Hence Moses' "I am sent me" etc.