In Defense of a Kind God
Offline I've noticed that atheists tend to be a glass half empty person when it comes to discussions on God. They put extreme focus on the negative, declaring God to be a brute, unjust, unloving, unmeriful Creator as it this perspective somehow validates the notion that God is a man-made construct.
I'm here to tilt things back a bit in the other directions. Over the weekend, I was reminded on just how GOOD God is when reflecting on the gifts of God. God has given us quite a lot to make it through this life without being completely miserable.
Here are a few in no particular order:
1. Gift of Sleep - Sleep is a wonderful invention. Not only does it allow our bodies to recharge and renew energies, sleep gives us an opportunity to shut off from the world. No matter how tough my life is, I can always look forward to 6-8 hours a night escaping from reality.
2. Laughter - God gave us this ability to have a physical release called laughter that for a moment, brings happiness and joy. Science can only explain the mechanism behind the act. There are well documented medical benefits to having a good laugh as well.
3. Taste buds - we have up to 8,000 taste buds designed to give us sensations of pleasure with certain tastes. God certainly didn't have to do this. Taste of food is not necessary to substain the human body. Taste doesn't matter to the digestive system. But we have taste to enjoy a wide variety of foods.
4. Sex - I don't think anyone will argue with this one. Sex is an amazing creation. Our society is obsessed with it. On a physical level, sex offers many benefits such as stress reduction and lower blood pressure. It also serves to bring an emotional bond to a couple on a level that can't be experienced any other way. However, whenevery you mess around with this powerful force outside God's requirements then the act has several consequences. Spread of STDS, for example.
Yeah, there are many negatives to this existence. I believe the introduction of sin is the root of these negatives, but God also gave us these gifts to help us make it through each day. Whenever I think about the gifts, I realize just how ridiculous the belief in evolution really is. We would have to be extremely lucky for random events to give us such great things to enjoy. Evolution may have determined the need for a food source, but not the need for taste buds.
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, and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
Excellent post ThunderJones. I just don't have the patience to deal with a theist like TW who has more mood changes in a single thread than the worst bi-polar person I have ever known. At least JeanChauvin maintains a fairly detatched manner while he is trolling us and doesn't cry like a baby while he is flinging his religious poo at us.
Thank you, kind sir. (Que random theist snidely disagreeing with you)
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
Firstly, sorry to selectively quote-mine, but I'll do that pretty shamelessly for two reasons. One, it's exactly what Christians do with the bible. While us Atheists do too, I contend with much confidence that if you were to take it verse by verse and mark each one morally good, neutral, or abhorrent, the abhorrent would greatly outnumber the good. The second reason is that you have yet to answer me regarding your old testament prophecy. So do address that when you get time. As far as the above quote, as mentioned, we can all play the what-if game, but I mostly quoted this to point out something you should think about. For the bible to work, you have to do three things.
1. Interpret the bible in a way to reconcile its obvious inconsistencies (which requires some high level of literary contortion).
2. Interpret the bible in a way to harmonize it with modern science (which requires the epitome of literary contortion).
3. Now, you've gone to adding "what-ifs" to mitigate the level of disgust every decent person would feel having read that piece of trash for the first time. This way, you can feel that your inerrant (lol) holy book is indeed the word of god. Awesome.
So very early on, he creates two people. He deliberately AVOIDS instilling in them a sense of right and wrong. He then punishes them for doing wrong (the transgression being....eating the fruit that provides them their conscience!!!). That displays a lack of foresight for an omniscient being. Of course, he could have done something to make this tree less accessible. I suppose the sadistic prick really couldn't resist writing Leviticus and Deuteronomy, so he opted to let it all go wrong instead.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
I said I would tone things down so I proved you people wrong yet again when you claimed that I was avoiding the hard questions, and answered Thunder's questions directly. Instead of offering any counter-argument, you're the one moaning and bitching about my posts. Instead of offering an intelligent reply, you disregard it as religious poo. Don't reply if all you can do is talk trash.
Well said, TWD39, well said. I will consider myself to soundly thrashed by your calm manner and peerless intellect. Please continue....
Lol so much for the olive branch. You lasted one post before returning to ugly sarcastic atheist mode. You merely copied and pasted a page, and expect me to do all the work by addressing every 1500 point? Get real. I immediately saw this work for biased garbage from people who know nothing about the Bible or basic Christian theology. I politely said that was all I had time for.
Uh.. ugly sarcastic atheist mode? I was responding to your claims, and your tone. It was pretty light and non-combative compared to how I could have been.
I did not expect you to respond to all 1500 points in the article! Where in the world did you get that idea? My statement was directed at (from my end) my perception of the weak response to my personal claims in addition to a few specific claims I took from that page and elsewhere. That page is a collection of examples for reference, and as a direct example of the sheer number of examples of Biblical misdeeds. I am by no means claiming every point on that page is true, just that almost 1600 things in the bible showing moral ambiguity, or in many cases, outright moral bankruptcy is a bad sign.
I'll have you know that there was no reason for me to even attempt diplomacy with you, it is for the sake of those viewing this thread (lurkers). If you are going to shut down just because I had a little sarcasm, than I do not know what to tell you. Not everyone is going to be insufferably polite all the time.
How about you actually respond to my rebuttal instead of assuming every little comment I make is worst-case-scenario atheist attack mode.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
*Yawn*
I'm still waiting for a rebuttal of my original rebuttal. If 'it feels good' was the best a christian could do after claiming sleep and sex were so perfect, then I think this 'debate' is long past being hammered to its conclusion.
Even many christians say that things which feel good aren't necessarily good. Actually, most do.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I believe the evidence is quite clear that sleep and sex are both good and healthy for the human body. What post # are you refering to?
I'd rather come back on my belly with my tail between my legs than to be on a christian forum
It can be hard to get used to your style of management. Allowing Trolls and so on. With your ruling a was kinda upset with the admin, for a while. I must confess I was highly upset at your ruling. As a result was deeply embarrassed by it. Which upset me further. Then I went to a christian board and within three hours was completely shut down. Meaning I would rather be humbled and apologize to the admin in this forum. And come back with my tail between my legs than to spend another second with those bastardy bastards. Gladly come back with my tail between my legs than to spend another fucking nano-second on a 'christian' board . . . . Just the wake up call I needed to see you were right and I was wrong. All it took was a few hours on a christian board to remind me why I never want to leave this forum!!
I can't address this without specific scripture. Most likely, the examples are a result of extreme legalistical reading of the Bible.
When God asks Adam while they are clothed, it's obvious that God already knows the answer.
Did God really have a choice? Spare the children and the cycle of evil will just continue. There is a difference between necessary judgement
and being sadistic by taking pleasure in such acts. It's the last thing God wants to do. And He clearly says that He takes no pleasure
in the death of the wicked.
Ez. 33.11
The introduction of sin into this realm changed the landscape including plants and animals. Genesis 3:17 shows that the ground was now cursed
would produce thorns and thistles. It sounds like God was just sick of it all and wanted to wipe the slant clean and start over.
And it's pure conjecture to assume that God is guilty as charged without knowing all the facts. If I am the Creator of the earth and went to all
this effort to create a beautiful physical realm then I would certainly be within my right to do whatever is necessary to protect it.
And no, it is not ok for a human to kill another human. You don't have the right. Only God has the right to take life away.
Everything we have belongs to him. You only exist because He choose to create you as a unique human being.
I ask why because by your atheist moral standards, mass murder is never justified even by the Creator himself. Yet humans have no problem killing
these living creatures. Who are you to say they are not sentient? Insects, certainly spiders demonstrate some degree of intelligence.
Do you place more value on living things based on their level of perceived sentient-ness?
1) It is not simply because I am more developed, but because they are harming myself or others, or even killing people. By your logic, we should live and let live when a horde of locusts is eating all our crops.
So why is it wrong for the Creator of the universe to kill those who are harming His people or creation?
I have no problem killing insects or animals for food. It's not a moral conflict for Christians. It would be a moral conflict for atheists who want to hold a standard that killing is always wrong and human beings are nothing more than animals. In that realm of atheist morality, there is no difference between cannibalism vs eating the flesh of a cow.
Why is it different? They are both living creatures. How do you know they don't feel? Insects have been observed to learn classical conditioning. That shows some element of not being mindless drones. Is it more wrong to kill a beautiful butterfly?
You can What if or Why not the Bible to death. It is pointless reasoning unless you have all the facts.
Then it is nonsensical to demand reasons why God is justified in his actions in the OT. You don't believe He exists so why are you attacking His character? My arguments are not straw-man. I am asking relatable questions to establish a more defined focal point instead of dealing with the broad stroke brushes.
Soooo maaannnyy straawwwwmaaaannn!!!
Never, ever said this. Read my posts before you reply, please?
Why not just simply answer the question instead of complaining?
Maybe He will poof them out. I don't know. We really don't have enough information to go. As I said before, there are verses to suggest that the punishment is finite. The example in the Bible that is consistent is that God is long suffering before punishing sin, and then His punishment is swift and sudden. The Flood was swift. The destruction of Sodom and Gomarroh was swift etc... There is also a difference between eternally punishing and eternal punishment. Hebrews 9:12 talks about eternal redemption. Well Jesus isn't in an on-going process of commiting the act of of redemption.
(On a side note, Hebrews Chapter 8 explains why the OT laws do not apply anymore)
Easy copout there. So why does Jesus in Matthew 10:28 say that God will destroy both body and soul in Hell? You can't have destruction if you are keeping a creation alive for endless torture.