Who told the first lie? (page 17)

joey jojo

Jeffro
joey jojo:
Sigh. I thought the sidebar was unnecessary. Anyway… you referenced animal behaviour that is not present in the story and then when there was a factual objection to the misleading generalisations about animal behaviour, you said it was outside the scope of the story.

How so?

Well, please accept my apologies for causing you so much exasperation.

Of course the animal behaviour, like dogs humping legs is not present in the story, and yes, animals can display traits like affection, jealousy, greed etc. The point I was raising simply followed from Mustard's comments about what is considered good or bad, and who gets to choose that?

Jeffro

FragrantAddendum:

why do you talk about him so much if you don't even believe he exists?

It’s a public service to raise awareness of fallacious reasoning.

Why do you talk him so much when you have no evidence that he does exist?

peacefulpete

he gave the philistines hemorrhoids once when they were really naughty and disrespectful
but that's more evidence of his sense of humor than anything else

Go back and read the story, Yahweh kills many Philistines and those that did not die had swellings on their private parts.

For there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.... And the men that died not were smitten with the tumors; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

When they return it he kills 50,070 Israelites because someone peeked into the ark. Not much of a sense of humor.

Jeffro

FragrantAddendum:

lol, well it's definitely working!

You may have mistaken yourself for the intended audience rather than a cautionary example.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️

TonusOH

Halcon: I can imagine the surprise of realizing that God wasn't a big soft teddy bear after all.

Oh no, I understood that; the OT makes quite clear that Yahweh is not soft. The NT tries to remake him into a more kind and gentle person, but even there it makes clear that he is not above harsh and precipitate action. But I could rationalize that all away, since he was god, after all. As you say:

Halcon: That he has the final say, and that there is no compromising.

The reason he has the final say is because he is more powerful than we can even imagine. The reason he does not compromise is because he doesn't have to. No one can oppose him.

This means that god never has to hide who he is-- he can behave however he wishes. There is no one to oppose him. And his nature, if we believe the Bible, is of a jealous god who is given to quick anger and sudden, violent outbursts. We cannot stop him, we cannot hide from him, and the best we can do is hope that we're not the next target. We can define him however we wish, but his actions make it quite clear who he is and what he is like. He is a frightening being, when we recognize that his actions are who he is.

Drearyweather

He is a frightening being, when we recognize that his actions are who he is.

Yes, the NT makes it clear too:

Hebrews 10:31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Many people are drawn to this part of being submissive to a God who has a monstrous side and a loving side. My mother who was a victim of domestic violence by our father became a JW due to this frightening aspect of Jehovah - a God who exacts justice and revenge. Quick to smash and kill people in the book of Judges and then a merciful side in the Book of Ruth. She faced and endured my Dad's drunken wrath due to her devotion. We kids saw her literally praying and crying and then soothing herself to sleep while talking to her God.

Simon

A lot of the religious excusing of god seems to be down to word play.

If you say "don't touch that Elf-on-the-shelf, if you do YOU'LL DIE!" then it is absolutely correct for someone else to say "no you won't", because ... no, you wouldn't.

If you rely on "ha, but I killed them anyway!" to stop it being a lie ... I think you have bigger ethical problems than lying.

God is a murderous piece of shit. And he also lied. Focusing on the lying is missing the more important elephant in the room.

peacefulpete

tel beth-shemesh is only about 7 acres on a low hill the population wasn't even close to 50,000 that number is a scribal error the actual number who died in the 1 samuel 6:19 account was 70

Actually the majority of Hebrew manuscripts say 5070 at 1 Sam (as well as the LXX). It's probably the 70 that is the scribal error.

Either way, the lesson you might learn is that the author thought of his God as prone to anger and violence or wrote such stories with the hope of evoking fear. Kinda like those churches that emphasize hellfire passages.

The second lesson you might learn is that the Bible is full of scribal error and redaction.

A third lesson is that the town's name is House of the Sun Goddess Shemesh which again suggests the story has a 5th century Yahwist whitewash.

FragrantAddendum

one thing i am learning is it's obvious who is really afraid of him and who's not

Who told the first lie?

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