Reduced to a Piece of Clay: False Humility and Human Dignity

[Rhondazvous]

Of course; but if the vase doesn't come out as the potter expects or hopes, s/he'd be an idiot to blame the vase.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Of all the absurdities of the Christian religion, this has got to be the most absurd of all and it should also be the most obvious.

Imagine a potter (who is supposedly a perfect potter who can do no wrong) angrily smashing all his creations because they didn't turn out right. But even the smashing isn't enough for him. He uses his magic to reassemble the defective pottery so he can smash them again. Even that's not enough to assuage him so he invents a place where the pottery is smashed and automatically reassembled and smashed again - for eternity. Very productive.

That's what Christians worship.

Ah, but that is not the whole story, my friend. You see, in his great love and mercy, the potter reaches down and allows the shattered vases to cut him. he tells them that if they believe his shed blood will cleanse them of the sin of having been created in the first place, and one day reassemble them and none of the previous shattering meant a shit. Forget it and just believe. The end will justify the means.

[Esquilax]

OK.  I agree that from your perspective, which is only centered on this lifetime on earth, he could look pretty evil.  If we see our existence as eternal and recognize the fact that we are often purposely evil and subject to justice, and will live forever, then we can view God as loving and just. He doesn't give us the punishment we merit and sacrificed himself to achieve that end.  I can see that is too much for you to understand or accept, so I'll live with the fact that you think God is evil.  I believe that when you come face to face with him, then you will know the truth.

No. No, no, no.

Even presuming your beliefs to be one hundred percent true, that doesn't change a whole lot of my estimation of god, it just makes it worse. For all that you rail about justice, your god doesn't dispense justice in any sense of the word. It's not just, for example, to punish a finite crime with infinite punishment- at some point, the punishment will begin to exceed the crime committed, and at that point it'll still be going on forever - but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish every crime with the exact same punishment- a murderer has committed a worse crime than a liar, and that's core to our understanding of justice, it's the whole reason we have more than one sentence in court- but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish people without due representation and some attempt for them to speak their side of the story to an impartial adjudicator, but your god just does that.

And who exactly decided that god gets to be the dispenser of justice anyway? Who decided that the sins he's all riled up about require justice anyway? Oh, he decided he's the judge, and he decided that sins- which are really just people having the temerity to do things he doesn't personally like- are worthy of justice? How circular! How completely devoid of justification!

I know you're about to say that god made us so he gets to do whatever he wants with us, but that's not an argument, that's just a fiat assertion you're making because it's convenient. For one, it's not true of any other relationship between a maker and a made thing, where that thing has sentience; we have child abuse and endangerment laws precisely because you don't get to do whatever you want to a living thing that you've made. And if god gets to set a standard so that he's the exception to that, then again, all you've got is a circular argument unless you can actually justify that position without recourse to some imagined authority or flat assertion, and all of theology has simply failed to do that. It can't, because it refuses to consider the christian narrative outside of the asserted authority of its key figure.

There's nothing morally good or righteous about your god, Lek, and tweaking my view of the world so that I and everyone else is immortal within it doesn't change that. It just makes it infinitely worse.

[SteveII]

OK.  I agree that from your perspective, which is only centered on this lifetime on earth, he could look pretty evil.  If we see our existence as eternal and recognize the fact that we are often purposely evil and subject to justice, and will live forever, then we can view God as loving and just. He doesn't give us the punishment we merit and sacrificed himself to achieve that end.  I can see that is too much for you to understand or accept, so I'll live with the fact that you think God is evil.  I believe that when you come face to face with him, then you will know the truth.

No. No, no, no.

Even presuming your beliefs to be one hundred percent true, that doesn't change a whole lot of my estimation of god, it just makes it worse. For all that you rail about justice, your god doesn't dispense justice in any sense of the word. It's not just, for example, to punish a finite crime with infinite punishment- at some point, the punishment will begin to exceed the crime committed, and at that point it'll still be going on forever - but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish every crime with the exact same punishment- a murderer has committed a worse crime than a liar, and that's core to our understanding of justice, it's the whole reason we have more than one sentence in court- but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish people without due representation and some attempt for them to speak their side of the story to an impartial adjudicator, but your god just does that.

And who exactly decided that god gets to be the dispenser of justice anyway? Who decided that the sins he's all riled up about require justice anyway? Oh, he decided he's the judge, and he decided that sins- which are really just people having the temerity to do things he doesn't personally like- are worthy of justice? How circular! How completely devoid of justification!

I know you're about to say that god made us so he gets to do whatever he wants with us, but that's not an argument, that's just a fiat assertion you're making because it's convenient. For one, it's not true of any other relationship between a maker and a made thing, where that thing has sentience; we have child abuse and endangerment laws precisely because you don't get to do whatever you want to a living thing that you've made. And if god gets to set a standard so that he's the exception to that, then again, all you've got is a circular argument unless you can actually justify that position without recourse to some imagined authority or flat assertion, and all of theology has simply failed to do that. It can't, because it refuses to consider the christian narrative outside of the asserted authority of its key figure.

There's nothing morally good or righteous about your god, Lek, and tweaking my view of the world so that I and everyone else is immortal within it doesn't change that. It just makes it infinitely worse.

I just wanted to clarify. You don't go to hell for a sin or series of sins. You go to hell for one thing: you have rejected God.

[Esquilax]

No. No, no, no.

Even presuming your beliefs to be one hundred percent true, that doesn't change a whole lot of my estimation of god, it just makes it worse. For all that you rail about justice, your god doesn't dispense justice in any sense of the word. It's not just, for example, to punish a finite crime with infinite punishment- at some point, the punishment will begin to exceed the crime committed, and at that point it'll still be going on forever - but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish every crime with the exact same punishment- a murderer has committed a worse crime than a liar, and that's core to our understanding of justice, it's the whole reason we have more than one sentence in court- but that's what your god does. It's not just to punish people without due representation and some attempt for them to speak their side of the story to an impartial adjudicator, but your god just does that.

And who exactly decided that god gets to be the dispenser of justice anyway? Who decided that the sins he's all riled up about require justice anyway? Oh, he decided he's the judge, and he decided that sins- which are really just people having the temerity to do things he doesn't personally like- are worthy of justice? How circular! How completely devoid of justification!

I know you're about to say that god made us so he gets to do whatever he wants with us, but that's not an argument, that's just a fiat assertion you're making because it's convenient. For one, it's not true of any other relationship between a maker and a made thing, where that thing has sentience; we have child abuse and endangerment laws precisely because you don't get to do whatever you want to a living thing that you've made. And if god gets to set a standard so that he's the exception to that, then again, all you've got is a circular argument unless you can actually justify that position without recourse to some imagined authority or flat assertion, and all of theology has simply failed to do that. It can't, because it refuses to consider the christian narrative outside of the asserted authority of its key figure.

There's nothing morally good or righteous about your god, Lek, and tweaking my view of the world so that I and everyone else is immortal within it doesn't change that. It just makes it infinitely worse.

I just wanted to clarify. You don't go to hell for a sin or series of sins. You go to hell for one thing: you have rejected God.

... Which is a sin.

But I think you're being a little less than honest here, in that you're omitting the rationale behind all of that. You go to hell because god sacrificed himself for your sins, or so the story goes, and this exempts one from the punishment you're in for by default- because of all the sins- which is hell. That's how it goes in your storybook, anyway.

The question is, though: do you think your clarification resolves any of the problems I pointed out in my previous post? Is the situation made better by that? I can't imagine how.

[Drich]

But nay, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, “Why hast thou made me thus?”

Who am i? I am a human, a sentient being. I have thoughts and feelings. I have opinions and awareness. I can recognize injustice and oppression.

Do you honestly think, man is the only sentient being on this planet?
Many would argue Dolphins, elephants, primates, even Dogs all to one degree or another can check these very same attributes of this list, yet every single one of those animals are subject and have been subjugated to man's will in one way or another.

So then how are we to them any different than what you are saying God sees us?

Does it make sense to believe that god created me with all these wonderful faculties and then turned around expecting me to act like a lifeless piece of clay (as some versions render this verse)?

It is idiotic that Christians complain about evolving from apes dehumanized them, yet they are ready to accept this teaching.

how so?

[Rhondazvous]

It’s a fact that I cannot say I have never done anything bad willfully and with the knowledge that it was bad, sometimes even because it was bad. But that is still no justification for the things god has done in the bible or for the eternal punishment promised there.

Can a parent who beats his child to a pulp, burns him with a clothes iron, deprives him of food and locks him in a closet for three days justify himself because the child disobeyed him?

Your god is supposed to be more not less good. He’s supposed to have higher principles.
Yet, you and your bible do everything in your power to show that he has no principles beyond might makes right.

Our jails are full of people who think nobody understands them.

[Rhondazvous]

I just wanted to clarify. You don't go to hell for a sin or series of sins. You go to hell for one thing: you have rejected God.

You make god sound like some jilted chick who throws a hissy fit and slashes a guy's tires because he turned her down. There'd be more justice, or at least approaching justice, in punishing us for our sins.

It's not god we reject, anyway. It's You.

[Lek]

It’s a fact that I cannot say I have never done anything bad willfully and with the knowledge that it was bad, sometimes even because it was bad. But that is still no justification for the things god has done in the bible or for the eternal punishment promised there.  

Can a parent who beats his child to a pulp, burns him with a clothes iron, deprives him of food and locks him in a closet for three days justify himself because the child disobeyed him?

Your god is supposed to be more not less good. He’s supposed to have higher principles.
Yet, you and your bible do everything in your power to show that he has no principles beyond might makes right.

Our jails are full of people who think nobody understands them.

Were the people who received this evil abuse from God in the bible better or worse off for having received this treatment?

[Rhondazvous]

Who am i? I am a human, a sentient being. I have thoughts and feelings. I have opinions and awareness. I can recognize injustice and oppression.

Do you honestly think, man is the only sentient being on this planet?
Many would argue Dolphins, elephants, primates, even Dogs all to one degree or another can check these very same attributes of this list, yet every single one of those animals are subject and have been subjugated to man's will in one way or another.

So then how are we to them any different than what you are saying God sees us?

Does it make sense to believe that god created me with all these wonderful faculties and then turned around expecting me to act like a lifeless piece of clay (as some versions render this verse)?

It is idiotic that Christians complain about evolving from apes dehumanized them, yet they are ready to accept this teaching.

how so?

Yes, human's have a double standard and do not always treat others the way we want to be treated. But when you plays tu quoque you demonstrate that the nature of your god is no better than the nature of humans.

[robvalue]

So...

God seems evil but maybe he's not?

Wow, he's playing us like a fiddle. Satan hiding in plain site and pretending to be the righteous deity he has locked away in a prison, while doing evil deeds and recording them for all to see.