I think it's just a metaphor to explain unanswered prayers. I seriously doubt god ever tortured Job or intervened directly in the days of iron any more than he intervenes now. This hitherto unchallenged truth seems irrefutable proof that some jewish priest (do correct me with the actual author anyone who cares to google 'who wrote job') just made this story up to urge all those people out there in Judaism-land to jolly well stop saying that god does not exist every time bad things happened to them.

Instead they should be like Job who happily saw his entire family choked by satan's boil-encrusted frogs but who never stopped believing! Good old Job! No one had it worse than he did! And in the end, after all those trials he was given a brand new family and double the herd of goats! So just because your new baby was taken by a mountain lion and you have a gangrenous leg, stop bloody whining. It was nothing to what happened to Job. Suck it up. Next year you'll have twins! 

where does the reality start. My fundy christian mother believes job was a real person, that jonah was inside the whale, that all life was loaded aboard the bundeena ferry by Mr and Mrs Noah and their mighty proactive brood. She believes rainbows are a message from god, finds god in a flower, a sprouting seed. I get it with the sense of awe but for the rest of it I'm quite lost. My elder brother cherry picks. The OT is mostly myth, says he, especially the parts that make no sense. But the NT is Walkley Award winning journalism written by old sweats from the Jerusalem Herald Tribune exactly as it happened. Even the bits where jesus was alone in the desert and they quote him verbatim. 

What is truth. What can be proven to be true. Would we know what was true if we saw it. What is our standard for evidence. Can we agree on the veracity of the scientific method. When it comes to arguments with the godly all the rules are out the window. The supernatural is explained by gaps in neurology, by the subjectivity of personal experience, by philosophy. Somehow the godly manage to cleave to the idea that there's evidence that is not material evidence. As if imaginary evidence has the supernatural stamp of approval. And they elevate this supernatural evidence to a position of precedence over materialism and empiricism. In order to perceive reality, first comes the immaterial, they cry.

If you read the Book of Job, Yahweh gives his answer.

Basically he says your puny little human mind can't understand my ways.

Christians that go along with this explanation are behaving like and abused co-dependant or Stockholm Syndrome victim. Christians behave like the bullied kid that turns over his lunch money because they could never stand up to one so powerful.

By the time the story ends Job had twice as much (Job 42:10) as when it started. Gee, thanks God! 

Note that everthing was fine at the beginning of the story. Job's happy. God is happy. Then the foolish (hey look everybody, I'm gonna pick a fight with God) satan wanders into the scene. There's a powerful moral here.

You will find that satan was the bully in the story (Job 2:7). He was the one who tried to pick a fight with God. God won. Funny that.

BULLSHIT

It was a bet. Why did God take the bet? Because he knew he would win, which makes Job a lab rat.

Neither the God character or his minion Satan are real. The story is about loyalty, as a motif, an idea. But what makes it horrible from a moral standpoint is that the leader ALLOWS it to happen. Satan is not the leader. God allows his loyal fan Job to get the shit kicked out of him over a bet.

It WAS  a sucker bet. If you know God would win, why would he allow an innocent third party, not involved in the bet,  get fucked up by his beef with Satan?

EXAMPLE  using used car salesmen:

Salesman: "Hey owner, I bet I can sell this lemon to this sucker and he'll never buy another car from you."

Dealership owner: "I'm sure you can sell him a car, but he'll buy his next car from us too because I'll fire you after you sell it to him and have some other salesman make more empty promises".

God in this MOTIF as a story, as a character, is a manifesto on how to set up a street side Three Card Monty table in Vegas. But in this story he has a minion scout the streets for customers.

Where does he answer these questions about why he allows suffering? He gives no answer other than you're nothing without me because I'm it. Same as a pimp, kidnapper or wife abuser. They tell their victim they're nothing without them.

When Yahweh told Jonah to go to Nineveh and deliver a message that he will destroy them if they don't repent and worship him. What was that? Give me your lunch money or I'll beat you up, only 100 times worse. It happened a bunch of time in the OT. And then Jesus gives all the warnings about sending people to hell, please. You're suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, get some help.

I feel that discussing the problem of evil is apportioning credence to god's existence in the absence of proof. Mmmm. I don't like the problem of evil as a proof/disproof of god. I think this story reflects the misshapen cultural morality of the people who wrote it. In this distorted reality you can kill a man's loved ones and make amends with a double helping of goats.

This tale reflects the inconsistency of pre-conventional morality, a landscape of reward and punishment and blatant self interest orientation. There's no consideration for those who died. We see no sign of conventional morality either but most importantly, there's no sign of post conventional morality that informs modern social interactions. There's no universal altruism here, no sign of a social contract consistently maintained by the person in authority to all individuals in a group. This is school yard morality at its most arbitrary.  

The lesson of Job is that human morals evolve and that human mythology cannot. 

My fuzzy recollection is that the Book of Job is attributed to Moses and is literary, not historical.  In the Jewish canon, "Job" is neither "Law" nor "Prophets".  It's in the same section as Psalms and Proverbs -- "Writings".

Interpreting Job as a lab experiment or "wager between G-d and Ha'Satan" ignores a key fact of human existence -- why do people who are otherwise "well-off" or "content" or "secure i their existence" experience severe hardship, and what should they do about it?  Should they, as Job's wife suggested, "curse G-d and die", or is there something more going on.

Saying that "this is all a test" ignores the end of the story -- you really haven't a clue what is going on, and that includes claiming human existence is a set of trials we're all supposed to endure to "prove" our faith, or lack thereof, in G-d.  Maybe this is just the way it works?  Maybe kids who fall off balconies at age 9 break their arm (Hi!!!) because without gravity, we'd all float off into space.  I don't think breaking my arm was a "test", I think it was an example of gravity accelerating my body and the ground decelerating it.

I got into an argument with someone who claimed G-d was evil because of disease, but many of the organisms that cause "disease" also aid in recycling organic matter back into something other organisms can use.  How much more overpopulated would the world be if no one ever died?  You think 7 billion is bad, we'd have a lot more people on the planet if no one ever died.  How many more cats and dogs would there be if Fluffy and Spike never died?  What species get to experience physical eternal life -- just us, or is the planet buried under all the animals that ever lived, forever.

If "no one ever dies" is "good", I think we need a new planet.  A much =bigger= and far more massive planet.  With gravity so strong it crushes us.

So the parasites in Africa whose life-cycle involves burrowing into the eyes of children, rendering them blind, serve some 'purpose'???

That particular example, referred to by David Attenborough, when quizzed about why he made no reference to God in his nature documentaries, as the 'creator' of all the 'wonders' of the world of life, is just one of many, which are readily explicable by blind evolutionary processes, but are highly questionable as the work of a loving and caring 'God'.

The world in all aspects makes far more sense as the result of emergent complexity than as the work of a being who would in turn require explanation.

There is zero basis for assuming whatever 'caused' the universe was sentient, let alone 'good'.

You cannot derive an absolute standard of morality from an imagined God, since the 'morality' and purpose and motives of such a being would be utterly beyond our comprehension. The 'good' is not judged by its correspondence with the edicts of any authority figure, otherwise we could not condemn the Nazis whose 'defence' would have been 'they were just following orders'.

AE, you have mentioned in other threads about looking at these stories through our modern eyes and how that can be problematic. We certainly are far more moral than these primitive people. The book of Job is considered the oldest book in the bible. Also, it has two parts stuck together. You can see/feel it even in the English. The first and last sections are poetry and the middle is prose. Because the styles are quite different they because there were at least two authors and whoever compiled it thought it fit nicely together. 

But anyway, as far as the morals I don't think the primitive Jews would see a problem at all with Job losing his first family, because women & children were equivalent to cattle. It was all property. So from that perspective it wouldn't be such a horror. And anyway since the bible was written by men what a great way to get laid by different women. 

It is quite a sick story and as was said it smacks of the Stockholm Syndrome. But Jehovah has been doing this all along. Telling Abraham to kill his son is simply cruel and unusual "punishment" and the diaspora & forcing His children to eat their children.

God takes pleasure in tripping up humans.

I love this text because god is hung up on his good name.

 Furry,

You are attributing a quote to me that belongs to Atheistextremist. He can respond should he choose. I cannot speak for AE nor can I speak for Penn Gillette. I have great respect for Atheistextremist. However, as others know here, I have nearly no respect for Penn. Penn is an entertainer. He says outrageous things, he has got tickets to sell.

But here is my response. I have two kids and they are adults. We have a great relationship today and they were just typical kids. I have not been put into the situation you are trying to parallel. However, let me consider this. Let me be the all-power G-d, who knows all, sees all and is ruler of the universe. He can do anything he wishes. The one who created the vast universe and also the smallest microbe. Nothing gets past his eye, there is nothing he cannot start or stop. I assume another attribute is he loves his children (creation).

Would I put my children in a perfect place and would I create them as innocent, unsuspecting, and very curious about life? Yes.

And would I put right in the middle of the room, so to speak, something that would cause their death and tell them under no circumstance should they touch it? Would I create them such that they would not understand what death and evil mean? Would I leave this "death device" unprotected so they could easily walk right up to it? Would I make it something desirable like food? Would I allow my worst enemy to change himself into something very attractive and let him entice my kids to break my rules? Would I stand and watch? Here I must say no.

Despite this, if somehow they did something truly terrible like eat a piece of fruit which I told them not to eat, would I cast them from my presence and bring about not only their death but the death of generations to come? Would I so disappear from their lives so that they and their children, grandchildren, great-grand children, etc. would become unsure if I even existed? (Do you approve of absentee fathers? Is that a sign of love for you?) Would I only speak to a few select ones through mystery clouds and strange words and miracles? Would I speak to only these few and tell them to go kill other people who I was not speaking to or on occasion just kill them myself? Would I punish some of the generations forcing them to eat their own children? Would I not write to them (well through the few chosen) for thousands of years and expect them to still love & respect me? 

You have brought a very good parallel that you should ponder? Read your scripture as if it was a next door neighbor and his relationship with his children. When I have read them that way, I quickly realize this bastard needs to be locked up.

What's the point of an atheist getting all up in your grill when they are helping those in need? That is not a forum for such a thing. This however is. Didn't you notice that when you registered?

There is something about the construct of this sentence that I am not getting. I think I know what you mean and have addressed it above. I do have a moral leg to stand on. Abusing children is abhorrent. Jehovah (aka G-d) is evil, plain and simple.

Did you miss this part? 

Did you not work side by side with atheist to assist those devastated by Katrina? I think you have clear evidence of atheist word & deed that we are caring and moral people.

I see no reason to wait to talk, but perhaps that is what the religious like to do. Their sky daddy has all the answers and those others had just better shut up and take it up where the sun don't shine. I am not G-d Furry. There is no G-d. There is just you and me. I don't have superpowers, but I do what I can to improve my tiny, tiny little corner. I fully believe and practice helping others and doing no harm. I see religion separating us and much harm comes from it. Shall I like your G-d sit by and watch, with an apparent evil twist to the smile?

Two-for-one special!

Yes, I read that part.  And I read the parts by the people who said that was a bad idea because there is no magic pile of money.

Now, I have a question for you.

Have you ever actually read my signature for comprehension?  Because if you had, you'd already have known the answer to your rhetorical question.  I believe that there =are= atheists who not only are caring and moral people, but I will more than gladly tell anyone who asks that I believe there will be atheists in Heaven (not that I believe in Heaven) and Christians in Hell (not that I believe in Hell) because I believe that what matters most is =action=, not =word=.

Well, my kids never changed in wanting to be with me or calling me. Frankly, I tend to be more aloof. I fully expected the day to come but it never did. Perhaps I wasn't a prick to them, but loved and cared for them. When they misbehaved I didn't feel a need to strike out them with a vengeance (vengeance is mine saith the Lord),  but instead I would sit them down and talk to them.  I was always honest with them and didn't portray myself as something perfect and all knowing. They respect me and I respect them. We would do anything for each other. See a trend? 

So, from this and what I have read from your other threads I see you are not a literalists. I guess the bible is no more meaningful to you than any other book. Mark Twain is as inspired as Moses right? So G-d is no thing. The stories made up in the bible are like a piece of art. You see what you want from it and take only what you like? I am thinking you believe we have one life and that is it right? No hell below us, above us only sky? Are you just as Jewish as you are Islamic as you are Hindu? 

Is there any point to prayer for you? Does it go anywhere outside the confines of your head? Is G-d a life force? 

Why do you say there is a messiah coming and that you & I should wait to talk then? Is that a real person and a real event in time or something just like a personal awakening?

1). G-d isn't a "guy".

2). G-d isn't "good".

3). G-d isn't "bad".

There's no clear mention of any "afterlife" in the non-literary parts of the Bible.  Daniel is in the "literature" section of the Hebrew bible, not the "Law" or "Prophecy" sections.  Christians turned him into a prophet, not us.

Do I believe in an afterlife?  No, but if it happens, sure, why not.  My personal thoughts are that the only "afterlife" we experience is the same way I relate to my dead parents and grandparents (people I've known personal) -- I reflect on what I learned from them and what kind of people they were.  They "live" in my memories of them and their contributions to their family, friends and the rest of the world.  There have been times, fewer and fewer because I'm older and older, when I've tried to understand what they would have suggested I do in life whenever I've been in need of their guidance.  They are "dead" only in the sense that I can't ring them up on the phone.

The 13th Principle Maimonides (z"l) mentions is thus --

"I believe with perfect faith that the dead will be brought back to life when G-d wills it to happen."

If G-d wants to reanimate my dead body, I just hope all the broken parts get fixed -- I'm slowly getting older and falling apart.  Otherwise I'm perfectly content to become worm food.  We are made of star stuff.  Some day we'll go back to being star stuff.

The "afterlife" concept seems to have slowly snuck into Judaism, mostly through contact with pagan cults.  By the time Christians got their hands on Judaism, they went full-blown crazy mixing in Roman paganism wherever they could find it.

Furry, all you are doing here is back peddling in an attempt to avoid the older standards of climate of belief. I see no point in believing in a god if there is no after life.The OT character tapped the Hebrews as his "chosen people". What would be the point of allowing that to happen or causing that to happen if there wasn't a plan, and end goal?

You are closer to a Jeffersonian type deist. But even I would have a problem with this concept. It merely is a watered down version of a god claim in an attempt to avoid all the nasty stuff written in the bible. The OT God is bloodthirsty, He gives the Hebrews permission to kill off enemies and take  their property and make sex slaves of their women and girls.

Seriously, if you do not believe in an after life, then you should drop the label "Jewish" AND drop the god claim all together. There really isn't any good reason to hold a god belief of any kind. It is merely your wishful thinking and a matter of culture and tradition.

Furry, you accept that Thor does not make lightening. You accept that the sun is not a thinking being. Those were once believed to be real god/s, as real to those people back then as you believe yours is today. Seriously try to understand why you reject those claims, and apply those standards, to your own claims.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. All deity/god/super natural claims have the core concept that a non-material brain exists. This is scientifically impossible and has never happened and will never happen.

God belief is merely human's projecting their wishes in the form of a fictional super hero and falsely believing it to be real. This has always been the case in our species evolution. You are not doing anything differently than the polytheists of the religions you reject nor the monotheism today of the other labels you reject. You simply have a different name for your non-material brain fictional friend in the sky.

Back pedaling?  Uh, Maimonides isn't just some dude, and the belief that there is no clear "afterlife" goes all the way back to ancient times.  Now, Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Mamon -- Mamonides, Rambam, take your pick) says that we all get resurrected when G-d wills it, but there is NO statement, ANYWHERE, in either the Torah or the Prophets that "resurrection" or an "afterlife" exists.  If you can find it, good on you, but it ain't in there.

Here's an example -- in the Torah Moses says "You will eat, and you will be satisfied, and you will bless the LORD your G-d."  From this we learn to say grace after meals.  We also learn that =anyone= can be grateful if promised a reward for their gratitude, which is to say that you should judge someones gratitude when there is no reward, and their thankfulness only =after= they have gotten whatever they need.

In the =Christian= bible, G-d is bloodthirsty.  In the Hebrew bible, we have the right of self-defense.  And this "sex slave" stuff is =your= trip, not mine.  In Judaism, women control access to sex.  We're not Christians, and we certainly aren't Muslims.

Sorry, but the Jewish "mission", for which we were "chosen", is making this a better planet -- the whole "Light unto the Nations" thing.  Personally, that seems like a pretty important thing to do, so I think I'll pass on your suggestion that I give up Judaism.

G-d doesn't have a "brain".  You might want to check out some other religions where their gods have arms and legs and brains and penises.  That wouldn't be Judaism.

HTH.

G-d doesn't "think".

You've really never run into a Jew before, have you?

Okay, here are the rules -- whatever human attributes you want to ascribe to G-d, my answer is "No".  So, grab that giant book of human attributes, write "No" on the cover, then toss it in the trash.  So'kay?

Do you think I'm stupid?  Serious question, because right now you're responding to me like you think I'm dumb.

Now, you think this is an evolutionary flaw, but we could have evolved the same as any other apex predator, and been just as successful -- as an apex predator.  But instead, we have opposable thumbs, that are only useful for pressing the space bar for me (no joystick to be grabbing on my laptop ...) and we're created "B'tzelem Elokim", in the "Image of G-d".  If I were (l'havdil) G-d, some kind of "belief in G-d" would be part of the wetware.  And science says it is.  Science is plenty good enough for me!

The entire "god of the gaps" thing was invented by Christians so that either the answer is "god" or you need Jesus to fill the Jesus-shaped hole in your heart.

I'm not a "god of the gaps" kinda gal either.

Well, when you figure out a way to prove G-d doesn't exist, you get back to me, okay?

They why do the commandments say to worship Him and no other gods for he is a jealous g-d? Do you think the stories where G-d told the Jews to destroy entire communities, man, woman (unless she was a virgin), child and all livestock is neither good nor bad?

You didn't respond to my other question about is this bible anymore inspired than any other piece of literature? Are there any books you regard on the same level as the bible?

What about 1 Samuel 28 where the witch of Endor calls up the spirit of the dead Samuel who speaks to Saul? That is a non-literary part. Doesn't that show there are spirits flitting about and they are of dead people?

 FurryCatHerder wrote:

There's no clear mention of any "afterlife" in the non-literary parts of the Bible. Daniel is in the "literature" section of the Hebrew bible, not the "Law" or "Prophecy" sections. Christians turned him into a prophet, not us.

What about 1 Samuel 28 where the witch of Endor calls up the spirit of the dead Samuel who speaks to Saul? That is a non-literary part. Doesn't that show there are spirits flitting about and they are of dead people?

What about this above FurryCatHerder? How is that literal?

And to extend. You say this G-d is incomprehensible to us and may not even bother to give you an afterlife and I assume not really involved into day to day details of human life.

Doesn't this completely satisfy this statement "The invisible and the non-existent look alike".

Aren't you simply one minor click away from being an atheist? The more I read from you the less I see value add for this G-d. The deluded at least have a long rider added to their contract with god.

 I know this is old, but since there's not much activity on this sub-forum to speak of I'll throw my own take on this thread into the mix.

You have this abhorrent story of Job, and Christians use the tired old tactic of moving the goalpost to explain how everyone is simply misinterpreting it because they can't possibly understand without Gawd's magic decoder glasses.  So as non-believers we maneuver around their bullshit, pin them in a logical corner they can't squirm (lie or appeal) their way out of and kick the damn field goal.  3 points... done, game over.

FCH comes along and says "Not so fast, silly, simple minded Atheists.  Jews wrote the rule-book on goalposts and those were just some spray painted PVC pipes the Christians were leading you around with.  The "real" goalposts are way the hell up there.... see 'em?  Much too high for you Atheists to kick through since you're ignorant of the Jewish religion.  You would need to learn Hebrew, study for years and have God bestow you with a magical understanding of the universe before you even tried.  Oh and BTW, just so you know, that wasn't a football either, only Jews know where the real footballs are kept, and they're not called footballs, they're called blah blah freakin' blah.................!"

Moving the goalposts is at best something to make you roll your eyes while trying to get to some truth in an argument.  At worst it's a maddeningly childish and cheap tactic to throw obstacles at an argument so you can win by attrition because your argument was never good enough to stand on it's own.  This thread though, takes it to a whole new level.   Debates usually get convoluted like this when more than contradicting religion from the same tree get put in the mix, but that doesn't mean they're won by the confounding parties.  

Job, like many other stories in the bible is a very misguided, convoluted example of people from a time when absolute immoral bullshit was acceptable in society, trying to make a moral allegory, and failing MISERABLY!  It may have even made sense to some back then.  The fact is though it says in the Holy books that God's word is unchanging.  For god's word to be unchanging, but his stories and morals not to stand the test of time (to where mere mortals can pick them apart with ease) makes zero sense.  Leaving us with one of two likely possibilities:  Either God exists but his morals are shit.  Or the not-so-wise men of the time wrote the stories and there never was any inspiring deity.