@ James Brown. Actually, to build a house you have to be inside of it too. Just sayin.
And if there is a God. I think he started outside the house and then came inside the house and comes
and goes.
How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?
by Mr Fool 92 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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James Brown
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Cold Steel
Oh we know... this is why you believe in a fairy tale; because you don't ask yourself any questions.
Ah, if you only knew! Any rational person asks questions, and I’ve got plenty of them. But they’re not predicated on God being a “psychopath.”
The bible says that [God] hardened the heart of the pharaoh. He CAUSED the pharaoh not to let them go, only to punish him after. Yes, that's pretty pathetic, but now you're going to sit there and [embellish] the story your way, so it sounds better. That's just as pathetic.
If one looks at the scriptures with the predicate that God is Just, then God could not harden someone’s heart to cause them harm. I also believe that God respects our free agency to the point that He would never tempt any man to do evil, as we saw in the New Testament. Thus, when faced with a contradiction, one can throw out the entire account or one can look for a rational answer. If God cannot tempt a man to do evil, that would include Pharaoh. You can believe what you wish, but don’t hold me to your standards. I’m not there. Another example would be the statements in the scriptures that “no man has seen God at any time.” Yet the scriptures are rife with people seeing God, including Moses, who spoke to Him “face to face” and Stephen, who saw Jesus sitting on the right hand of the Father. But the apostle John makes an exception: “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” (John 6:46) And the scripture states specifically that Moses was “of God.”
“And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.” (Duet. 33:1) So when taken in context, otherwise difficult scriptures can be properly understood. But if a person stands simply as an accuser, he or she is really not interested in answers, or even the truth. They’ve already made their decision, and when one answer is given, they’ve already got another gripe ready to go. Thus, instead of attacking religion, why not respect the views of believers and stop trying to kick them in the teeth? It’s one thing to be embittered about a religious group you once were duped by; it’s another to get in everyone’s face and make ridiculous assertions over things you have no idea about. I believe atheism is a fairy tale, but if someone wants to believe it, I hardly see it as my life’s mission to either change their minds or trumpet my own beliefs and make accusatory statements about their judgment, or lack thereof.
It's astounding how you cannot judge god's negative actions as despicable because you are 'unworthy'. Who are you to judge god after all, right? Yet, in all other "positive" (in your view) aspects of god you have a veritable cornuccopia of opinions and apparently know the mind of god inside and out.
Well, if I did have a “cornucopia” of opinions, I would certainly know how to spell it.
I cannot judge God, not because I’m unworthy, but because I’m ignorant. I don’t know what was in the hearts or minds of those He destroyed, or where those people went when they died, but I have no reason to believe that a just, kind and loving parent would torture them, or why he would arrange to have the gospel preached to them in the Meridian of Time, if He weren’t trying to help them. Infants need no baptism, so when they die, they automatically gain eternal life without having to put up with a difficult, trying life that may not work out well for them. Also, have you noticed? Man is killing far more infants than God could, through abortion. And many atheists have no problem with that? Do you? Are you a committed pro-life advocate? If not, I’m much more competent to judge your character than I am God’s.
How do you justify God also killing the firstborn animals too?!? Now how do you explain that crap?!?
What do you mean, how do I explain it? God has the right to give and take life as He pleases. We see only through a glass darkly, so we don’t have access to God, nor can we put those questions to him. But the animals that drowned in the flood (and weren’t spared the easy life of being eaten by predators) are in precisely the same place they are now as they would have been had they lived their full lives.
Like you. Especially if you’re an atheist, what the hell difference does it make if you die now or twenty years from now? You’re all so stumped by the belief of the finality of life that you can’t get past it. But if there is a God, at least He offers an out to that finality. Atheists never do. They look at death as a horror they can’t outrun, or fight, and they’re frightened by it. God kills, ergo, He must be evil. Is the logic of that really supposed to impress me? Some maintain that death doesn’t frighten them, but just wait until it arrives. You can’t comfort them. Some, superstitiously, convert when the shadows begin lengthening, hoping against hope that they were wrong. Others honestly expand their views and realize they’ve been wrong in their thinking. And many others, like Stalin, die shaking their fist at heaven, as if they see death’s grim visage approach. You ought to read Howard Storm’s book. He was an avowed hard core atheist and nasty person until he had a life changing after death experience.
And there are many others besides him. But they had to see it to believe.
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AndDontCallMeShirley
CS: Any rational person asks questions. I’ve got plenty of them. But they’re not predicated on God being a “psychopath.”
If one looks at the scriptures with the predicate that God is Just, then God could not harden someone’s heart to cause them harm.
What do you mean, how do I explain it? God has the right to give and take life as He pleases
Honest questioning does not start with having the answer first, then making everything fit your pre-conceived ideas.
In case you missed it, I'll re-post this quote:
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." ― Isaac Asimov
Atheists do not arrive at their conclusions as you do CS, by formulating the answer first, then performing endless mental gymnastics to make it work no matter how illogical (and dishonest) the effort must become; they actually read the Bible (many of them, like me, coming from a fundamentalist Christian background) and arrive at their decision based on evidence. Since you are not an atheist you cannot arrogantly posture as you do that you have them all figured out, no matter how much you believe you can.
As far as your musings about god, the Bible and your wished-for motivations of god, I think Hitchens said it best:
"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" - Christopher Hitchens
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AndDontCallMeShirley
I cannot judge God, not because I’m unworthy, but because I’m ignorant
If your ignorance negates your ability to judge god, then how is it adequate to praise him as good?
I also believe that God respects our free agency to the point that He would never tempt any man to do evil
So you've never read the Bible account about GOD ordering Abraham to kill his son?
Man is killing far more infants than God could, through abortion. And many atheists have no problem with that?
Many Christians do not have a problem with it either. In fact, statistically Christians are getting more of them than any other group. What's your point?
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Cold Steel
If your ignorance negates your ability to judge god, then how is it adequate to praise him as good?
It is because I have life's experiences that have led me to know what kind of being God is and why He is just and worthy of worship. When Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say I am?" Peter replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then Jesus said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."
We can know things because God reveals them. It’s like wireless. Peter knew spiritually what he'd learned through the Spirit of God. Other people know because they saw God, spoke to Him and received light and intelligence from Him. There have also been many who have had near death experiences. One neurosurgeon, in writing of his own near death experience, admitted he was an agnostic beforehand. He believed that the brain was what enabled people to think, relate and understand their environments. In defending his experience, he said he knows very well the effects that drugs have on the human body, and that he had intelligent interactive conversations with them. I was sick once and suffered hallucinations. I recall telling my wife that I could see “pumpkins and oranges on the television (which was off).
.................. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFml7LEn68
So you've never read the Bible account about GOD ordering Abraham to kill his son?
Yes, and it, too, pointed the way to Christ. Abraham’s sacrifice of his only son was to be in similitude of God’s sacrifice of His only Son. He didn’t want Abraham to sacrifice his son, but He wanted Abraham to know the meaning and depth of such a sacrifice. He stopped Abraham’s sacrifice for obvious reasons, but His requiring Abraham to sacrifice His son was a teaching device, and a way to point towards the eternal sacrifice of His own Son. There was nothing psychotic about it.
In my own religion, the story is told in the Book of Mormon where the Lord commands a prophet to slay a man whom the Lord delivered into his hands. (See 1 Nephi 4) He shrinks from doing it, but is told that it is better that one man perish than an entire nation, which was yet to emerge. The story of Nephi and Laban has always been a sore spot for atheists and other critics as just another example of God’s capricious and outrageous acts, but when a group of students from the Middle East took a Book of Mormon course at BYU, the only problem they had with the story is that Nephi hesitated. To them, especially those familiar with the Law of Moses, Nephi had the perfect right to slay Laban. He had taken their property, then commanded his men to kill them. Later, when Nephi found Laban alone, drunk and passed out, he was commanded by the Lord to kill him. But because of the cultural differences between them and many Americans, they had a completely different criticism. Again, as with others, Nephi didn’t destroy Laban; he merely sent him to a “penalty box,” as some have described it. And though his body perished, his spirit returned to God, who gave it. And to this day, he resides with the other spirits who have lived and died on this world.
From my own perspective, how can you find fault with God for the sacrifice when He stopped it? How do you know what was in Abraham’s mind and what lessons he carried away with him due to the experience? Perhaps God revealed to Abraham, as He had others, the life and mission of Christ. How can we pass judgment on someone who is light years ahead of us in intelligence? Especially when we know only a handful of facts? You counter that if we can’t judge God in the mean things He does, how can we judge Him on His righteousness? But we’re not sent here to evaluate God and judge Him. We’re here for Him to evaluate and judge us.
You’re like those protesters in Furgeson, Missouri. They don’t care about facts. They judged Officer Wilson the day he shot that young thug, and nothing’s going to change their minds. Even if he’s innocent (something they’re not even willing to consider), he’s guilty. And so it is with the hard core atheists. They have judged God, and nothing He can say or do, or what those who worship Him say and do, the verdict was in since the beginning and has been pronounced: Guilty of being a vindictive, psychopathic murderer! It's absurd. Eventually, when all the facts are known, every knee will bend and every tongue confess Christ.
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stuckinarut2
No matter how anyone explains such accounts, one thing remains very disturbing:
After god acted in these supposedly justified ways, his people then CELEBRATED such events, often with song and dance! young, old alike....
Yes, they revelled in the acts of violence...
THAT is disturbing on many levels!
If "divine puishment" was needed, then that should have been a sobering act...one to ponder on calmly...not reckelessly celebrate with a party atmosphere!
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Cold Steel
If "divine puishment" was needed, then that should have been a sobering act...one to ponder on calmly...not reckelessly celebrate with a party atmosphere!
I concur.
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AndDontCallMeShirley
I concur.
No, you don't.
A truly hypocritical statement coming from someone who just argued that the death of infants, children and animals at the hand of god, for no other reason than being a firstborn, is completely acceptable. I believe the rationalization was, 'they would've died someday anyway so what does it matter?'
What you are doing, Cold_Steel, is filling in the Bible story blanks with your own commentary and editorializing....because the accounts written as-is are too indefensible, too disturbing, for any normal, rational person to accept at face value. So, you are forced to make endless excuses for god and justify his actions in order to make it work for you, which makes this statement of yours ridiculously laughable: "You’re like those protesters in Furgeson*, Missouri. They don’t care about facts."
I do care about facts...which is precisely why I reject the Bible's narrative for the hard-hearted nonsense that it is.
how can you find fault with God for the sacrifice when He stopped it?
Really????
It must be daily hell to deny your normal humanity in order to support your dickhead god.
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* if I was referencing Feguson, I'd certainly know how to spell it.
(sound familiar?)
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Cold Steel
I believe the rationalization was, ‘they would've died someday anyway so what does it matter?’
No. Life is precious; however, it is in the hands of God. Before we came here, we unanimously agreed that we would be under the judgment of God. No one was forced to come to the earth, except those who rebelled, and we knew there would be eternal consequences to our actions once our memories were veiled, but we chose to come here anyway because of benefits and blessings of the Atonement. As Origen noted in his writings, we reach eternal life by various steps or degrees.
Infants who die here receive eternal life by default, due to their innocence. Not being able to sin, they have no need for baptism. They return to God pure. The rest of us die according to His will. But if you’re an atheist, none of that is clear to you. The rationalization you cite was meant as the bottom line argument back at you. If we all go down to an eternal death, I’m simply asking you, what difference does it make when one dies. We all go down into the grave, never to rise again. So, as far as you’re concerned, what difference does it make if you’re an infant or an old man? A billion years from now, we’ll all be dead and in a state of nonexistence (according to atheists). So as far as you’re concerned, Shirl, what difference does it make? If there is no God, there is no right or wrong. There’s no one to set any standards; no one to make laws or administer punishments. The dark side of The Force is as valid as the other. When Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other mass murderers die, they receive the same as the saintliest person who ever lived. So the rationalization was for your benefit. I believe that all men and all animals are immortal, and that their intelligence has no beginning nor does it have an end. A person dies, and they continue on in the spirit. So if God takes an infant, it simply means, to me, that it was spared the hardships and problems of mortality.
…if I was referencing Feguson, I'd certainly know how to spell it.
And if I were calling someone on misspelling Ferguson, I’d make darn sure I knew how to spell it.
But I get the point and you’re right. It was a cheap shot on my part. I apologize.
What you are doing, Cold_Steel, is filling in the Bible story blanks with your own commentary and editorializing...because the accounts written as-is are too indefensible, too disturbing, for any normal, rational person to accept at face value. So, you are forced to make endless excuses for god and justify his actions in order to make it work for you….
Not so much. I’m simply saying that neither you nor I know enough to condemn God. We don’t know what was in His mind. We also don’t know what was in the hearts of the people. We don’t know all the circumstances, nor do we know the context. Is that not so? Wouldn’t you concede that 1) if there is a God; and 2) if He has the attributes the prophets say He has (such as honor, virtue, integrity, omnipotency, all-knowing, all seeing), that He would be the best judge in how to judge all these things? Who are we to set our own standards and then hold God to them? Isn’t that the height of arrogance? Someone has to set the standards. Who better than our Creator? Remember, if He doesn’t exist, then we all get to set our own standards. You may not like the standards someone else sets, but who are you to object to the standards of someone like Richard Kuklinski? He may not agree with your standards, nor would he agree with society’s standards. He would murder anytime he felt he could get away with it!
By the way, you never said whether you were pro-life or not. We live in a society where we murder tens of thousands…millions, even, of infants. Wouldn’t you say that is far more problematic than any of God’s judgments?
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stuckinarut2
boys, boys....
Play nicely. hehe