Atheist_Scathe wrote:

KingDavid8 wrote:

Worship and fellowship, yes. Notice the word "fellowship" in there.

Yes, and for the records I was being facetious to make a point- but I hope that was obvious. The point was, and is, mostly about the problem of evil- more about that below. However the relevant portion here is the TENOR of the relationship that Christians seem to have with their deity- one of subservience and adulation in this life in anticipation of the one to come, wherein they seem to believe that they will- that's right- carry ON doing more of the SAME- for all eternity. Such is the nature of this "fellowship"; glad I pegged that one but after all, not that long since my apostasy (early '05) so I thought I had that right.

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Yes, I'm sure they will continue to be thankful, and express that thankfulness now and then, but I seriously doubt people in Heaven are going to be just spending every single moment doing nothing but praising God, any more than Christians here spend every single moment doing nothing but praising God. People (except for a select few, perhaps) do take their time to enjoy the world God has given us and partake in the blessings, and not just spend every waking moment yelling "Thanks, God!". I can't imagine that such a life would be how God wants us to live, here or in what comes next.

Very well, but the relationship is still one of DEPENDENCE ON and lack of criticism of the deity- the perfect master-servant relationship, really.

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You're embarassing your fellow atheists when you do that. You're entitled to your opinions, but stating that God craves praise to satisfy his ego is not anything that Christians believe or is supported by anything but a very prejudicial reading of the Bible. We praise God because we're thankful for what God has done for us.

Please see the above. And remember god's own proclamations that he is jealous, and his bursts of outrage and intolerance at any deviation from his set script. I invite you to spend a little time in Revelations 20 and 21 for examples of this.

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Oh, please. If you're thinking that his "bursts" are only about "deviation from his set script", then you're twisting things even further than I thought. His harshness with the Israelites was about stopping them from self-destruction.

I find it humorous the way you Christians fail to take your own fucking bible at face value. How about that little "hissy fit" over the golden calf? Why did god need to extirpate what was it, twenty-four thousand Hebs in a plague in reprisal for screwing with a bunch of Midianites? And the FLOOD for crying out loud?! Not to mention the horrors of perdition revealed in Revelation. I'm afraid your disingenuity mounts here, KD8, in that you fail to recognize the dictatorial character of the deity you serve. Rather than saving us from destruction, he exhorts us to bow and scrape lest HE destroy us or subject us to some horrible punishment. Christ's sacrifice really would appear to be a case of god's sacrificing himself to himself to save us from himself because he's pissed about the way we ourselves are even though he made us that way... <blows fuse in brain at moronic butchery of anything remotely resembling coherent logic>

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Are you being facetious to make a point again? That is such twisting of the Bible that I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are.

No, I'm not being facetious. This is my rather face-value reading of the bible. Can you PLEASE address my points instead of getting all high and mighty about it? Thought not.

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And why does an omniscient, omnipotent being need praise? Isn't virtue its own reward?

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Again, you're twisting. Nothing in the Bible says he needs praise. If someone gives you a nice gift, do you automatically assume they're doing it because they need for you to thank them?

Hmm, but look how he handles competition: Exodus 20:3 says "You shall have no other gods before me."

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The Israelites needed God's protection and guidance in order to survive. He was pretty much the only thing keeping them from being destroyed by themselves and/or their enemies, so worshipping gods who had nothing to offer and following their non-existent will over the will of the one who's trying to keep them alive, was really a pretty bad idea, overall. Imagine a squad of soldiers at war who know that their general is a wise man and looking out for them, but ignore his orders and just do whatever the heck they feel like doing and listen to whoever the heck they feel like listening to. How long do you think this squad is going to last in battle?

Hmm, then what was that whole destroying the Midianites and the Canaanites thing about? Remember also the whole Hivite debacle.

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Exodus also mandates a lengthy series of instructions about the right ways to sacrifice and when to sacrifice and for WHAT to sacrifice and so on... and this litany continues, if memory serves, into ensuant books. My criticism stands as such. If the deity doesn't need/strongly desire praise/adoration/devotion/whatever why these mandates?

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The sacrifices were for the good of the Israelites, not for the good of God. It was how their sins were forgiven.

YES, BY god! Your inability to see my point is truly astounding- except not really. I'll keep this short and simple: peel back the layers of bullshit surrounding this conception of "sin" and the need for atonement and question why this deity is such an attention-whore.

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Second of all, you're taking one of the minor good things that people do, and comparing it to the very worst things that people do, and consider this a fair comparison?

Sorry but come again? Which good thing was I comparing to those heinous acts?

Praising God was the good thing you were comparing to those heinous acts (or are you saying that being thankful for gifts isn't a good thing?). Or if you're saying that's not a good thing, then you just using an example of the worst things people do and not acknowledging the good at all.

Thank you, I was a bit confused there. My point there was that the deity seems to find it SO important that we be free to serve/adulate him that he is willing to allow the human race to destroy itself and the world we live in many times over. Now, you say that WE are responsible for this; for the purposes of argument I'll concede you that (without getting into things like mentally ill serial killers etc.) but OUR point on here is that god is still responsible. If I own a guard dog it's my responsibility to leash it. If god wants to make a universe full of creations he's responsible for how they turn out if he has all-knowledge and all-power.

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Not if he's giving them freedom though.

If I raise a dog to have the capacity to CHOOSE to maul people and KNOW that it will do so and YET I release it on the populace then I am responsible in some degree. The dog is still making some kind of choice (we're presuming) but I KNEW it would make THAT specific choice.

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If you're saying he should keep people leashed up so that they can't hurt other people, then remember that you and I are going to be on the leashes also. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be on one and take my chances at getting bitten now and then.

Okay, I'd rather be immolated then carry through with the decision to murder or rape, satisfied? Especially since I have no WISH to do either of those things and I do, believe it or not, GIVE A SHIT about those who experience these things.

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We're talking about god's responsibility for restraining his more malevolent creations.

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How about we restrain ourselves, instead of every time we do something awful say, "Hey, God, why didn't you stop me?".

Tell that to the Jews in the Holocaust or the Tutsis slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc...

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I don't need to. I'm sure most of the Jews and Tutsis believed in God, and they blamed nobody but the Nazis and Hutus. If you're saying God is responsible for not stopping it, then I'm sure that practically all of the people who were there and suffering and dying would disagree with you on that.

So what? They're entitled to their opinions, just as are you and I. This isn't about what THEY thought about it (although I certainly DO care about that), but rather the point in principle.

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It's not. If you would truly and honestly prefer it that God made you a mindless robot pre-programmed only to do what He wants, or not to have made you at all, then you're practically alone in that preference. Most Christians wouldn't like that, and I imagine that most non-Christians would like it even less.

David

Eh well, I firmly believe that only atheism really offers a proper explanation for the petty absurdities and grotesque cruelties of this fly-blown carcass of a world of shit but that's neither here nor there. This is an ethics question: would you come to the rescue of Jews in the Holocaust, yes or no?

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Me personally, yes.

Right, because you'd feel a moral responsibility, no? You, having the ability to DO something and KNOWING it'll work, feel that you can NOT decline? So why should god be above such logic, especially since he created Hitler and everything else in this rotten world in the FIRST place?!

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Because His interference would require a removal of free will, one way or the other. We only have free will to the extent that we are able to misuse it (it's the same with all rights if you think about it).

Again, the attention-whoring of this deity for our adulation is eminent.

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We're assuming you have all powers to be able to do so with no risk, harm or even discomfort to your person. Would you do it? If you answer yes, let's imagine that you have the power to, say, go back in time and PREVENT it from EVER HAPPENING, what do you say to that? You see where this is going?

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Of course. You're saying that when people do something evil, God should make it so that they cannot, or prevent those who do evil from existing in the first place. But I'm saying that if God granted you that wish and made the world that way, it would be a world not worth living in. Despite the horror of what Hitler did, the alternative world you're asking for would be worse. Atheists would hate the world being like that even more than Christians would, I imagine.

Something about a world where everything from the end-Ordovician extinction to the Holocaust, Rwanda etc. DIDN'T happen holds a strange appeal for me, yes. I think you're also begging the question. How on earth, if you'll pardon the pun, could that be WORSE?

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Imagine you're living a life where you're unable to make a single decision for yourself - where you can't do anything you want to do, unless God wants you to do it - where any time you consider doing something God doesn't like, God stops you automatically - where you have no ability to think what you want to think or believe what you want to believe, only what God wants you to think and believe - where God makes all of your decisions for you. Personally, I'd rather have freedom and take my chances of eventually being killed by Nazis or Hutus, than live that way. I'd see no point in being born if I had no free will, while I'm sure those killed by the Nazis and Hutus were glad to have had life for a little while.

David

Hmm, we're not talking about a tight leash here, just a beneficent hand that would avert such catastrophes. Things out of our control happen, it'd be great if your deity would give a shit every now and then.