Sorry I’ve been away for a little while, guys. Just been really busy. I’ll try to jump back in again soon. 🙂
Open Conversation Part 4
Sorry I’ve been away for a little while, guys. Just been really busy. I’ll try to jump back in again soon. 🙂
Finding Truth 
Kathy,
for the record, and I’ve said this before here, I do not support abortion and I believe it is the taking of a human life.
The abraham and isaac story is interesting. Abraham didnt really kill isaac, but he was going to. God doesnt like child sacrifices, but he commanded one to be done – even if he stopped abraham, his command must have been confusing and seemed like a contradiction at first – why didnt abraham assume the test was in regard to to morality instead of blindly following commands that seemed contrary to morality?
But you seem to agree that killing children is wrong, since you condemn abortion. If you’re upset by the inconstancy you perceive from those who condemn child abuse but are “pro-choice” then surely you dont want to be inconsistent by being “pro-life” while un-objectivley condoning the murder of children by the israelites, right?
I think nate is exactly right when he says questioning the bible is questioning the human authors – not god. God can do what he likes, but then so can people. If he wants to only speak directly to certain people, then that’s his prerogative; but people can tell the truth about whether god said something to them or what he said to them or they can lie about it or they can just be mistaken about it. How do I know they’re correct?
When I see errors regarding science, internal consistency and historical errors, it makes me even more skeptical regarding the things I cannot verify, like heaven, hell, and whether god actually had a part in any of it.
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re: The NT borrowing from the OT.. this is certainly a possibility. But again, you have to ask, what does this option mean? It means that again, the authors of the NT were all liars.. the entire story of Jesus was made up.. and so detailed that it has “hidden” similarities for us to seek out that will “verify” the lie. What an elaborate scam! This IS what atheists are insisting. And the claim that they “believed” the lie fails badly.. all of that couldn’t be written based on that assertion. The only way that could be true is if they were merely scribes.. copying text. And that was not the case.. they were authors, stating facts.
Nate, you said:
“Kathy, this puts the cart before the horse.
You’re taking the Bible — a book that includes the Abraham/Isaac story, as well as commands of genocide and rape; a book that sanctions slavery and misogyny; a book that contains questionable history, science, and contradicts itself in places; and was written by and passed down by anonymous writers from long ago — and you’re accepting its claims simply because God (if he exists) would be sovereign. Therefore, you have to accept anything that God says, even if it seems immoral or crazy.
Instead, you should recognize that the Bible was written by men that you don’t know, who could be fallible. And you should examine what it says to see if it stands up to scrutiny. Instead of accepting it without question because “God is sovereign” — ask if a wholly-good God would act in such a way and write such a book. Analyzing the Bible and questioning its claims is not questioning God, nor is it ignoring his sovereignty. It’s questioning the people who wrote the Bible. That’s all it’s doing.”
First, Nate, I want to point out this statement you made in your previous comment..
“God may be complicated, but the description “without evil” is not. Any being that commands someone to kill their child to show how much they love said being does not match the “without evil” description.”
Your beliefs of the incident.. that 1) God wanted/ intended for Isaac to be killed.. and 2) that it was for God’s “ego”.. to see how much Abraham loved God..
.. these 2 assumptions just further show your bias Nate. Anaivethinker had made several points that counter those beliefs. And also, as well as you know the Bible, you would know that the scripture does NOT support your assumptions/ interpretations. Name the passages that do if you disagree. The entire context of the Bible supports my explanation.. not yours.
And then in your last comment, you continue to make the same kinds of assumptions.. again, based NOT on the entire context of the Bible, but on the simple wording.. without any context.
It’s the same old thing(s) Nate.. no objectivity.. no context applied.. and no fair odds applied.
It’s about objectivity and the odds/ probabilities of what you are asserting. Just like the Tyre prophecy. 99% of the prophecy’s fulfillment is NOT in dispute.. and that 99% amazingly beat the odds.. yet you dismiss all of that, and, again, ADD your own word (all) of Tyre.. and declare no fulfillment. This, again, shows a blatant lack of objectivity.
My questions to you and all atheists here..
Do you believe objectivity is important?
And
Would you want to know if you weren’t being objective?
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And also,
No where in my comments do I insist that we should believe the Bible because of God’s sovereignty. You misunderstood again.. (just like your claim that I insinuated that liberals “like” abortions).
I’m merely asking for objectivity.. the context for many of your arguments are “if God were real”.. so, what I’m looking for and not seeing is the ACCURATE context.. if God were real, He’d be SOVEREIGN.. I haven’t seen that acknowledgment.
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I can admit that if god were real, and if he were supreme power and authority, that he would indeed be sovereign. I dont have a problem admitting that.
How is anyone taking scripture out of context, could you be more specific?
If assumptions are bad in your opinion, and I’m assuming they are, why do you assume the authors of the bible were always telling the truth?
You seem to scoff at the idea that they could be wrong because of the things nate pointed out, but then you seem to be saying that they can be completely trusted in their supernatural claims, because they say some things that turn out to be true – like names of places and some people. You seem to ignore the parts where they’re wrong, though.
For instance, Jeremiah 50 and 51 has jeremiah predicting that the median empire would destroy babylon. Can you show where they did? I can show where the Persians took it without destroying it.
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you’re saying we should believe in god because of martyrs and since there are martyrs, therefore god is sovereign.
I think we read you.
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The NT riffing off the OT doesn’t mean the NT writers were lying. You have to remember that the stories had been circulating for a while before they were written down, so some of these connections may have been made by other people than the gospel writers. Furthermore, it’s natural for people to take similar stories and work to find the “connections” between them. I think Jesus of the NT was probably based on a real person who had followers but was killed by the Roman authorities. His followers, who eventually viewed him as the Messiah, had not expected the Messiah to die. But as time went by, his death could be explained by passages like Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, some of the Psalms, and characters like Joseph (didn’t die, but was persecuted) and Isaac.
Earlier in this thread, Laurie talked about Isaac and Jesus having the “rise on the 3rd day” and “Mt Moriah” things in common, but it’s not clear that they actually did have either of those things in common. I don’t believe Laurie was lying at all. And I imagine she has some reasoning for her statements. But it’s possible that she’s simply assumed some connections that weren’t really there. Nothing nefarious in that — it’s easy to do.
Secondly, you obviously missed my last series on Tyre if you think 99% of that prophecy was fulfilled.
And to your points about Abraham and Isaac, please tell me where my understanding is off. Here’s the passage:
It’s clear to me, from this passage, that the purpose of the test was to see if Abraham loved God more than his own son. Whether or not God actually intended for Isaac to be killed is irrelevant — as far as Abraham knew, that was the command he had been given. It’s good if you’re uncomfortable with all this. You should be. Would you kill your daughter if a voice in your head told you to?
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and to follow off nate’s point, let’s say you did something wrong and the president or your preacher (which ever you respect more) killed your daughter as punishment to yo – do you that’s just, or unjust?
I think that if i did something worthy of death, then it should be my death that pays not anyone else’s and certainly not a child.
nevertheless, god is said to have done this very thing to david’s son. of course, god didnt tell us that he did that, whoever wrote the Samuel said that god did that.
and if i told you that god wanted you to blow up the white house, would you do it? I’d hope not, but if you refused, would that be you rejecting god or rejecting my claims about what I said that god said? I feel like the answer is obvious.
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I wasn’t going to wade into this with you, Kathy, because I’m pretty drained. But okay, hypothetically speaking the God of the Bible would be sovereign.
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Brandon,
Thank you for your detailed response to my question about the afterlife. Sorry for the delay in
responding. Rough last couple of days. 😦
The bible (Revelation) does say there will be a new earth (you: “new physical creation”) so that’s a point we can agree on, even though I think many believers are more in tune with the “ethereal, distant heaven” perspective.
I would say you’re also correct about the absence of death, temptation, and evil. And of course, the presence of “God” (in whatever form that will be) is a given.
Now, as to the rest of your description, I’m curious where you get much of this information. For example, you wrote: “We will not be a uniform crowd doing repetitive motions.” How do you know that? I don’t see any indication of that in John’s description of the afterlife.
You talk about scenery. Again, the only description that John offers is that of the “new Jerusalem.” He does talk about the river of the water of life and the tree of life
with its twelve kinds of fruit, but nothing else. To me, your description of the scenery sounds like wishful thinking.
Also, you discuss building things … ? And while you say there will be no memory of evil (which makes sense), you add that there will be a “few select memories.” What are those memories … recognition of loved ones? Where does this idea originate?
IMO, I think believers create their own version of the afterlife — much of it based on what
their particular spiritual leader teaches or what they want it to be like. When you
consider what’s actually included in the bible, there really isn’t a whole lot to go on except
for the fact that “God and the Lamb” will be there. Yes, John does offer a description of the
city with its many precious jewels, but there is little to no discussion of what actual life
will be like — except worshiping.
(BTW, speaking of the city, exactly who are the 12 apostles whose names will be on the 12 foundations? Will Judas be one of them?)
_________________
Just an added note — in the process of writing my book, I became more and more convinced the promises within the bible are exclusively for the Hebrew/Jewish people. Jesus (Yeshua) was a Jew. He practiced Jewish customs and taught Jewish doctrines in Jewish synagogues. His followers were Jews and he was looked upon by many as a Jewish leader. For some (not all) in the Jewish world, he was seen as the long-awaited Jewish messiah and the fulfillment of Jewish “prophecies.”
While Gentiles want to believe they are included in these promises, in reality, this was all Paul’s doing and was against the teachings of Jesus. Jesus clearly stated he was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. While Christian apologists have tried to remedy this through various explanations of what Jesus really meant, the words are there. He also told the apostles: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans.”
So, looking at it from an unbiased perspective and uninfluenced by Christian teachings, I believe the bible is a story written to and about the Jewish people. It talks about their struggles to gain land, it discusses their religious practices and tendencies, and it offers a promise of better days. It is not, and never has been, a book for “the world at large.”
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(BTW, speaking of the city, exactly who are the 12 apostles whose names will be on the 12 foundations? Will Judas be one of them?)- nan
i would bet matthias took his place. the real question is paul. will paul be represented if he’s an apotsle?
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I think your points are excellent, Nan. One question though — you mentioned the “limited commission” that Jesus gave. What thoughts do you have on the “great commission”?
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Nate, do we know what “nations” Jesus was referring to? Were they nations at-large or the Jewish people? One of the definitions of nation is “The people who live in a nation or country.”
Since the gospels were written after Paul made his claims about who Jesus was, I’m unable to put much credence into much of the contents I do feel fairly certain that Jesus said and did some of the things that were reported (especially as related to the Jewish people). But when it gets into prophecies, claims, and other areas that Christians cling to, my doubt level is a “10.”
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William, Paul was an apostle only because he claimed to be one. He was most definitely not among the original 12. Why do you say Matthias?
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Before I answer, here is my definition of objectivity: “Being without bias and uninfluenced by personal feelings when considering a claim or hypothesis.”
Yes, I do feel objectivity is important and yes, I would want to know if I was not being objective. I also understand that it may be impossible to completely rid oneself of all bias and personal feelings. Being aware of our own bias’ is certainly helpful. We also need to try and look at things from a variety of perspectives.
One of the reasons for my deconversion was that I felt I was not being objective. I felt I should examine the claims of Christianity as an outsider (a different perspective). I made a point of reading books by both Christian and secular authors so that I could see both points of view. I also read apologetic material from other religions so I could see their point of view on different issues.
If the Christian God was real, then, yes, he would be sovereign. This means he could do whatever he wants. He could kill people, he could tell people what to do, he could punish us, etc. since after all, he created us. It is my opinion, however, that the Christian God is not real.
If the Muslim God was real, then, he too would be sovereign. He could do whatever he wants. He could be harsh at times and loving at other times. He could be angry at people who think of him as a trinity. He could desire strict, devout followers over reformed, free-spirited followers. It is my opinion that the Muslim God is also not real.
It is my opinion that all man-made gods are not real. That is my current position, but it is not a closed case in my book. I am open to new ideas, perspectives and most importantly evidence.
Kathy, if you want to reach the folks on this blog I think you should adopt a different approach. This is just my humble opinion, you can take it or leave it. Rather than making accusations you should do some research on a topic and then present an argument in a rational manner so we can all read it and consider it. Rather than trying to shame us into agreeing with you, just present us with information that you found convincing. I think you’ll find that everyone here is very friendly ( with a few exceptions 🙂 ) and enjoys discussing alternative viewpoints.
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Dave, that comment makes me wonder how long you’ve been following. We ALL started out being friendly to Kathy – that didn’t work either. Just sayin’ 🙂
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I know Carmen 🙂 I guess I have a bad habit of being too optimistic.
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Ah, no Dave – optimism is a GOOD habit! Believe it or not, I share it!
P.S. I like your diplomacy, too! (I just don’t share THAT)
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“I think your points are excellent, Nan. One question though — you mentioned the “limited commission” that Jesus gave. What thoughts do you have on the “great commission”?”
Nate, a few years back I was reading some research about the Great Commission and I can’t remember which biblical scholar it was, but I do remember it being repeated by Bart Erhman during a Stanford lecture I watch where he mentioned that it is understood among scholars that the Great Commission was an embellishment — not showing in earlier manuscripts. This would explain the counterparts with regard to “limited commission”. I am still looking for the original sources, but came across this opinion comment on a Christian forum. It lists several of the counterpart scriptures.
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Glad you posted this, Victoria. Looked up the scripture in Matthew 10:23 (NRSV) and it definitely seems to clarify what constitutes “all nations.”
“you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel …” (emphasis mine).
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Thanks Nan. Matthew 10:23 really puts the GC into perspective.
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Dave,
Ultimately, I don’t see any problem with the story, and I’m going to post something about this later. There are plenty of people who think this story is fictional, even theists. But, this would not detract from the theological points that it makes. And, yes, some commentators have interpreted it as God declaring an end to child sacrifice, but I’m not sure that’s the main point. Some theologians have even argued that Jesus’ sacrifice was done to put an end to all sacrifices. Well. . . maybe it accomplishes this in a sense, but is that the central meaning? That’s certainly not what the NT writers thought.
I agree with the NT writers about the purpose of this world – to determine who desires and is willing to align themselves with God’s purpose. Whoever rejects this will be destroyed in a “second death” which I take to be irreversible annihilation (i.e., not eternal conscious suffering).
As for how the new creation will be made. . . I’m not sure. Maybe there is a factor that is important to consider which is, considering that our identities must carry over, how important is it that consciousness and memory be part of this identity? Like, if I (my identity) am in the new creation, should I have memories of the old creation and the process we’ve gone through? It seems to me that this does make a difference. If we reincarnate with total amnesia, our identity is meaningless. If we had amnesia and were told that we came from an old creation, that would be a little better. But, it seems like preservation of identity though some memories and a continuity of consciousness is important. This would suggest that the new creation must be non-evolutionary with respect to our identities.
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Nate,
Certainly not, that’s a good point to think about. The biblical theodicy for these natural evils is different, but it does closely relate. The Hebrew creation myth gives the theodicy for natural evils (suffering, decay, death) – it is due to Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden. With science and literary criticism we now know that the Hebrew creation myth is not historical and that we evolved and that these natural evils have existed since the beginning of earthly life and are basically encoded into the natural laws since the Big Bang itself. If there was a creator deity, he encoded these natural evils in the universe at the beginning. Pretty big problem!
The only way to square off a perfectly good God with natural evils is to think that these are really a curse or a punishment for something. But, who is being punished? I hold to the “retroactive fall of humanity” theodicy which says that the collective of humanity is responsible. The major problem with this theodicy is that it doesn’t seem appropriately distributed. For example, if this were distributed how we think it should, then only after doing evil would someone experience natural evil. Murderers should be the ones getting cancer and so on. However, clearly this is not the case. There are children getting cancer who we do not think are culpable at all. (This is the evidential problem of evil). And, what about Job? Job’s three friends all thought he was suffering because he had sinned. They thought Job just needed to confess and repent and God would stop allowing Satan to harm him. But, out of the whirlwind God rebuked Job’s friends and said that Job was NOTsuffering because of his sin. The story of Job stands out as a powerful anti-theodicy. It ends up saying that we cannot comprehend God’s reason for this seemingly unjust distribution of the curse.
So, there is a balance between theodicy and anti-theodicy. Job tells us that innocent suffering does occur in this cursed world and it tells us that suffering can be God testing us. But, does the suffering of an innocent child represent a test? Certainly not for the child. Also, Paul says that suffering can be good for building endurance and character. But, again, can an innocent child build these? I don’t think so.
Innocent suffering that does not seem to have any understandable point (i.e., as a test or building endurance) is the best formulation of the evidential problem of evil. What could possibly be the purpose of allowing an innocent to suffer?
Apologists will tend to give one of two answers. On the one hand, they will say that all of humanity is sinful by nature and no one is truly innocent, therefore God is justified to do anything – have mercy or curse. The problem with this is that it is not biblical because we know Job was righteous yet suffered, we know Jesus was righteous and yet suffered and died, plus it just doesn’t make sense to think that children are responsible for their actions until they mature into their conscience and are taught ethics. The second response is that God has a reason but we just don’t know it. This is an anti-theodicy.
Let’s just take a step back. Suppose there really is a creator deity that was omnipotent and omniscient. The deity would foreknow that we would be analyzing this problem. The fact that we are sitting here analyzing the problem would not be an accident. What would be the point of designing it so that this problem would arise? The very design of the universe calls into question God’s moral character. But, what does that sound like? It sounds like the story of Abraham. Something that appears to question God’s moral character is the place where we are asked to have faith. So this design is intentional. Christians are called to trust that God has a sufficient reason, yes, even for allowing some children to get cancer.
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22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.”
First, note verse 4… “on the third day..” Isaac rose from the alter on the 3rd day.
22:1 God “tested” Abraham.
The question then is what was the test for? later it states, to see if he feared God.
“fear” also means “reverence”.. these do not necessarily mean “love”. They are evidence of BELIEF.
When Abraham tells Isaac that God will provide a sacrifice, this clearly indicates that he ALSO believes that God is GOOD.. and will provide a substitute.
This is the context that you overlook, Nate. Context is key. Just as objectivity is key.
I’ve stated several times that the OT is about the importance of obeying God. And that’s what Abraham did. And he was blessed. The NT focuses on God’s love and His GOODNESS.
This is the overall context of the Bible. And it supports the Christian narrative. It does NOT fit your/ the atheists narrative that God would allow children to die for the benefit of His ego.
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To everyone,
I am requesting that we at least look at the story of Abraham in its context. We can approach it as literature, not concerned with whether it is historical, but rather with its meaning. We can do this with any story or movie. I think this is fair approach and is much less loaded than typical theist versus atheist exchanges.
First, God (the literary character who is the creator deity) promises to make Abraham a nation as numerous as the stars. The problem is that Abraham and Sarah cannot conceive. Time passes on and eventually they lose all hope. They decide that in order to produce an heir, Abraham will have to copulate with another woman. With this, Hagar bears a son, Ishmael. To their utter astonishment, God tells Abraham that Ishmael is not the heir God promised. (Say what?!) Sarah is advanced in age and they knew that biologically she was not capable of conception. But, Abraham trusted God and somehow Sarah gets pregnant. Isaac is born to them.
Now with that backdrop which is very important to put things in context, we arrive at God’s request that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac. Think about what Abraham would have thought at hearing this request. It sounds absolutely absurd! God’s request seems to undercut God’s original promise to Abraham and the miracle of Isaac’s birth, so it was totally absurd. Was God trying to play a trick on Abraham? There are clues in the story that Abraham was sure that God would reverse this request. When they arrive at the mountain, Abraham tells his traveling companions that he and Isaac will return. Then, when Isaac notices they do not have an animal, Abraham ensures him that God will provide one. This suggests that Abraham trusted in God’s character. He believed that he would follow through and this would require a reversal of the request.
Abraham follows through even to the point of binding Isaac and picking up the knife. It is only at this point that God stopped him. Now, Nate, if God is sovereign, then there is no way Satan could have averted God’s plan to stop Abraham at the last minute. As for the allegations of child abuse, there is no indication in the text that Isaac experienced physical or mental suffering. We can’t reason from the text that Isaac suffered from this episode. It’s entirely possible that he knew what was coming and did this willingly. We just don’t have enough data from the text to tell either way.
But, the point is this: it’s not as if God just willy nilly asks Abraham to do evil. What he asks Abraham to do has a very specific meaning and context. I don’t want to get too much into the command to exterminate the Canaanites but I want to say the same applies here. If you really read the text and try to understand it, you find that God is using the Israelites as an instrument of judgment against the Canaanites for their sin. Similarly, they were brought out of Egypt by miracles, so this should let them know that they are really being told to do this by God. This is not the whim of a modern day terrorist, but has a specific context.
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Nan,
No problem about any delay, I understand that we have lives outside of blogging. 🙂 Thanks for your response.
Yes, I agree! I mean I am just imagining the best I can what the best reality will look like. It may far exceed my imagination and be stranger than my thoughts could reach. If we read Isaiah 65 we see that the prophet’s vision of the new creation is that people live longer and infants don’t die and predation ceases. Well, we’ve already got the first two with modern medicine. And, with John of Patmos, we are getting a vision full of symbols. These represent the reality of the new creation, but the new creation does not exist yet. So, even from a scriptural standpoint, we have very little to understand what it will be like.
With all due respect, it’s impossible to be unbiased and certainly to be totally uninfluenced by Christian teachings especially if you live in the US (Pacific Northwest is no exception). Everyone is biased and the scary thing is, most of our biases we cannot see. Your interpretation of the bible is not privileged over other interpretations just because of your irreligious leanings.
That said, I do understand your concern. Nate had a good point with the Great Commission. The term, all nations (Greek = ta ethne) really does mean all nations. Of course there are ways to wiggle out of this. You can say it’s false or doesn’t represent what Jesus said or it was added later or whatever and find some way to cut it out. But, it’s pretty consistent with what the disciples actually did. Whether or not they were supposed to Judaize all nations is another question. Jesus never addressed this question to my knowledge. So, we can’t say whether Jesus would have supported the Judaizers or whether Jesus would have supported Peter and Paul.
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