There are so many stories in the Bible that seem disturbing to me. For example, The flood- where God only finds one man/family worthy of saving. Which means, outside of Noah and his family, every man, woman, child, and baby were destroyed. (I'm still wondering how the world was repopulated) Another example that is disturbing to me is the story of Job. Why did God find it necessary to strike a deal with Satan, allowing Satan to basically torture Job in every fashion? There was one exception Satan could not kill Job. Oh, wait, I remember- the reason behind this was to see if Job would stay faithful and not curse God. But, why? Was this some sort of twisted ego trip for God? Then, there is the whole, "if you don't believe in Jesus and accept him as your lord and savior, you will perish". Not to mention, those who continually sin and not ask for forgiveness, they too shall be doomed. The sinners will be tortured for all eternity in hell. What is disturbing to me, is that God is suppose to be an all loving God. The Bible states that God is our "heavenly father". I'm sorry, but if any earthly father would torment his child/children just because they simply didn't follow orders - he would surely be locked in jail for child abuse. Yet, I hear the Christians justifying this by saying, "Well, he's god, he has a right" yadda yadda. I just find it very odd that others buy this. Am I the only one feels this way? I would also like to hear the thoughts of Christians regarding this topic.
don't hold your breathe, Christians don't have an answer to this, not a logical one anyway. Good point though.
I have something to say on this. You need to understand cruelty, justice and "just-plain-the-way-it-is". Take Jesus' story of the man who built his house on sand, and how it collapsed when the tide came in. It obviously has a moral, but lets say for the moment it was a real event within a Biblically determined context: 1)God created the man, the sea and the land. 2)One man built his house on sand. 3)Another built his house on the rock. God does not supernaturally "smite" the foolish one or "give the smart one what he deserves". The world God created takes its course, according to his divine plan. The tide comes in, and one house stands while the other falls. Now, you could say that God killed one person and spared the other. But only if you don't believe God loved both, or they did not have the opportunity to make a decision. You could also blame the sea, or nature, for being "cruel" and "merciless" if you didn't believe in God but believed in justice. Or you could say that things just happened that way if you think neither God nor justice had anything to do with it. You see, everytime you take a step back, the event become more and more unrelated to the human experience. That is why it looks so far removed from reality when you look at things "from the bottom of the bucket", like you do. For someone who believes in God, on the other hand - the event takes on a different meaning (as do all events - the Bible is filled with examples). It becomes a question of wisdom vs. foolishness. And if you start thinking metaphorically (as Jesus' parables were supposed to be understood) it becomes even more relevant. You see, God designed his whole system of Justice along these "natural" lines. That is how God "is evident in His creation" (and simultaneously why He is so hard to see - if the camouflage and the person looks the same, it takes knowledge to know the difference). So, you can say God is "cruel" for drowning everybody who didn't believe Noah's warnings. Or the water was 'cruel" for drowning only to those who didn't build boats. But then you also have to say God was fair for warning them, merciful for saving one family when nobody would have been the wiser if He didn't, and loving for giving us both Job and the story of Noah to indicate how nature will take its course - because in the end, "justice" will overrule "nature", just as mercy overrules punishment. For the kind of insight we need, we have the book of Job: Remember that the book of Job is a work of art as far as its literature and composition goes. It has a prologue, dialogues and an epilogue, rich poetic language, good vs. evil, and a moral. It has been compared with Faust and the Dante's Divine Comedy. You can see the structure here. As a commentary on existence and the nature of suffering it is not even important whether it is historical or not. If you don't get the moral of the story, the rest of the story will also be of no worth to you. You can take it to heart or you can throw on the rubbish dump just as easily as you could any poem. When the flood comes, will you rage against the dying of the light, or will you be on Noah's boat, on Israel's side, in Jonah's fish - or a David, a Joseph, a Job, persecuted innocently and suffering on his own cross (John 1:14)?
No, dear heart. Welcome to sciforums. You are NOT the only one out there who feels this way. It is always refreshing to hear there are other people out there that feel the way you do. I, for one, had the same questions when I was a very young child. I am able to bring my message to the world through the Internet and sciforums. It's a different paradigm now. Xian religious programming will be defeated in our lifetime. I hope to live long enough to see the RCC (Roman Catholic Church and all Xianity) fall. You will find on sciforums that the Xians adamantly debate the pro-side of Xianity and the Agnostics debate the con-side. The Atheists debate all of it. It makes for interesting opposition, to say the least. Those of us who are Anti-Xian look forward to hearing from you again soon!
Jenyar, Thank you for your response... First, I'd like to point out Acts 5:1-11. A recap: A married couple, Ananias and Sapphira, sold a piece of land and were to take the money and give it to the apostles'. They decided to keep part of the money with the intent of not telling the apostles' the full amount they received for the land. Ananias brought part of the money to the apostles' , and Peter (an apostle) claimed to have knowledge that he was lying about the amount received. Peter told Ananias that he was not lying to men but to God. With that Ananias fell down and died. This was not a "spiritual" death because the scriptures go on to say some men wrapped his body up and carried him out and buried him. When Sapphira arrived she had told the apostles' the same story and whamo she too had died. To me this story doesn't illustrate mercy, love, or patience of a "heavenly" father. I'd like to quote Peter (the apostle in the story above) in Acts 10:34 "Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons" If God isn't a respecter of persons, how come others did not receive the same penalty as Ananias and Sapphira? The mind blowing part to me is that Peter is the very same apostle which DENIED-aka lied, knowing Jesus 3 times. Yet, Peter didn't find the same fate as Ananias and Sapphira. Things that make me go hum. I understand you are saying that there are spiritual laws and those who do not follow them will suffer the consequences. What my point is, according to the Bible, God is the designer of these spiritual laws. What loving parent would say, Johnny you messed up son, you disobeyed me and because of this you will be tortured for eternity. That's right, tortured and you will wish for death, but you will not die. You will be sent to a place that was created for demons- but, hey, please don't hold it against me. I warned you Johnny, therefore you sent yourself to this place, I cannot be blamed. Just know it wasn't my desire for you to end up here, even though I did create it. Why create a hell in the first place? I wonder how many have chosen a life of christianity all because they were scared half to death of hell. All I see is a ruler who uses fear to control others and that is sad.
Medicine*Woman, Hello and thank you for the welcome and response Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Looking forward to reading some of your posts.
It's my pleasure, heart. As long as you realize you are focussing on a difficulty with understanding some actions of an "all-loving" God, and we are by no means close to understanding God in total. The problem might be that you confine God to a definition of "all-loving", just like some people would like to confine God to the Greek philosopical definition of "almighty". It seems to deny the possibility that He is a living God with any kind of will. You simply have to look at the rest of the Bible (and reality) to get the bigger picture. Let's see if I can address your questions in more detail. What happened to Ananias and Sapphira seems to have something to do with their proximity to God himself. They were sabotaging the ends of God's work at a very crucial point of the ministry. You might ask what would have happened to Moses if he had not taken off his shoes when he crossed holy ground.To put it even more into perspective, there is also the following account that is even more disturbing: 1 Chronicles 13 9 When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark, because the oxen stumbled. 10 The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God. What I see from it is a few things. First: you don't mess with God - He is not anybody's playmate (we'll get to Paul's pronouncement shortly). Second: If you follow behind God's will - His "ark", so to speak - it is Holy (dedicated and exclusive) to God. It is holy ground. It will not be disrespected, made dishonest, even "steadied". We see something about God's sovereignity that makes it clear the we are not in the same league as Him. People forget this when they get used to His mercy and love. Taking God for granted is violating the commandment of not misusing God's name, confusing Him with just any man-made god.. You might say God need not have made such a cruel example of these people. But as I have said somewhere else, "cruelty" is also a judgment call questioning God's authority. It sounds cruel, but so does a lion killing a lamb. And there is no evidence that these people suffered. They died prematurely, but clearly they were exceptions to the rule. You don't see people falling over dead right after disrespecting God very often, do you? The question is whether you are taking God seriously or not... On the other hand, do you believe that Jesus suffered innocently for everybody's sake? Was that also "unnecessary cruelty"? Which brings me to Acts 10:34. Here are is the text from the NIV: 34Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism (Greek: Prosopoleptes - one who descriminates) 35but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. You are right: God did design these spiritual laws, but to equate them with human laws above and beyond the ten commandments (which "enforces" love for God and fellow humans) is a fallacy. God's enforcement runs along lines that has to do with our relationship with him or lack of it, as demonstrated in our lives. According to the Bible, God created hell for containing evil. By our laws, a person is guilty or innocent according to his measure of guilt. Does a murderer get one day in jail for killing someone one day and not killing people all other days? No - guilt transcends time. We only use time as a relative measure. "Life" means 30 years or so, etc. But God's gift is eternal life, something we also don't deserve. Remaining in our guilt causes us to forfeit that gift. "Time" is not really a criterium in justice, only persistance (which we measure by time). The longest we can persist in anything is while we are alive - "until death". But what if death is not final? Our persistance will be complete - our "fate sealed" - but justice will still have to be served. Maybe you don't go to hell. Maybe you get reincarnated until the earth or the sun runs out, or maybe you just disappear into so many atoms. But God's mercy - the abolishment of death as a finality - is a two-edged sword, since eventually everybody will be resurrected. Whether the possibility of eternal life was worth the possibility of eternal death, is a judgement call we didn't (have to) make. Some would like death to be final, others would like it not to exist at all. The same goes for heaven and the grave. But suicide bombers and murderers do not get to hide in their graves, so that they will have be judged. I recommend you read Paul's letter to the Romans to get the picture. Whether you fear or not, whether you believe or not, do good or evil, are sincere or not - God was the alpha, the beginning of our existance, and will be the omega, the end of it, the final authority over His creation. Incidentally, "the fear of God" is a complete study on its own. You can't have justice and not be subjected to it yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can be on the side of love and mercy, though, and be shown it in return. Love won't go to waste, and injustice will not remain unpunished. Our "fates" lie beyond the apparent boundary of death, and God knew this when He gave us the examples of Uzzah, Ananias, Sapphira, Moses, Jonah, and Jesus.
The concept of "eternal" damnation alone just completely destroys the credibility of any religion. Anything "eternal" no matter what the heck you do only represents a god stricken by teen angst and the typical "rage" teens feel at being powerless. LOL the xan god is a prepubescent boy. His voice prolly cracks like one, too.
Yeah there's nothing to say that some things aren't eternal! Take thoughts and the mind for example. They don't physically exist (if they do, tell me where) so there could very well be eternal forms that Plato wrote about.
drowning in sorrow The flood for me represents inconceivable cruelty. A God that can easily snap his fingers and make everybody disappear makes it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Slowly watching the waters rise and watching humans of all sorts (mothers,infants,grandmothers,invalids,retards) panicking and running for high ground and having reached high ground the multitude of humanity fighting with animals for that last high spot. Can one imagine the terror and horror of watching humanity and animals slowly drowning, struggling for that last gasp of breath before sinking into the terbulent waters. If a murderer did that on earth we would execute him without pity and regard him inhuman. HOW CAN A BENEVOLENT GOD DO THAT? Dont even want to talk about Noah the coward.
Many christians, not me however, interpret Job to be a fictional story with didatic purpose. In any case, the theme is apparent. Greater good comes from evil. By allowing Satan to tempt Job and by Job coming out victorious, Job shows the glory of God and himself. This would not be the case if Job was not tempted. At the end of the story, Job ends up being blessed more by God.
Jenyar, I realize you are saying there are many sides to the Biblical God, but there are many sides to everyone, including Charles Manson, Tomas de Torquemada, etc I feel it is essential to look at the Biblical God's actions regarding violence and eternal punishment. In this link you can read quite a few scripture references: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty.html You brought up a great scripture reference 1 Chronicles 13: 9.10 My gosh Uzzah was simply trying to stop God's beloved ark from falling and smashing into the ground. What thanks does he receive, death..God kills him Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Man oh man oh man. Whether he "suffered" or God made it a quick death, it was NOT deserved- he was innocent and the biblical god killed him. Uzzah's intent wasn't even to destroy the ark..but, to protect it. That is a display of God being a violent bully that is on a ego trip unlike any I've ever seen. This is a display of a God who is out of control with his emotions. The biblical God is displayed as a very self-centered sort whose explanation to get by with his acts are, "Because I'm God- that's why". According to the Bible anyone who doesn't follow his rules, his spiritual laws..will perish. Even if that god did exist, I would not want to serve someone so arrogant and violent. Another example of God killing innocent victims: Isaiah 13:9,15-18 contains this message from the Lord: "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger....Every one that is found shall be thrust through. ...Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes...and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them.... They shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children." The Biblical God's cruelty cannot be overlooked, yet somehow, the christians do this. I'm telling you, any parent or human for that matter that would display such acts wouldn't be followed unless brainwashed in doing so. If I told you stories about someone who committed the very same acts as the Biblical God, you'd want justice served, right? Regarding the story of Jesus dying on the cross to fulfill his father's will is yes, cruel. Why would there be such a need of an all powerful god to see such display of violence, suffering, and blood to satisfy his own delight? We say it is wrong for humankind to act like this, but yet christians think it is okay for their Biblical god to act in a manner more barbaric. Would you want such a person to act out in violence like this at a whim to be your political leader? Should that leader's actions be exempt because of his position? When something just doesn't set right and a leader tells you not to question it, that is usually an alarm to question it. Why would the biblical god be put out because others stop and think for themselves? According to "freewill" the bible says we have that right, yet if we don't agree ..it's curtains aka hell. Any way you slice it, it all comes up tyrant.
God's perception of the universe is nothing close to our perception of it. It's like comparing a blind, retarted seamonkey's perception of the world to that of a human. There's no relation. God can not relate to us in any way whatsoever. We are nothing compared to Him. Yet, He loves us? How is that possible? What kind of love is this between things that have nothing in common? It's like me loving electrons. It's like transfering a computer virus to the mainframe of an alien ship. It's like loving a stickman that you've just doodled on your notebook. There is no love between God and man. If you love God, then you are loving your own creation. It's the same as people who see infinity as just a really high number. God cannot be loved. You do not have the capacity. So what does it mean to say that God loves us? It's meaningless.
Reading the comments by you theists is turning my stomach. I call you out. Defend your stupidity here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26358
I'm sorry, but I'm lost as to what reason god would allow this. In the very first verse it states, "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil." Isn't that enough right there to give the Biblical god glory? I see no need to put Job through all that crap. Is there Glory in a god who would say to an evil entity, do what the heck you want to with my boy (I believe according to the bible Job would qualify as a "child" of god) ya just can't kill em- but there ain't noooo way is my boy gonna curse me (followed with a boastful grin) I'm sorry, but it sounds a whole lot like god playing games..and the chess piece is his very own follower. Why would he feel the need to prove to satan that Job wouldn't curse him no matter what the cost? What parent would offer their child up saying, hey do what you want with him.. you can take his riches, health, wife and children, you just can't kill him? Wouldn't we tend to think those parents were wrong, cruel, and in need of a good therapist? I realize in the story it says god gave back more than what was taken. I stop to think about Job's poor wife and children, they were innocent but paid the price all because god was on an ego trip.
