Posts by JosephAlward

below i show that it is taught that the woman was created from man, for man, that man--not woman--is the glory of god, and that women are not allowed to teach or control man because the woman, not the man, is the one who was deceived by the serpent.

" (1 corinthians 11:2-9) "for a man...is the image and glory of god: but the woman is the glory of the man.

JosephAlward

"[H]ow much of what Paul wrote was infected with his opinion and NOT labeled as such? No way of knowing is there? Better to disregard all that except for what you know to be true, like 'God is Love.' I wouldn't argue that one."

JOE ALWARD responds:

I agree with your view that Paul was just expressing his opinion, Francois, but this opens the door for speculation about the "views" of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, too. Were they just expressing their opinions about what might have happened after Jesus was crucified, but just did not bother to tell us that? Does the resurrection perhaps exist only in the imaginations of these writers? After all, not one of them states explicitly that they were there at the crucifixion, nor do any of them state that he met with Jesus after the resurrection. So, if God did not inspire Paul's statements and thus infallibly true, then perhaps the same is true of all of the statements by the gospel writers, so we can't trust any of the stories to be true.

Now, I do not want it to seem like I'm picking on you, because you made a good point about Paul's opinions, but I'm not so sure that one can make an air-tight case that the Bible-writers were describing a "loving" God. They seem to describe many more examples of his cruelty than his love. Here are some examples:

God Ordered the Suckling Babes Be Killed

Samuel was elder statesman to Saul, the King of Israel. In the first days of Saul's reign, he told Saul that the Lord wanted the Amalekites--who hundreds of years earlier had been in conflict with Israel--destroyed utterly. Here are the words of Samuel:

The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD. Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. ( 1 Samuel 15:1-3 )

If Samuel is correct, God urged the slaughter of suckling babes--infants feeding at the breasts of their mother. Which is more likely? That Samuel was told by the Lord to have Saul murder infants and sucklings, or Samuel was mistaken about what the Lord wanted, or perhaps he was just expressing his opinion about what God wanted? Thomas Paine expressed well his objection to Samuel's story in a letter from Paris to a Christian friend in 1797:

"What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus 18 ...had opposed the Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to death"

More Innocent Deaths in Other Books

God-ordered acts of supreme cruelty toward children are described in several other books of the Old Testament, including Genesis, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and Hosea. Here they are:

Genesis:

According to Moses, who is said to have written Genesis, a disappointed God deliberately drowned every living creature on the earth, including man, pregnant woman, child, and innocent suckling babe--except Noah and his family:

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth....and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth...And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. ( Genesis 6:5-7 , Genesis 7:4 , Genesis 7:21 ).

What had the babies done to deserve being killed? Or the unborn? Why didn't God give them the chance to please God and be spared? Which is more likely? That this Genesis account is just the opinion of the Bible writer about a flood and what caused it, or it is God-inspired account of something that God actually said?

Deuteronomy:

If the stories in Deuteronomy are true, then a jealous God ordered the swords down onto the suckling because its parents worshiped other gods: " They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God...I will spend mine arrows upon them....The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs."( Deuteronomy 32:21-25 ).

Why did the suckling babes have to be killed? Which is more likely? That the Deuteronomy author was just expressing his opinion about what God might have said, or that God actually said this?

Ezekiel:

The priest-prophet Ezekiel tells of the following pitiless order from an angry Lord: "And the Lord said unto him, Go through...the midst of Jerusalem, and... smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women..." ( Ezekiel 9:4-6 )

It gets worse.

Hosea:

The prophet Hosea, who pointed to the rottenness and faithlessness in Israel as the cause of its unhealth, gave this description of a punishment from the Lord brought down on a rebellious people: "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." ( Hosea 13:16 )

If Hosea's god existed, then one can only hope that Hosea misunderstood him. If the words of these prophets are untrue--either because they misunderstood God's words, or deliberately or carelessly misspoke, then there are important falsehoods in the Bible. The readers thus have two choices: believing in a heartless, horrific, jealous god who murders suckling babes, or accepting the fact that the Bible writers were mistaken.

Now, where are the examples of God loving man that are powerful enough to offset the many egregious examples of God's apparent cruelty (if you can believe the Bible writers)? True believers often point to the "fact" that God gave up his only begotten son so that we might be "saved," but how great a sacrifice was that, really, for either God or Jesus? Jesus apparently had about thirty years to walk the earth, then for less than three days he was in his tomb, but he knew all along that he would rise rule with God in heaven for an eternity. Who among us would trade three days for an eternity as a god?

Joseph F. Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

Edited by - JosephAlward on 16 October 2002 14:28:50

38

Bible: Women are Inferior

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

no teaching in the bible is clearer and more consistent than the one which holds women to be inferior to men.

below i show that it is taught that the woman was created from man, for man, that man--not woman--is the glory of god, and that women are not allowed to teach or control man because the woman, not the man, is the one who was deceived by the serpent.

" (1 corinthians 11:2-9) "for a man...is the image and glory of god: but the woman is the glory of the man.

JosephAlward

No teaching in the Bible is clearer and more consistent than the one which holds women to be inferior to men. Below I show that it is taught that the woman was created from man, for man, that man--not woman--is the glory of God, and that women are not allowed to teach or control man because the woman, not the man, is the one who was deceived by the serpent.

Elsewhere in the Bible it is taught that women are not as righteous as men, nor clever enough to enter into contracts, are not to ask questions in church, but to seek answers in private from their husbands, and are to treat their husbands as if they were God. It is any wonder that women had such a hard time gaining equal rights, when western civilization's principal moral guide was the Bible?

Here is the evidence that the Bible writers believed that God thought women were inferior and wanted them to be kept in a position of subservience:

Woman Belongs to the Man, Who Is the Glory of God

"I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.....For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (1 Corinthians 11:2-9) "For a man...is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man."
(1 Corinthians 11:2-9)

Note: if God thought that the woman, too, was the "glory of God," why didn't he have the Bible writer say so? Just As Man is to Christ, So Is the Wife to Her Husband

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

In other words, in the same manner as the man worships the Lord, the woman must worship the husband. If the God the Bible-writers believed in considered man and woman equal, he would have had the writer instead say, "Couples, submit yourselves unto each other, as unto the Lord."

Women Can't Be Given the Freedom to Engage in Business

In the passage below we see that the Old Testament writer makes it clear that agreements entered into by the wife can be cancelled if the husband disapproves; once again the Bible places women in a subservient position. The man is the master of the women; the woman has little control over her life.

" If a woman living with her husband makes a vow or obligates herself by a pledge under oath and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand. Her husband has nullified them, and the LORD will release her." (Numbers 30:10-12)

Women Are to Keep Their Mouths Shut and Learn From the Husbands

The passage below makes it clear that the misguided Bible writers believed that women's opinion are not worth anything, especially in regards to matters of the church. Only the man's opinion matters:

" Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
(1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

This is why many denominations forbid women to become ministers.

Fooled by the Serpent, So They're Not Fit to Teach or Guide Men Because it was the woman, not the man, who was tricked by the serpent--if you can believe the Genesis writer, women must never be given control over men:

"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (Timothy 2:11-12)

Women Are Busy-bodies and Gossipers

If a widow has no one to take care of her and is under the age of 60 years, the people shall not take care of her because it's to be expected that she will marry again. Furthermore, such women can be expected to be busybodies and gossipers, because the Bible writers thought that is just the way young widows are.

" Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate....Let [her not] be taken [care of] under threescore years old..... [these] younger widows... will marry...And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not." (1 Timothy 5:5-13)

Thus, Paul, alleged to be the founder of Christianity, is seen stereotyping women negatively. Is this the attitude of a man who believes that women are his equal? Is this a teaching that you believe came from God?

The choice seems clear: Those who believe that the woman is not inferior to man cannot also believe that the Bible is the word of God and without error; one of these two beliefs has to be given up.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible" http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

Edited by - JosephAlward on 16 October 2002 3:6:25

Edited by - JosephAlward on 16 October 2002 3:8:57

13

Does God Deceive Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

the bible says that god's word can be trusted: "every word of god is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

(proverbs 30:5) but, the verses below suggests the opposite is true:.

"so now the lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.

JosephAlward

DOUBLE EDGE asks,

"Joseph: Are you putting down the existence of God, or the validity of the Bible? "

JOE ALWARD responds:

I'm unaware of any evidence that the god described in the Bible exists, or ever existed, and I further believe that the Bible contains an almost uncountable number of errors, inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities. It does, nevertheless, contain a great many very profound teachings, especially in Proverbs, Psalm, and Ecclesiastes.

Joseph F. Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

Edited by - JosephAlward on 16 October 2002 1:43:15

24

Jacob's Branches and Genetics: Bible Error

by JosephAlward in

joe alward.

about a year ago i raised this issue of the bible-writers' apparent belief that the color of one's offspring is determined in part by what you're looking at while you're mating.

we didn't obtain then what i considered a satisfactory resolution of this problem, so i'm presenting it once again for the forum's consideration:.

JosephAlward

JOSEPH MALIK wrote, "It is the proximity to the rods not what they saw that affected them."

JOSEPH ALWARD responds:

So you believe that the writer of this story wanted readers to believe that mating while rubbing up against striped branches caused striped offspring, and that this was a natural occurrence? Any geneticist will tell you that this is a preposterous notion.

Edited by - JosephAlward on 15 October 2002 18:39:20

13

Does God Deceive Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

the bible says that god's word can be trusted: "every word of god is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

(proverbs 30:5) but, the verses below suggests the opposite is true:.

"so now the lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.

JosephAlward

Funkyderek noted that Einstein did not worship the Bible. Our founding fathers also did not:

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies."---Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Dr. Woods

"In my opinion the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it."--Thomas Paine

Edited by - JosephAlward on 16 October 2002 1:32:33

13

Does God Deceive Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

the bible says that god's word can be trusted: "every word of god is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

(proverbs 30:5) but, the verses below suggests the opposite is true:.

"so now the lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours.

JosephAlward

The Bible says that God's word can be trusted: "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. (Proverbs 30:5) But, the verses below suggests the opposite is true:

"So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you." (1 Kings 22:23)

Then I said, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, how completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, `You will have peace,' when the sword is at our throats." (Jeremiah 4:10)

O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. (Jeremiah 20:7)

"`How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? (Jeremiah 8:8)

I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by
(Ezekiel 20:25)

Joseph F. Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

24

Jacob's Branches and Genetics: Bible Error

by JosephAlward in

joe alward.

about a year ago i raised this issue of the bible-writers' apparent belief that the color of one's offspring is determined in part by what you're looking at while you're mating.

we didn't obtain then what i considered a satisfactory resolution of this problem, so i'm presenting it once again for the forum's consideration:.

JosephAlward

JOSEPH MALIK wrote:

"Even if the events were simply a test of faith and the results were a miraculous product of that faith so what? This is not a problem is it?"

JOSEPH ALWARD responds:

I think it IS a problem, Joseph, because nowhere in the Jacob's branches passage is there the slightest indication that what had happened was extraordinary; there's no clue given to the reader that they should understand that what had happened was a miracle. There's no reference to the intervention by Yahweh, or the Holy Spirit, or any other supernatural agent, so readers are left to assume that what had happened was NATURAL , so if they trusted the Bible writer they would conclude that the color of offspring is influenced by what their parents were looking at when they mated. This is obviously ridiculous; no one on this forum believes that if their parents had mated under the tree on Christmas Eve they would have been born striped red and white, like the candy cane.

If the Bible writer had known that this was not possible, he would have gone out of his way to make sure that the readers knew that a miracle had occurred; the fact that he didn't do this is strong evidence that he actually believed such as thing was possible, and expected us to believe it, too. This means that the Bible is in error. If it can be in error in this place, it can be in error anywhere.

Joseph F. Alward
"A Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

Edited by - JosephAlward on 15 October 2002 18:33:16

53

Jesus Set Precedent for Shunning

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

abandon family to serve god ?

a contradiction not often discussed relates to the biblical teaching to abandon family in order to serve god.

matthew claims that jesus told his disciples to "honor your father and mother.

JosephAlward

Joseph Alward said,

I'm still waiting for a verse which shows Jesus promoting family togetherness, or showing love toward his own family members, or encouraging one of his friends to love his family more. If they don't exist, then . . .

Joseph Malik provides

26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! 27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

Joseph Alward responds:

Fair enough. This shows that Jesus encouraged the son to take the mother into his home, and it satisfies my request. However, you are inadvertently damning Jesus with faint praise. If this verse is all you can offer in defense of my contention that Jesus generally did nothing to promote family togetherness, when compared to what he said and did against it, then Jesus comes out lookly pretty bad. Where are the verses to counter the ones which have Jesus refusing to speak to his mother outside the house, and telling the followers inside that his real mother is found among the women in the house? Where are the verses to counter Jesus' statement that he came to earth NOT to bring peace, but to set mother, father, son, and daughter against one another? Where are the verses which counter the ones which have Jesus stating that his followers must hate their mothers and fathers?

On balance, then, a stronger case can be made for the claim that Jesus' teaching worked against family togetherness than it did for it.