Yahweh’s Murderous Tendencies

Damn Jesse, the idea of reinterpreting the bible as a play about the mafia is brilliant.

I can see the flood scene. He arranges to have the entire family with cement shoes in the bottom of a huge pool. Poor Noah is standing at the bottom with his dog, cat, and an inflatable raft.

Yahweh tells Noah how disappointed he is with the family. Then says ‘But I like you Noah. I like you lots. Heres a hammer, if you can chisel out your kids and wife before they drown, toss em on that boat. And save dem animals of yours too. I always liked them animals. Ok Tony, turn on the water.’

I still don’t get why not liking what a God does – or the claims about what God does – are reasons not to believe in God.

The God of the Bible if he exists (and I believe he does) would then be the definer of love. Not us. He would also be the definer of “good”. Not us.

Human centric theology (or understanding of god(s)) is not theology at all.

I find this sort of argument and name calling the most confounding trait of new atheism.

I thought of a few scenes. But they wouldn’t be believable and would be banned as obscene.

I still don’t get why not liking what a God does – or the claims about what God does – are reasons not to believe in God.

Because your god’s behavior is supposed to set the standard that we all must follow; yet it is demonstrably evil on many occasions. This is called a contradiction, and for most reasonable people, it would be enough to disbelieve.

It’s also not a contradiction if it can be easily reconciled by the claims the Bible makes.

It’s a contradiction if two claims can not be consistently resolved.

Question for Nathan: Do you accept the Bible as an accurate and infallible representation of human history?

Also, just because Nixon said it doesn’t make it true. If the president commits a crime, it’s still a crime.

Please Nathan define “evil” for us then. As the Christian theology/culture (both pop and proper) thrives off this notion of a ever present struggle between “good” and “evil”.

I find this sort of argument and name calling the most confounding trait of new atheism.

These aren’t arguments, it’s just a little imagination play. There are plenty of reasons not to believe in YHWH other than his total lack of consistency (“Thou shalt not kill”).

I’d like to see Allah next.
Actually, I think Mohammed was probably more mafia boss than anyone: “Who will rid me of dis trouble?”
“I will boss, I will!”
Two words: Camel head

btw – anyone else hear of that new movie where the Greek gods are real? “The Lightning Thief” it’s called.

But your talking about the Ollld Covenant! Jesus gave us a Newwww and Better one!!! snark

Whatever God says is good, is good. Take that you moral relativist atheists!

I just thought of a few more! 🙂

(1) It’s an open secret among Yahweh’s family and associates that he’s into kinky stuff. How else would that explain Yahweh founding the underground bondage club, Hell? Unfortunately, Yahweh’s still bitter about the falling out he had years ago with the club’s manager, Lou (as in Lucifer).

(2) Yahweh is known to use bizarre methods to intimidate his opponents. Once, after he learned that a local fruit mogul nicknamed “the Serpent” was talking trash about him, Yahweh made him crawl on his belly in the dirt. And then there was that nasty incident will rival crimelord Baal’s henchmen (1 Kings 18:19-40) …

Nathans just moving goal posts. We answered his first question, so he jumped to another. Until he is willing to explain why god was suprised to see Adam and Eve cover themselves when he was omniscient. If he was truly all seeing and all knowing, he would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the apple before he even made them. Same for the flood, if he knew man was going to get so bad that they would all need to be destroyed, why not just start with Noah, and skip the whole Adam and Eve thing.

Angie, I love it. Do we have any playwrights in the house? I think this needs to happen.

@Nathan

If it’s not a lack of consistency then what is this contradiction of terms? What reason is there for the mass murders?

Ok. Let’s assume that God has different “standards” than us, as in he can drink beer while we pathetic humans can’t, then why does Christian theology or teaching preach the “morality” of the skyman? Why are we trying to compare ourselves with something that has standards that are not applicable to humans?

Also you say that “The Bible would suggest that God’s actions are always justifiable and therefore not murder.”

do you take these “suggestions” as infallible and true?

Might I “suggest” that most things do not “ring true with most believers”, say evolution by natural selection or rational thought processes?

So basically what Nathan is saying is that anything God does is justified and beyond human questioning. God sets the rules, but there is one set that he tells people to live by and a second that he lives by. This is to be considered, as Nathan say, “not inconsistent, but consistent with different capacity.” I think that Nathan has just gone and moved the goal posts ALL the way back.

Nathan, regarding the Bible, you say “It sometimes contains history but it also often contains allegory or metaphor. I don’t think it’s all that hard to tell the difference.” I know Christians who accept the story of the Garden of Eden as absolute fact any others who take it as metaphor. It seems a bit arrogant to assume you know which parts of the Bible God wanted you to take as fact and which He did not.

lol, this guy (yeah you Nathan) has no hope. Why was I wasting my time here, oh well, good day/night to you, try to produce more sensible arguments in the future, although that would be near impossible when one is fending for a sadistic child of the clouds.

The God of the Bible if he exists (and I believe he does) would then be the definer of love. Not us. He would also be the definer of “good”. Not us.

But he revealed the difference between good and evil to us all with the magical fruit… right? Yet Tim D seems to have a different idea of good and evil than you do… right. So what the dealeo there slick, come on now Nathan, give me the bafflingly ridiculous story I just know you have up your sleeve.

The evil nature of God in the Bible is not a reason a good reason to stop believing in him. However, people are generally moral, and it would create them discomfort to believe that whatever ever God does in the Bible is true and good. Because Christians believe in God through wish thinking and indoctrination, God doing morally reprehensible acts causes them to doubt God the same way they became to believe, irrationally.

Only sociopaths would accept that God killing innocents was moral, and there aren’t many of those. Some will remain Christians by rejecting large parts of the Bible, as they have to for the parts of the Bible that conflict with scientific knowledge. It is absurd for moral people to claim they believe the Bible to be true, including the parts where God kills innocents, and maintain that God is compassionate or good. Asking most people whether God killing innocents is moral would recieve a strong negative response.

There’s no reason to accept that a deity is the source of morals. It’s an appeal to authority. Why should a creator write the laws? There’s no good reason for that.

“Until he is willing to explain why god was suprised to see Adam and Eve cover themselves when he was omniscient.”

Who said he was surprised?

If he was truly all seeing and all knowing, he would have known that Adam and Eve would eat the apple before he even made them.

Indeed, he would, and he did. At least that’s what the Bible says.

later on you say

Only in that the fruit – symbolic or literal – was an opportunity for us to act autonomously – that’s what sin is – a decision to reject God’s intentions and do our own thing.

So on one hand you say god is all seeing and all knowing. On the other hand you are claiming we get to make decisions.

You’ve contradicted yourself.

If god is all knowing, he knows what we will do before we do it (you already conceded this in the case of Adam & Eve), then that excludes the possibility that we can make decisions at all.

The original text says “murder” rather than “kill”. There’s a difference.

Seriously, give us a break. The same Hebrew word that you claim translates to ‘murder’ is the word used to describe a lion killing something, elsewhere in the Bible. Do lions murder, or is the translation selectively beneficial to your interpretation?

I believe that it’s God’s subjective position on “good” that actually matters.

Here, let me translate that into plainer English: Might makes right.

That’s really the core of Christian theology. God’s the biggest kid on the block, so he gets to tell everyone else what the deal is. Sorry, but even if I still believed in your god, I would never worship him.

Please Mike, if your rebuttal is so quickly and easily answered with an obvious perusal of wikipedia don’t bother…

“The Hebrew word for “kill” is ??? (harog), while the Hebrew word for “murder” is ??? (retzach), which is found in the Ten Commandments ?? ???? (lo tirtzach). In the fullness of the Old Testament Exodus 20:13 is abundantly evidenced as prohibiting unjust killing, rather than a universal injunction against all killing, as retzach is never used in reference to the slaying of animals”

That’s really the core of Christian theology. God’s the biggest kid on the block, so he gets to tell everyone else what the deal is.

Well, feel free to go up against him. But it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory only.

That really is a triumph of your personal philosophy rather than reason.

Sorry, but even if I still believed in your god, I would never worship him.

That’s your choice. I’m not out to convince you otherwise – just pointing out that this “God is evil” thing doesn’t actually work for anybody but sycophantic atheists with chips on the shoulder.

“The only resolution is to say that God knows all possible outcomes of our choices, which does a poor job of maintaining the idea that he actually knows which possible outcome is the one that will happen.”

I didn’t suggest that this was the case. Did I?

I also didn’t suggest this needed to be resolved.

I’m happy to believe in an omnipotent (and in jargon terms “sovereign”) God – who predestines things and in human agency/free will.

“A universe in which an omnipotent being with accurate foreknowledge exists is a universe in which choice is a total illusion.”

Indeed. And yet we’re all under the same illusion whether we believe in God or not (assuming that the omnipotent being exists).

Indeed. And yet we’re all under the same illusion whether we believe in God or not (assuming that the omnipotent being exists).

I don’t disagree. But it does put the lie to the entire concept of sin and salvation. If choice is an illusion, God has predestined those who will be saved and those who won’t, which essentially means he’s messing with people at his whim.

Again, not worthy of worship.

I’m happy to believe in an omnipotent (and in jargon terms “sovereign”) God – who predestines things and in human agency/free will.

Indeed. And yet we’re all under the same illusion whether we believe in God or not (assuming that the omnipotent being exists).

Wait a minute, you can’t believe in an illusion, knowingly! Unless you’re insane.

in your own life you have the most power – and thus you define good…

Uh, no. See, I’m a member of a society. I don’t have the most power.

I think it’s a paradox rather than a contradiction.

No, it is a contradiction.

Plenty of Christians and theologians have grappled with that paradox for years. I’m happy not to completely understand God.

Like you, they don’t have an answer. Like you, they do what every good theologian of pretty much every religion humans have ever invented… they bullshit their way out of it.

I don’t see why apparent paradoxes are a reason to reject the premise of God’s existence.

I’m beginning to see why.

“By the way, regarding ‘retzach’, Proverbs 22:13.
“The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.”
‘Slain’ is ‘retzach’. Can a lion murder?”

Is it not possible that the proverb may be referring not to a literal lion but to any form of danger…

Like “a lazy man says “if I go outside I may be murdered by a bus”…

“Wait a minute, you can’t believe in an illusion, knowingly! Unless you’re insane.”

Or willing to submit my understanding of things to a higher power. A God. If you will…

Nathan, I was truly curious to hear your rebuttal of my assertion that you are slightly arrogant in presupposing what parts of the bible God meant for you to take seriously and what parts he meant for you to take as metaphor. Sorry that you didn’t have one. Either that or you are just cherry picking the things you will respond to, however unimpressively.

Nathan: If you had a genuine revelation from God that told you that you were to go out and begin murdering people until God told you to stop, how many people would you be willing to kill before you disobeyed?

Josh,

I think it’s actually pretty clear from the text – or as clear as can be without it being colour coded – what is metaphor and what is literal.

It doesn’t have to be all literal or all metaphor. To assume so would be to believe that God is not capable of the same nuance that we humans are. That isn’t logical.

So – poetry in the Bible is clearly poetry, and most narratives are first theology (teaching us about God) and then possibly history (tied to a specific time and place). Other parts of the Bible are letters of instruction (think the epistles).

Each book – or chapter of the Bible – has a clear feel to it. Except perhaps Genesis 1 – 3, which many argue is poetic in structure and mythical (but theological) in nature and others want to take literally. I believe those that take it literally are making the same false assumption about nuance that you are.

Spursfan,

“A good Christian would definitely know that the Golden Rule is attributed to Jesus (among others). So, if you believe that Jesus is God (which you may not), then that rule is actually not a “human standard”, and thus, there is a lot of gymnastics to jump through from Noah to there.”

Sorry, I may not have been clear enough there… I believe it is a standard for humans to obey – see my earlier point about humans judging other humans being a fast track to hypocrisy.

“Nathan: If you had a genuine revelation from God that told you that you were to go out and begin murdering people until God told you to stop, how many people would you be willing to kill before you disobeyed?”

Let me answer with a statement, a disclaimer and a question.

a) If it were absolutely, unquestionably, genuine – I’d kill them all.

b) I would suggest that the Bible establishes pretty clear rules for testing the “genuineness” of such claims. It couldn’t be contradictory to what God has already revealed and commanded – and that clearly would be. So I don’t think I would actually kill anyone. I would probably assume that I was hallucinating and check myself in for rehab.

c) If God genuinely appeared to you and convinced you that all his actions were justifiable (in his mind) would you still stand in opposition to him as you claimed you would – even if you disagreed with the justification?

The flying spaghetti monster will smite Nathan’s ignorance so no worries. Oh and we atheists/skeptics/humanists are still capable of humor. sigh. You make me shake my head.

“Never mind, Abraham, it was a test, just a test– fuggetaboutit!”

The God of the Bible if he exists (and I believe he does) would then be the definer of love. Not us. He would also be the definer of “good”. Not us.

Human centric theology (or understanding of god(s)) is not theology at all.

This was always a curious argument for christians to make. So if god defines things like good and evil and his definition of good and evil may not be the same as our definition of good and evil then might heaven be a place of appalling torment and sorrow and hell be blissful paradise? I mean god says that hell will be bad and heaven will be good, but that’s by god’s standards! Who are we to judge?

Nor do actions that involve killing people necessarily constitute evil if you gave them life to begin with and they are not “innocent” as we would claim.

So it’s permissable to murder your own children if they turn out bad? I mean in the bible it isn’t just OK it’s actually mandated. But I wonder what you think, seeing as you “gave them life” and they turned out “not so innocent” it should be alright, shouldn’t it?

This whole premise – that God is evil – does not make any sense. Either he is good, or he does not exist.

Finally, you’re getting it.

Someone earlier asked me to define “good” – here’s my definition…

“Good is what the being with the most power decries to be good.”

With apologies to Mike Godwin does this mean that in Nazi Germany the persecution and murder of jews was “good” because the “being with the most power” in Germany decreed it to be so?

I always maintained that the problem isn’t religion. It’s people who take religion seriously. There’s something frightening psychotic about christians who make the sorts of arguments that Nathan has.

Tony, GREAT post:) You said:

So if god defines things like good and evil and his definition of good and evil may not be the same as our definition of good and evil then might heaven be a place of appalling torment and sorrow and hell be blissful paradise? I mean god says that hell will be bad and heaven will be good, but that’s by god’s standards! Who are we to judge?

Brilliant 🙂 ah, the consequences of taking such inconsistent ‘reasoning’ to its logical end!

But Nathan, you didn’t respond to this point that Autumnal Harvest made:

“Why would God ordering you to murder people be clearly contradictory to what God has already revealed? The God described in the (Hebrew) Bible orders innocents killed all the time.”

Could you reply to that?

There’s something frightening psychotic about christians who make the sorts of arguments that Nathan has.

I think this really hits the nail on the head here. After reading all these comments with a deep feeling of dread this really made me feel kind of sane again.

a) If it were absolutely, unquestionably, genuine – I’d kill them all.

Then you’ve given up your humanity. I don’t even feel it’s necessary to respond to the rest of what you said.

Even though I’m an atheist, I can at least imagine a universe controlled by an evil God. I can also imagine a universe controlled by a good God. I would also think that a book inspired by a good God would look quite different than the Christian bible. I can easily imagine that a book inspired by an evil God could look quite similar to the Christian bible. So therefore, if one is inclined to believe in a supernatural (Christian) God, I don’t see any reason not to consider that this God is also evil. Of course, for atheists, its all just a thought experiment.

Nathan says:

Good is what the being with the most power decries to be good.

If it were absolutely, unquestionably, genuine – I’d kill them all.

Tony says

So if god defines things like good and evil and his definition of good and evil may not be the same as our definition of good and evil then might heaven be a place of appalling torment and sorrow and hell be blissful paradise?

Darwin’s Dagger Says

So there is no good, only redemption, offered through another act of sadistic (self) torture that will allow you to become attached to this being for all of eternity. This is the selling point of Christianity, cozy up to the bastard or burn for eternity. I’m somehow thinking the burning will be a more pleasant experience.

Interesting. Very interesting. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, these are good arguments to choose door number 2.

The OT does have at least one example of someone standing up to God’s authority:

22And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.

23And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein?

25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

V. confusing to include this bit if there is no external standard by which to judge god!

Genesis 3:8

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

God didn’t know where they were? Sure doesn’t sound like an all knowing deity to me. Shortly after that, he was surprised to see them covered!

Unless you want to add a whole bunch of words that aren’t there, like “God knew where they were, but was just testing them to see if they would admit what they had done” The words in Genesis are quite clear, god didn’t know where they were, and didn’t know they had clothed themselves.

Omnipotence fail.

I’m skipping over most of these posts and adding my two cents. This is the FRIENDLY Atheist website, is it not? I’m starting to grow tired of the less-than-friendly posts by Mr. Galef (this isn’t the worst…just the latest). Okay, so there is an interesting series of articles on Unreasonable Faith – post that. Skip the additional commentary on how evil god is, and leave that to the message boards. Those of us that are atheists already know the god in the bible is a twisted piece of work. Posting nasty commentary only encourages the angry atheist stereotype that makes Richard Wade need to counsel young teens with irrational parent issues.

Shorter Nathan:

“Befehl ist Befehl”

Nor do actions that involve killing people necessarily constitute evil if you gave them life to begin with and they are not “innocent” as we would claim.

I never expected Nathan to make an argument sympathetic to abortion. Much less the kind of… let’s say “ultra-super-late-term” abortion practiced by the god of the Bible.

Had Hitler won the war and been the one writing laws he would have been the one who defined “good” for those living in his world.

No, Nathan, Hitler still would have been evil.

“Moses, either my commandments or your brains are going to be on those tablets.”

“I know it was you, Judas. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!“

I’ll second that, Jeff. I’m finding Nathan’s comments very interesting and enjoyable, I like seeing his perspective.

I’m skipping over most of these posts and adding my two cents. This is the FRIENDLY Atheist website, is it not? I’m starting to grow tired of the less-than-friendly posts by Mr. Galef (this isn’t the worst…just the latest).

…

Those of us that are atheists already know the god in the bible is a twisted piece of work. Posting nasty commentary only encourages the angry atheist stereotype that makes Richard Wade need to counsel young teens with irrational parent issues.

I agree with this posting. I’ve read maybe one or two posts by Jesse Galef so far that don’t sound like they were written by an indignant sixth-grader with a thesaurus on hand. I thought it was odd that Hemant would write such a deliberately antagonistic article as this one, but then I noticed it was Galef’s and I wasn’t surprised.

Also, there are a lot of elitist douche-isms and name-callings being thrown around here. Yeah, I think Nathan’s beliefs are mostly bunk, too, but he took the time to come on here and talk about them and I think that’s important (as Jeff had pointed out). It pains me to see atheists on one of my most beloved blogs unable to hold such a simple discussion without resorting to ad-hominem — if the argument is really *that* stupid, it should be easy to show how or why without resorting to trash talk.

[/rant]

[raise +3 Flame Shield]

I want to start this comment (where I’ll try to address the points made since my last visit – I probably won’t get them all) by saying that I actually believe that God is good, not some warped type of good – but actually and objectively good. And the goodest of all the Gods actually believed in by people of faith and all systems of faith.

AxeGrrl:

If God commanded you to kill someone right now, how on earth could you claim that that’s ‘inconsistent’? The person he commanded you to kill might be ‘not innocent’ as well (according to your reasoning)

I couldn’t. If God commanded it right now then I guess, like the other people in the Bible who carried similar actions, I would be an agent of God’s judgment.

There’s a difference between obeying a direct and irrefutable command and killing people because I think that’s what the Bible commands me to do. Which I don’t. I’d have to be thoroughly convinced that God had directly appeared to me and spoken to me with proof beyond the coincidental.

This – I believe – is where I differ from a suicide bomber. They are going from commands from a book from long ago – my book from long ago actually commands me not to act that way.

I don’t know anybody who would really, believing in the Christian God, disobey him if he were to appear and directly command such an action.

There are some Christians who believe that is exactly what is going to happen at the end of the world.

What would you do?

I would do what God told me to do.

If the person isn’t ‘innocent’, you’d be justified in carrying out God’s commandment, wouldn’t you?

Yes.

But.

God has also given us the general principle not to kill (murder) – which would preclude us killing innocents.

When Jesus came to town he also told us that we’re as guilty as anybody we’d like to kill – so we probably shouldn’t even kill the guilty.

Monkeymind,

Your example is not so confusing if you then see what happens. And this is a similar issue to revyloution’s little Genesis 3 example.

In the Abraham example – nobody innocent can be found and God (in)famously wipes out two cities with fire and brimstone.

God agrees with Abraham that it would be wrong to slay the righteous with the wicked – and Abraham can’t find any righteous. I don’t see how that’s confusing.

In the Genesis 3 chapter – which Revyloution quotes – I would suggest that the “where are you” isn’t so much a “I don’t know where they are” but the type of “where are you” you might say when playing hide and seek with a child and you know exactly where they are hiding. I would suggest the “surprise” is the same.

You are making the same mistake that some fundamentalist Christians make and not allowing for anything but your own plain reading of the text without any sense of nuance or context. If all the Bible said about God’s character was that he was surprised and didn’t know where they were then that would be a blow to claims of omnipotence. But theologians try to take all the claims made about God throughout the Bible and assess them together. This is a strawman God that nobody believes in and you’ve erected him by ignoring context.

Polly has summed up my thinking on the matter pretty well with the gravity analogy.

Muggle – you’re making assumptions about my intentions that aren’t fair – I haven’t seen any beautiful arguments that I have ducked. Certainly not intentionally. Please – point out the points I haven’t addressed and I’ll do so if time permits.

GJ,

““Had Hitler won the war and been the one writing laws he would have been the one who defined ‘good’ for those living in his world.”

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, but you seem to be suggesting that might makes right. Fair enough. But I was under the impression that theists thought that there are certain objective moral principles the violation of which is ALWAYS wrong. At any rate, virtually every theist I know thinks this. “

I would suggest – using Polly’s gravity framework – that Hitlers actions would be contraventions of this “natural law” and that his power would be secondary to God’s.

As a Christian I believe God creates the standard by which we should act – not that we should act as though we are God, but as though we are subject to his rule.

What’s being denied is that god is morally permitted to slaughter people. He can’t slaughter people in this sense. Nobody, not even god, is morally permitted to commit genocide. Most sophisticated theists recognize this. Read up on these matters before careening off another conceptual cliff.

God, as the arbiter of morality, can morally do whatever he wants. We don’t set what’s moral and what’s not. If God exists he does.

The God of the Bible is also described as perfectly “holy” (intolerant of unholiness) and perfectly “righteous” and “just”. The Bible says it’s his world. He sets the standard for morality and he dictates things to us, we’re not in a position to dictate our morality to him. Even if we think we’re better equipped to make these decisions.

So he alone can slaughter people, and is actually permitted to commit genocide – but the Abraham example above suggests that he won’t do that if people are “righteous”. But, Romans (the book) says that nobody is righteous and that the wages of sin = death.

Tim D’s long comment deserves a proper response. I’m off for now. I’ll be back.

Sorry, English fail on my part on the paradox ending.

Point being, for those who believe in God and the Bible, there is no answer to the question “Does God lie?” (or, conversely, “Does the Bible tell us about God & His character & His expectations for us?) because God could be lying all throughout the Bible. Both a truth-teller and a liar claim, “I am not a liar”. So, ignoring for a moment the problems of cherry-picking and literal/allegorical and interpretation, I claim that even if the Bible were absolutely the word of God, noone would know anything about God from it, because there is no external validation of its claims about God. Confusing enough?

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_ball/bible.html

This essay on inconsistencies in the Bible shows a lot of passages which display the cruelty of Yahweh. Quite eye opening.

I vote we keep Jesse and ban that sick fuck Nathan.

I disagree entirely. Nathan gives his reasons, morally obtuse as they are. His comments have actual content that can start a discussion, unlike 99% of comments on blogs, and he’s not name-calling.

I’m really more than happy to have a theist making those sorts of argument out in the open, if only to know that people who hold those views do exist.

As far as Jesse goes, I like Jesse, I think he’s a nice guy. I don’t have any problem with his post per se, but the a post titled “Yahweh’s Murderous Tendencies” is definitely flamebait. If Hemant’s ok with it, hey, it’s his blog. But I don’t think this post (and I did enjoy the post) necessarily matches the tone Hemant is trying to go for with this blog.

I actually don’t mind the post. I don’t mind Jesse’s tone. I just think the premise that God, if he exists, is evil is a bit silly.

I wrote a lengthy comment and must have navigated away before posting it… I can’t be bothered writing it again.

But in summary…

I started by saying that I wouldn’t be a Christian if I believed God was “evil” – I don’t, not for a minute. I believe he is good. Good, generous and merciful. And loving. More so than any other “god” from any other religious system. You might disagree and point to some obscure spiritualism – I’ll restrict my defintion to a religion that adequately explains all the bad stuff that happens in the world.

The Hitler example has been unhelpful – and I’m sorry it was brought up, and sorry that I perpetuated it.

I do think the definition of “good” has something to do with “conforms to the view of the ultimate authority” – Hitler may have tried to claim to be that authority – but I believe his authority would not have been ultimate – he would have believed different.

I don’t think that as a Christian you can separate “good” from “God’s will” in any consistent sense. Because we believe that our nature, by definition, leads us towards evil.

“If I were to believe what the Bible says, then:
1) God created people, with full foreknowledge of what could, or would, happen.
2) Then he blames them for not being perfect and without sin.
3) Then he claims, through the Bible, that it is perfectly acceptable for him to kill them (commit genocide, as well as killing a large number of individiuals throughout the OT).

Regardless of what you believe, can you see how this looks to those of us who don’t share your beliefs?

I will leaving you with this related paradox:
1) God is said to have written or inspired the Bible.
2) The Bible says God doesn’t lie.”

Yes. I agree. I’m not sure what the point is here… it is perfectly acceptable for God to kill whomever he wants, whenever he wants.

It’s not perfectly acceptable for us to do so (see my previous points about Jesus).

This also touches on my point about paradoxes not needing to be resolved (and that’s not actually a paradox because I don’t think the Bible lies). A paradox is an apparent contradiction that may be resolved in a way that shows it was only assumed to be a contradiction. I think that will end up being the case in the free will v foreknowledge debate.

I’m happy not knowing stuff. My Christianity doesn’t hinge on this question – but on the question of Jesus.

Muggle – feel free to point out the things I’ve dodged, or the things I’ve said that justify my being banned from this site.

Censorship of conflicting ideas would be an interesting approach for an atheist to advocate wouldn’t it?

^Dammit.

That last part should look like this:

A paradox is an apparent contradiction that may be resolved in a way that shows it was only assumed to be a contradiction. I think that will end up being the case in the free will v foreknowledge debate.

True. However, traditionally the idea is to assume it’s a contradiction until some evidence comes up (or doesn’t come up) implying that there is a way to solve the contradiction. There may never be a solution to the contradiction; it’s a bit hasty to stand around waiting for someone to discover the solution to what seems like a blatantly unsolvable problem.

The way I see it, it’s a contradiction until someone proves that it’s not.

I’m happy not knowing stuff. My Christianity doesn’t hinge on this question – but on the question of Jesus.

That’s good and well. But perhaps you can understand the frustration one experiences when someone makes a claim about his or her god being the “one true god,” and then responds with the above quotation when pressed for rational explanation. It’s…odd.

“Now, apply that same reasoning to the new world you find yourself in — now that there is no god, no “ultimate authority,” we are left with only other humans to judge what is “right” or “wrong.” And using the same reasoning that you used as a Christian, you are *forced* to admit that whoever has the power to do what he/she desires, is right to do that. If someone becomes a leader of a powerful nation, and they want to enslave the third world and force its population to labor themselves to death, then that means they’re “right” because they can. So in this world with no god, do you still believe that there is nothing inherently “wrong” about a government enslaving a population and harvesting them like animals until they die?”

If you had asked me to do this right off the bat I would have agreed with you.

We’re not talking about morality sans God – an atheist is making the claim that the God he doesn’t believe in is evil and immoral.

You’re right in that my approach to the definition of God springs from my Christianity.

But remove the absoluteness of a good v evil dichotomy from the picture and you get a wishy washy “harm” based moral framework where nobody is prepared to speak in black and white.

“I’m happy not knowing stuff. My Christianity doesn’t hinge on this question – but on the question of Jesus.

That’s good and well. But perhaps you can understand the frustration one experiences when someone makes a claim about his or her god being the “one true god,” and then responds with the above quotation when pressed for rational explanation. It’s…odd.”

Not at all. Firstly a God simple enough to understand is a God simple enough to dismiss.

My decision to hinge things on the person of Jesus is ultimately the most rational way to approach the issue of God. Jesus became flesh – he ultimately became scientifically testable (for those lucky enough to be there). He could be touched, watched, questioned and measured.

The decision to trust the accounts of Jesus life from the Bible is a personal one – I find the case for accepting the Bible more convincing than the case against.

Nathan, you haven’t yet answered this question, and I’m really interested in hearing what you have to say:

Say a Muslim suicide bomber claimed precisely the same thing you referred to ~ that he received direct, unequivocal orders from his ‘God’ (not from a book) to kill thousands of people….

if the Muslim bomber then perpetrated the act, would you be ok with it? If not, how would you argue that he was wrong in doing so?

But remove the absoluteness of a good v evil dichotomy from the picture and you get a wishy washy “harm” based moral framework where nobody is prepared to speak in black and white.

1. There is no reason to believe that there IS an absolute good vs. evil dichotomy, since good and evil are labels mankind gives to things.

2. The fact that you think it’s wishy-washy and that nobody can speak in black and white means absolutely nothing to the point of whether or not it’s functional and whether or not an absolute is required. Why MUST we speak in black and white? Why is that even a rational approach to moral dilemmas?

You WANT an absolute moral standard, but you’re confused “what should be” with “what is”. There’s no reason to think that your standard actually exists.

Polly wrote:

Why shut down a perfectly good conversation? Isn’t that EXACTLY why we’re here?

Yes! I’m glad Nathan is here…..

Brian Macker wrote:

and the attempts to nail the jell-o to the wall by atheists

Examples of that would be……?

AxeGrrl,

Nathan is the jell-o.

Brian Macker wrote:

Had you quoted me as,
“the attempts to nail the jell-o to the wall by atheists leads to interesting new counterpoints”, and then asked me for examples then I would have given an example of a new counterpoint. For example the “Since gods notions of good and bad do no match human conceptions then maybe hell is a good place to be” argument.

Ah yes….sorry for my misinterpretation!

I really hope Nathan returns ~ I want to hear his response to my question and now, to what you just proposed: how do we know hell is a ‘bad’ place if ‘God’s good doesn’t match up to ours?

This thread is getting so long that I think I miss certain things that have been said (it’s a lot to read:), but I think there’s a really interesting discussion happening 🙂

Nathan:

We’re not talking about morality sans God – an atheist is making the claim that the God he doesn’t believe in is evil and immoral.

I suspect you’ve left this thread, and there are at any rate too many atheist comments for you to respond to them all, but. . . Comments like this make me think that not only do you not understand your perspective, but that you’re not even trying. You keep saying things like this as if you’d found some great contradiction: “atheists claim not to believe in God, but then they say that he’s evil!” He’s (according to us) a fictional entity. What atheists are saying is that the actions (which never really occurred) ascribed to the (nonexistent) entity in the (Hebrew) Bible are so clearly evil (e.g. genocide) that it makes no sense to call them “good.” Do you really not understand this? Why do you find this “silly” or “confounding,” as you have repeatedly stated? Are you confused when you hear people describe Jabba the Hut as evil?

But remove the absoluteness of a good v evil dichotomy from the picture and you get a wishy washy “harm” based moral framework where nobody is prepared to speak in black and white.

Trumpeting God as giving you a black-and-white moral absolutism over the wishy-washiness of atheists rings a little hollow in the context of this thread. Perhaps you’ve noticed that everyone in this thread is willing to call genocide evil, except for you?

Wayne said:

The god of the Old Testament was petty and vengeful. The god of the New Testament was loving and forgiving.

I agree that the God of the new Testament says to be kind to your fellow man. Too bad the God of the new Testament doesn’t follow that advice Himself in dealing with people after they die. That’s my main beef with the whole Christian hell concept. I actually think the tyrant of the Old Testament is more ethical. Yahweh kills but doesn’t infinitely torture.

P.S. I realize that the Christian Universalists don’t believe in hell.

Sung to the tune of…oh, you’ll figure it out.

Oh! You better watch out,
You better not cry,
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why:
Jesus Christ is coming to town!

He’s making a list,
He’s checking it twice,
He’s gonna find out
who’s naughty or nice.
Jesus Christ is coming to town!

He sees you when you’re sleeping,
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!

So…You better watch out,
You better not cry
You better not pout,
I’m telling you why.
Jesus Christ is coming to town.

Nathan,
You comment that you follow the teachings of Jesus. I assume that, like most Christians, you consider him the Son of God. I submit to you that, on the contrary, he was a human being who was an apocalypticist who was preaching that God was about to arrive in his kingdom and that the people must prepare themselves. In Mark 9:1, Jesus states “Truly I tell you, some of you standing here will not taste death before they have seen the Kingdom of God having come in power. And Mark 13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation (i.e., presumably, the one he was addressing) will not pass away before all these things take place. In Mark 14:62 Truly I tell you, You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. In Mathew 16:27-28 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels: and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (i.e., the coming resurrection of the dead on judgment day.) Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Mathew 10:23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. Paul, when asked by one of his churches, if they should continue to help the poor, he said no because they would soon be elevated to the coming Kingdom. Check out 1Cor. 15: 12-26. Here Paul is essentially stating that now that Christ has been risen from the dead, he is the first fruits and the resurrection of the dead with every man in his order will now begin. Paul also states that if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised (i.e., the end times along with the resurrection of the dead to be judged was to happen then not millenniums later.) Are you seeing a trend here? Jesus &, Paul as well, expected this to happen soon, not in the far future. Otherwise, what would be the point? Even Revelations 1:1 starts off saying “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass. Revelations talks about the Whore of Babylon. This was a reference to Rome since the Jews felt that Rome rule was like being in exiled in Babylon. It also mentions the Whore of Babylon seated on 7 hills. Everyone during the time of this writing knew that was referring to the 7 hills of Rome. Every year it seems someone will decide that the end times are coming and who the 666 beast is. But, the beast was in reference to someone back then. It was the hated Roman Emperor Nero. The alphabet was also used as numbers and, guess what, Nero’s name totaled to 666. More recently, scrolls were found that said the number of the beast was 665. 665? Well, it seems that Nero’s name was spelled two different ways and the 2nd way totaled to 665. That makes a whole lot more sense than Ronald Regan. Oh, one more thing. The beast was supposed to suffer a mortal wound but would come back. Well, it so happens that Nero had died and there were Jews who believed he would come back from the dead to rule once more.
Nathan, all this was to occur during the life time of some of the people Jesus was preaching to. It did not happen. From this I can only come to the conclusion that Jesus, though he was a moral man, was also another failed prophet. As a result, I feel this blows Christianity out of the water. You could argue that it states that not even the son knows when the exact hour and day it will occur, but Jesus was not saying the exact time and hour, he was stating within a certain period of time, which doesn’t violate this statement at all. One more thing, when John stated that the prophesy was fulfilled by the word made flesh, that did not fulfill the prophesy of God arriving in glory in his Kingdom during the life time of the disciples. John, knowing that it wasn’t happening had to come up with that statement. However, it really doesn’t take Jesus off the hook.

Jesus was crucified because he was a revel and the Roman government could not allow this for fear he might cause an uprising among the people. Crucifixion was reserved for lowly criminals. Even Moses stated “Cursed is he who hangs on a tree”. The Jews were expecting a powerful military leader. Jesus didn’t fit this expectations and the new Christian sect had to come up with something to save face. Therefore, they decided that Jesus must have been sent by God to die for our sins.

Andrew:

I didn’t get the impression that Nathan has denied that genocide is wrong, but rather that God hasn’t committed genocide. A question such as ‘how can God be good and commit genocide?’ is a loaded question.

This is a rather long thread, so I may have missed it, but I don’t see a comment in which Nathan claims that God hasn’t committed genocide. His comment of Jan 8, 2010, 8:06 P.M. appears to deny that genocide, committed by God, is wrong. And I’m not really sure what other word to use for the mass killings that God orders in the Hebrew Bible to establish Israel.

This misses the point Nathan made early on which seems to have been almost entirely missed – a parent is not bound by the rules their child must follow. It would be foolish to assume that parents must also go to bed when their children do, for example.

Yes, but bedtime is not an issue of morality. I would not say it’s immoral for a child to stay up late, or drink alcohol (Nathan’s example); I would say that those are activities that are harmful for children, but not for adults. In contrast, the basic underlying rules of moral behavior are the same for adults and for children.

On the other hand, yes, it is possible to say that God is so incredibly different than humans, that our normal human standards don’t apply. After all, I don’t call lions immoral for the viciousness with which they hunt, or cows virtuous for their vegetarian lifestyle. They’re just different, and our moral standards are inapplicable. It’s not unreasonable to argue that God is like that, but in that case, it makes no sense to claim that God is good. If it’s logically impossible for God’s actions to be meaningfully morally evaluated by humans, and determined to be evil, then it’s similarly impossible for those actions to be determined to be good.

I think this will be my last comment on this thread.

SpursFan,

“Nathan, please don’t take this as some sort of “I’m making headway with these skeptics” moment like I would have a few years ago, but know that you are welcome. Debate on friend.”

Headway – nay. I don’t ever expect to win an argument in a room full of people who humour me as a madman on the cusp of losing my delusions…

But I do enjoy the discussions. It’s good to have one’s faith (or lack thereof) tested.

AxeGrrl,

Apologies. I thought I had answered your question.

“Say a Muslim suicide bomber claimed precisely the same thing you referred to ~ that he received direct, unequivocal orders from his ‘God’ (not from a book) to kill thousands of people….

if the Muslim bomber then perpetrated the act, would you be ok with it? If not, how would you argue that he was wrong in doing so?”

I think I’d like to qualify my response to the hypothetical situation where God would order me to kill a group of people (or a single person). Part of my “burden of proof” would be that it would need to be not just me hearing these instructions. I think that’s reasonable. There are occasions in the Bible where God only appears to one person, or two people (Moses and Abraham particularly) – but I would want to know that I wasn’t falling for some delusion.

I really don’t think God operates that way as a general rule. How could I think that when by all accounts he has been “silent” since the first century AD? I believe God has given us the Bible to guide our actions. I am suspicious of those who claim to have had “words from the Lord”…

If a Muslim genuinely believed God had ordered him to kill people (in person – which they don’t need to because they have that order in front of them in the Qu’ran) then I would hope that they were stopped.

If it’s really “God’s will” then there’d be no stopping it right?

If a Muslim could convince me that God had appeared to him (and probably other witnesses) then I’d probably convert to Islam.

Jeff,

I would suggest that Daniel 12:2 suggests that YHWH also sends people to Hell…

MikeTheInfidel,

“There is no reason to believe that there IS an absolute good vs. evil dichotomy, since good and evil are labels mankind gives to things.”

Unless you believe that God gives those labels in the Bible. But that’s a discussion for another thread – this thread is about, in my mind, whether God can actually be accused of being evil on the basis our our understanding of evil.

My pet fish can call me evil from their tank all they like – but they have no idea what it’s like walking around outside the tank, and no experience to judge my actions by. They may not like it when I eat fish and chips – but they don’t complain when I feed them their food (which is also made of fish).

I quite like that analogy. Feel free to rip it to shreds – but that’s my understanding of this debate. It’s all well and good for you, as a fish, to come up with your own moral framework – but ultimately if life outside the tank exists, and makes its presence known – you are not in a position to have any real influence on that “framework”…

Autumnal Harvest,

“Trumpeting God as giving you a black-and-white moral absolutism over the wishy-washiness of atheists rings a little hollow in the context of this thread. Perhaps you’ve noticed that everyone in this thread is willing to call genocide evil, except for you?”

This seems an odd point to raise. I also haven’t made any comments about the colour yellow. Or why coffee is preferable to tea.

It hasn’t seemed necessary to condemn genocide. Genocide’s badness is beyond question.

I’ll go further – any genocide perpetrated by humans alone is extremely evil.

What I have said is that God gets to make the call on human life and when it ends. And if God is omnipotent then he gets to set the definition of “morality” not us.

Wayne,

You seem to be lecturing yourself. It’s all very interesting. But you’re asking questions of yourself and then answering them. And not really saying anything to my points or my understanding of the Bible (which is quite orthodox (but possibly not in the American sense) and seems to be the same Christianity advocated by Jesus, the apostles, the early church fathers, Martin Luther and John Calvin – and those in their stead. I’ve provided this list of people to give you the idea that I’m not some rogue Christian who dismisses the Christian lunatics. I can happily sign up to the creeds and statements of belief of each of those people (except where they disagree).

I will try to get my head around some of the points you’ve raised.

And the Lord said because the cry of Sodom and gomorrah is great, and because their sin is grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, and which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.
It seems clear here that the Lord admits that he doesn’t know and that he is going down to to see. That does not sound like an all knowing God.

It seems clear? Well. That’s not the way I would understand that passage. Unless I went into it with the idea of suggesting that God is not omnipotent. That’s called eisegesis Wayne – it’s coming at a text with an agenda.

Perhaps the passage was written as theology – to teach us that God does not judge rashly and that when he punishes it is truly deserved?

Revyloution brought up a similar passage about the garden of Eden before. I suggest that this passage should be understood alongside the passages that suggest that God is omnipotent (like Psalm 139).

“It seems to me that, if there really is a God who created the entire univese, and this god wanted to be worshipped in a certain way and follow certain rules, then it stands to reason this creator god would be able to get this point across to everyone without there being any question.”

Why? I mean, I can understand you wanting it to work like that – but why must that be the way God does things? If there is a God then why must he be subject to the reasoning of the beings he creates? I am not subject to the reasoning of my pet fish.

“Trouble is, only 126,000 are supposed to make into heaven. I remember when I was a kid that the Jehovah Witnesses were trumpeting this”

Actually, first of all, it’s 144,000. In Revelation. Probably the most misunderstood book in the Bible – even by Christians. There are hundreds of explanations. I actually agree with you on the Nero thing.

“Nathan, all this was to occur during the life time of some of the people Jesus was preaching to. It did not happen. From this I can only come to the conclusion that Jesus, though he was a moral man, was also another failed prophet. As a result, I feel this blows Christianity out of the water.

One more thing, when John stated that the prophesy was fulfilled by the word made flesh, that did not fulfill the prophesy of God arriving in glory in his Kingdom during the life time of the disciples. John, knowing that it wasn’t happening had to come up with that statement. However, it really doesn’t take Jesus off the hook.”

I suggest you reread these passages and consider that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies at the cross and then at his ascension to heaven.

If you are convinced that the prophecies as recorded are worthy of assessing (and it seems you are) – then consider that Jesus came in to his glory when he completed his mission on earth.

Most theologians (just not the fundamentalist fringe who are expecting him to come wielding swords any day now) will hold that Jesus “arrived in glory” and began “God’s kingdom” at the cross.

And thus when he preached the following:

a)”the kingdom of heaven is near, repent and believe the good news”
b)”I will rebuild this temple (referring to his body) in three days”
c)”and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

That he was talking about the same thing each time. His death and resurrection.

The conclusion – these things happened within the lifetime of the people Jesus spoke to.

“Jesus said that you can only be saved based on your works”

Umm. No. He didn’t. He said those saved would be rewarded based on their works. Salvation does not equal “reward”…

“I think we are talking two different things here. On one hand, the question is, does the God of the Old Testament deserve to be worshipped.”

Wayne, forgive me if I missed your earlier comments but we had not been talking about two different things at all. This is the first time I’ve addressed your comments isn’t it?

Brian,

“Your use of good and bad are an equivocation between the human and the god meaning of the word. When we speak we are talking about good and bad from a human perspective, not some god perspective that we cannot possibly comprehend.”

Well that’s because I am trying to demonstrate that there may be two different definitions at play. You can say “I think God is not good” but you can’t say “God is not good.” Because if “God is” then good is his to define. As is bad. And the Bible suggests that he has (if you accept the Bible – I understand you don’t) decided that humans are bad. That is ultimately his decision.

“Especially in your case since you seem willing to turn on your fellow humans in the wink of an eye.”

That’s really a gross misrepresentation of what I said and you know it. That is cheap point scoring.

“I think Nathan is ethically rudderless at this point. His notion of god allows him to commit any evil act just so long as he is convinced god wants it.”

This is another bastardisation of my actual words that pays no regard to the content of my argument.

how do we know hell is a ‘bad’ place if ‘God’s good doesn’t match up to ours?

Umm, if you’re going to go with Pascal’s wager you may as well go all the way right… 😛

But seriously – given that I make most of these judgments on the basis of what is revealed in the Bible I would say the descriptions of paradise v lakes of fire are what swing it for me.

But you can take that chance. Or wager…

Nathan, I think this will be my last post on this thread too (unless Andrew has an interesting perspective to add), since we seem to be going in circles. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint, it was interesting.

My pet fish can call me evil from their tank all they like – but they have no idea what it’s like walking around outside the tank, and no experience to judge my actions by. . . I quite like that analogy. Feel free to rip it to shreds – but that’s my understanding of this debate.

I think that’s a perfectly reasonable analogy. Of course, having stated that the fish-Nathan difference is so large that fish are not equipped to morally to evaluate you as evil, it would be irrational for you to then turn around and claim that your fish were equipped to morally evaluate you as good. Completion of the analogy (fish->humans, Nathan->Yahweh) is left as an exercise to the reader.

It hasn’t seemed necessary to condemn genocide. Genocide’s badness is beyond question.

I’ll go further – any genocide perpetrated by humans alone is extremely evil. (emphasis added)

Um, unless we’ve been having entirely different conversations (and maybe we have), genocide’s badness is not beyond question. In fact, the boldfaced section of your very next sentence is entirely pointless, unless you think that genocide is sometimes bad and sometimes good. There’s no need for that qualification unless genocide perpetrated by God, or by humans ordered to be God (both of which occur in the Bible), is sometimes acceptable and/or good. You appear to have already endorsed this conclusion, generally throughout your comments, and more specifically in your comment of Jan 8, 2010, 8:06 P.M..

Nathan,

“This is another bastardization of my actual words that pays no regard to the content of my argument.”

There’s a joke that has a man asking a woman how much money it would take for her to have sex with an extremely ugly man. She says one million dollars would get her to compromise herself. So he pulls out fifty dollars, and propositions her, “How about fifty? I’m not so ugly.” She exclaims, “What kind of woman do you think I am?”. He says, “We’ve already established what kind of woman you are. I was just haggling on a price.”

That’s what came to mind when you objected to my claims. Seems to me you were willing to turn on your fellow man just so long as you were sure god told you to. Now that you have clarified that it would take an extra eye witness.

So we’ve established what kind of guy you are. We were only haggling on a price.

“That’s what came to mind when you objected to my claims. Seems to me you were willing to turn on your fellow man just so long as you were sure god told you to. Now that you have clarified that it would take an extra eye witness.”

“I appreciate the sincerity of your participation here, even if what you’ve said scares the hell out of me (and it truly does).”

Given that you’re both atheists – what probability do you put on the prospect of God appearing to me in a verifiable way and ordering me to kill anybody?

I don’t know what you’re worried about. This seems like a moot point from your perspective and mine.

I’m an Australian so I don’t own any guns and I’m not about to stock up for the coming “armageddon”… I think this is a pretty odd overreaction to a hypothetical question that I had little patience for.

“It’s the idea that you’re willing to kill your fellow man to appease some character that exhibits such an inherently contradictory ‘morality’ that’s frightening.”

If God appeared to me and told me to kill people, and I could prove that he had, and I told you – would you believe that he exists?

Muggle, I trust that Nathan is waiting for his “Monty Python” moment where the clouds literally part and God talks to him before he goes on any killing sprees.

I wish I shared your confidence that this won’t happen. Obviously, it literally won’t but it wouldn’t be the first time it happened inside someone’s head.

As for answering questions, then why are people having to ask him to over and over again? I’m willing to dialogue with Christians but not freaking insane nutcakes spamming the board with vile.

“The fact that you would pledge your allegiance to such a morally inconsistent character over your fellow man is the relevant part here.”

Because man’s track record on morality is one to be proud of?

Why would I choose my fellow man over God?

What if God appeared, told me to kill someone, and proved to me that they deserved it?

Nathan, I agree that we are at an impasse.

I’m absolutely convinced that Jesus came into his kingdom at the crucifixion/resurrection. So is Paul

I’m convinced that Paul expected a physical kingdom to come since he told his church not to bother helping the poor since they would soon be elevated to God’s kingdom. He even said getting married was unneccessary because of God’s coming kingdom. However, it sounds like you are merely saying that Jesus went into his kingdom. However, there is no way of knowing this, plus it does not fulfill his prophesy which would have been obvious if it had occurred. BTW, Paul believed that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead, which means all the dead would shortly rise from their graves to be judged. Again, the prophesized end times. I see no evidence of that plus I don’t think we would be here if it happened.

And 1 Timothy (written by Paul) in chapter 5 says the following.

Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Nathan said,

“since he told his church not to bother helping the poor since they would soon be elevated to God’s kingdom”

Reference please

Ok, here an even better reference that Paul believed that the Lord himself will descend from heaven and the dead will first be resurected and he goes on to say “we who were still alive will be caught up toegher with them in the clouds. This is very clear that Paul expected it to happen in his life time.
Here is the reference:
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (King James Version)

13But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.

15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

18Wherefore comfort one another with these words

However, the passage I did quote makes it clear that Paul was expecting the end times to occur in his life time.

Or that he expected his writings to be read by the church for thousands of years.

“Unfortunately, scholars are convinced that Paul did not write the books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus (called the “Pastoral” epistles, because they deal with how these pastors should oversee their churches.) So this passage you quoted has no validity”

Unfortunately those scholars are not reputable. They are the fringe historians with an axe to grind.

You said:

“It is well known that there were later writers who wrote in the name of a famous person in the past in order to get their own views across.”

What you should have said:

Bart Erhmann said that there were later writes who wrote in the name of a famous person in the past in order to get their own views across.

Do you think Bart Erhmann would have received half the attention that he has if he had not come up with a revolutionary way of thinking about things some 2000 years after the events.

“I quoted which clearly shows that Paul expected to see the end times in his lifetime.”

Only with your slightly odd interpretive framework.

Nathan, Wayne didn’t bring up Ehrman. You did, it’s a little strange to choose to attribute his views to an author of your choosing, and then attack that author. Everything I’ve read states that pseudonymous writings were common in that period (and indeed throughout much of human history). My readings have been based on an interest in history and religion, and are not atheist polemics (until this year I had never heard of Ehrman), so it strikes me as rather disingenous to suggest that the problem of pseudoynmity was created by Ehrman, or some cabal of fringe historians.

From my textbook, “The New Testament: A Student’s Introduction,” by Stephen L. Harris:

Six canonical letters in which the author explicity identifies himself as Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, contain discrepancies that cause scholars to question their Pauline authorship. Two of the letters – 2 Thessalonians and Colossians – are still vigorously disputed, with a large minority championing their authenticity. By contrast, an overwhelming scholarly majority deny that Paul wrote the four others – Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus.

I don’t want to get into a dispute about interpretation of Bible verses, I’ll leave that to you and Wayne. But unless by an amazing coincidence, everything I’ve read has been secretly funded by Ehrman, your claim that pseudonymity is only believed by “fringe historians with an axe to grind” is factually incorrect.

Nathan,
Erhman is only one of many writers who have stated that it was commonly known that writers in the future wrote stuff as though they were some writer in the past. it appears that you only chose to ignore this fact in a desperate attempt to defend these writings. Also, you claim that my interpretation of Paul is wrong, even though it is extremely clear what he is saying, and only a Christian apologist would would try to make this into something it isn’t. BTW, when there is a writing that Christians would probably object to, it is more likely that it was actually true.

Nathan,
There are letters attributed to Paul which state that he has woman as officials in his church. Years later, someone wrote as Paul stating that woman should remain silent while in church and not speak. This is so obvious that someone at a later date believed this and tried to make it official by making it look like it was Paul, when, in fact, Paul had women speaking in church. How do you explain this?

Nathan,
Let’s look further on how Satan came about, i.e., why he was invented.
An interesting question is, if God had promised the Israelites in the Old Testament to[protect and defend Israel against its enemies, why was it constantly being dominated by foreigners? Why was it conquered, in succession, by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Syrians, and the Romans? One of the popular answers was given by ancient Jewish prophets that these ills came upon the Israelites as a form of punishment by God, and once they repented and stopped sinning, God would relent and reestablish them as a sovereign nation. Some Jewish thinkers eventually became dissatisfied with this answer because it was not just the sinners who suffered, but people who were righteous as well. And matters never improved even when people did repent and returned to God and committed to God’s Law. Why would Israel continue to suffer after it returned to God, while other nations that made no effort to please him prospered? Around the time of the Maccabean revolt, some came up with another solution. In their view, the suffering of God’s people could not be explained as a penalty for sin. God surely would not punish his people for doing what was right, for keeping his laws, for example. There must have been some other supernatural agency responsible. God was not making his people suffer: his enemy, Satan was. According to this new way of thinking, God was still in control of this world in some ultimate sense. But for unknown and mysterious reasons he had temporarily relinquished his control to the forces of evil that opposed him. This state of affairs, however, was not to last forever. Quite soon, God would reassert himself and bring this world back to himself, destroying the forces of evil and establishing his people as rulers over the earth. When this new Kingdom came, God would fulfill his promises to his people. This is where Jesus was supposed to come in. He was supposed to overthrow the Roman rulers and elevate the poor and downtrodden to the coming Kingdom.

Nathan,
Here is something to cogitate over. Yahweh made a covenant with the House of David that David’s descendants would hold the reigns of power over Israel for ever. Let me remind you that this is from a god who is all knowing. Well, the leader of a nation, I forget which, removed the ruling Davidian and replaced him with a nonDavidian. So much for an all knowing god. Interestingly, in spite of the fact that David had arranged the murder of the husband of the woman he wanted for himself, God still looked favorable upon him and made this covenant. I believe that says something about this god, don’t you think?

Hi Hoverfrog,
Shane Hayes has responded to your comment on thebelievingagnostic blog
http://thebelievingagnostic.blogspot.com/2009/12/believing-without-proof-shane-hayes-you.html#comments

Hi Spurs Fan.
Very funny! 🙂
Unfortunately, Nathan hasn’t responded to any of my recent posts. Hopefully, it is only because he is busy.

The vast majority of people who are familiar with the Bible (Christians) would suggest that your interpretation of Paul’s writing is wrong and not the “clear understanding”.
They may be Christian apologists – but it seems you leave no room for counter-interpretations – this is slightly intellectually dishonest. You make claims as though your views are established and unquestionable facts. They are not. They are theories that you choose to subscribe to. They are not orthodox, nor are they held by the majority of Christian scholars.

When it comes to religion, I will pick the majority of scholars over the majority of Christians anytime, especially when their interpretation makes more sense. Unfortunately, the majority of Christians mostly accept what they are spoon fed by parents and the Church, and on faith. The Church has a powerful message of a heavenly after life, but a hellish one if you don’t believe. Also, the Bible states that if someone has a differing view, they are “false prophets” Hey, I don’t mean to sound overly critical I was also one of those spoon fed Christians as well, so I understand. I submit to you that the majority of Christians do not bother to do the research. They will read proreligious writings only. After all, who wants to upset the apple cart when it comes to hope for everlasting life.
You said that it seems I leave no room for counter-interpretations. I find that a bit disingenuous. On the contrary, it is the closed minded Christians that refuse to entertain alternative interpretations no matter how valid they appear.

Yeah. Don’t get me started on Dan Brown

There you go again selecting one, of many authors, by your choice. In fact, I’m not familiar with Dan Brown.

I wonder how seriously you’ve considered the idea that the kingdom was inaugurated at the cross.>
I seriously think that the believers in Jesus were shocked to find their hero hung on a cross like a common criminal and scampered about to come up with a positive reason. That reason was that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Unfortunately, it did not free them from the Roman oppression, like Jesus had promised.

Consider Psalm 22 and other prophetic OT passages that have the cross/crucifixion/punishment at the heart of the mission of the Messiah (See also Isaiah 53).

Christians took the words of Psalm 22 as expressive of the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they shake their heads. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint”, etc.
For early Christians, the sufferings of the righteous Jesus were foreshadowed by the sufferings of the righteous Jew of the Psalms. His sufferings were therefore no mere miscarriage of justice: they were the plan of God. Unfortunately, these were passages that did not mention the Messiah, but Christians nonetheless took them to refer to Jesus, whom they believed to be the messiah. Most important were passages found in the writings of the prophet Isaiah, who also speaks of the suffering of God’s righteous one whom he calls the “Servant of the Lord.” According to the “Songs of the Suffering Servant”, as scholars have labeled our different passages in Isaiah, the most important of which is 52:13 – 53:12, this servant of God was one who suffered a heinous and shameful fate: he was despised and rejected (53:3), he was wounded and bruised (53:4-5). The widely held view among scholars is that it was originally speaking of the suffering of the nation of Israel during the Babylonian captivity ( see Isa. 49:3). What matters is that we have no indication that any Jew, prior to Christianity, ever took the passage as a reference to the Jewish Messiah. In fact the author refers to the Servant’s suffering as PAST, but his vindication as future. The earliest Jewish Christians simply took this passage and showed it was similar to Jesus’ suffering. Therefore, they managed to turn a stumbling block for Jews into a foundation stone for Christians. (see 1 Cor. 1:23). Therefore, the earliest Jewish Christians concluded that Jesus was meant to suffer and die. Obviously, it was a clever “save” since Christianity has managed to last all these years. Incidentally, did I mention that it helped that the Roman Emperor Constantine decided it was politically and religiously beneficial to him to choose Christianity over all other religions, or we might be arguing over a completely different religion.

Yes, and Paul also murdered Christians, Moses killed at least one Egyptian and Abraham was an habitual liar.
To me this says that God loves sinners (despite their wrongdoings) and is gracious and forgiving

Hmmmm, if I recall correctly you thought it OK for God to kill people who simply complained when they were freed from Egypt and then required to wonder the desert for 40 years. And what about that prophet who the children called baldy? This prophet called on God to kill them and he did. I’m afraid that the God of the Old Testament comes across as a “loose cannon”.

I do not think these things are as profound as you do. It’s not like they’re special knowledge. Israel’s unfaithfulness and desire for other Gods is well documented. It happens over and over again (particularly Baal – who is even the subject of an Israeli fling (in the form of a golden calf) when Moses is receiving the ten commandments.

My point is that everyone believes that the Jews were monotheistic, when in effect they were henotheistic, i.e., they believed there were many gods, but made a covenant with YHWH as the only one they would worship. YHWH would get very upset if the people worshiped anyone else but him. Prophets claimed that was one of the reasons Israel ended up being taken over by foreign countries. That said, here is a leader David, worshipping his ancestor god right along with YHWH and YHWH never bats an eye. Instead, he tells David that his descendants will rule Israel for ever. BTW, you never explained why an all knowing god would state this if he knew it was a lie, because a leader of a foreign country, who took over Israel, removed one of David’s descendants and replaced him with a ruler who wasn’t. So much for God’s promise. Either this god is not all knowing and powerful, are it simply proves my point that these prophets claims that they were receiving the word of God were phony.
You mentioned you had a blog, but you didn’t provide an address. What is it?
Also, I mentioned that my friend, a Christian would be thrilled if you would make some comments on his blog. The address is: http://thebelievingagnostic.blogspot.com/
Nathan, thanks for making comments here, it has been quite interesting and enjoyable. ?

Alright. I lied. One more comment.

Terrific!! Still, God might get you for lying. Hee. Hee.

I did answer how God’s promise to David was fulfilled – Jesus sits on an eternal throne. Jesus is in the line of David. Jesus will sit on that throne forever.

I was going to address this in my previous post, but decided to give you a chance to. First of all, a later author in the Bible was saddled with a problem by God’s promise and the obvious evidence showed that the Davidian line ended. This author had to scramble for an answer and he declared that there was another covenant that overroad the covenant that David’s line would rule for ever, and that was that the people had to follow God’s laws. Since the author claimed they did not, this overroad the covenant that David’s linage would rule for ever. Still, as I argued, the fact that David’s ruling line stopped, that glaringly shows that God was not all knowing. As far as your claim for Jesus as the continuance of this David line for ever, since he declared that God’s Kingdom was to come down to earth during the life time of the people he was preaching to, and that he was going to be king and ruler over this kingdom and it did not happen, he never got the chance to rule over Israel. And I don’t believe that the mocking sign the Romans put over his cross, The King of the Jews, counts.
Da Vinci code was fiction. Even fiction may have something authentic, but it is still fiction.

John 1 for instance, and most of Mark… The earlier chapters of Mark demonstrate that Jesus is lord over many things, sickness, the weather, demons, the OT laws regarding cleanliness (he touches unclean people and makes them clean where the OT expects it to go the other way)… this is clearly the purpose of Mark – to show that Jesus is the Messiah, not a failed apocalyptic preacher.

Well, there is really no way of proving or disproving that Jesus was able to do miracles and control the weather. One thing that is clear is that Mark, the oldest Gospel, was written 25 to 30 years after Jesus’ death. Mark bases some of its text on Q, but the written copy is based on oral accounts passed down. As a result, we have no way of verifying if these oral accounts are completely true. A story can completely change over a short period of time, and this is no short period of times. So, who knows? Anyway, the accounts of Jesus healing and controlling the weather does not prove that Jesus is not a failed prophet. And since there were other competing religions, there is always the possibility that scribe guilded the lily, so to speak.
Let’s look at what is available to us in the Gospels, starting with the oldest sources and working up to the newest Gospel of John.
Mark 8:38-9:1 (King James Version)
38Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Mark 9
1And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.
Mark 13:24-27
24But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
25And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
26And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
27And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.

Mark 13:30
30Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
(Q)
Luke 17:24;26-27,30 Matt. 24:27,37-39
24For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. 26And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
(Luke 12;39;Matt. 24:44
And you, be prepared, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming.
(M)
Matthew 13:40-43 (King James Version)
40As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
41The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
42And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
(L)
Luke 21:34-36 (King James Version)
34And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
35For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
36Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
OK, what I am trying to demonstrate here is that the earliest sources record Jesus as giving an apocalyptic message. However, some of the most clearly apocalyptic messages become toned down as we move further away from Jesus’ death. Mark was the earliest Gospel and was used as a source for the Gospel of Luke along with Q & L. As you go from the oldest to the more recently written Gospels, you can see how certain apocalyptic messages are toned down. For example, In Mark 9:1, Jesus says Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.
Luke takes over this verse, but he leaves out the last few words, so that now Jesus simply says: Truly I tell you, there are some who standing here who will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:27). The difference may seem slight, but it is actually huge because Jesus no longer predicts the imminent arrival of the Kingdom in power, but simply says that the disciples (in some sense) will see the Kingdom. In fact, in Luke, but not in our earlier source Mark, the disciples see the Kingdom, but not coming in power. For Luke states The Kingdom has already come to you in Jesus own ministry (Luke 11:20, but not Mark). And is said to be among you in the person of Jesus himself (Luke 17:21). Importantly, Luke continues to think that the end of the age is going to come in his lifetime, but evidentially not in the lifetime of Jesus’companions. It appears that the reason for this is he was writing after they had died, and he knew that in fact the end had not come. To deal with this fact, he makes the appropriate changes. This is evident as well near the end of the Gospel. At Jesus’ trial in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus states to the high priest, “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark 14:62). That is, the end would come and the high priest would see it. Luke, writing many years later, after the high priest was long dead, changes the saying to “from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69). No longer does Jesus predict that the high priest himself will be alive when the end comes. So, here is a later source that appears to have modified the earlier apocalyptic sayings of Jesus. You can see the same tendency in the Gospel of John, the latest Gospel. In this account, rather than speaking about the Kingdom of God that is soon to come (which is never spoken here),Jesus talks about eternal life that is available here and now for the believer. The Kingdom is not in the future, but available here and now for the believer. Those who believe, experience a heavenly birth (John 3:3,5): they already have eternal life, and do not have to face any prospect of judgment in the future, for good or ill (John 5:24.) In fact, the older view that there will be a day of judgment and a resurrection of the dead at the end of the age is replaced with a newer view that in Jesus a person can already be raised into eternal life. For example, when Mary, the sister of the dead man Lazarus, tells Jesus that her brother will be raised on the last day, Jesus corrects her by saying that he, Jesus himself, is the resurrection and the life, and that anyone who believes in him though he die, yet shall live. (John 11:23-26) There is no longer an apocalyptic message about the coming Son of Man. The emphasis now is on faith in Jesus who gives eternal life in the present. The world is not going to enter a crisis at the end of the world before being redeemed. Believers are saved out of this world.
So, as you can see, the early traditions record apocalyptic teachings by Jesus. Later traditions generally mute these emphasis. And the latest of our early sources explicitly argue against it. Looks like a trend to me. You see, when the earlier words of Jesus stated that it was going to happen in the life time of the disciples and it didn’t, later writers had to modify this until John finally said that believing in Jesus was all that was required. Like I said, the original message that the coming Kingdom would come in power didn’t happen and it left later writers saddled with trying to explain why not. That is why you see the modifications.
To me, this makes the most sense, and remember that, unlike most here, I am an agnostic with leanings towards a creator. I just feel that all religions are manmade. I lean towards a creator because, to me, it appears that we have to have all of the following systems at once in order to exist: digestion, elimination, respiration, circulation, a flap to keep food from going into our lungs, and reproduction and that seems hard to believe without a creator involved. I do believe in evolution because the evidence is there, but the gradual changes could have been a creator trying to improve on its creations.

Wayne, and others, I invite you to continue this interesting discussion at this post.

Nathan,

I failed to respond to your negative review of Bart Erhman. I just did a Google on Ben Witherington, and was not in the least bit surprised to find that he has an axe to grind as a Christian apologist. Furthermore, I couldn’t help noticing him giving glowing praise to Oral Roberts, who used to be one of a group of phony healers along with A.A. Alan. Check out James Randi’s book, The Faith Healers. It is quit revealing. Randi managed to shut down Popoff by showing that his wife was planted out in the audience interviewing people and then she would give her husband this information by wireless transmitter to a receiver in Popoffs ear. Popoff would then act like he was receiving this info from God. Randi’s plant picked up this transmission and gave it to the press. Popoff was soon off the air and bankrupt, but people have short memories, or just so badly wanting to believe, and he is back. I remember my mom taking her mother to A.A. Alan healing service. Before hand, Alan interviewed those wanting healing. One guy said he didn’t know what his problem was and Alan responded that if he didn’t know, then God couldn’t help him. I was just a kid then and, even then I thought something wasn’t right since I thought God knew everything. When he came to my grandmother, he asked my mom if she could walk without the cane. My mom responded yes. So, during the service, he lifted my grandmother out of her wheel chair and said “walk in the name of God”. She took a couple of steps and my mom grabbed her. She wasn’t healed, but my grandmother said that Alan made her feel like she could walk. However, no healing occurred, but it looked good to the audience. On Oral Roberts, he claimed God told him to build a hospital and provide rooms where loved ones could stay. The hospital was a complete failure. So much for God’s good advice. And how can we forget that crying diatribe by Oral about how God was going to take him home if he didn’t get a certain amount of donations. When it failed, he just so happened to have a rich man donate the balance. What a JOKE!!! Anyway, back to Bart Erhman. It just so happens that he was selected by The Teaching Company to give lectures on tape, and one of them was The New Testament and another, The Historic Jesus. I highly recommend these to anyone with an open mind. Here is how they introduced him in 2000: Bart Erhman is the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With degrees from Wheaton College (B.A>) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div. and Ph.D., magna cum laude), he taught at Rutgers for four years before moving to UNC in 1988. During his tenure at UNC, he was garnered numerous award and prizes, including the Students’ Undergraduate Teaching Award (1993), the Ruth and Philip Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement (1994) AND NOW THE Bowman and Gordon Gray Award for excellence in teaching (1998)

With a focus on early Christianity in its Greco-Roman environment and a special expertise in the textual criticism of the New Testament, Professor Ehrman has published dozens of book reviews and over twenty scholarly articles for academic journals. He has also authored or edited eight books, including Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium; The New Testament: A historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings; After the new Testament: in Contemporary Research. He is currently at work on a new Greek-English Edition of the apostolic Fathers for the Loeb Classical Library.
Professor Ehrman is a popular lecturer, giving numerous talks each year for such groups as the Carolina Speakers Bureau, the UNC program for the humanities, the Biblical Archaeology Society, various civic groups, and universities across the nation. He has served as the President of the Society of Biblical Literature, SE Region; book review editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature; editor of the Scholar’s Press Monograph Series The New Testament in the Greek Fathers’, and co-editor of the E.J. Brill series New Testament Tools and Studies. Among his administrative responsibilities, he has served on the executive committee of the Southeast Council for the Study of Religion and has chaired the New Testament textual criticism section of the Society of Biblical Religion, as well as serving as Director of Graduate Studies at the Department of Religious Studies at UNC.

The Teaching Company only brings on board high caliber professors. So, Whitherington’s suggestion that Erhman has no credentials is false. Also, Erhman was an extremely religious Evangelical and Fundamentalist. Eventually, through all his Biblical studies, he came to realize that religion was all manmade and he present very clear evidence to back his arguments. Nathan said he hates people who quote scholars. I submit that I go with scholars who make sense and Erhman does. I would also recommend you read Karen Armstrong’s The History of God. It could be titled the Evolution of God, which is essentially what it is. People’s made up image of a god has evolved over time and within differing cultures. When I was still a Christian and my wife was trying to convert to Christianity from being an agnostic, she brought home A Case For Christ. I remember the author describing how he was a nonbeliever but due to his wife’s pressing, he started doing research. One thing that I found disingenuous was his claim that, since he was a reporter, he was able to come up with facts that made a case for Christ. For me, he made no viable case, even though I was a believer at the time. Funny, for fun, I occasionally listened to this evangelical station, and remember a few years ago that they were making the claim that everything was right for the end times to come. PLEASE!!!! Ever since the death of Christ, we have heard just the same stories, and it hasn’t happened. You know why? Because it was supposed to happen in the life time of Jesus’ disciples, and unless one of them is still living, it has not happened. Nero was supposed to be the antichrist. The alphabet was also used as numbers and his name totaled to 666. He died, the beast would suffer a mortal wound, but some Jews believed he would come back to life to rule. BTW, not to long ago they discovered documents claiming that the number of the beast was 665. 665? It so happens that Nero’s name was spelled two different ways and the other way totaled to 665. People it was suppose to happen then and it didn’t. Stop waiting for the end times. They aren’t coming, unless someone triggers an atomic war or global warming is fact and does us in. Stop trying to place Biblical writings in today’s context. It doesn’t belong there. If Jesus was correct about God arriving in glory in his Kingdom while some of the disciples were still standing, there would not be a 21st century. BTW, I wasn’t all that surprised to tune into this evangelical program to find them interviewing the author of The Case For Christ.

Nathan,
What it comes down to is that I feel that Erhman makes good points, and, before you take a critique by Ben Witherington as gospel, you need to check out Erhman. A good place is the courses on tape from The Teaching Company; The Historic Jesus and The New Testament. A good book by Erhman is Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of The New Millennium. Also, Autunmal’s suggested book The New Testament, a Students Introduction by Stephen L. Harris. Erhman just happens to be the first scholar who was able to answer my questions. I have since moved on to other Scholars, just because I haven’t given you a list of scholars doesn’t mean that Erhman is my sole source. He isn’t. In fact, I did mention another one. Funny you should say in jest that Scholars say that dinosaurs lived at the same time as people. That is the nonsense spread by Creationists. I stand by my stance when I say that the majority of scholars agree that certain of Paul’s letters were not written by him. And I completely disagree with your statement that Erhman’s role in the new atheist movement is similar to that of pro-tobacco researcher in Big tobacco’s fight to protect the empire. That is utter Nonsense. Erhman started out being an overly devout Christian who, through much study, started to see too many inconsistencies in the Bible for it to be God inspired. He is not an enemy; he is only calling it as he sees it.
Look, we have pretty much beaten this subject into the ground, so I am with you that we cool it. Like I said, my wife is getting annoyed that I am spending too much at this blog. Nathan, thanks, I really have enjoyed it. If you still want to respond to this post, then I will try my best to find the time to respond. Take care.
Wayne