Theo-Logical or Making “God” Logical
Since the Bible has no Systematic Theology, the twenty thousand plus Christian denominations, sects and cults are eternally trying to make God make sense. That is, the logical God drawn from the conflicts of different authors in the Biblical text must be processed into some form of logic that has the appearance of eternal truth and trust. As such, each Christian group has expressed this subjective cohesion in a theo - logical creation called theology.
To recruit professional defenders for the mental fight (not only with secularist, other religions) but in particular with other Christian faiths themselves; Christian denominations, sects and cults have often tightly controlled and supported schools whose whole purpose is to make the concept of their god appear more logical that the others, or (if you will) schools are called So and So Theo - logical Seminary.
Once the god of a certain Christian group is finally made logical, this form can be sold via preaching to the masses. Or to state it systematically, it has now moved into the second phase of its logical process called “Theology” where the logically created “God“ can now be studied with some form of certainty. This distilled systematized information is usually published in book from for sectarian teaching tools and for the proselytizing of the general public with popular books entitled: “The Theology of the Old Testament / New Testament”. However, in light of the problems of Biblical Theology, most now carry only either “A Theology of the OT / NT” or simply “Theology of the O.T. / N.T.”.
The general Christian can be totally bewildered by the number of “Theologies” of the Old Testament and New Testament with each written from a denominational or sectarian prospective to make some logical sense out of the various views of Yahweh, El, (Hebrew / MT) vs. Theos / Kurios (Greek / LXX) to function with the detached θεός or Logos in Classical and Hellenistic Greek philosophy.
An example here is the Biblical word of divine love ἀγάπη / agapa as used in the New Testament especially in the most famous evangelical Biblical verse, John 3: 16 “Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον…”. However, the systematic logical use of agapa is totally and completely lost in the LXX which uses agapa in sexual lust and rape context as in the story of David’s children Amnon and Tamar: “…και ηγαπησεν αυτην αμνων υιος δαυιδ.” (2 Samuel 13: 1).
[A great reference to see just how the Greek Bible (LXX) of Jesus and Paul and the authors of the New Testament failed to make sense out of the fragments of “theology” of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible is to compare the Masoretic text with the LXX. An excellent work is A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament by Edwin Hatch and Henry Redpath.]
Another way to correct this deformity in consistency in Biblical thought on the divine, Christian groups have been very creative in making God theo - logical. Some of the theologies in used today are listed below:
1. The Biblical text has been corrupted by heresy and sinful men. (Examples: Mormons, Church of Christ, Jehovah Witnesses).
2. God is made consistently logical over time by an evolutionary process called “Dispensational Theology”. So what may appear as a contradiction is really only a new beginning for God and his covenant (A theology used by a number Protestant groups such as Baptist).
3. There is such a rift between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament that there simply can not be any reconciliation. That is, the creator God of hate of the Hebrew Bible is not the God of love and Jesus ( Marcion).
4. The Bible only appears to contradict itself, but all problems can be resolved by careful study. This is based on circular reasoning by forcing the Greek concept of “absolute truth” onto God and the Biblical text (Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists such as Bob Jones University, and our own D.S. Harvey Burnett).
5. The Bible and its god can be made Theo-Logical by more revelation (Mormons: Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants; Moonies, The Divine Principle).
6. The Bible must be read and interpreted ONLY by inspirited ecclesiastical authorities or councils (Catholics: The Magisteium; Jehovah Witnesses: Awake and Watch Tower).
7. Nothing in the Bible is what it seems. Words have hidden meanings (Philo of Alexandria, Gnostics, Eastern Christendom (Orthodox), and Christian Science).
This final section of the Post is a case study section in which I now invite all Christians to make God appear logical or Theo-Logical. The facts are real.
Christians, here is your change to sell a logical god to the masses who may consider the following situation totally illogical and even cruel.
The summer of 1999 was a tragic one for my family as my fourteen year old daughter taken to the hospital with chronic vomiting and nausea only to be was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Failure.
While taking my daughter to dialysis three times a week, he met a 16 year old boy also on dialysis who often did his dialysis in a chair next to hers. He was a strong evangelical Christian who “loved Jesus” and would spent his three hours talking about his love for the Gospel of Christ, his love for the Bible and how he wanted to be a full time Christian minister the rest of his life. He would share the Gospel with any dialysis patient who was placed next to him.
My daughter finally left the dialysis clinic after getting a transplant, but she kept in touch with friends she made there.
After several more years on dialysis, this young sixteen year old preacher too got a kidney transplant and he entered a Christian university to prepare for the full time Gospel ministry. However, within several years of his transplant, his body went in to rejection. With prayers of his fellow Christians appearing to go unanswered his second kidney failed. He received a second kidney transplant at which time he returned to his Christian education to prepare for full time Christian work with the full support and payers of his Christian community.
But sadly, his body when into rejection for the second time. Now, faced with a life of dialysis three times a week plus a life of failing access sites in his circulatory system, this young Christian - who had given gave his life and heart to Christ for full time ministry -opted to go home and die (which indeed happen several years ago).
Now all Christians who want to make and keep God Theo-Logical, let me start you off with some “pat” apologetic explanations:
A. God knew this young Christian would have to face a life of suffering so He called him “Home to Heaven”.
B. There was secret “sin” in this young Christians life. To correct it, God either struck him down or called him to Heaven.
C. Like David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12: 15 - 18), his parents sins caused either his kidney failure or death or both.
D. We just don’t understand the mind (Logos) and ways of God. As such, we should not question it. (This is nothing but a justification of fate in the secular world).
E. God used his life as a testimony to the lost world and it severed its purpose: “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9: 1-3).
Now it is your turn Christians. Please use the above case study to see if you can make and keep your God logical or theo - logical.
To recruit professional defenders for the mental fight (not only with secularist, other religions) but in particular with other Christian faiths themselves; Christian denominations, sects and cults have often tightly controlled and supported schools whose whole purpose is to make the concept of their god appear more logical that the others, or (if you will) schools are called So and So Theo - logical Seminary.
Once the god of a certain Christian group is finally made logical, this form can be sold via preaching to the masses. Or to state it systematically, it has now moved into the second phase of its logical process called “Theology” where the logically created “God“ can now be studied with some form of certainty. This distilled systematized information is usually published in book from for sectarian teaching tools and for the proselytizing of the general public with popular books entitled: “The Theology of the Old Testament / New Testament”. However, in light of the problems of Biblical Theology, most now carry only either “A Theology of the OT / NT” or simply “Theology of the O.T. / N.T.”.
The general Christian can be totally bewildered by the number of “Theologies” of the Old Testament and New Testament with each written from a denominational or sectarian prospective to make some logical sense out of the various views of Yahweh, El, (Hebrew / MT) vs. Theos / Kurios (Greek / LXX) to function with the detached θεός or Logos in Classical and Hellenistic Greek philosophy.
An example here is the Biblical word of divine love ἀγάπη / agapa as used in the New Testament especially in the most famous evangelical Biblical verse, John 3: 16 “Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον…”. However, the systematic logical use of agapa is totally and completely lost in the LXX which uses agapa in sexual lust and rape context as in the story of David’s children Amnon and Tamar: “…και ηγαπησεν αυτην αμνων υιος δαυιδ.” (2 Samuel 13: 1).
[A great reference to see just how the Greek Bible (LXX) of Jesus and Paul and the authors of the New Testament failed to make sense out of the fragments of “theology” of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible is to compare the Masoretic text with the LXX. An excellent work is A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament by Edwin Hatch and Henry Redpath.]
Another way to correct this deformity in consistency in Biblical thought on the divine, Christian groups have been very creative in making God theo - logical. Some of the theologies in used today are listed below:
1. The Biblical text has been corrupted by heresy and sinful men. (Examples: Mormons, Church of Christ, Jehovah Witnesses).
2. God is made consistently logical over time by an evolutionary process called “Dispensational Theology”. So what may appear as a contradiction is really only a new beginning for God and his covenant (A theology used by a number Protestant groups such as Baptist).
3. There is such a rift between the God in the Old Testament and the God in the New Testament that there simply can not be any reconciliation. That is, the creator God of hate of the Hebrew Bible is not the God of love and Jesus ( Marcion).
4. The Bible only appears to contradict itself, but all problems can be resolved by careful study. This is based on circular reasoning by forcing the Greek concept of “absolute truth” onto God and the Biblical text (Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists such as Bob Jones University, and our own D.S. Harvey Burnett).
5. The Bible and its god can be made Theo-Logical by more revelation (Mormons: Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrines and Covenants; Moonies, The Divine Principle).
6. The Bible must be read and interpreted ONLY by inspirited ecclesiastical authorities or councils (Catholics: The Magisteium; Jehovah Witnesses: Awake and Watch Tower).
7. Nothing in the Bible is what it seems. Words have hidden meanings (Philo of Alexandria, Gnostics, Eastern Christendom (Orthodox), and Christian Science).
This final section of the Post is a case study section in which I now invite all Christians to make God appear logical or Theo-Logical. The facts are real.
Christians, here is your change to sell a logical god to the masses who may consider the following situation totally illogical and even cruel.
The summer of 1999 was a tragic one for my family as my fourteen year old daughter taken to the hospital with chronic vomiting and nausea only to be was diagnosed with End Stage Renal Failure.
While taking my daughter to dialysis three times a week, he met a 16 year old boy also on dialysis who often did his dialysis in a chair next to hers. He was a strong evangelical Christian who “loved Jesus” and would spent his three hours talking about his love for the Gospel of Christ, his love for the Bible and how he wanted to be a full time Christian minister the rest of his life. He would share the Gospel with any dialysis patient who was placed next to him.
My daughter finally left the dialysis clinic after getting a transplant, but she kept in touch with friends she made there.
After several more years on dialysis, this young sixteen year old preacher too got a kidney transplant and he entered a Christian university to prepare for the full time Gospel ministry. However, within several years of his transplant, his body went in to rejection. With prayers of his fellow Christians appearing to go unanswered his second kidney failed. He received a second kidney transplant at which time he returned to his Christian education to prepare for full time Christian work with the full support and payers of his Christian community.
But sadly, his body when into rejection for the second time. Now, faced with a life of dialysis three times a week plus a life of failing access sites in his circulatory system, this young Christian - who had given gave his life and heart to Christ for full time ministry -opted to go home and die (which indeed happen several years ago).
Now all Christians who want to make and keep God Theo-Logical, let me start you off with some “pat” apologetic explanations:
A. God knew this young Christian would have to face a life of suffering so He called him “Home to Heaven”.
B. There was secret “sin” in this young Christians life. To correct it, God either struck him down or called him to Heaven.
C. Like David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12: 15 - 18), his parents sins caused either his kidney failure or death or both.
D. We just don’t understand the mind (Logos) and ways of God. As such, we should not question it. (This is nothing but a justification of fate in the secular world).
E. God used his life as a testimony to the lost world and it severed its purpose: “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9: 1-3).
Now it is your turn Christians. Please use the above case study to see if you can make and keep your God logical or theo - logical.
64 comments:
I wish to offer my apologies to the three people who wrote comments to this post. I did some re-editing of this post and had to repost it which deleted your comments. Sorry about the situation. Please add them again.
My Apologies,
Harry
Here are those three comments:
Debbie said...
And so we all die and never see our friends again.
I don't know about you, but it makes me said. All the rationalization about being one with the universe and the awe of science just don't help me.
Sorry.
4:47 PM, August 27, 2008
MH said...
I know what you mean, I lost my dear grandma when she was fairly young. Its especially sad since she would have loved my wife, theyre cut from the same cloth moreso than any of the rest of my family.
Its unfortunate that the real universe appears to be this way.
However, rather than cheapen life, it makes our time of earth infinitely more precious.
This is your only chance folks, make it count. Every moment counts.
5:00 PM, August 27, 2008
Ian said...
Debbie:
Your statement seems to be the last response of theists when all evidence has shown the error of myths. Clinging to definitely-untrue-but-pleasant ideas is the last step before letting go.
When you're ready to face the world and acknowledge your true place in it, with all the fear and awe that entails, you won't be alone.
5:14 PM, August 27, 2008
twenty thousand? i had no idea. that wacky god sure has a high tolerance for being misunderstood if all of them are a little bit different, then only one of them must have it anywhere near right. or maybe we do . . . there is only one version of NONE.
Harry,
I have a question for you. From an atheist point of view why do people suffer? What does atheism have to offer the one who is suffering? To an atheist what is the meaning of suffering? Lastly your discussion about scriptures and denominations shows you lake of understanding in regards to understanding of scriptures and how people interpret them. You also show a lack of understanding in regards to religious people. Atheists like to think that they have a clear view of religion. Yet the problem is they are controlled by their bias and assumptions. Just because you consider god to be illogical does not mean everyone does or should think this. Atheists have a hard time distinguishing between truth and opinions when it comes to religion. Further more, Cults are all about what the leader believes. There is little to no regards for accurate interpretations of scriptures. Bring cults into your equations lessons the persuasiveness of your argument.
-Harold
I'm disappointed. I thought this post would be more Cosby-themed. "Y'see, this here seminary is THEO-logical, so you kids... should get up and cheer for your brother. Come on, Rudy! And thank you, Dwayne Wayne, for bringing us all together... here today... with Jell-O pudding. Y'see?"
Seriously, I liked the post. One of the problems I encounter when I engage in theological (Ru-DEEE!) debate is that my opponents often switch from one of your outlined positions to another. It's frustrating at best and disingenuous at worst, so I'm right there with you.
Would most Christians claim to know the answer to that?
All I'm sure about is that I'm here now - although I haven't a clue as to why - and I hope there's life after death (and I don't mean the eternal Auschwitz they're ashamed to admit they believe in).
On that level, I'd think Christians and atheists have a lot in common - neither have a clue as to what's going on, but they can always hope.
Harry,
Wow, awesome thoughts. I remember in Bible College having the discussion, "Who can know the mind of God?" Indeed, the Christian argues that the apex of human wisdom is but foolishness to God. How do we derive this theo-illogical belief? The Bible tells me so. How do we interpret the Bible? By popular belief! It does not matter to the Christian what the Bible actually says, as long as someone says, "Yes, you're right. Even though God never changes, even though the "old covenant" was not actually done away with, even though God strictly commands this or that, we don't have to follow that command because that's not what God wants for us today!" Yeah! How do we know that this? Well, not because the Bible tells us so, instead we derive our beliefs from "Systemic Theology." I actually took Sys Theo 1, 2, & 3 in college. Now, I realize that these were excellent courses in circular reasoning and indoctrination.
The pinnacle of theo-illogical belief: Eph 2 "For it is by FAITH you have been saved..." Rom 1 "The righteous are justified by FAITH..." Fortunately, it is easy to test this belief. The smallest amount of faith in the Bible is referred to metaphorically by Jesus as being the size of a mustard seed (tiny seed). Christian believer: do you have the faith of a mustard seed? If so, prove it not to me, but to yourself? What did Jesus promise that you could do with even the smallest amount of faith? If you are theo-logical, then you'll will have to admit to yourself that you do not even possess the faith of a mustard seed. If you don't possess even the smallest amount of faith, how do you know you are truly saved, or even have the right religion. So far, every "alleged" Christian I know has failed this test proving that they have not been granted the faith which the Bible promises freely to those who ask. If you are theo-illogical, then come move a mountain for me. Better yet, don't do it for me. Do it for the glorification of God so that all men might be drawn to repentance and belief.
I find it odd that to the skeptic, prayer is one of the best arguments against Christianity. The skeptic reads the promises granted to prayer in the Bible and says, "See, the Bible fails to uphold any of those promises." The Christian, on the other hand, sees prayer as evidence for his/her belief system. They read the promises of prayer and convince themselves that even though they have personally never seen someone rise from the dead, a limb grow back, etc; that prayer does indeed work. Each year tens of thousands of children are diagnosed with terminal cancer. Of those who are correctly diagnosed and are prayed for, how many go into remission or are cured, versus how many die. We all know that the vast majority diagnosed with terminal cancer eventually die. Let's argue that God does exist and he heals 1 person in a million, or even 100,000 that is prayed for. The Christian would see that 1 in a 100,000 person that was healed as proof of Christianity and their specific theology. I see it as proof that the Bible is clearly wrong about prayer. At a minimum, it is proof that God cares very little for our mortal bodies when they succumb to a lethal ailment.
I would like for any Christian to post the answer to whether or not they believe they have "the faith of a mustard seed."
Thanks John for republishing the comments.
To all the other commenters with questions: I have jury duty all this week at the county court house and must get some rest. I'll pick this post up tomorrow.
Regards,
Harry
Hey Harrold! Way to avoid the issue, guy! You didn't even try to address Harry's challenge, you went straight to a different topic that has nothing to do with this post.
You sly dog.
Now, you want to know about suffering. Well suffering is pain that lasts for a long time. And pain is what lets you know if you hurt yourself. You see Harold pain keeps you from hurting yourself really really bad, so its a good thing.
(Man I hate home schoolers.)
Next, you seem to think that Harry hasn't correctly defined any of the theologies he discussed. But I can't help but notice that you didn't attempt to provide any corrections. Do you really know what you're talking about or are you guessing that if you say he's wrong we'll just take your word for it?
You then made a few unkind remarks about atheists in general (You must be truly sinless to be casting stones the way you do), and then you clain that Harry is comparing Christianity with cults. But you failed to point out which version of christianity is the right one and which are the cults.
Here's a suggestion for you Harold: Why don't you grow a backbone and take Harry's challenge and show us all what the true theology is?
Harry,
Interesting post. I’ll attempt to respond.
By my mid-20's, I had buried my biological parents (my father was killed by a drunk driver when I was 8 months old and my mother died of a sudden stomach condition when I was 26 after years of dealing with a painful disease). Watching my mom slowly turn from a strong woman to a sick and fragile shell in a matter of 10 years was painful to witness. I was there to hold her hand as she took her last breath. The obvious thought popped up in my head, "Why?" There appeared to be many evil people that had lived long lives with lots of money and power. Yet, my loving mother died before she got to see my daughter -- her granddaughter -- be born. It seemed like such an injustice.
Given your Christian background, you know it is not unusual for people of faith to question God during times of struggle. In the Old Testament, Habakkuk wrote, "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." Habakkuk later asks, "Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?"
Such questions are not limited to God's followers, but were also asked by Christ himself. Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, while hanging on the cross shortly before he died, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Christ at this moment in His life felt alone.
The options you provide to answer your question are overly simplistic. What helped for me to know during my struggles was that I had been given a Savior who knows exactly what I was going through. The confidence I have in the historicity/reality of the person and deity of Christ is where I find my hope. Jesus suffered and died on a cross to pay for a crime He didn't commit. He suffered for me. It spite of this, He kept His faith and followed the plan which God the Father had set for Him. It is okay to ask why…but we may not get the answer in the time we prefer.
Harold,
I have a question for you. From an atheist point of view why do people suffer? What does atheism have to offer the one who is suffering? To an atheist what is the meaning of suffering?
When my ten year old son died from a heart attack related to leukemia, my Pastor didn't have anything to offer my family, who to this day suffers from immeasurable grief. And in the last year and a half, I have obsessively searched for a personal god and the meaning of suffering and nothing resonates with me. After my Pastor couldn't help me, I confided in an old Pastor of mine and he couldn't offer anything to comfort me. A friend of mine told me about a pastor from his church who also lost a son to cancer, but from him, all I got was those lousy, rote platitudes (pat answers) -- God has a plan, We don't know the mind of god, Your son is in the arms of god, Maybe god took him so he wouldn't have to suffer, God needs more angels. But the only thing going through my mind is, why is this guy privy to this information, about what god is doing or what the afterlife is like? How is it, he knows something I don't? What is the basis for these extraordinary claims?
And after almost two years of obsessively searching, I've come to the conclusion he doesn't know anything about god or the afterlife. He has constructed a fantasy world based on his myopic interpretation of scripture -- it is what he uses to get through life. He has deluded himself to the point of self-psychosis, making himself believe in these things about god. For him, it gives him hope, for me it is complete bullshit.
In fact, nothing comforts me. There is no meaning to suffering. The most simple explanation is we are biological entities and we are susceptible to disease and accidents. Another bogus platitude is, it is the only way to know good from bad. But couldn't a god have constructed an environment where there could be levels of goodness one better than the next? Do I need a vat of poison at a buffet so I can enjoy the food more?
No -- religion has nothing to offer but absurd platitudes -- they especially, do not have the capacity to understand why children have to suffer.
"Can you understand such nonsense, my friend and my brother, my godly and humble novice, can you understand why this nonsense is needed and created? Without it they say, man could not even have lived on earth, for he would not have known good and evil.
Who wants to know this DAMNED GOOD AND EVIL AT SUCH A PRICE?" (Emphasis added) -- Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Lastly your discussion about scriptures and denominations shows you lake of understanding in regards to understanding of scriptures and how people interpret them.
Isn't it amazingly, curious, that the other 34,000 separate christian groups, in the world, have their own idiosyncratic, "understanding" of scripture -- and they all think they have the accurate interpretation of it? You would think, if it was easy to understand, there would be, only, one church that would teach the unequivocal, one and only true message, of the bible. The only thing that is clear, is Harold, thinks his interpretation is accurate, while all the other christian interpretations are not. Tell you what Harold, when christianity coalesces into one unified christian church, with one true, understanding of scripture, that is clear, and unequivocal -- you come on back and let us know. I'll expect you in around -- never.
--S.
There is zero that is logical with these platitudes. First, what is the basis for this information? How is it, clergy can make these extraordinary claims?
A. God knew this young Christian would have to face a life of suffering so He called him “Home to Heaven”.
This doesn't account for the people who suffer, egregiously, for years -- why does god let them suffer for so long? For one example, someone dies of hunger every 3.8 seconds in the world — 75% of these people are children. That’s six million children who suffer and die of malnutrition, every year, before their 5th birthday.
B. There was secret “sin” in this young Christians life. To correct it, God either struck him down or called him to Heaven.
Why cause him to be born in the first place? Do members of the clergy have a special secret sin detecting machine? If not, how would they know there was a secret sin in this young christian's life?
C. Like David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12: 15 - 18), his parents sins caused either his kidney failure or death or both.
So this all-loving god punished the child, by causing him to suffer, because the parents did something bad -- that's wholly unjust and revolting. Or god used the suffering of the child as a tool, to make the parents suffer, because they were bad -- equally revolting. This doesn't take into consideration the child's friends, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins, who also suffered, seeing the child suffer and die -- it's a spiderweb of misery, that god has doled out. What? Are all these people being punished, too? Contemptible!
D. We just don’t understand the mind (Logos) and ways of God. As such, we should not question it. (This is nothing but a justification of fate in the secular world).
This is just their way of giving a bullshit answer, that equates to, I DON'T KNOW.
E. God used his life as a testimony to the lost world and it severed its purpose: “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9: 1-3).
So, god uses the most repulsive, unimaginable, suffering as a F-in' tool? This god is beyond contempt.
These are just absurd platitudes, that have no meaning and offers, absolutely, no comfort. It also begs the question, where do members of the clergy come up with this crap? They base it on their idiosyncratic, interpretation of the bible and intermingle it with flights of imaginative, fancy. I have to wonder, if god wanted us to know, why we suffer, couldn't he have made it, perfectly, clear -- to all the world?
--S.
I've had people close to me die, and dread the thought of most of my friends and family preceding me in death, as I get older.
But I don't find any comfort in being able to take apart most of their truth claims, or the fact that they can't explain why bad things happen to us.
What they do have is the hope that these deaths are only temporary.
What keeps many of them sane is a "I'll see you on the other side" mentality, and I don't see anything wrong with encouraging that.
I'd think that assuming your parent or child will simply cease to exist, and telling them so on their deathbed, would be more psychologically devastating than making a theoretical concession to a religion.
I'd like to offer some thoughts here, which are simply my thoughts, but I'm sure sconner and others will tell me I'm wrong simply because there are however many thousands of Christian groups.
I don't know if the contributors to this post all come from a particular denomination of Christianity (oh, here we go! See above) but given that the blog claims to have a collection of ex-ministers and suchlike, I'm confused at such a wilful misinterpretation of the Bible.
Personally I'm inspired by that young man, who remained an example to us all until his death - I'm only human, I don't know that I could go through all of that and still remain particularly cheery. To say that God caused that man's suffering is utterly wrong and very damaging. Going back to Bible 101 I think it's very clear that such suffering is caused by the Fall and by Satan. My close relationship with God doesn't preclude me from suffering, but it does soften the blow.
Saying that there was secret sin in the man's life is condemnatory and wrong, whether God called him home or not is beyond our ken - the verse quoted in E is certainly true to the extent that God 'works in all things for the good of those who love him', and uses all of us believers, whatever the extent of suffering in our lives, to testify to the work he has done in changing us.
Unfortunately at this point I cannot understand where the supposition that God has been either illogical or cruel enters into things, what I can see is clear in this situation and the world at large, is that the world is illogical and cruel.
How did god not cause his suffering? If you beleve in the chrisitian god, that god has the power to intervene in eveything, then any time someone suffers it is because god has chosen not make the suffer. Lets go over that slowly:
Man was faifthful and sincere, prerequistes for the miracle god could have given him. One magical healing and god has a new minster for life, and a proven miracle.
Man was dying slowly. God is all powerful, if he was to die why not use a lightning bolt? Too spetacular? How about just a simple virus to save him years of pain?
Maybe he was meant to suffer and produce something through that pain? Why not just put the idea in his head with some lesser miracle? You know arrange some signs or something?
This is the most that I have seen Christian come over and post in a while, great work Harry! However, it is amazing that they can ignore almost everything you say.
Take Sam's post for example where he wrote, "I'm confused at such a wilful misinterpretation of the Bible."
Sam, please provide us with a list of the universally agreed upon theologies in the Christian Church. You say that we are misrepresenting the Christian beliefs, but it just is not so. The fact is that Christians have killed over their theological differences. Killing aside, if the Holy Spirit dwells in Christians, why isn't there agreement in theo-logical beliefs? We can easily write more on the differences than the agreement between denominations.
Jeff wrote, "The confidence I have in the historicity/reality of the person and deity of Christ is where I find my hope." Confidence based in ignorance alone. Have you ever read a book that critically looks at the evidence of the historicity of the gospels? Individuals like McDowell and Dr. Craig boldly state things like, "The New Testament is more the 99% accurate to the original copies. Even though we don't have one original copy of any text. No, rather that earliest copies are between 150-200 years after Jesus' death(e.g., P66, P52). They make a huge leap of faith to make the 99% accurate statement because it is not based on the actual historical record. Read Hector Avalos' "The End of Biblical Studies" to get a review of the actual Biblical and historical record that is in existence. You don't need to agree with Avalos' conclusion, but at least you'll understand why deconverts here are critical of the historical record.
Sam & Jeff,
On the home page of this site is a link to the DC challenge. I've been at this site for a few months now (I'm a recent deconvert) I have not meet any Christian poster willing to take the DC Challenge and post their thoughts or blog about the challenge. Please consider my request and keep us posted with regular updates. Now, the obnoxious thing is when people ask for books to be sent to them for free. Please just buy the books or use the library.
Final thought,
I owe this site a lot. I was struggling with my faith for a long time and the church had no real answers to deal with my doubts and the very legitimate criticisms of the Bible: atrocities/genocide committed by God, the powerlessness of prayer, the inconsistencies between science(i.e., Genesis vs the Earth is very old), just to name a few. The typical Christian answer is to go into denial, but I just could not do that. Most Christians simply refuse to evaluate the problems with their belief system.
I don't know if the contributors to this post all come from a particular denomination of Christianity (oh, here we go! See above) but given that the blog claims to have a collection of ex-ministers and suchlike, I'm confused at such a wilful misinterpretation of the Bible.
Sam, the Bible makes specific claims of fact. You interpret these claims as having a specific theological implications based on your particular denomination.
However, as someone who no longer believes that God exists, I no longer have a need to interpret the Bible in a way that matches the consensus of any denomination. You might call this is "willful misinterpretation." Instead, I'm simply longer willing to give God a free pass when it comes to what appears to be obvious contradictions between the universe I live in and the supposed nature and properties of God.
Going back to Bible 101 I think it's very clear that such suffering is caused by the Fall and by Satan. My close relationship with God doesn't preclude me from suffering, but it does soften the blow..
If God created the universe from nothing, then we have to somehow get from nothing to the existence of pain. If you say pain came about due to the fall and Satan, then we have to get from nothing to fallen man and Satan. However, Genesis 3:16 indicates that pain already existed.
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you."
Since multiplying anything with zero would result in zero, it appears that it's not nearly as 'clear' as you're making it out to be.
Unfortunately at this point I cannot understand where the supposition that God has been either illogical or cruel enters into things, what I can see is clear in this situation and the world at large, is that the world is illogical and cruel.
But, again, how do we get from nothing to needless suffering in a universe created by a perfect being? If you say that pain was an unintentional result of God's creation, then I'd ask if an omnipotent and omniscient God can design one thing but actual create something other that what he wanted.
For example, for God to do something as apparently simple as create a rock at rest on the earth's surface, he must take into account a nearly infinite number of factors. Since the earth is actually rotating both on it's axis and around the sun, which is rotating around the center of the milky way galaxy, which is rotating around the center of the known universe, All of which is expanding at an increasing rate of speed, God, who exists outside space and time, must calculate the exact direction and velocity of the rock and must time it's appearance so it appears to be motionless from our perspective. If he did not do this, the rock would either slam into the earth as if it was moving at incredible speeds, vaporizing itself and everything around it, or hurl away from the earth, possibly colliding with things on the surface or in the air. If he did not use his omniscience, he might cause the rock to appear in such location that it would cause an avalanche and kill hundreds of people, cause someone to trip and fall, cause a motorcyclist to loose control and cause a fatal accident, etc.
However, if God truly is infinitely intelligent he could calculate the correct location, time, velocity and heading of the rock. If he truly is omnipotent, he could ensure the rock he created actually met all of these parameters. And if he was truly omniscient, he would know the result of causing said rock to appear from the moment it arrived, extending into infinity. As such, in creating anything, God must be exhaustively aware of what would not occur, otherwise, he'd have no way of knowing if what he intended would actually take place or not.
So, again, we have to somehow get from nothing to a world that is illogical and cruel by the omnipotent actions of a omniscient, logical and and loving God. I simply cannot get from there to here without God becoming incoherent.
First off I would like to think everyone who posted a comment on this topic.
Secondly, I would like to think Toby, Sconnor, Trigg 13, Goprairie and Bahramthered for providing valuable insights and answers to the believers who comments are only based on hope and faith.
Ismellarat: “On that level, I'd think Christians and atheists have a lot in common - neither have a clue as to what's going on, but they can always hope.”
RE: Oh, really Ismellarat? A young “Born Again” Christian who was “called” into full time Christian service and started life with a defective organ struggles to live this despite the New Testament Bible promises of Jesus and you think that atheist (like Christians) only have “hope”.
So Ismellarat, please tell us what religion you “hope” in and just how you know its correct.
Ismellarat: “But I don't find any comfort in being able to take apart most of their truth claims, or the fact that they can't explain why bad things happen to us.”
Re: I take it Ismellarat that you apparently think ignorance is bliss. So, if a traveling evangelist is drinking poison and handing snakes base on Mark 16: 18 or some one holds to the promises of Jesus about only trusting God for healing of their child, you would not want to upset them by reality?
Thank goodness most states have enacted laws to protect ignorant adults and children of Bible believing parents from complacent people like you!
Ismellarat, even the U.S. Coast Guard has a “Law of the Seas” that anyone near a vessel in distress must render help while your point (as I understand it here), is that God gets a free pass from not helping his own believers who are ONLY WANTING WHAT IS PROMISED TO THEM BY JESUS IN THE BIBLE.
Harold: “I have a question for you. From an atheist point of view why do people suffer? What does atheism have to offer the one who is suffering? To an atheist what is the meaning of suffering?”
Re: Harold, in the book of Job, God and Satan are like old drinking buddies who place bets on an innocent man (Job) simply to make him suffer to prove a point over and win a bet.
Harold: “Lastly your discussion about scriptures and denominations shows you lake of understanding in regards to understanding of scriptures and how people interpret them. You also show a lack of understanding in regards to religious people.”
Re: Stated “You also show a lack of understanding in regards to religious people.”
Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Moonies, are religious people, are they not? No, your problem is that you have a “lack of understanding” of the term “orthodoxy”.
Can you read Hebrew and Greek? Have you spent 6 years university and seminary in Christian studies? You apparently think atheists can not be educated in Christian studies.
You appear to me to have the approach to a Christian World View that Southern Baptist have…highly limited!
Sorry, Harry McCall. I tried to be as bland and inoffensive as I could, but maybe not hard enough.
I simply hope there's something on the other side that will show both Christians and atheists to have been wrong for believing what they do now, but which will also make them happy it exists.
I don't think you can disprove a hope.
Imagine a Harry-defined god.
You'd like such a god, wouldn't you? So what would be wrong with you hoping that a Harry-god exists? I also bet there'd be little difference between the Harry-god and the kind I'd like to see.
Maybe there exists something out there that isn't too far removed from what we'd like to see. We might as well live as if such a god exists.
I think Christians do the same. They imagine the kind of god they'd like to see, and hope there's some way he can be harmonized with the Bible.
That's why they get so flustered and embarrassed when you confront them with all that bad stuff.
Sorry, if hoping for the best, hoping that you'll get to see your loved ones again in some other life, makes me sound weird, or evil, or something. ;-)
Ismellarat: “Imagine a Harry-defined god.”
Exactly why do you need to keep atheist religious? Really?
My Dachshunds do not pray nor attend church. They do not worry about an after life, God or Jesus. They live life to the fullest everyday as they see it in their world.
Now Ismellarat, replace “My Dachshunds” with “Harry” and now you’ve got it!
Regards,
Harry
"RE: Oh, really Ismellarat? A young “Born Again” Christian who was “called” into full time Christian service and started life with a defective organ struggles to live this despite the New Testament Bible promises of Jesus and you think that atheist (like Christians) only have “hope”."
I'm not sure what you think I meant, but I was only talking about a hope in something after this life. By definition (I would hope), a Harry-god would be a good one to hope for, right?
"So Ismellarat, please tell us what religion you “hope” in and just how you know its correct."
I don't know of one. I wish there were such a thing as a perfectly good and obviously true organized religion.
I just can't deal with having to imagine bashing in a woman's face with stones, together with Jesus, as I'd need to if I believed the Bible were 100% true. (I'm sure many can intuit where that came from - Jesus agrees with God 100%, we must also, and had we both been at the scene of an Old Testament stoning, that's what we should enthusiastically have been doing. Pretty screwed up, I dare say.)
"Re: I take it Ismellarat that you apparently think ignorance is bliss. So, if a traveling evangelist is drinking poison and handing snakes base on Mark 16: 18 or some one holds to the promises of Jesus about only trusting God for healing of their child, you would not want to upset them by reality?
Thank goodness most states have enacted laws to protect ignorant adults and children of Bible believing parents from complacent people like you!
Ismellarat, even the U.S. Coast Guard has a “Law of the Seas” that anyone near a vessel in distress must render help while your point (as I understand it here), is that God gets a free pass from not helping his own believers who are ONLY WANTING WHAT IS PROMISED TO THEM BY JESUS IN THE BIBLE."
Where the hell does that come from? I mean, I think agree with your sentiment on these points, but how you know I'm not in agreement with you, I don't know.
I'd love to see those who actually hurt someone through their beliefs go to the slammer, but I also try to be very sympathetic and respectful to, say, well-meaning older people who haven't had the exposure to the arguments against the truth claims of what they believe, and to all the bad stuff, as we have.
I hope I'll find something on the other side that would make anyone happy it's there. I can tell that to anyone, without embarrassment or offense.
Sorry Harry, I was on the phone and had hoped to answer your points before you wrote again.
You're an intelligent guy and seem to write very fast, but it'd be worth slowing down a little to avoid some of those typos. I don't understand what you mean by:
"Exactly why do you need to keep atheist religious? Really?"
With the "imagine a Harry-god" exercise, I wanted to take away any "but any god is evil" objections, since you seem to be taking me to task for what I hope to be true.
I'm sure that if your Dachshunds like you, they'll also like any god you might hope for.
I see why atheists wouldn't like the current assortment of gods, but I thought it had to do with how they are said to treat people. (I love the quote I read on this site somewhere: "God doesn't exist. The bastard!")
I've told you one advantage a Harry-god would have - he'd let you see your loved ones again.
Yet you seem hostile to the idea of there being any god at all, even such a Harry-god.
I'm simply contending that it's not a bad thing to hope there is something good on the other side, and to try and live in terms of it.
ismellarat,
I simply hope there's something on the other side that will show both Christians and atheists to have been wrong for believing what they do now, but which will also make them happy it exists.
I hope my son would magically appear to me, too, but much like your hope -- it is unrealistic. I still cling to the idea, that I'll see my son, in some sort of afterlife, but I don't claim it to be a certainty, nor do I delude myself that it is anything more than wishful thinking. What I do know is I live in misery -- now -- and I'll never see my son accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. His dreams were dashed and his potential, eviscerated.
--S.
--S.
Sconnor, I'd say that wishing for your son to appear here is much more unrealistic than wishing you'll see him in another life.
That wish has already been "tested", and such a thing has never happened, but with the other - who can know?
Who can confidently say that there's nothing behind every single claimed paranormal experience (which for me would simply show that there's "something else" going on out there, which would be enough for me to know now)? I wish I had the time to read more of what Shermer and Randi have written on that. Nothing's ever been proven, I know, and plenty has been debunked, but I've heard some strange stuff from people I know who weren't otherwise seeking fame, or who I took to be gullible. One guy even labels himself an atheist and just says he has no explanation for what he saw, but he saw it. I figure if I were a spook, I could easily hide from the few investigators, if I wanted to. The same goes for those magic pink unicorns too, I guess.
BTW, "Wishful Thinker" was one of the handles I toyed with using. I agree with you totally that that's all we can do.
Someone close to me had to discover her 4-month old dead one morning, and told me how it took a long time for her to let the paramedics finally take her away. I can't imagine what it must be like, to have such an image seared into your mind for the rest of your life. But it does help to believe that that's not really the end of it.
Sam,
To say that God caused that man's suffering is utterly wrong and very damaging. Going back to Bible 101 I think it's very clear that such suffering is caused by the Fall and by Satan.
Even if you believe in this preposterous, fairytale, god still creates beings and sentences them to this abysmal, world of unimaginable, suffering. Why does, this supposed, all-loving god, keep creating and sending his earthly children, to what he knows, is a world of suffering?
--S.
Additionally, It is not at all, clear, that suffering was caused by the fall and by satan. You seemed to have made assumptions based on recollection and declarations that do not come from the context of the story of Adam and Eve. You are basing your claims on christian doctrine and you have to add layers of interpretation to come to your bible 101 conclusion. I suggest you go back to school and read for yourself, the story of Adam and Eve and you will see, for yourself, how wrong you are. I wrote about this very problem HERE
Unfortunately at this point I cannot understand where the supposition that God has been either illogical or cruel enters into things...
If you get your definition of god from the bible, then you have to account for the cruel and atrocious acts that are atribitued to him in the bible.
Here is how your, supposed, all-loving god is cruel.
What to do when your children disobey
Exodus 21:17 -- He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Deut. 21:18-21 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother ... Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city ... And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.
Is it a loving act to kill children, when they were unruly?
Proverbs 13:24 He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.
If you love him, beat him, with a stick -- a lot.
Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
Beat the foolishness out of a child; a child can't possibly be foolish -- beat, beat, beat!
Proverbs 23:13-14 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die. You shall strike him with the rod And rescue his soul from Sheol.
He may have bruising, welts, cuts, broken bones, but he won't die -- keep beating him so he won't go to the common grave of humankind.
Proverbs 30:17 The eye that mocks a father And scorns * a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it.
Wow, these hideous threats come from an all-loving God?
Why does Proverbs condone child abuse? If a child, in your church, walked in with welt marks and bruising from a rod, you would be obligated, by law, to contact children services. If your church abides by god's manual (the bible) and caned children, with a rod, as a form of punishment, your church and the ones responsible would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
How about these little gems of love, from the bible:
Hosea 13:16 Samaria will be punished for turning against me. It will be destroyed in war children will be beaten against rocks, and pregnant women will be ripped open.
Psalms 137:9 May the Lord bless everyone who beats your children against the rocks!
1Sam 15:3 The Lord says, Go and attack the Amalekites! Destroy them and all their possessions. Don't have any pity. Kill their men, women, children, and even their babies.
God sure likes to fuck up little innocent, children and even, unborn children.
Are you begining to get the picture where the idea of god being cruel comes from? And this is just a small sample.
--S.
Toby,
Although I disagree, to dialouge about the dating of the books of the New Testament would take us far off topic. Perhaps we should leave that for another day. My point is if Jesus is who he says he was, then that goes a long way with many concerns I have with the pain and suffering in my life, especially given what He went through.
You may want to read an excahnge between Antony Flew (pre-deist), RM Hare and Basil Mitchell for the Symposium on Theology and Falsification from a number of years ago if you haven't already. I would encourage you to read Mitchell's points regarding faith and pain (specifically the parable of the resistance movement and the stranger). My faith is only as good as the object of my faith -- it should not blind, but grounded in something firm and worthy of my belief. Mitchell's piece touches on this subject. Thus, while understanding may be limited as to pain/suffering (and tension and conflict exist within humans who look to God for answers), we have trust in God.
As to the DC Challenge, it may take me a while to get through all of the books, but I would certainly be willing to comment on my blog as I get through them. I recently read Dawkins' "The God Delusion" as well as McGrath's response "The Dawkins Delusion." I hope the books on the Challenge are better than Dawkins', as I was unimpressed (and I even am okay with evolution).
Toby - the following is a pretty standard statement of faith – I’ve not seen a mainstream Christian church that disagrees with these basic tenets – I’m sure you’ll come up with plenty, but I can talk only from my own experience:
(a) The sovereignty and grace of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in creation, providence, revelation, redemption and final judgement.
(b) The divine inspiration of Holy Scripture and its consequent entire trustworthiness and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
(c) The universal sinfulness and guilt of fallen man, making him subject to God's wrath and condemnation.
(d) The substitutionary sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God as the sole and all sufficient ground of redemption from the guilt and power of sin and its consequences.
(e) The justification of the sinner solely by the grace of God, through faith in Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
(f) The illuminating, regenerating, indwelling, sanctifying and empowering work of God the Holy Spirit.
(g) The priesthood of all believers, who from the universal Church, the Body of which Christ is the Head and which is committed by His command to the proclamation of the Gospel throughout all the world.
(h) The expectation of the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and glory.
Harry – interesting where you thank the people who have posted trying to convince the believers who have posted only with their hope and faith. It seems that with the verve you and your contributors keep up this blog that you all exist on just as much hope and faith in Christianity not being true. I’m not knocking that, the alternative is that you’re all fuelled by a simple heady mix of intellectual snobbery and shocking arrogance. I also feel that I should somehow begin to apologise for whichever Christians have treated you badly – we are most certainly not all like that. I’m not being combative myself, and I have no particular interest in doing your challenge, as I said in my first comment, I’m just sharing some thoughts.
Bahram, Sconnor – I can see it’s impossible to discuss anything with you without you putting words in my mouth, but I’ll discuss a little of where I’m coming from. For a start, I categorically did not say that the Fall introduced pain into the world. Pain is a good thing, it’s a safety measure, it stops you getting burned, or injured, it teaches you to avoid injurious activities. Suffering, however, is a perversion of that pain, and moved pain away from what God intended for it to be the same as the rest of creation.
God has given us free will, Bahram – it should be clear that God isn’t going to automatically interfere in the world as soon as he gives Adam and Eve the option whether or not they eat from the Tree of Knowledge. He could have intervened before that point, but we have the free will to decide. We have rejected God – to expect him to intervene in every situation in the world is a supreme abdication of the responsibility for all the bad things we do. For him to intervene would not be the act of a loving God.
Sconnor – I’m not basing my opinions on conjecture and recollection, for you to say so is terribly patronising and assumes me an idiot, but that is your prerogative. Having said that, I’ve read what you linked to and I won’t go through the same arguments again, it’s a waste of both our efforts. Of course the louche thing to do would be to quote Romans 1 v.18+19 – “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” But then you know these verses...(!)
The obvious answer to the verses you’ve quoted is for people not to curse their parents, for children to obey their fathers, etc – are you saying a loving God would allow rebellion and sin to go unchallenged? He didn’t like the situation, hence why he came down in the bodily form of Jesus to symbolically die once for all.
Sam,
Pain is a good thing, it’s a safety measure, it stops you getting burned, or injured, it teaches you to avoid injurious activities.
This is without a doubt one of the most ignoramus statements, I have heard, in a long time -- absolutely ridiculous. Although, pain is an indicator, all you have to do is go to your local, Pediatric Intensive Care Burn Unit and you can see it does not prevent accidents. How does pain stop you from getting into a horrible automobile accident? How does pain stop you from being burned beyond recognition, in a house fire? How does pain stop you from being injured in a tornado or an earthquake? How does pain stop you from starving to death, in a developing nation? How does pain stop you from getting debilitating and painful diseases? How about emotional and mental pain? What about children who were brutally raped? Not only did they suffer great physical pain, but now they must live the rest their life, with the mental scars -- emotional suffering -- we can't even begin to imagine. And what of the unlucky few who are "blessed" with one of these diseases: Familial dysautonomia or CIPA -- disorders of the nervous system, where people can not feel pain?
I'd love you to go down to your local, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, where children -- anywhere from preemies to teenagers -- are hooked to every machine, suffering, in so many egregious and unimaginable ways and then look into the eyes of the parents who suffer, as their children suffer and you tell them, "pain is a good thing." While you are at it, make sure the children, who have 3rd and 4th degree burns, over their entire body, know, that, "pain is a good thing."
I’m not basing my opinions on conjecture and recollection, for you to say so is terribly patronising and assumes me an idiot, but that is your prerogative.
You are basing your opinions on the backs of men who used conjecture to formulate the doctrine of the fall. Contextually, the story of Adam and Eve does not support that assertion. Original sin and the Fall of Adam and Eve and everything you associate with that fall, are nothing but the imaginings of men, who constructed a doctrine around it.
The obvious answer to the verses you’ve quoted is for people not to curse their parents, for children to obey their fathers, etc – are you saying a loving God would allow rebellion and sin to go unchallenged?
Way to skirt the issue.
Are you saying it is morally, correct to kill your children when they curse their parents? Are you saying, that when your children are rebellious, you will gather a bunch of the old people, from your church and you will throw stones at the child, until they are bloody pulps and go unconscious and then keep throwing stones until they die? Because, that's what the bible, specifically, says to do. You can not address the specifics, of the brutality, of these verses.
Answer these questions directly:
Why does Proverbs condone child abuse?
If a child, in your church, walked in with welt marks and bruising from a rod, you would be obligated, by law, to contact children services -- would you not?
If your church abides by god's manual (the bible) and caned children, with a rod, as a form of punishment, shouldn't your church and the ones responsible be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law?
Physical abuse is generally defined as "any non accidental physical injury to the child" and can include striking, kicking, burning, or biting the child, or any action that results in a physical impairment of the child -- do you physically abuse your children?
In an effort to salvage your god's reputation, you diverge by not addressing the shear brutality of these barbaric acts. The question isn't should rebellion go unchallenged; the question is, should you torture, beat, whip or kill a rebellious child who curses his parents? Sam, should you? -- the bible says so; god says so.
You would think the creator of the universe and this supposed, all-loving god, could teach parents how to raise children, without beating them or killing them.
I also noticed you conveniently, avoided talking about the other disturbing verses, I listed.
Hosea 13:16 Samaria will be punished for turning against me. It will be destroyed in war children will be beaten against rocks, and pregnant women will be ripped open.
Psalms 137:9 May the Lord bless everyone who beats your children against the rocks!
1Sam 15:3 The Lord says, Go and attack the Amalekites! Destroy them and all their possessions. Don't have any pity. Kill their men, women, children, and even their babies.
--S.
Additionally, you also evaded this question:
Even if you believe in this preposterous, fairytale (the fall), god still creates beings and sentences them to this abysmal, world of unimaginable, suffering. Why does, this supposed, all-loving god, keep creating and sending his earthly children, to what he knows, is a world of suffering?
--S.
I do find these discussions very interesting, Sconnor, but I won't continue this discussion in the same vein that you wish to continue it, it doesn't seem helpful to either of us. It is clear that we are both starting from very different and probably incompatible points and will not agree on anything. You have either avoided or deliberately misunderstood my explanation of the difference between pain and suffering. I suspect you understand what I'm saying perfectly well but simply enjoy the attempts to damage someone's faith - I've never met anyone who delights in suffering because it strengthens their world view, it's bizarre. I do wish you well in whatever you're looking for, however.
Jeff: “My point is if Jesus is who he says he was, then that goes a long way with many concerns I have with the pain and suffering in my life, especially given what He went through.”
Re: The Roman method of crucifixion, which included the beating Jesus received before he was nailed to the cross, was done by non-consecrated pagan gentile men who were not set apart as holy in God’s sight, but Jesus’ beating and crucifixion generally was not any different from the thousands the Romans had made examples out of earlier (Josephus, Jewish Wars 2: Ch.308; Philo Flacc 72: 84 -85).
Case Study:
I one time told my children when they refused to eat their chicken at meal time a simple story about how that little chicken grew up full of life and happy KNOWNING one day its life would be given so you children could grow up big and strong. And now you have refused the willing sacrifice of its life; what a horrible thing to do for a chicken which laid down its life for you to live!
They would well up in tears at this story of such a loving sacrifice and then eat their chicken.
Is this what the chicken really did and thought? NO! But my story sold chicken as food at meal time and I got the results I wanted.
Jeff, have you ever been in a revival where, at the close of this evangelistic meeting, the preacher invites everyone who now accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior into their hearts to come forward. When no one comes down to the altar in repentance, the evangelist goes into phase two (since most revival evangelist rate themselves on how many they got “saved”) the preacher will tell a sob story such as the time “Little Timmy was on his death bed and said: ‘Don’t worry Mommy. I’m going to be with Jesus.’”
Now the aisles began to fill with so-called “repentant sinners” when in fact, there NEVER was a “Little Timmy” as told in this created story and the “repentant sinners” who come forward for salvation are simply emotional people who the evangelist knew how to control!
Did one criminally executed man who was only one in thousands crucified by the Romans named Jesus “willingly die for sins of the world”? NO! Not any more than the chicken died for the health of my children. Not anymore than “Little Timmy” wants to die and be with Jesus. The fabricated theology story and NOT the context his death is what is selling “the love of Jesus”.
Scott, neither Judaism nor the Orthodox Churches EVER accepted the doctrine of “Original Sin”. Paul created this idea from the Intertestamental Literature or what is commonly called the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
As such, even your context of Christian history of dogma is limited to the western Catholic and Protestant traditions. As such, even a number of branches of Christendom would reject it.
Regards,
Harry
Sorry, if hoping for the best, hoping that you'll get to see your loved ones again in some other life, makes me sound weird, or evil, or something. ;-)
Ismellarat,
I'd like to see my loved ones in another life. Finding myself exhibiting this 'like' does not make me weird or evil - It makes me human. However, I make a distinction between what I would 'like' and what I think is likely or plausible. The fact that we cannot 100% disprove people have eternal souls isn't a sufficient reason for me to 'believe' this will occur.
This in no way means I wouldn't be pleasantly surprised to be reunited with loved ones after my death. In fact, I'd find it that much more amazing because I find it so highly improbable. But it does mean that my actions and expectations are based on overwhelming evidence that human beings exist for a brief moment of time in the grand scale of the universe.
Imagine a Harry-defined god.
You'd like such a god, wouldn't you? So what would be wrong with you hoping that a Harry-god exists? I also bet there'd be little difference between the Harry-god and the kind I'd like to see.
The God I'd like to see is a God that is clearly logical and non-contradictory. This is because a logical and non-contriditionary God is more likely to actually exist than a God that just happens to do all the things I'd like him to. I'd like a God who is likely to exist because such a God would actually have the ability to make an impact in our universe. However, any God that I imagine whom has will and ability to save us from our current situation would have also had the will and ability to prevent such a situation from arising in the first place.
In other words, why would I hope for a God who's properties would make him extremely unlikely to exist given the current universe we find ourselves in?
I've told you one advantage a Harry-god would have - he'd let you see your loved ones again.
But you haven't explained how such a God could have existed, yet allowed me to be separated from my loved ones in the first place. Did this God just begin to exist after my loved ones died and were separated from me? Was he able to prevent their death but did not?
To quote Albert Einstein..
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
If God has always existed, has always been perfect and does not change, then on what basis do you actually expect he can save us from our current situation? Is this the new and improved God? Is he simply better at managing his time these days?
Nor am I willing to imagine non-sensical reasons why God couldn't have or wouldn't have prevented these problems from occurring in the first place. For me, the "cost" of maintaining the existence of such an irrational and contradictory God outweighs any "benefit" he might provide.
sam,
You have either avoided or deliberately misunderstood my explanation of the difference between pain and suffering.
I did not avoid your explanation; I addressed it head on. I did not misunderstand anything; your explanation of the difference between pain and suffering -- being that suffering is a perversion of pain, is a ridiculous assertion that amounts to double talk and strained conclusions, which are not supported by reality.
I suspect you understand what I'm saying perfectly well but simply enjoy the attempts to damage someone's faith - I've never met anyone who delights in suffering because it strengthens their world view, it's bizarre.
It's only bizarre to you, because you are the one who erroneously, rationalized -- in that deluded, abyss of a mind of yours -- that I delight in suffering, to strengthen my world-view -- what an asinine statement. A wholly absurd and slanderous accusation. My ten year old son died from a heart attack, related to leukemia. He suffered for months, egregiously, the last two weeks, in intensive care, where he was poked and prodded, coughed up blood, had bone marrow aspirations, catheters, chest ports, IVs, BiPaps, painful lesions in his mouth and tongue, extreme pain in his back and legs, intubation, chemo, needles. It was there where I saw children, of every age, suffering, hooked to all kinds of machines, which looked more like medieval torture devices, than medical technology. It was there where they had to shut down the wing to perform open heart surgery, on a baby, who did not survive. It is there where you see the horror in the eyes of parents, the thousand mile stare, that is the outward manifestation of the horrible suffering in their heart.
Now a friend of my son's, who for the past year, is suffering with leukemia and has had bone marrow transplant and where cancerous tumors are building up around his eyes, swelling to the size of oranges and where now the doctors are telling them to prepare for the worst -- why? why, does he have to go through this?. So don't tell me I delight in suffering, because now I wallow in suffering. My son's suffering and death catapulted me into the land of suffering. My eyes have been opened to suffering, all around me, my son only represents, all the children, in the world, throughout time, who have suffered in egregious and unimaginable ways and that is why I ask the questions, I do. Why would god send a baby, knowing the baby would suffer for three weeks, only to die? Why do so many children suffer and die --robbing them of their dreams and ambitions? How can there be an ultimate divine meaning to life, when these children don't even get a chance to experience life?
Why does, this supposed, all-loving god, keep creating and sending his earthly children, to what he knows, is a world of suffering, where he knows children will egregiously suffer, in vile, sadistic and unimaginable ways?
--S.
Sam wrote: I suspect you understand what I'm saying perfectly well but simply enjoy the attempts to damage someone's faith - I've never met anyone who delights in suffering because it strengthens their world view, it's bizarre.
Sam, I think sconnor's point here is that you're implying God intentionally designed pain as a solution to the problem of physical beings that can suffer damage. Is this your position? Or was it the fall? Because, clearly, this method leaves much to be desired as not all situations or conditions that cause pain can be avoided or rectified. This sort of short sightless is what we'd expect from natural selection, not an omnipotent and omniscient God.
For example, not to long ago, most people who lost a limb died shortly afterwards. However, we can now save a significant number of people who lose a limb due to advances in modern medicine, transportation, etc. But, in some cases, these people experience agonizing pain in the missing extremity which clearly serves no purpose. This condition, known as phantom limb syndrome, shows us that while we perceive pain as occurring in our extremities, it's actually an illusion created by our minds. Again, we'd expect this sort of short slightness from natural selection, but why would we expect it from an omniscient God?
Surely, if God knew humans would make such advances in medicine, why wouldn't he prevent people from experience pain in extremities that were no longer were attached to their bodies?
And, just to clarify, I understand why you might want God to exist. However, what I don't understand is why you actually believe that such a God actually exists given what we know about the universe we live in.
The problem with Christianity is that it is “sold to” / “marketed to” the masses with out instructions on just what limitations it has.
Like the old pan-handler flim-flam con-artist who pedaled his Snake Oil to poor country folks who took everything on faith, evangelist peddle a magical Snake Oil God - Jesus who can explain all and fixes all, but the warranty is voided the first time it is tried.
What keeps Christianity functioning is the self denial of its believers. That is, God is placed as total truth and purity while sinful man is placed so for down (total depravity / Original Sin) all hope of objectively looking at theology is gone.
All the believer can is to continue to cite the creed over and over: God is Good. God Loves Me. The Bible is True. While reality is crying out all around them that this is not so!
Satan is the trash icon where everything Christians don't like about God is "deleted" to Satan.
Scott,
of course you're right that a "like" does not make something "likely".
I'm aware of the weaknesses in what I say, but see this worldview as at least being less cruel than Christianity, and more meaningful than atheism (forgive the broad characterizations; of course there's much more to them than that).
It's a compromise, to be sure.
I don't know why any god would allow what he does, but if we did live forever, we might learn to deal with it like any other bad memory of something that happened long ago. I'm probably much less equipped to do that than others I know who, for example, had to deal with having lost their families to war.
I've noticed something else about these sorts of debates:
Whoever gets saddled with the burden of proof loses.
Other people's worldviews get expertly taken apart, but no one seems to have a clue as to what to offer in their place.
"So show me *your* utopia" nobody seems to have an answer to, and I don't either. I think this is just the best anyone can do.
You've identified my worldview's greatest weakness - that to be consistent I'd be stuck having to hope for a god who's responsible for all the bad you're seeing - but I still think it's not as bad as having none at all, since you'd then have the same world, but with much less accountability.
To the rest of your post, I can only again say I don't know, but I believe the alternative to be worse.
I know there is a lot of variation in what atheists believe, but, to paraphrase Dawkins, seeing your son as simply some sort of failed, soon-to-be-forgotten mutation seems much worse to me than admittedly having no explanation for why he had to suffer, but believing that this might be compensated for in another life.
Hmm, maybe that's a possibility - along with fair rewards and punishments (but nothing *eternally* bad), maybe there could be something that also compensates for the bad stuff you see here.
Of course I can't prove a thing, but theoretically that would work, wouldn't it?
So maybe what I hope for doesn't have such a weak spot after all.
Harry,
That is a heck of a way to get your kids to eat their chicken. Are they vegans now?
All joking aside, your chicken analogy fails on so many points. First, it assumes there was a controlling elite who plotted to use Christ to control the masses shortly after he died. If I were a follower, I would have headed back to my fising boat if He wasn't real (like many of the cult followers do today after their leader dies). Rather, His disciples stayed around and were stoned, cricified, etc. for continuing to spread His message. They continued to die and face persecution up until Constantine.
If that is how you see the spread of Gospel in the first and second centuries, I must ask how you came to that conclusion (perhaps it is in the library of books that Toby has encouraged me to read). Of all the criticisms to debunk Jesus and early Christians, that is a new one to me -- Christianity exploded in growth thanks in large part to one big guilt trip invented to control people. What did they have to gain? It wasn't control or power, as converts faced death or a long list of other punishments.
As to the alter call question, I am not a big fan of such methods. As such, I do not particiapte in these events, so I can't be much help to you there.
Sam: I would have responded to you but I spent today think how I put words in your mouth. Closests I come is asking you a question and answering it myself (to give you a refference point to challenge). I would have loved to rip that pain debate apart.
Answer to the christ debate:
Your forgetting that in the time period in question the previous relgious groups were collapsing. Both the pageans beleifs (and oppressed people being forced to worship their counquers gods, or at least having their own reidiculed for failing to protect them) and the overly complicated Olympinian system (is their a better name?)
With the collapse of both of these groups (think gradual), there would have been an open market. If christ (assuming he was real) was a decent speaker, charamitic, and a good politician he could have filped huge numbers of people to hsi worship easliy. And even cult leaders can convince some people to worship even after death. Maybe he simply managed to chose the most fanatic and trained them to be good speakers.
Assuming the whole stroy wasn't spread after the fact based on out right lies called fiction.
BTW: Anyone else hear that at the time of christ there where 12 cults all based on individuals claiming to be the son of god?
And even cult leaders can convince some people to worship even after death.
Indeed, Why did 53 adults and 21 children die in Waco Texas, under the supposed, prophet, David Koresh? They believed David Koresh was the Messiah. The Branch Davidians explained clearly and confidently to the negotiators, why they chose, of their own free will, to remain with Koresh, during the stand off -- Koresh's disciples stayed around and were killed for their beliefs. Something definitely happened in Waco in the 20th century to cause such a stir and generate a whole new philosophy on religion. Furthermore, Koresh built up an entirely new theology called "The New Light" and to this day the Branch Davidians exist and believe David Koresh will come back to earth.
--S.
ismellarat,
That wish has already been "tested", and such a thing has never happened, but with the other - who can know?
So, then you don't believe Jesus, magically, reappeared?
--S.
Jeff: “All joking aside, your chicken analogy fails on so many points. First, it assumes there was a controlling elite who plotted to use Christ to control the masses shortly after he died.”
Re: If it were not for a Jew named Paul whose Greek apologies were a new beginnings to this one form of the many failing early Jesus movements, Christianity would have totally disappeared just as Paul” opponents Christianity did; just as the Ebonites did, just a the Peter / Cephas / Simon only Christians did; just as Gnostic Christianity did and so on.
Paul is responsible for the Christianity that is worshiped today and NOT Jesus. The fact that out of the many Jesus movements that started off; only one survived has more to do with its western push toward Rome via the Hellenistic shaping of its theology in Asia Minor.
Jeff: “If I were a follower, I would have headed back to my fising boat if He wasn't real (like many of the cult followers do today after their leader dies). Rather, His disciples stayed around and were stoned, cricified, etc. for continuing to spread His message. They continued to die and face persecution up until Constantine.”
Re: Other than Peter, who was Jesus the Jew’s right hand man, ALL THE OTHER APOSOLTES live on ONLY in the Apocryphal Gospels and Epistles. Even the Acts of the Apostles (which has major problems with Paul’s own chronology) gives the only functioning apostle Peter the boot after chapter 14 in favor of Paul.
As such, we can definitely see when the historical life and teaching of the historical Jesus was a failure and a man named Paul (and the Pauline schools)who in all likelihood never saw or heard Jesus (unlike the 12 or 72 disciples) is credited with about 75% of the New Testament letters. That the Gospels were written in Greek (Not Aramaic) shows an Asia Minor stage for their creation with the earliest (Mark) written 30 - 40 years after the facts.
The only difference between Southern Baptist and Jehovah Witnesses and the word “cult’ is who is doing the name calling.
Jesus remains only a catalysis in the religion and theology which latter came to be called Christianity.
Jeff, a "Jesus-anity" and Christianity ARE NOT one and the same!
Me:
"That wish has already been "tested", and such a thing has never happened, but with the other - who can know?"
Sconnor:
"So, then you don't believe Jesus, magically, reappeared?"
I can't prove a thing, but even those who are convinced he did would attach a zero probability of it happening to anyone else.
...and such a thing has never happened.
It happened, more times in the bible.
Elijah raised a boy from the dead.................1 Kings 17:22
Elisha raised a boy from the dead.................2 Kings 4:34-35
Elisha's bones raised a man from the dead.......2 Kings 13:20-21
Jesus raised a boy from the dead.................Luke 7:14, 15
Jesus raised a girl from the dead..................Luke 8:52-56
Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead...............John 11:38-44
Peter raised a woman from the dead..............Acts 9:40, 41
Paul raised a man from the dead..................Acts 20:9-20
--S.
Get a life, sconnor, what are you doing up so late?
Alright, my convoluted sentence should also make an exception for people dead a short time, but then you'll bring up the resurrected saints, and maybe Elijah as a theorectical possibility. Then, after I say "with the possible exception of people from long ago", you'll bring up the dry bones thing and probably quote me the song.
You remind me of this guy I read about who whiled away his retirement years in a house on Route 1. He'd play checkers with anyone who came along and say, "I take them into the woods, to where I know where I am, but they don't know where they are" and beat them every time, except for a few draws.
So ok, let's set up the board again and forget how you snookered me.
I'll say it this way: "Resurrections have been pretty damn rare (conceding your theoretical point, which you don't believe anyway), if they indeed happened at all, so that possibility in my comparison between your hopes for a resurrection in this life, which are nonexistent to begin with, but which do somehow serve as an annoying debating distraction, and my hopes for some kind of existence beyond the grave, has already been played out, while I can at least say that mine haven't yet."
And besides, people say they've seen ghosts. So there.
So tell me, what kind of Bible software do you use to pull that stuff up? You've been practicing hard, I can tell. Were you a preacher, before you freely chose to burn in Hell forever?
ismellarat,
"Resurrections have been pretty damn rare (conceding your theoretical point, which you don't believe anyway), if they indeed happened at all, so that possibility in my comparison between your hopes for a resurrection in this life, which are nonexistent to begin with, but which do somehow serve as an annoying debating distraction, and my hopes for some kind of existence beyond the grave, has already been played out, while I can at least say that mine haven't yet."
There are more resurrections in the bible, then there are people going to heaven, to see their dead loved ones again. So, if you are basing your hope on the bible, to go to heaven, to see loved ones, then the more probable outcome would be resurrection and not floating around with your dead relatives, in some other dimension. Either way, both hopes are hopelessly unrealistic and using the bible, one can see jaunting to heaven, posthumously, to see your dead loved ones is more hopeless than resurrection.
--S.
Ismellarat you are a middle of the road traveler: Maybe it did…maybe it didn’t…you can’t prove I’m wrong….I can’t prove I’m right…so there!
Question: Of ALL the people raised form the dead in the Bible, just why did no one EVER comment on their after life? Could it just be that the person / persons who made up these stories had no idea about the after life?
Sometimes (based on changing Israelite views of the after life), things are impossible to create or lie about and call it truth!
As for as I know ONLY the author of Revelation tried to give it a shot and (in my opinion) screwed up.
ismellarat wrote to sconnor, "Were you a preacher, before you freely chose to burn in Hell forever?"
He writes this because sconnor is more learned and versatile with his understanding of scripture. Ismellarate assumes that because he is a believer (of who knows what), that he interpretation is superior. Just like Sam who wrote the Universally Agreed upon doctrine, I showed it to a Lutheran minister who reminded me that the pope of the Catholic church stated that "only a glimmer of the gospel resides in churches outside of the Holy Catholic Church." Of course he said this tongue in check, but the point remains Sam, it is not Christians' similarities that bind them, its their differences that make them feel justified to tear others down.
Jeff, As for the reference to the Symposium on Theology and Falsification, I just read the document and I would like to know what you think I should have gotten from that. You also wrote, "Although I disagree, to dialouge about the dating of the books of the New Testament would take us far off topic." The dating of the manuscripts of the New and Old Testament are pretty much unanimously agreed upon by qualified scholars. I went to and graduated from an extremely conservative Bible College and Seminary and they didn't even dispute the dating. Where that leaves us is that the first copies of the gospels that we have are dated 150-200 years after Jesus' death. Which IS relevant to this discussion.
Your faith causes you to assume that the gospels are true because of the extraordinary claims made. Those claims are not unique, but they have been made extremely popular. What I find remarkable, is that the other 4 full-text gospels we have dating as early as the 4 canonical gospels are readily dismissed. Why? The defenses used to substantiate the canonical gospels in many cases can be used to substantiate the historicity and truthfulness of the non-canonical gospels (Mary, Judas, Thomas and Egerton.
Avalos in most recent book wrote, "we can no longer privilege just the canonical Gospels as the earliest or best sources for depicting early Christianity." He further demonstrates that the historical record shows that early Christianity was remarkably fragmented in their beliefs. The earliest gospel dated is of John, but it is a fragment of only three sentences. To say that it is representative of John as a whole is absurd. However, those three sentences do later appear in whole copies of John. Other than that, the next three gospels are dated to the third century and the whole gospels that we have are dated to the fourth! Conversely, the gospel of Thomas and Egerton are dated among the earliest of all the gospels. Avalos rightly states, "First, these "lost" Gospels confirm that early Christianity was so diverse and chaotic that we can no longer speak of "Christianity" but now must talk of "Christianities..." The criticism against the lost Gospels are equally devastating, in many cases, to the canonical Gospels.
Many people claim that the Dead Sea Scrolls is a testament to God's preservation of scripture. They post out that prior to the DSS that most of the Hebrew texts we used were a part of the Masorectic text dated to 980AD. However, many of the DSS are dated 1st Century BC. They then point to Isaiah and say, "Isaiah from the DSS is in 95% textual agreement with the masorectic texts." They ignore there are many more examples of "non-aligned" texts that show no such agreement. In many cases the stories are significantly shorter and it appears that legend was added to them over the centuries.
My argument is this: Christians place faith in the Bible, but they do so only in ignorance. Christians constantly claim that is a reliable historical document, but they no of none of the criticisms against it. For example, we've recently discussed the stories of Moses here at DC. Moses live 14-13th Century BC. Christians claim that his story was probably told mostly verbally for the first 700 years and was wrote down around 8th to 7th Century BC. However, we have no copies appearing until 2nd to 1st Century BC. Interesting, there are no extraBiblical texts that talk of Moses or even the exodus, or the vast majority of the Pentateuch. No other cultures, not even the Egyptians, talk of Moses. Curious thing, given that they were a very literate culture and we have an abundance of historical record to support other historical figures during that time that actually date to the time period in question.
My personal DC challenge would look slightly different than John's. However, I would for sure read works by Avalos, Ehrman, and Loftus.
Sorry for the typos above, I was in a rush!
Toby,
They ignore there are many more examples of "non-aligned" texts that show no such agreement. In many cases the stories are significantly shorter and it appears that legend was added to them over the centuries.
"Many more" texts other than Isaiah that show much less agreement, and in "many cases" there are significant differences, and in "many cases" it seems that legend was added? Since there are so many, please share just 5 examples of significant differences between other texts and the MT and explain why "this was added legend" is the best hypothesis for the significant additions.
Rachel,
I have a hard time not reading sarcasm into your posts. I’m often unsure of how you are stating your comments; whether it be with contempt or genuine interest in discussion. I assume you have a genuine interest in this discussion and suggest that you take up the task you assigned me to as well. I think that even though I am going to post examples of “non-aligned texts” below, I don’t think you are going to have any faith in my research. Please let me know what you learn in your own research so that we may both benefit. Secondly, you must be aware that the task you’ve assigned me to is going to be difficult because I am going to have to do a significant amount of research. I have only one year of Koine Greek and no formal training in Hebrew, nor Aramaic. I can attempt to see if a scholar has already done this work for us, but the research that I have read is limited. I will start off with the research that I have access to that has been made available through Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies:
When discussing the variations of the DSS to the Protestant Bible, some scholars will say things like, “One example is a scroll of Leviticus (11QpaleoLev) that contains too many disagreements with the Masoretic Text to be declared part of the Masoretic family (or pre-Masoretic family)” (In text citation, Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, p. 162).
Continuing on, “F.M. Cross, one of the most important scholars of this century, and an original member of the DSS team, says: ‘In the old versions, especially in the Old Greek version…there are thousands of variants, many minor, but also many major.” (In text citation, F.M. Cross, “New Directions in Dead Sea Scroll Research I: The Text behind the Text of the Hebrew Bible,” BR 1, no. 2 (Summer 1985):12-25)
The DSS of Jeremiah is approximately one-sixth shorter than the Masoretic Text (In text citation, Tov p.320)
Avalos wrote, “Likewise, we now know that there are other important places where the Masoretic Text probably has more material than may have existed in amy original. For example, in the famous story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 16-17, the Septuagint (Greek) version lacks some 45 percent of the words found in the Masoretic version. In particular, verses 12-31, 41, 48b, 50, and 55-58 that contain some of the favorite parts of the story (e.g., Goliath’s repeated return to taunt the Israelites; Saul wanting to know who the young hero is). It is true that we do not have portions of this story in the DSS. However, the confirmation of many of the Septuagint’s readings in the DSS means that we cannot automatically presume any longer that that the Septuagint omitted the passage. As in many other cases confirmed by the DSS, the Septuagint may have been faithfully translating a version different from the one found in the Masoretic Text. Moreover, the version in the Septuagint makes better sense without the intrusive story of the Masoretic Text. Thus, in the Masoretic Text version, Saul does not know who David is in 1 Samuel 17:58, even though Saul indicates thorough familiarity with David, his servant, in 1 Samuel 16:18-23.”
Rachel, I think if you are a willing to even put a few hours of research into this you will see that at a minimum there are numerous ancient texts claiming to be the same “canonical” book that do not match up with the popular translations of today. Moreover, in some cases, the DSS are likely to have a more authoritative claim to authenticity than those found in the Masoretic Text. Further, because of there are so many variations present, even among the most ancient texts found, this soundly does away with the idea that the Bible is inerrant. Though it would be remarkable if the Bible only had one error, even one error makes, at least that given book, it fallible.
Your last request,
explain why "this was added legend" is the best hypothesis for the significant additions
The best hypothesis is that God never intended for the Bible to be his infallible word and revelation to mankind. If God did, the Bible would be much less problematic and it would not have leaded me out of Christianity, but rather would have easily kept me in the fold. While it is debatable that parts of the Bible are inspired by God, I do not believe everything is. What makes an inspired writing of today any less valuable than any portion of the Bible. Indeed, some writings of today are more valuable that significant portions of the Bible. I would argue that the ICD 9, DSM IV, or many of the medical journals today are of equal and in many cases of more value than vast portions of the Bible.
I love giving this example, although I have never met Evan (a physician and contributor here at DC), I would take my sick child to him over having the most godly person there is pray for my child. I would bet that under this hypothetical situation the vast majority of Christian parents would also rely on Evan, if prayer or Evan were there only choices. Maybe the Bible was the best revelation of truth in its day, but it no longer is. Just like medical knowledge of long ago, we have grown in our understanding of true medical knowledge (and all branches of study/science). Why then are we still relying on the problematic and antiquated knowledge provided by the Bible when our understanding has (in almost every case) surpassed the knowledge offered in the Bible? As a psychologist, I would much rather take Evan’s recommendation of giving a schizophrenic patient Haldol (antipsychotic medication) than I would follow Jesus’ practice and attempt to cast a demon out of him.
Toby,
You are correct to read sarcasm into my last comment. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in discussion.
I generally do not post here unless I feel pretty confident that I have a solid grasp on all sides of the topic. When someone makes a comment that includes criticisms I either haven't heard before or don't readily know the answer to, I go look it up and see if there's any credibility to the criticism, and/or what answers have been provided.
I've actually spent many hours over the last week researching info on the reliability of the Bible. I have several books and online resources. I had not seen any issues raised with the DSS. So I was quite dubious about your comment that there were so many DSS texts that had significant disagreements and that in so many of these cases scholars believed that scribes had added merely legendary info.
Nevertheless, you sounded rather confident in your claim, so I wondered if I had missed something. I googled around for an hour or so, but couldn't find anything like your claim. So I was/am pretty skeptical, but I still considered the possibility that I had missed something. So rather than blaze in here with confident assertions of my rightness, I simply asked you to back up your claims, albeit with serious doubts that you could.
And indeed, you have proven my doubts worthwhile. You make a major claim, then when asked for proof, you say that you don't actually have any because you haven't done the research (and don't even know of any scholars who have), in fact all you have is ONE book by Hector Avalos, and then you try to get ME to do the research for you! I'm sorry, but it is simply irresponsible to make a broad, sweeping claim such as you did about the DSS when you cannot back it up. Granted, your lack of proof doesn't mean the proof doesn't exist somewhere, but it should keep you from making such claims in the future.
Despite these problems, I did find the quotes you provided interesting, so I did spend some time researching them and found a lot of helpful info. I'll post my responses to your quotes in my next comment.
Toby,
Regarding your quotes...
1. The quote by Cross about "thousands of variants" is useless. Everyone knows there are thousands of them, many of them spelling or whatever. Simply stating there are variants is not the point. We need specific examples where the agreement between the DSS and MT is way less than Isaiah, and the text is "significantly shorter", AND that the best hypothesis for these disagreements is that "legend was added over the centuries" rather than another hypothesis.
2. About Leviticus, there were several mss of Lev found at Qumran. One of them may not have been in agreement with the MT, but that doesn't mean none of them were. I'm not sure if I can quote from Google Books that are copyrighted, so here's a link where I found some good info (start on p. 13). The author explains that most of the Lev. variants between the LXX and the MT are relatively inconsequential changes. He then suggests that the MT and the LXX versions had a common original, and developed differently due to geographical features. In any case, there doesn't seem to be any reason to assume "legend" or error due to some variations.
3. Jeremiah is shorter, and a quite plausible reason seems to be that there were several (at least more than one) versions of his book that were published at varying times and at varying stages of his ministry, thus some of these different versions had more material than others. Here's a link for you to explore. From that link:
"A. It is possible that an earlier edition of Jeremiah's written by Jeremiah was published in his lifetime in Egypt; this edition was 25% shorter than the MT and was used by the Septuagint.
B. The Masoretic Text seems to be based upon a larger, posthumous collection of Jeremiah's words which were compiled and rearranged in a more logical order (by Jeremiah's servant, Baruch?)"
A footnote at the end of "B" quotes Gleason Archer as saying, "In this connection, note that 36:32 indicates that a second preliminary edition was published in the reign of Jehoiakim, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that Jeremiah kept adding to these earlier sermons the messages the Lord gave him in the reign of Zedekiah and in the period subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem."
4. 1 Samuel. Avalos' comment that we "know" that the MT has more material than was in any original version is ridiculous. How exactly does he "know" that the MT added to the original? Beyond that though, you can do some reading here (start on p. 259), here (p. 115), and here (p. 65). I Sam. 17-18 do contain the most differences, but again, there are plausible reasons w/o resorting to "legend", such as a common original, the shorter version was abridged for some specific reason, the longer one was lengthened by a scribe adding well-known oral tradition that had always been part of the story, just not the written version, etc.
You said,
Further, because of there are so many variations present, even among the most ancient texts found, this soundly does away with the idea that the Bible is inerrant.
And this is the main point. The presence of variations does not in any way affect the inerrancy of the original mss. The only thing variations might affect is how much we can rely on the copies we have now to accurately reflect the original. And this is the other main point. Yes, these variants exist, but the agreement is simply astounding. Remember that some of the DSS predate the MT by 1,000 years! That's TEN centuries! And the most variations we can find are some letter nuances and a few verses here and there? You seem to be missing the forest for the trees.
Which is the final main point. Skeptics love to complain that we don't have the original mss of the Bible, that all we have are copies of copies and that's just the telephone game and can't be trusted and for all we know the originals were completely different than what we have today. The DSS are a major problem for that view because they are in such agreement with the texts we already had that are separated by so many years. And where the DSS disagree with the MT, they AGREE with the LXX - it's not as if they disagree with the MT and have some brand new, radically different text. If nothing else, the DSS show that ancient documents can and have been essentially preserved through careful copying over the course of centuries, which completely debunks the skeptical "all we have is copies of copies" complaint. There is simply nothing in any of these variations that affect any kind of Christian doctrine. As Daniel Wallace said in Strobel's Case For the Real Jesus, "Do we have all the essentials? Yes. Do we have all the particulars? No. ... So the bottom line to me is how steady the copies of the manuscripts have been over the centuries." (p. 98)
Toby, I was kidding for almost all of my last post, because sconnor got me all tongue-tied over nothing, it seemed, and I thought he was teasing me by doing so. I should realize that not everyone reading what I write will have read everything else I've ever said in other places, and won't know the context.
I don't know what to believe, and am hardly even saying I can show an afterlife is more likely than not, other than maybe by a questionable appeal to personal anecdotes.
I guess I just have a sort of "placeholder" belief in another life, which I still believe to be essential for a good society, leftover from many years in which I thought that I knew something, because that's all I'd been exposed to before.
So, Sconnor and Harry McCall, I'm not really basing any argument on the Bible. Sconnor brought up the Bible a couple of posts ago, and I just went along and tried to respond in terms of it.
The sociological implications of a belief in the parts of (any) religion that affirm values you would define as good, plus a simple belief in accountability for this life beyond the grave I think I can defend, though.
I'm not a Muslim, but if someone were to believe that it *only* represented an admonition to treat a non-believing guest as family (as I hear it does), and that they would be judged after death in terms of how well they kept this law, I would call Islam a good thing.
I can't imagine what might be said to someone who has no interest in being good, and knows they can get away with something.
That would be an interesting discussion!
Replace "if someone were to believe" with "if it represented".
I think you know what I mean, either way.
Rachel wrote,
You are correct to read sarcasm into my last comment. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested in discussion.
With bitter mocking included as a bonus, yeah! As I mentioned to you, this would be a difficult task given that apparently neither of us have much of an ability to read ancient languages. However, as I mentioned, it is not impossible.
You continued, “I've actually spent many hours over the last week researching info on the reliability of the Bible. I have several books and online resources.”
That’s wonderful, really. I appreciate the sharing of knowledge. I am looking carefully into the resources that you provided. However, the criticism that I have so far of your analysis is that when the skeptic side makes a statement like, “The are MANY variations between the DSS and MT, both in major content and minor content.” You come with something like, “I think you’re an idiot btw, and you provided no examples of those variations and you cannot do so because I just read this scholar on the DSS and he/she says, “MOST of the variations between the DSS and MT are minor and none have any theological significance that is detrimental to the Christian belief.” However, your statement is subject to the same criticism that you provided me with.
Rachel : “Nevertheless, you sounded rather confident in your claim, so I wondered if I had missed something. “
I highly doubt that you wondered if you missed something, but okay.
Rachel: “I googled for an hour or so, but couldn’t find anything like your claim. “
Yeah, googling can be a good source of information, but it is almost impossible to know the quality of the material you are reading even if you are able to find a small amount of literature. For example, I recently worked on a case where a 11 year-old child had an apparent somatoform disorder that caused complete paralysis for more than 6 months. Yeah, google that one and when you’re left with complete paralysis in an 11-year-old is unheard of in somatoform disorder, by your analysis you’ve done with my research you’d make the statement, “Because I couldn’t find it supported through google, the condition doesn’t exist.” Indeed, you might even talk to an expert who supports you conclusion and says Dr. Toby misdiagnosed this 11-year-old. To which, I could provide more than 500 pages of analysis performed by nearly every expert in medicine in my state in an attempt to rule out my diagnosis. At this point, we both have proved NOTHING! Your expert says I’m wrong, but you’ve not substantiated that claim.
You then completely ignore what I write and state, “You make a major claim, then when asked for proof, you say that you don’t actually have any because you haven’t done the research (and don’t even know of any scholars who have), in fact all you have is ONE book by Hector Avalos, and then you try to get ME to do the research for you. I’m sorry, but it is simply irresponsible to make a broad, sweeping claim such as you did about the DSS when you cannot back it up.”
First, I stated that this would be difficult to research. However, I did have good reason for making my claim, and because I only started with Dr. Avalos’ research doesn’t mean that there is not more. In citing his research alone I was able to offer sufficient evidence to criticize the origins of the Bible. Just because you disagree with his analysis or mine, doesn’t mean I was being irresponsible. That’s just nonsense. This is a discussion forum called “Debunking Christianity!” Give me a break.
Rachel: “Despite these problems, I did find the quotes you provided interesting, so I did spend some time researching them and found a lot of helpful info.”
Finally, you say something useful and decent. I don’t mind you disagreeing with my conclusions, but I appreciate it more when you are civil about it.
I find it ironic that you take time to discredit the scholars and works Avalos provides, but then you’ll make statements like, “I’m sorry, but it is simply irresponsible to make a broad, sweeping claim such as you did about the DSS when you cannot back it up.” No, I did back it up, you just disagree with those scholars. You just require a higher degree of proof than I do. I don’t require much because I believe the Bible is a collection of human inspired books, like any other collection of ancient manuscripts.
How much proof do you need to discredit the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Jehovah’s Witness Translation? The level of proof that I provided would probably be more than sufficient given the fact that you don’t consider them inerrant.
Rachel: “ …and then you try to get ME to do the research for you!”
I find you trying to put everything I say in the worst light possible tiresome. I never asked you to do all the research for me, as you claimed. I made a suggestion that we participate in the research effort and that we share the knowledge that we find. I started with giving you the research of Avalos, but I intend to do more work. I told you that it would take time to do the level of research that you were asking. Again, I don’t require the proof that you do to consider the possibility of error in the Bible, so for me and to probably the majority of ex-Christians on this site, research by Avalos or Loftus is sufficient for us because we trust them. Also, it is not as though I am as ignorant as you claim. I do have a BS in theology and one year of graduate theology (though I graduated with a Master’s in Counseling from that seminary).
I can't imagine what might be said to someone who has no interest in being good, and knows they can get away with something.
If tomorrow, absolute, concrete evidence surfaced that god did not exist, would you go out and rape young girls and then murder them after you were done?
This is a debate stopper. Either, you admit that you are a depraved individual or you admit morality can exist without a god.
--S.
Rachel, here it is in a nut shell:
1. Which written Semitic languages came first in the : The 22 alphabetic of letters of the Hebrew script or the thousands of logo-grahams in syllabic cuneiform texts known as Akkadian?
Fact is Hebrew is a known member of the Canaanite family of languages best represented by the Gezer Calendar (925 BCE). Might I suggest you read the general introduction to John Huehnergard’s “A Grammar of Akkadian” or his excellent general introduction to the background of Semitic Biblical languages in “The Anchor Bible Dictionary” Vol. 4 (Languages, pp. 155 - 170) or Gordon’s “Forgotten Scripts”.
2. Get a copy of Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament (3rd edition 1969)and read the excellent introductions and notes on the Akkadian texts for the creation and flood stories (Enuma elis (60 - 72) and The Epic of Gilgamesh (72 - 99)).The Biblical text is a compilation of older legends redacted from Akkadian myths or Northwest Semitics myths reworked for apologetic purposes .
3. Modern scholarship by William Dever (Who Were the Israelites and Where did They Come From) and William Propp’s excellent and major commentaries on Exodus (Anchor Bible Commentary on Exodus: vol. 1 & 2) proves there never was an "exodus" as described in the Bible.
This holds true for the Biblical divinity names of El, Yahweh as discussed in Frank M. Cross’ Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Harvard University Press 1973); section 1.
If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please let me know.
Regards,
Harry
Alright, you do understand I was teasing before, because I thought you were?
"This is a debate stopper. Either, you admit that you are a depraved individual or you admit morality can exist without a god."
I was thinking what I said is a debate stopper also, but in a different way. :)
To easily answer you - *I* wouldn't do anything depraved, and I freely admit morality can exist without a god. No problem. Good people [at least lighter shades of gray] are all over the place, and they believe all sorts of things.
But that's not what I asked, and *I* asked you first. :)
And I asked (said):
I can't imagine what might be said to someone who has no interest in being good, and knows they can get away with something.
I'll say it more directly:
1. Let's say someone were to believe no judgement comes after this life. He wishes to do something wrong, and he can get away with it in this life.
What's rationally stopping him?
I don't know.
2. Let's say someone were to believe there is a judgement (which he believes would make any evil acts not having been worth doing in retrospect) after this life. He wishes to do something wrong, and he can get away with it in this life.
What's rationally stopping him?
I know - he'd be scared of facing that judgement.
Now, are you going to tell me that there's absolutely NO such thing as a deterrent effect of a belief in something on the other side?
What motivated so many *millions* who were tortured and died for their religions, rather than face what they THOUGHT were going to be negative consequences if they gave them up?
It's the same thing - "if I do X I will regret it". X can be anything.
The belief doesn't even have to be good or true to have this effect.
That's why I keep saying - if the good could somehow be distilled out of religions, and people simply had a generic belief like "if I hurt someone, I will pay for it in some way, even if I get away with it in this life", such a belief would be better for society than a belief in nothing.
Fear motivates, whether it's fear of going to jail, or fear of being punished in another life.
That's one point I rarely see given any attention by atheists (maybe I'll find it in the new book; I haven't read it all yet).
I could also go into "expectation of rewards motivate", but it would be making the same point.
And this argument has nothing to do with wading through and evaluating all the pros and cons of various religions.
Some of them I like, some of them I don't, none of them can I prove, but I think "justice in the end" is a minimum belief that is needed in a society.
You guys are very thoughtful and I'm sure take a lot of pride in living decent lives.
But what's stopping someone who, say, just needs to tell a little lie to cash in in some sort of class action lawsuit?
Or the person who finds your wallet, who's considering keeping it?
"You gotta do what you gotta do" - unless there really does exist something that you'll have to answer to someday.
Come to think of it - I could have answered your question with "yes, I'm depraved. I'm considering doing an evil thing, and know I can get away with it."
It would have made me look bad, but you couldn't have shown that no one needs to believe, I don't think.
Toby,
With bitter mocking included as a bonus, yeah!
Bitter? Please, save the psychoanalysis for your patients. I'm not bitter at all, but your wounded cat routine isn't working for you. Let's see, you guys here at DC have the right to be rude, obnoxious, mean-spirited, and call people names, yet a Christian uses a slight bit of sarcasm and it's "bitter mocking" and the Christian is not interested in discussion. Are you seeing the hypocrisy?
As I mentioned to you, this would be a difficult task given that apparently neither of us have much of an ability to read ancient languages.
This has nothing to do with reading ancient languages. I didn't ask you to personally examine the DSS and offer your own textual criticism. You made the claim that "many" of the DSS texts vary from the MT much more than the Isaiah scroll, and that in "many" cases the reason for these variations is "legend added over the centuries". You implied that really Isaiah was the only part of the DSS that boosted the Christian's point, and that the DSS taken as a whole actually showed that we can't trust that the copies we have today are accurate. Your task was merely to provide a few examples of these "many" significant variations and explain why you know that "legend" is the best explanation for the variations. As is obvious from the resources I've pointed you to, specifics can be found in English from various scholars and experts. This is all I was asking, yet all you can do is repeat Avalos' claim of "many". I can't read any ancient language, yet I am somewhat familiar with the way scholars perform textual criticism on ancient documents and how they determine the best explanations for issues related to the documents. This does not require some monumental effort - as I said, I've been researching this stuff in-depth for about a week. It took me probably a few hours to find the stuff I posted last night. Your implication that I'm requiring you to be some sort of scholar is absurd. You just don't want to do the work yourself, you'd rather find someone who says what you want to hear and then accept it.
However, the criticism that I have so far of your analysis is that when the skeptic side makes a statement like, “The are MANY variations between the DSS and MT, both in major content and minor content.” You come with something like, “I think you’re an idiot btw, and you provided no examples of those variations and you cannot do so because I just read this scholar on the DSS and he/she says, “MOST of the variations between the DSS and MT are minor and none have any theological significance that is detrimental to the Christian belief.” However, your statement is subject to the same criticism that you provided me with.
1. Actually, it's more like, "Most of us can't read ancient mss so must rely on the experts. I've never read an expert who said that there were 'many' significant variations between the DSS and the MT (especially compared to the substantial agreement), let alone that there were 'many' variations that scholars agree are best attributed to 'legend'. Can you produce a few scholars who say this, or even just 2? If not, then you're an idiot for making such a claim and believing it without evidence."
2. You're right, my claim IS subject to the same criticism, and it's passed the test with flying colors. I've read several different scholars that have written about the spelling variations, such as spelling "John" with 2 n's, or interchanging synonyms such as "Jesus" and "the Lord", or missing a letter in a word when copying, etc. I'm also pretty sure that if there was some major variant affecting Christian theology, it would be common knowledge by now. But beyond that, the best examples you could muster from Avalos don't affect Christian theology, so you answered the "criticism" yourself. I'm not aware of any doctrine affected by the height of Goliath or that one scrap of Leviticus.
3. My statement being subjected to criticism doesn't remove you from being required to answer the criticism of your statement. I've provided quite a bit of answer; where's yours?
I highly doubt that you wondered if you missed something, but okay.
Back to the psychology again. You don't know me. But if you did, you'd know that when I started debating atheists and skeptics several years ago, I made several mistakes. I'd get taken to task by the atheists because I assumed a whole lot. I finally learned to do research before just jumping into a discussion, so that at least I would be familiar with the issues and prepared for the criticisms. Doubt me if you wish, but while I was skeptical, I did truly wonder if I had missed something. And actually, I was not aware of the issues with Jeremiah and 1 Samuel. They didn't change any conclusions, but they were good to know and research about to deepen my understanding.
My comment about "googling for an hour" was NOT to say that that was the extent of info-gathering. As I had said, I had spent many hours over the last week or so studying and researching the topic, then you commented about it. THAT is when I spent an hour or so googling to see if what you said was easily substantiated or refuted. I couldn't really find anything, so next I asked you about it, I did not automatically decide you were wrong. You implied that I tried to use an hour of googling as my definitive source and that I came to a decision based on that, and I said nothing of the sort.
Your expert says I’m wrong, but you’ve not substantiated that claim.
Actually I have several experts, and I HAVE substantiated that you are incorrect in several ways. Beyond that, YOU are the one who made the claim in the first place, that there were "many" DSS texts with significant variations from the MT and that "legend" best explained these supposed variations. It's your job to prove this claim. You don't get to just make a bunch of assertions and then expect that it's the opposition's job to explain why you're wrong. You make a claim, you prove it. THEN the opposition must provide evidence as to how you're wrong. Without proof, your assertion is meaningless.
However, I did have good reason for making my claim, and because I only started with Dr. Avalos’ research doesn’t mean that there is not more.
1. I already granted that your lack of evidence doesn't mean there isn't any. The point is, can YOU produce it? If not, then you have no right to make such claims.
2. No, you didn't have good reason for your claim. You said "many" and "legend". Not even your stuff from Avalos said "many" significant variations OR "legend".
3. You made a sweeping claim, as if you had a breadth of understanding on the topic and as if there was some consensus or common knowledge. One book with a couple quotes isn't even to close to enough to make such a claim.
I find it ironic that you take time to discredit the scholars and works Avalos provides, but then you’ll make statements like, “I’m sorry, but it is simply irresponsible to make a broad, sweeping claim such as you did about the DSS when you cannot back it up.” No, I did back it up, you just disagree with those scholars.
No, you simply failed to back it up. Not only was there nothing to back up your claim IN the quotes you provided, but you didn't come anywhere close to substantiating your "many" and "legend" WITH those few quotes. Your claim was irresponsible because you just repeated what someone else said and couldn't back it up.
And I didn't "discredit" the info from Avalos because he didn't make any particular claims about it (at least not according to the quotes you gave). You noted that he mentioned the difference in length of Jeremiah, the missing verses in 1 Samuel, and a scrap of Leviticus that aligned with the LXX rather than the MT. That is NOT "many", "significant", OR "legend". I simply took the time to provide likely reasons for those specific differences to underscore the point that those differences do NOT equal errors in the originals or unreliability of the copies.
How much proof do you need to discredit the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Jehovah’s Witness Translation?
Again, we aren't talking about whether or not what the book says is right. The question is, can we rely on the copies we have today to be essentially accurate to the originals? Thus, I would need the same level of proof for ANY ancient document, just like scholars do.
I told you that it would take time to do the level of research that you were asking.
And this is why your claim was irresponsible. If you haven't taken the time to do the research, don't make the claim to know what the research says. Come back when you actually have some solid proof for your claims.
Again, I don’t require the proof that you do to consider the possibility of error in the Bible, so for me and to probably the majority of ex-Christians on this site, research by Avalos or Loftus is sufficient for us because we trust them.
First, you have not provided any "research" by Avalos that says that there are "many" significant variations between the DSS and the MT, nor have you given any "research" from Avalos as to why "legend" would be the best explanation for any of these supposed significant variations.
And let's see here... research by Avalos and Loftus (!) is enough because you trust them, but when I "trust" research by textual scholars like Daniel Wallace you dismiss my case. So you, the skeptic, accepted information uncritically from only one source and then made a claim for which you had no proof; while I, the Christian, researched sources with varying points of view and provided specific evidence that both debunked your claim and substantiated mine. Ironic, isn't it.
Beyond all this, you completely ignored the main points in my last comment, understandably. The "copies of copies" skeptical argument tries to say that the copies can't be trusted to be accurate to the originals, i.e. the originals could be VASTLY different than, even opposed to, our current Bible. It also tries to say, as you did, that the presence of variations in the copies we do have means the originals can't be inerrant. I explained earlier why both of those arguments are false. Just for review:
1. The presence of variations does not in any way affect the inerrancy of the original mss. The only thing variations might affect is how much we can rely on the copies we have now to accurately reflect the original.
2. Yes, these variants exist, but the agreement is simply astounding. Remember that some of the DSS predate the MT by 1,000 years! That's TEN centuries! And the most variations we can find are some letter nuances and a few verses here and there? You seem to be missing the forest for the trees.
3. Skeptics love to complain that we don't have the original mss of the Bible, that all we have are copies of copies and that's just the telephone game and can't be trusted and for all we know the originals were completely different than what we have today. The DSS are a major problem for that view because they are in such agreement with the texts we already had that are separated by so many years. And where the DSS disagree with the MT, they AGREE with the LXX - it's not as if they disagree with the MT and have some brand new, radically different text. If nothing else, the DSS show that ancient documents can and have been essentially preserved through careful copying over the course of centuries, which completely debunks the skeptical "all we have is copies of copies" complaint.
Toby, you have demonstrated that all you have is assertion with no actual evidence behind it coupled with blind faith. This discussion is therefore fruitless, so I see no point in continuing.
Harry,
Thanks, but the issue Toby raised was not "is the Bible right", but "can the copies we have today be relied upon to be accurate to the originals". None of the info you provided there is relevant to that issue.
ismellarat,
Now, are you going to tell me that there's absolutely NO such thing as a deterrent effect of a belief in something on the other side?
Sure there is; but I don't know what your ultimate point is. Some people are deterred, but I would venture to say they are mostly the young, irrational and ignorant. Using the American incarceration system as an indicator, you would assume the cells would be overflowing with people who are not religious and who do not believe in an afterlife, where you are to be judged, but oddly enough these people are predominately, believers, who still commit immoral acts. Furthermore, this supposed, ubiquitous, deterrent, somehow doesn't even find it's way to the uber-religious -- the clergy: pastors and the priests of the world and arguably, god of the bible, himself. Even with this supposed notion of judgment and eternal damnation, they still, slip on the proverbial, "hypocritical banana peel" and succumb to immoral temptations.
1. The Bible God - the mother of all hypocrites. I’m confused, God, should we steal or shouldn’t we? Exodus 20:15, “Thou shalt not steal” or Ezekiel 39:10 “They shall spoil those that spoiled them and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord God.” God, can you explain why you say, “Thou shall not murder”, in Exodus 20:13, but in 1 Samuel 15:2-3 you say, “I am the Lord all powerful, and now I am going to make Amalek pay! Go and attack the Amalekites! Destroy them and all their possessions. Don’t have any pity. Kill their men, women, children, and even their babies.“ Or in Exodus 12:29, “The Lord killed the first-born son of every Egyptian family, from the son of the King to the son of every prisoner in jail.” Now, wait, God, didn’t you say don’t kill? This is insanity — very perplexing! And God, what do you make of “forgiveness“? You say, in Coloassians 3:13, Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Or the Lord tells us how many times we should forgive our brother who has sinned against us — “not seven times, but forgive seventy times seven”. That sure is a boat load of forgiveness, from a God who invented the fiery doom of gnashing teeth in the eternal pits of Hell! The God of love and mercy? Very, very, perplexing!
2. Jim Bakker – Financial fraud and an affair with Jessica Hahn.
3. Jimmy Swaggert – Caught with two prostitutes Debra Murphree and Rosemary Garcia on two separate occasions. (Called Jim Bakker, a cancer in the body of Christ.)
4. Roman Catholic Church – Thousands of priests sexually abusing and raping children for decades, only to be relocated where they continued to prey on children — an egregious and unthinkable cover-up of colossal proportions. It has been estimated that the sex-abuse scandals have cost the U.S. Catholic church $2.3 billion.
5. Jerry Falwell – Found guilty of illegally using $6.7 million of religious funds for his political action committees. He blamed the 911 attacks on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians and the ACLU, by saying, “you helped this happen.”
6. Ted Haggard - While condemning homosexuality, he was paying for gay sex with prostitute Mike Jones over several years.
7. Kent Hovind – A creation science Evangelist, who was convicted of 58 counts of tax fraud and is serving a ten year sentence.
8. Jo Hovind – Kent’s wife was convicted of 44 counts and will serve a one year sentence.
9. Richard Roberts – Recently resigned from his president position at Oral Roberts University, while a lawsuit alleges misspent university funds on such things as a $39,000 shopping bill at one store for his wife, Lindsay Roberts and a Bahama trip for his daughters, costing $29,411, and the use of the school’s private jet.
10. Warren Jeffs – President and “Prophet” of the FLDS, was found guilty on two counts of being an accomplice to rape.
11. Pastor Jose Morales – Morales admitted to sexual abusing a young male for eleven years, while at his church, Ashland Christian Ministries, in Chicago.
12. Pat Roberson – the very essence of intolerance, he has called Hindus, “demonic” and they should not be let into the U.S. He has claimed that Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians harbor the spirit of the antichrist. He called the Muslim religion, ”Christian heresy” And referred to feminists as, child killers, practitioners of witchcraft, and lesbians. He supported war criminal, President Taylor of Liberia repeatedly, on his 700 Club show, while failing to mention his $8,000,000 investment in a Liberian gold mine.
13. Zachary Daubenmire – Son of David (coach) Daubenmire of Pass the Salt Ministries, in Newark, Ohio, was found guilty on a felony charge of pandering obscenity involving a minor. He had child pornography on his computer, something the “coach” has been fighting against his entire religious career.
14. Leonard Smith – The youth minister and music director at Sycamore Temple Church in Ashville N.C., pleaded guilty and was sentenced to fourteen years in jail for seven counts of indecent liberties with a child. He was performing sex acts on three children. (One of the ministers — Rev. Charles Mosley – who testified in support of Smith, was quoted as saying,” He is still needed in the church.” and “He is still needed with the young people.”)
15. Rev. Michael Fay – In Oct. of 07, a Pastor at St. John’s, in Darrien, Connecticut pleaded guilty to interstate transportation of money obtained by fraud. Rev. Fay took an estimated one to 2.5 million dollars from his congregation and used it for a life of luxury.
16. Larry Davis – Feb. 2006, a minister from the first Baptist Church of Cold Spring was sentenced to two and a half years for stealing more than $700,000, falsifying a loan application, and tax evasion. Rev. Davis needed the money to support his gambling habit.
17. Fred Phelps – A Westboro Baptist pastor who is anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-Irish, and anti-Swedish was disbarred from practicing law in Kansas and was recently ordered to pay a family $11 million for invasion of privacy for demonstrating at a military funeral, with signs saying, ” Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags”, with the contention that the death of the soilders is punishment from God for the tolerance of homosexuality, and of gays in the military.
18. Jim Jones - November, 1978. An ordained minister, Jones led his People’s Temple congregation, 908 members, 276 0f them children, in a mass suicide, by drinking cyanide-laced, grape flavored drink. Others were forcibly given lethal shots, while others were gunned down.
19. Billy Graham - An evangelist who is anti-Semitic. When confronted with allegations of anti-semitism he lied, saying he did not talk, “publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.” He said, “Those are not my words.” But then in 2002 the Nixon tapes were declassified and wouldn’t you know it, Graham concludes, that the Jews run the media: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” said Graham, agreeing with Nixon’s comments about Jews and their influence in American life. Later, Graham mentions that he has friends in the media who are Jewish, saying they “swarm around me and are friendly to me.” But, he tells Nixon, “They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”
20. Onslow Ross - Pastor of Reaching Souls Cathedral of Praise Apostolic Church was found guilty on 54 counts of Bank fraud, money laundering and other illegal transactions.
Of course this list can go on and on but I think you get the point. So, regardless, what you think, it's painfully obvious, judgment in the afterlife, does little to deter people.
Come to think of it - I could have answered your question with "yes, I'm depraved. I'm considering doing an evil thing, and know I can get away with it."
It would have made me look bad, but you couldn't have shown that no one needs to believe, I don't think.
You could have but that would have made you a liar. You don't want to be judged a liar, by the great moral compass, in the sky -- do you?
I don't know what to believe, and am hardly even saying I can show an afterlife is more likely than not, other than maybe by a questionable appeal to personal anecdotes.
I guess I just have a sort of "placeholder" belief in another life, which I still believe to be essential for a good society, leftover from many years in which I thought that I knew something, because that's all I'd been exposed to before.
Then besides personal anecdotes, what do you base your concept of heaven on? Evidently, resurrection is not an option, even though it is more viable -- in the bible -- then an afterlife in heaven.
--S.
(From Toby)
Rachel,
Sorry to post under anonymous, but its not letting me post under my username.
Yes, I too am happy end the discussion. We seem to be very disagreeable with each other. I would imagine that in "real life" that you are a very agreeable sweet natured person, so I am sorry if I misinterpret your words. I do realize that I am brash with my statements back because of how I interpret some of your statements.
However, many of your accusations seem to be outright falsehoods. To me, you often commit the very errors of logic and fallacies you are accusing me of. For example you wrote,
" Not even your stuff from Avalos said "many" significant variations OR "legend"."
Okay, so it said "thousands" of variations. Is many not an okay substitution for thousands? I provided quotes from Tov and Cross that both say basically what Cross said, "there are thousands of variants, many minor, but also many major.” You know that because I am offering Avalos' critique of the DSS that he too think there are "many" variations. You read the quotes but while they are sufficient to me and Avalos, they are not to you. I admit that perhaps it is my inability to articulate this subject effectively, certainly I don't understand you or how to talk with you, and it very well may be my own skills at debating over the internet just plain suck.
However, in your debates with Dr. Avalos you did the same thing. He would provide what I consider reasonable evidence, but you disagreed. But it’s not that you disagree with his evidence that I am criticizing you for, rather it is how you disagree. It seems like you are sarcastic and talk down to others, then you get pissed when they respond with any resentment back.
And to hell with not psychoanalyzing you... We all psychoanalyze everything to one level or another. I offered no analysis of you other than I THINK
1. you seem to often be mocking
2. you sounded bitter (resentful) toward me
3. you are insulting/rude toward those who disagree with you
You offered plenty of your own analysis of me (repeatedly you reported the themes below):
1. I'm irresponsible
2. I'm an idiot for believing XYZ
3. That I am over confident and don't have any real proof for my beliefs (in this area anyway).
On second thought, I will take your advice and TRY to stay away from those unnecessary personal critiques (in the future anyway).
Rachel States:
“I've never read an expert who said that there were 'many' significant variations between the DSS and the MT (especially compared to the substantial agreement), let alone that there were 'many' variations that scholars agree are best attributed to 'legend'. Can you produce a few scholars who say this, or even just 2? If not, then you're an idiot for making such a claim and believing it without evidence."
Again:
“Yes, these variants exist, but the agreement is simply astounding. Remember that some of the DSS predate the MT by 1,000 years! That's TEN centuries! And the most variations we can find are some letter nuances and a few verses here and there? You seem to be missing the forest for the trees.”
And again:
“The DSS are a major problem for that view because they are in such agreement with the texts we already had that are separated by so many years. And where the DSS disagree with the MT, they AGREE with the LXX - it's not as if they disagree with the MT and have some brand new, radically different text. If nothing else, the DSS show that ancient documents can and have been essentially preserved through careful copying over the course of centuries, which completely debunks the skeptical "all we have is copies of copies" complaint.”
Rachel, let me ask you a basic question: What is the MAJOR difference between the text found in the scrolls from the Wilderness of Judea (one place being Qumran) and the MT / Massoretic text?
Hint: Just why is the Massoretic text called the MT? Could it just be that it has a tradition called “Vowel Pointing” given to standardized the text by the Massoretes? Isn’t this something the Qumran scrolls written in Hebrew and Aramaic scrolls don’t have?
So without the vowel pointing of the Massoretes as represented by the leading school (that of Ben-Asher and the Greater and Lesser Massorah) lets look at a single Hebrew consonantal word such as “דבר”. Without vowel pointing, it can mean: speak (verb/ piel); turn away (verb / qal); have descendants (verb piel); word (noun); plague (noun); thorn (noun); pasture (noun); or Word of God (noun). I would invite you to get a basic Hebrew lexicon such as “A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament” by William Holladay and, even if you can’t read Hebrew, just look at the Hebrew roots (especially the three letter roots of the verbs) and you will have to admit that even if the consonantal text of the scrolls from Qumran have little variances, the meaning of the words are often far from certain.
Now add to this the problem that neither Jesus (as recorded in the Gospels) nor Paul uses the Hebrew text to formulate Christian theology, the problem becomes even more complex in that now we are quoting the Hebrew (non pointed script) in Greek (a non Semitic language)LXX.
If God truly preserved the text, what do you do with the Samaritan Pentateuch? Since these Jews NEVER went into captivity, but stay in Palestine, would not their text keep major themes such as the real name of the holy mountain for the reception of the Torah?
Finally:
“Toby, you have demonstrated that all you have is assertion with no actual evidence behind it coupled with blind faith. This discussion is therefore fruitless, so I see no point in continuing.”
Rachel, this is the same way you ended your discussion with me on the evil creation of germs and sicknesses outside the Garden.
I do admire your scholarship, but you seem to be forcing it into a subjective purpose for Christian apologetics only.
Regards,
Harry
Hey sconnor, are you still there?
Maybe this thread can be resurrected in the new discussion board. I lost any motivation I had to spend another hour typing, after it scrolled off the screen and I realized nobody would see it anymore.
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