The Stuff Jesus Never Did.

PDN

POINTBREAK wrote: »

Hi Malty. It depends which branch of Christianity you belong to. Catholics believe the Old Testement was basically just a bunch of stories and that everything was wrongly attributed to God because there was no other way of explaining it. Thunder, lightning, storms, floods, volcanos etc where all Gods doing. Some Christian Fundamentalist sects believe that scripture is 100% true and correct. The Earth was created 6000 years ago etc. So you cant really compare Jesus with the OT God.

Not true, actually.

Some liberal Catholics (and some liberal Protestants) see the Bible as being such a bunch of stories. Many other Catholics (and many other Protestants) believe that the Bible to be essentially true, but not perhaps 100% correct. And many Catholics (and many Protestants) see the Bible as being 100% correct.

Some people (both Protestant and Catholic) who see the Bible as being 100% correct also believe the world to be 6000 years old etc, while many others of them believe the world to be billions of years old. (If anyone wants to discuss that further then there is a big thread called 'The Bible, creation and Prophecy' where you can discuss that to your hearts' content.)

One thing all these three groups of Protestants and Catholics have in common is that they identify Jesus with the God of the Old Testament.

Always happy to correct any misconceptions posters may have picked up along the way!

PDN

robindch wrote: »

Is that an implication of omnipotence?

I sense another contradiction but inches away.

No, it's simply something we know as a result of revelation. You don't have to be omnipotent in order to choose to limit yourself from knowing or doing stuff.

If you do want to start discussing things that are contradictions in your opinion then I would suggest a new thread to prevent this one getting dragged down the usual rabbit trails.

POINTBREAK

PDN wrote: »

Not true, actually.

Some liberal Catholics (and some liberal Protestants) see the Bible as being such a bunch of stories. Many other Catholics (and many other Protestants) believe that the Bible to be essentially true, but not perhaps 100% correct. And many Catholics (and many Protestants) see the Bible as being 100% correct.

Some people (both Protestant and Catholic) who see the Bible as being 100% correct also believe the world to be 6000 years old etc, while many others of them believe the world to be billions of years old. (If anyone wants to discuss that further then there is a big thread called 'The Bible, creation and Prophecy' where you can discuss that to your hearts' content.)

One thing all these three groups of Protestants and Catholics have in common is that they identify Jesus with the God of the Old Testament.

Always happy to correct any misconceptions posters may have picked up along the way!

Obviously when I said Catholic I meant the true followers of The One True Catholic and Appostolic Church. Those who follow the rules and doctrine of the Church. No Catholic can ever treat the OT bible as being literally true. Catholics who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old are people who call themselves Catholic but do not follow the teaching of the Church.
The relevance of this to this thread is the comparison being made between Old Testement God and Jesus. The "miracles" in the OT attributed to God are generally regarded as nothing more than stories and can not be compared with the miracles of Jesus. Catholicism is NOT a pick and mix religion.

Turtwig

POINTBREAK wrote: »

Obviously when I said Catholic I meant the true followers of The One True Catholic and Appostolic Church. Those who follow the rules and doctrine of the Church. No Catholic can ever treat the OT bible as being literally true. Catholics who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old are people who call themselves Catholic but do not follow the teaching of the Church.
The relevance of this to this thread is the comparison being made between Old Testement God and Jesus. The "miracles" in the OT attributed to God are generally regarded as nothing more than stories and can not be compared with the miracles of Jesus. Catholicism is NOT a pick and mix religion.

I'm sorry but in no where in the OT is the age of the Earth stated. It is an old myth, calculated by silliness of some pope who wasn't even believed at the time by those who had studied the earth. In fact, the earliest apologetics (though there was little need for them) basically said that 'In the beginning' could mean anything length or duration of time..

PDN

POINTBREAK wrote: »

Obviously when I said Catholic I meant the true followers of The One True Catholic and Appostolic Church. Those who follow the rules and doctrine of the Church. No Catholic can ever treat the OT bible as being literally true. Catholics who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old are people who call themselves Catholic but do not follow the teaching of the Church.
The relevance of this to this thread is the comparison being made between Old Testement God and Jesus. The "miracles" in the OT attributed to God are generally regarded as nothing more than stories and can not be compared with the miracles of Jesus. Catholicism is NOT a pick and mix religion.

And obviously when I said Catholic I meant the Roman Catholic Church with its headquarters in Rome and acknowledging the Pope as its spiritual leader. This organisation has consistently expressed its belief in the historicity of the Old Testament, while (just like almost all Protestants) recognising the need to distinguish historical narrative from other literary genre such as poetry or parables.

So any Catholic who views the Old Testament as a bunch of stories that didn't really happen is, in fact, failing to follow the rules and teachings of their church.

The Bible does not say that the earth is 6000 years old, as Malty has already pointed out. If you want to discuss this further then take it to the Creationism thread rather than dragging this thread off topic, thank you.

Soul Winner

PDN wrote: »

I agree.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Yes that is true but not everyone will come to repentance and He is not going to wait until they do. His day is coming and it will be too late for the unrepneted to repent then. In short; God gets p*ss*d off. This trait is revealed throughout the scrupture.

"...To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest."
Pslam 95:7-11

"Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." Hebrews 3:7-11

Sure His mercy endures forever, but those who are in need of it need to recognize their need of it and repent (turn from their way to God's way) and avail of His every enduring mercy. The Bible declares that not everyone will avail of it, in fact they'll get even worse right up to the end and then God will wipe them out. If you believe in the God of the Bible then this is what is revealed about Him.

PDN

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes that is true but not everyone will come to repentance and He is not going to wait until they do. His day is coming and it will be too late for the unrepneted to repent then. In short; God gets p*ss*d off. This trait is revealed throughout the scrupture.

"...To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest."
Pslam 95:7-11

"Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." Hebrews 3:7-11

Sure His mercy endures forever, but those who are in need of it need to recognize their need of it and repent (turn from their way to God's way) and avail of His every enduring mercy. The Bible declares that not everyone will avail of it, in fact they'll get even worse right up to the end and then God will wipe them out. If you believe in the God of the Bible then this is what is revealed about Him.

And of course that is true, not everyone will get saved. I wasn't posting the quote from 2 Peter to argue otherwise, I was posting it to demonstrate that you were wrong to say that God doesn't care about those who reject Him. He does care, and He wants them to repent.

Sam Vimes

Following on from the stuff Jesus never did, I'm assuming that as christians you all believe that prayer works at least some of the time and that miracles occur such as religious visions. These present a big problem for me and I'm wondering how you reconcile these beliefs with reality. It's not so much about what miracles god does perform but more about the ones he doesn't.

1. Why would god intervene in the natural world to, say, help you win a race but not to cure someone dying of cancer or help Elisabeth Fritzl to escape her father's basement?
2. Why would god intervene to cure one arbitrary person of cancer but not the other hundred in the same hospital, seemingly regardless of whether the one person that was saved was a "better" person than any of the others?
3. Rather than curing one arbitrary person, why not impart the knowledge of how to cure all disease ourselves?
4. Why does god only perform miracles that can easily be explained as coincidence or flawed human perception (in the case of religious visions)? Why is it that we all know that no matter how hard an amputee prays he's not going to grow his arm back?
5. Is belief in miracles compatible with the bible given that Jesus said "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah."? This passage has been quoted to me many times when I have asked questions like this, even by people who themselves believe they have been given a sign. How is it that they have received a sign if they believe that our generation will not be given one?

My answer to all of the above questions explains all of the available facts: God is not doing anything but sometimes unlikely things happen and human perception is extremely flawed which leads people to believe that they have seen things that were really only tricks of the mind and confirmation bias leads them to only remember the one or two instances when they prayed for something and got it but forget the other thousand times they prayed and didn't get it. As far as I can see, the world as it exists today is completely incompatible with the idea of an all-loving, all-powerful god who intervenes to answer the prayers of his followers and perform miracles. The best answer I've been given to date to explain all the phenomena that don't match with this idea is "god works in mysterious ways" or some variant, which is really just another way of saying "I don't know".

Turtwig

My Thread

Must say though that point 3 by Sam was kinda one of my points

Sam Vimes

Malty_T wrote: »

My Thread

Must say thought that point 3 by Sam was kinda one of my points

I knew I'd seen it somewhere

PDN

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Following on from the stuff Jesus never did, I'm assuming that as christians you all believe that prayer works at least some of the time and that miracles occur such as religious visions. These present a big problem for me and I'm wondering how you reconcile these beliefs with reality. It's not so much about what miracles god does perform but more about the ones he doesn't.

1. Why would god intervene in the natural world to, say, help you win a race but not to cure someone dying of cancer or help Elisabeth Fritzl to escape her father's basement?
2. Why would god intervene to cure one arbitrary person of cancer but not the other hundred in the same hospital, seemingly regardless of whether the one person that was saved was a "better" person than any of the others?

The problem with this argument is that it is based on our flawed perception of what is most important or most deserving. If we had more information (as God does) then we might well revise our opinions.

For example, during the 1920s a rather overweight British visitor was knocked down in traffic and nearly died in New York because he rather stupidly looked the wrong way when he was crossing the road. He later ascribed his survival to divine providence.

In that same year there were a number of horrific crimes where children were killed, and several natural disasters. If we had been alive then, and if you had posted a similar question asking why should God spare a fat British tourist when much more deserving people suffered with no rescue coming from divine providence then I'm sure I would be unable to answer you. However, historians today would mostly agree that Winston Churchill's surviving that traffic accident probably saved many more lives than if God had intervened in any of the apparently more important incidents that year.

Rather than curing one arbitrary person, why not impart the knowledge of how to cure all disease ourselves?

Don't know.

Why does god only perform miracles that can easily be explained as coincidence or flawed human perception (in the case of religious visions)? Why is it that we all know that no matter how hard an amputee prays he's not going to grow his arm back?

God has performed plenty of miracles that cannot be explained by coincidence or flawed human perceptions.

I believe that God can heal amputees. Jesus healed an amputated ear in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Is belief in miracles compatible with the bible given that Jesus said "A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah."? This passage has been quoted to me many times when I have asked questions like this, even by people who themselves believe they have been given a sign. How is it that they have received a sign if they believe that our generation will not be given one?

Miracles are cases where God intervenes in compassion to help the suffering and to fulfill His purposes - not a conjouring trick to try to convince cynics who would only try to explain them away anyway.

My answer to all of the above questions explains all of the available facts: God is not doing anything but sometimes unlikely things happen and human perception is extremely flawed which leads people to believe that they have seen things that were really only tricks of the mind and confirmation bias leads them to only remember the one or two instances when they prayed for something and got it but forget the other thousand times they prayed and didn't get it. As far as I can see, the world as it exists today is completely incompatible with the idea of an all-loving, all-powerful god who intervenes to answer the prayers of his followers and perform miracles.

And there I thought you were genuinely asking questions instead of just looking for an excuse to proclaim your atheist opinions in the Christianity forum. How gullible of me.

The best answer I've been given to date to explain all the phenomena that don't match with this idea is "god works in mysterious ways" or some variant, which is really just another way of saying "I don't know".

"I don't know" is actually a very good answer when someone genuinely doesn't know. You should try it, since you obviously don't know either.

Sam Vimes

PDN wrote: »

The problem with this argument is that it is based on our flawed perception of what is most important or most deserving. If we had more information (as God does) then we might well revise our opinions.

For example, during the 1920s a rather overweight British visitor was knocked down in traffic and nearly died in New York because he rather stupidly looked the wrong way when he was crossing the road. He later ascribed his survival to divine providence.

In that same year there were a number of horrific crimes where children were killed, and several natural disasters. If we had been alive then, and if you had posted a similar question asking why should God spare a fat British tourist when much more deserving people suffered with no rescue coming from divine providence then I'm sure I would be unable to answer you. However, historians today would mostly agree that Winston Churchill's surviving that traffic accident probably saved many more lives than if God had intervened in any of the apparently more important incidents that year.

I see this as another example of confirmation bias and coincidence. Yes you can give a few examples where an unlikely event led to a lot of good but I can give you billions more where an unlikely event led to nothing good or led to an awful lot of bad. There appears to be no discernible pattern to it and I don't understand the mentality that brings people to ascribe unlikely events that have what we perceive as "good" outcomes to god. You say yourself that we have flawed perceptions of what is most important or most deserving so what makes anyone qualified to say they were deserving just because something unlikely happened to them?

PDN wrote: »

God has performed plenty of miracles that cannot be explained by coincidence or flawed human perceptions.

I believe that God can heal amputees. Jesus healed an amputated ear in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Yes there are lots of things that can't be explained but all that means is that they can't be explained. In pretty much every case it's because the only evidence is an eye-witness account, which brings us back to flawed human perception. Had there been a team of scientists with modern scientific equipment in the Garden of Gethsemane monitoring the event under laboratory conditions we might now have a completely different version of events.

Also, that wasn't exactly the question I asked. We have stories of Jesus doing it but since christians believe in the power of prayer and miracles, why do we all know that prayer will never regenerate an amputated limb?

PDN wrote: »

Miracles are cases where God intervenes in compassion to help the suffering and to fulfill His purposes - not a conjouring trick to try to convince cynics who would only try to explain them away anyway.

I didn't ask for a conjuring trick, regenerating an amputated limb is helping suffering.

Also that didn't really answer the question: how is it that miracles are happening since Jesus said that "a wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah"?

PDN wrote: »

And there I thought you were genuinely asking questions instead of just looking for an excuse to proclaim your atheist opinions in the Christianity forum. How gullible of me.

I am asking a genuine question. I'm trying to find out how christians reconcile these beliefs with reality as I said. A good theory should explain as many phenomena as possible, leaving as few gaps as possible. My theory fits with reality and explains all of the observable facts. We know that unlikely things happen all the time, we know that human perception is flawed and susceptible to hallucination (even in mentally healthy people), confirmation bias, the anthropomorphisation of natural phenomena (Thor), etc etc. We simply cannot trust our eyes and brains as the sole source of information of events like this

Whereas the christian theory of unlikely or seemingly impossible events being caused by god explains only a tiny number of events and proclaims the rest to be a mystery. I put seemingly in italics because it is only ever seemingly impossible events. When all ambiguity is taken out as in the case of an amputee, when the event can only be explained as a miracle*, suddenly everyone realises that it's not going to happen no matter how much the believer prays



*assuming the person does not have some lizard like DNA since they can regrow limbs. These limbs are generally poorly formed though and one generated by an act of god wouldn't be

PDN wrote: »

"I don't know" is actually a very good answer when someone genuinely doesn't know. You should try it, since you obviously don't know either.

The fact that "I don't know" is often a very good answer is something that I spend a lot of my time trying to get across to believers. I'm quite happy to say that I have no idea how the universe came into being for example but believers often seem unwilling to accept this and try to suggest that if I don't believe in their particular deity then I must believe that it sprang up out of nothing, which is of course not the case. I simply don't know.

In this case though the believers are not saying they don't know. They are putting forward a theory to explain certain events, they are saying they do know what caused them which leads me to point out that their theory explains very little and ignores the vast majority of events that do not fit with it and the world and the universe in general makes a lot more sense if their theory is wrong

Turtwig

PDN wrote: »

In that same year there were a number of horrific crimes where children were killed, and several natural disasters. If we had been alive then, and if you had posted a similar question asking why should God spare a fat British tourist when much more deserving people suffered with no rescue coming from divine providence then I'm sure I would be unable to answer you. However, historians today would mostly agree that Winston Churchill's surviving that traffic accident probably saved many more lives than if God had intervened in any of the apparently more important incidents that year.

That's a cool little factoid:)

Unfortunately it begs the question:
If God knew WWII was coming why the heck didn't He just prevent it, let alone make it safer for civilians?
Surely WWI would have been enough?

postcynical

Malty_T wrote: »

I'm sorry but in no where in the OT is the age of the Earth stated. It is an old myth, calculated by silliness of some pope who wasn't even believed at the time by those who had studied the earth. In fact, the earliest apologetics (though there was little need for them) basically said that 'In the beginning' could mean anything length or duration of time..

(my bold)

I think it was an Irishman, a mathematician and bishop, James Ussher who did this computation. I'm surprised it's still taken seriously. Not sure if he was even Catholic let alone a pope... certainly though the Gregorian calendar is attributed to Pope Gregory.

postcynical

Sam Vimes wrote: »

It's not so much about what miracles god does perform but more about the ones he doesn't.

Well the fact is that He doesn't do them. We will suffer. We will die. these things happen to others as well and we who don't suffer and are alive can count our blessings. God's miracles help us to make sense of life by drawing our attention away from ourselves and towards God and His presence in our lives.

You might call it coincidence. That's your speculation. The same could be said of all knowledge.

My answer to all of the above questions explains all of the available facts:

Do you mention confirmation bias in a later post?

Anyway, hope my interpretation of why miracles occur above is helpful.

Turtwig

postcynical wrote: »

Well the fact is that He doesn't do them. We will suffer. We will die. these things happen to others as well and we who don't suffer and are alive can count our blessings.
.

Yeah, but you're still going to die anyway, and due to our lovely population growth more people are suffering than ever before seen in the history of this planet. Some of them have yet to see or hear of God : not really getting attention there.

philologos

postcynical wrote: »

I think it was an Irishman, a mathematician and bishop, James Ussher who did this computation. I'm surprised it's still taken seriously. Not sure if he was even Catholic let alone a pope... certainly though the Gregorian calendar is attributed to Pope Gregory.

He was the Archbishop of Armagh in the Church of Ireland and he was of a Calvinist disposition.

Sam Vimes

postcynical wrote: »

Well the fact is that He doesn't do them. We will suffer. We will die. these things happen to others as well and we who don't suffer and are alive can count our blessings. God's miracles help us to make sense of life by drawing our attention away from ourselves and towards God and His presence in our lives.

You might call it coincidence. That's your speculation. The same could be said of all knowledge.

Do you mention confirmation bias in a later post?

Anyway, hope my interpretation of why miracles occur above is helpful.

It's not really helpful tbh, I didn't ask why miracles occur, I asked what makes you think that the creator of the universe has intervened in the world to help you personally just because something unlikely happened, especially given the fact that there are so may more worthy things he could be intervening with

pts

Sam Vimes wrote: »

My theory fits with reality and explains all of the observable facts. We know that unlikely things happen all the time, we know that human perception is flawed and susceptible to hallucination (even in mentally healthy people), confirmation bias, the anthropomorphisation of natural phenomena (Thor), etc etc. We simply cannot trust our eyes and brains as the sole source of information of events like this

Which reminds me a bit of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK-UiwKhTdw

if you want something to be true you can sometimes see the supernatural in something that probably isn't supernatural.

Soul Winner

PDN wrote: »

And of course that is true, not everyone will get saved. I wasn't posting the quote from 2 Peter to argue otherwise, I was posting it to demonstrate that you were wrong to say that God doesn't care about those who reject Him. He does care, and He wants them to repent.

I agree, yes He does care in that sense, absolutely, but He doesn't care in the sense I was referring to. Malty made the suggestion that the reason he doesn't believe in God was due to the picture of God that I painted of Him in the post previous to that. His subsequent post suggested (to me at least) that unless God changes somehow then he (Malty) would not believe in Him. In that sense God doesn't care if we believe in Him or not. If He exists at all then He is immutable and not for changing. Imagine one of your kids saying to you that they don't like the fact that you ground them when they do something wrong or get into trouble. Would you change your parenting methods based on their opinion of it? I don't think so. That was the type of caring I was referring to, not the general caring God has for everyone to come to repentance. There are some people who don't like the idea of having to come to repentance in order to come to God. Do you think that God will change this method of approach to Him based on those opinions? He wouldn't, so in that sense He doesn't care what they think of Him or even if they believe in Him or not. I know He cares and wants everyone to come to repentance but outside of the door opened by repentance (as the only method allowed by Him) He doesn’t give didley squat.

Turtwig

Malty_T wrote: »

Your post above is probably the single most reason I don't believe in your version of events.
God created me, just so I could believe in Him?
I wonder does Barrack Obama care if I believe in Him or not?

Soul Winner wrote: »

I agree, yes He does care in that sense, absolutely, but He doesn't care in the sense I was referring to. Malty made the suggestion that the reason he doesn't believe in God was due to the picture of God that I painted of Him in the post previous to that. His subsequent post suggested (to me at least) that unless God changes somehow then he (Malty) would not believe in Him. In that sense God doesn't care if we believe in Him or not. If He exists at all then He is immutable and not for changing. Imagine one of your kids saying to you that they don't like the fact that you ground them when they do something wrong or get into trouble. Would you change your parenting methods based on their opinion of it? I don't think so. That was the type of caring I was referring to, not the general caring God has for everyone to come to repentance. There are some people who don't like the idea of having to come to repentance in order to come to God. Do you think that God will change this method of approach to Him based on those opinions? He wouldn't, so in that sense He doesn't care what they think of Him or even if they believe in Him or not. I know He cares and wants everyone to come to repentance but outside of the door opened by repentance (as the only method allowed by Him) He doesn’t give didley squat.

God doesn't change His ways? I thought there was once a time where He allowed a man to rape and woman and then have that man marry the woman. Stoning to death? Burnt Offerings? Destruction of all the first borns?
I think the guy can change alright..

Soul Winner

Malty_T wrote: »

God doesn't change His ways? I thought there was once a time where He allowed a man to rape and woman and then have that man marry the woman. Stoning to death? Burnt Offerings? Destruction of all the first borns?
I think the guy can change alright..

He changed the basis on which mankind could approach Him but He Himself did not change. The old way of approach was through the Law and the new way is through Grace. Through the Law no man can be saved because man falls short of the Law and is thereby cursed. But by God's Grace we have a new way in which to approach Him and that is through Christ who (before the Law could pass away) fulfilled the requirement of the Law (a perfect life) so that it could pass away by giving up that perfect life unto death in the place of the ones deserving such death. Which means that we are no longer under Law but under Grace. Price paid, redemption purchased and God is still the same God.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

The old way of approach was through the Law and the new way is through Grace.

That doesn't really answer the issue.

You have just said that God has changed the basis of his interaction with humanity, but not explained why such bad things were contained in the first version but not the second.

If God didn't change what did change, because what is permitted by the first set of Laws, slavery genocide, forced marriage, minimal punishment for horrific crimes such as rape etc, seems worlds away from what Jesus taught.

Sam Vimes

Wicknight wrote: »

If God didn't change what did change, because what is permitted by the first set of Laws, slavery genocide, forced marriage, minimal punishment for horrific crimes such as rape etc, seems worlds away from what Jesus taught.

He wasn't particularly against slavery really, as long as you were nice to the people you owned

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

That doesn't really answer the issue.

You have just said that God has changed the basis of his interaction with humanity, but not explained why such bad things were contained in the first version but not the second.

If God didn't change what did change, because what is permitted by the first set of Laws, slavery genocide, forced marriage, minimal punishment for horrific crimes such as rape etc, seems worlds away from what Jesus taught.

Murder was punishable by death.

In the absence of a divine command to wipe out a race, what we call genocide is exactly that, but in the presence of a divine command it becomes moral obligation.

Rape was punishable by death.

What forced marriages are you talking about?

Slavery was a noble trade back then except when it was forced on others, but servants were frequently hired and usually earned their keep and were held in high esteem. Nowadays you just get an employee number.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Murder was punishable by death.

In the absence of a divine command to wipe out a race, what we call genocide is exactly that, but in the presence of a divine command it becomes moral obligation.

So you are saying that an act that would normally be immoral such as genocide becomes moral if you are commanded by god to do it. But if god is perfectly moral why is he commanding you to do something that is immoral? Surely if morality is absolute then something is either moral or it's not and a normally immoral act does not become moral no matter who tells you to do it?

Are you of the opinion that something is only moral because god says it is? In which case, do you think you would murder someone for their wallet if the bible didn't tell you that was a bad thing to do? If so why do people who do not follow the bible muder and generally wrong each other at a hugely greater rate than christians?

Could god decide tomorrow that murder is not immoral as he briefly decided that committing genocide was not immoral?

Also, if you are wrong about your religion (or even have interpreted parts wrong) do you not see how such a belief can be incredibly dangerous? Some former buildings in New York spring to mind. concepts like this are where the following phrase comes from: "Good people will tend to do good things and bad people will tend to do bad things but for good people to do bad things you need religion".

Soul Winner wrote: »

Rape was punishable by death.

What forced marriages are you talking about?

Deuteronomy wrote:

22:28:If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered,
22:29:he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Slavery was a noble trade back then except when it was forced on others, but servants were frequently hired and usually earned their keep and were held in high esteem. Nowadays you just get an employee number.

Slaves could be beaten and the owner would not be punished if the slave survived two days. Most importantly slaves could never go free, unless he is a Jewish slave in which case he goes free after 7 years, unless the master gives him a wife because the wife stays with the master and the slave must either leave his family or choose to stay with the master at which point his ear is pierced with an awl and he must stay for life.

That doesn't sound much like a noble trade to me.....

Turtwig

Soul Winner wrote: »

Slavery was a noble trade back then except when it was forced on others, but servants were frequently hired and usually earned their keep and were held in high esteem. Nowadays you just get an employee number.

Ok, Soul,

Knowing what you know now and the standard of life that you have today,
I take it then, that you'd have no objection if God decided to make you a slave for someone??

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So you are saying that an act that would normally be immoral such as genocide becomes moral if you are commanded by god to do it. But if god is perfectly moral why is he commanding you to do something that is immoral? Surely if morality is absolute then something is either moral or it's not and a normally immoral act does not become moral no matter who tells you to do it?

Are you of the opinion that something is only moral because god says it is? In which case, do you think you would murder someone for their wallet if the bible didn't tell you that was a bad thing to do?

Could god decide tomorrow that murder is not immoral as he briefly decided that committing genocide was not immoral?

Also, if you are wrong about your religion (or even have interpreted parts wrong) do you not see how such a belief can be incredibly dangerous? Some former buildings in New York spring to mind. concepts like this are where the following phrase comes from: "Good people will tend to do good things and bad people will tend to do bad things but for good people to do bad things you need religion".





Slaves could be beaten and the owner would not be punished if the slave survived two days. Most importantly slaves could never go free, unless he is a Jewish slave in which case he goes free after 7 years, unless the master gives him a wife because the wife stays with the master and the slave must either leave his family or choose to stay with the master at which point his ear is pierced with an awl and he must stay for life.

That doesn't sound much like a noble trade to me.....

Short answer:

If God exists then whatever God says is moral is moral and whatever He says is immoral is immoral. If God doesn't exist then morality is relative to whatever society you happen to be brought up in. Just like Fanny's tribes, neither can say that their preferred standard of behavior is right because in the absence of God there is no absolute standard which each tribe can measure their standard by and hence make a valid judgment.

Turtwig

Soul Winner wrote: »

Short answer:

If God exists then whatever God says is moral is moral and whatever He says is immoral is immoral. If God doesn't exist then morality is relative to whatever society you happen to be brought up in. Just like Fanny's tribes, neither can say that their preferred standard of behavior is right because in the absence of God there is no absolute standard which each tribe can measure their standard by and hence make a valid judgment.

Pretty much dodged Sammy's question there:
If God is perfect why does He command you to do something that is surely immoral?

Soul Winner

Malty_T wrote: »

Ok, Soul,

Knowing what you know now and the standard of life that you have today,
I take it then, that you'd have no objection if God decided to make you a slave for someone??

He has done that already. I am His slave now. You see slavery is only a bad word when you think the choice is between either slavery or no slavery. But when the only choice we have is to choose masters then to choose God is the better choice because the other choice will result in death. The Bible states that we are all bound by sin and in slavery to our fleshly desires and have no power to deliver ourselves from it. Some people like that and others don't. Some people choose to be a slave to their wants and desires and other choose to be a slave of God. Granted even they can get caught up in their old wants and desires but they know that in the long run it will all just lead to death. With God though there is no death and those who freely give themselves over to Him in this life will live forever. "Any man who saves his life will loose it, and any man who looses his life for my sake and the Gospel will gain unto life eternal." Jesus