Abusive Theology 101

[Locke]

I'll ask another question......

Why is god good?
It's rhetorical, but I expect an attempted response.

I can answer that from a Biblical perspective, but in a forum post, that would be circular reasoning, without listing full-blown evidence for the Bible's validity outside of itself.

I could answer it by trying to define God, but without understanding the validity of Scripture, there's really no foundation to do that with.

Everything outside of my undocumented experiences that I could show you would come from Scripture, and since you haven't experienced my life, anything I say there can be disregarded as relative...

Except of course nature! But that can be refuted with scientific fact to describe every facet, as even Scripture tells us God works in processes.

And clearly, if God is real, then He would of made the systems of science that we use for discovery. If that is the case, then the Bible should not go against the laws of nature, but compliment them instead. In consideration of that, I would encourage you to do what every great scientist has done - take your theory (in this case, the Bible) and test it in the world around you.
After all, faith - according to the Bible - is not a delusional emotional feeling, but a response to evidence. The evidence will be found by putting the Bible to the test when it says, if you do this, then this will happen. Take Jeremiah 29:13, for example.

Actually, this is the exact way so many devout scientists became completely convinced of God's existence - by honest questioning, and putting everything to the test. Examples would include Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Faraday, and Bohr, to name a few.

One of the most terrible things someone could do is become a theist without thoroughly analyzing the evidence. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly common - I'd say at least 99.9% of theists. When a certain person asked Jesus what he had to do to make it to heaven, Jesus told him to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind.

And if you don't want to do it? Well.. at least we know you weren't sincerely asking.

EDIT: I actually sincerely don't understand why torture would be considered bad without God in the picture, so I ask again. Why is torture bad?

[freedomfromforum]

Uh, where's the insane cruelty? It better demonstrates the insane ego of man.

Trying to get a theist to open their eyes and see beyond the myth is like going full throttle in a mud race. It gets you nowhere and only makes a bigger mess.

[MindForgedManacle]

I can answer that from a Biblical perspective, but in a forum post, that would be circular reasoning, without listing full-blown evidence for the Bible's validity outside of itself.

If you actually had that - or if such evidence actually existed - we wouldn't need religious apologists to defend it against scientific, historical and philosophical issues.

I could answer it by trying to define God, but without understanding the validity of Scripture, there's really no foundation to do that with.

If you can define God, the only use the Bible is, is support that your view of God is somewhat like some parts of the Bible imply. And there is quite literally no way you could move from the Bible being right in the sparse areas it is, to therefore it portrays God correctly. Otherwise, you'd have to accept the Koran and become a Muslim, seeing as it and the prophet Mohammed are more historically evidenced than much of the Bible and Jesus.

Everything outside of my undocumented experiences that I could show you would come from Scripture, and since you haven't experienced my life, anything I say there can be disregarded as relative...

That really is more or less an admission (as far as I can tell) that the evidence for God is personal experience and the Bible, both of which have major issues.

Except of course nature! But that can be refuted with scientific fact to describe every facet, as even Scripture tells us God works in processes.

It also shows that God working via miracles, and we don't see them.

And clearly, if God is real, then He would of made the systems of science that we use for discovery. If that is the case, then the Bible should not go against the laws of nature, but compliment them instead. In consideration of that, I would encourage you to do what every great scientist has done - take your theory (in this case, the Bible) and test it in the world around you.

Okay, no. If God exists and works through Nature, that wouldn't have made him create science. Science is a man-made enterprise of discovery and prediction about nature.

The Bible's descriptions of nature haven't done well. From claiming rabbits chew cud (they don't) to claiming the Earth is a disc and that the sky is a firmament (dome). Now, you can ad hoc explanations of those clear falsehoods, but all such 'explanations' that I've seen are insanely deceptive.

After all, faith - according to the Bible - is not a delusional emotional feeling, but a response to evidence. The evidence will be found by putting the Bible to the test when it says, if you do this, then this will happen. Take Jeremiah 29:13, for example.

You see, one can play that same game in the opposite direction. There is a bit in Hebrews that claims that faith is "hope in the things unseen". Not to mention verses which specifically say "Test not the Lord your God".

Actually, this is the exact way so many devout scientists became completely convinced of God's existence - by honest questioning, and putting everything to the test. Examples would include Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Faraday, and Bohr, to name a few.

Okay, no. Darwin is somewhat ambiguous, but it is known (from his own writings) that he became what I like to call a strict agnostic. Einstein - NO. Einstein was, at best, only akin to a pantheist and stated multiple times (when questioned) that he neither believed in a god, nor found belief in an interventionist deity interested in the trivial affairs of man or wanting of worship, to be anything more than childish.

One of the most terrible things someone could do is become a theist without thoroughly analyzing the evidence. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly common - I'd say at least 99.9% of theists. When a certain person asked Jesus what he had to do to make it to heaven, Jesus told him to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Not to mention accepting him as savior, otherwise they get Hell.

And if you don't want to do it? Well.. at least we know you weren't sincerely asking.

Complete bull. Why would debasing yourself before and praising God be of any importance to a perfect and eternal being?

EDIT: I actually sincerely don't understand why torture would be considered bad without God in the picture, so I ask again. Why is torture bad?

I was going to retort that if you don't understand why torture is bad, regardless if God exists, then you're bananas, but I'll go further. People tend to find harm done to another being as what is meant by 'bad'. Torture is harm done to another sentient being. So people tend to think torture is bad, even if it is deemed temporarily necessary to further some goal. And if God is to sentence non-true-Christians to infinite torture, then he's done the worst possible evil.

[Rahul]

EDIT: I actually sincerely don't understand why torture would be considered bad without God in the picture, so I ask again. Why is torture bad?

Torture is bad because we are social animals. And to inflict harm on another person usually is only done inter-tribally at least. Those who commit harm within their own tribe are usually gotten rid of as being a hinderance to their tribe.

Even soldiers naturally start to de-humanize those they fight against to override their natural instincts not to harm others.

As for torture, it's merely causing pain to another human for no good reason. Studies have shown that if you torture someone enough they will tell you anything they think you want to know, regardless if it is the truth or not. Just to make the pain stop.

It's no good for rehabilitation because it makes those tortured develop a burning hatred for everything to do with the torturer. Even those of his ethnic group. Any of them could fall victim to the revenge bred in the heart of the tortured.

But torturing humans twists the torturer as much as those he tortures. The person starts to de-value human life. Which makes them a danger to their own society.

It's bad because we naturally realize that a certain point has been breached and you are watching a monster going to work by inflicting pain for pain's sake.

[Bad Writer]

The best interrogators never use torture. The ones who get false or misleading information do use torture. Let's play "Let's spot the correlation"!

[Godscreated]

The Bible's descriptions of nature haven't done well. From claiming rabbits chew cud (they don't) to claiming the Earth is a disc and that the sky is a firmament (dome). Now, you can ad hoc explanations of those clear falsehoods, but all such 'explanations' that I've seen are insanely deceptive.

Yes a rabbit does chew the cud, not as a cow that regurgitates the cud, the rabbit passes the cud through then chews it. The disc and dome are your interpretation of what scripture describes.

Complete bull. Why would debasing yourself before and praising God be of any importance to a perfect and eternal being?

Scripture never calls for one to debase themselves before God, your interpretation, as far as praising Him that's one way Christians show their love for God.

[MindForgedManacle]

Yes a rabbit does chew the cud, not as a cow that regurgitates the cud, the rabbit passes the cud through then chews it. The disc and dome are your interpretation of what scripture describes.

Rabbits don't chew cud, only animals that pass food through multiple stomachs do so; rabbits just make motions like they do. And the Bible specifically states that the Earth is a disc and has a dome surrounding it (firmament), which was a common belief in the cultures in the area for millennia. Sure, you can just reinterpret the relevant passages because you already know them to be wrong, but there it is: the deception I mentioned.

Scripture never calls for one to debase themselves before God, your interpretation, as far as praising Him that's one way Christians show their love for God.

The Bible specifically says to submit yourself to God because of your wretched sinful plight. That's debasement.

God already knows who loves Him, so displaying that is pointless, and will only come off to others as a pointless excercise given his omniscience.

[Godscreated]

Does accepting the love of Jesus cost you anything at all? No. It doesn't and it never has.

UMMMM? NOT accepting the 'free gift' of the gospel would, according to christian myth, cost me an eternity in hell, which seems like a hefty price to me. It goes something like this.....

'Accept my free gift or burn in hell forever!"

Two children are playing on the playground. The first child says to the other, 'eat this candy I want to give you for free'. The second child says, 'what if I don't want the candy', to which the first child replies, 'If you don't accept my free candy I'll shove you in a dark hole forever'. That's not a gift. That's a threat.

I am now ready for you to make a special pleading for your (god), since it's the only 'argument' theists have, and an unfounded one to boot.

You really need to stop... You're (god) is killing me..

Maybe you should look at it like the scriptures actually teaches. A person's eternal destination is hell, one does not have to choose it, one needs only to go through life and never consider God. Yet God says I have a free gift that will save you from an eternal life you can not escape from without the gift.

[Locke]

I can answer that from a Biblical perspective, but in a forum post, that would be circular reasoning, without listing full-blown evidence for the Bible's validity outside of itself.

If you actually had that - or if such evidence actually existed - we wouldn't need religious apologists to defend it against scientific, historical and philosophical issues.

Well, you're right on one account; if the Bible is false, then it is not God's book to man, and should be exposed as a fake because its authors claimed to of spoken from God. On the other hand, if it is God's Word, it should be taken seriously indeed.. So let's get to the bottom of it. Considering the Bible was written thousands of years ago, we first need to be certain that modern Bibles are reliable copies of the originals, as significant changes to manuscripts would of caused the message to be distorted. If you've ever played the telephone game you know how quickly a message can be distorted.

For example, in the telephone game someone makes up a phrase. They pass it to the second person, who then passes it to the third, then the fourth, etc. and each time it becomes more distorted.
People have a similar view on the Bible, as if the English version was translated from another language, which was translated from another language, and another before that, and so on, so that the message is completely botched, going all the way back to when it could of been incorrectly copied from the original manuscripts. This idea is widespread, and misleading, as the English manuscripts were copied directly from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts, respectively.

Then there is the issue of differences in manuscripts. With almost 1200 chapters in the Bible, there are thousands of variants, despite copyists' painstaking efforts. Nearly all of these mistakes are spelling errors and variations of word order, such as 'Jesus Christ' as opposed to 'Christ Jesus', as well as instances with a missing word, such as "Jesus sat down began to teach". When such an error occurs during translation or analysis, the manuscript is compared against other, older manuscripts, and a decision is made about which is original. In over 98% of all cases, agreement among the scholars is total (that is, approximately 97% for the Old Testament, and 99.5% for the New Testament). With this in consideration, it is safe to say the Bible has suffered a very low level of deterioration, and not a single one of these variants has ever caused a difference in church doctrine, or in the Biblical message from the founding of the church until present day.

When the original manuscripts were produced, thousands of copies were made from them. These copies were then duplicated, producing what are called 'families' of manuscripts. Any copying errors would be confined to a particular manuscript's descendants until corrected later on my a scribe, making any variations easy to catch. The original manuscripts were used for making copies until they fell apart from use. If you care to know more on that, feel free to research textual criticism.

The Old Testament manuscripts we still have today predate Jesus by over 800 years, including the books containing prophesies of His coming, which, if you haven't read them, are weighty evidence in themselves considering the minute details of the prophesies.
The gap between events of the Bible and the times they were recorded is approximately 87% shorter than that of other ancient historical events, and there are still many original copies of the New Testament.
In addition to the manuscripts, there are tens of thousands of letters between the churches and other written documents from early Christians that include the entire Bible in and of themselves. There is more evidence on it if you care to look into it, but all of this is to say, the Bible has staggeringly greater amounts of historical evidence than any other ancient document (yes, the Koran included, contrary to popular and misguided belief.. but we can address other religions later).

Of course this is just touching on historical evidence of accurate manuscripts. If you're genuinely interested, we can continue looking at evidences.

---

Science is a man-made enterprise of discovery and prediction about nature.

More accurately, science is man discovering a system that is already in place. I understand you don't believe that, and will probably come back with the human ability to establish patterns, but along that same line it is equally arguable that God has programmed the neural networks of humans to evolve the ability to do so.. so let's try to keep this conversation free of logical debates - they will prove nothing for either argument as they are purely theoretical, and thus won't help us get to the truth of the matter.
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The Bible's descriptions of nature haven't done well. From claiming rabbits chew cud (they don't) to claiming the Earth is a disc and that the sky is a firmament (dome). Now, you can ad hoc explanations of those clear falsehoods, but all such 'explanations' that I've seen are insanely deceptive.

Yes, it has many such descriptions of nature. It also refers to sunrise and sunset, a term we still use even today.. though of course, we know the sun does not rise or set, but in fact we orbit the sun: The Bible is not meant to be a science textbook - it's meant to meet us where we are at, and for the people it was written to then, it did just that. Imagine if the Bible actually said, "The Lepus Curpaeums, though it practices refection, does not have a cloven hoof; it is unsanitary for consumption." You may have failed to mention that every law and regulation for food and cleanliness listed in the Old Testament was 100% on point with modern medicine and nutrition that they couldn't possibly of known.. but I digress.
I imagine in a thousand years, people will look back and laugh at our scientific textbooks, but the Bible was written in a way that the people of the time (whom it was written through) understood it and in a way that is wholly relevant even today. That's more than can be said for any other book its age, and in addition it can still be understood clearly. Try your luck reading some other religious texts. If I tried to use a calculus book to gain insight into relationships, my approach could be considered equally confused.
To sum up: Context
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You see, one can play that same game in the opposite direction. There is a bit in Hebrews that claims that faith is "hope in the things unseen". Not to mention verses which specifically say "Test not the Lord your God".

Yet when God makes a promise, He expects us to test Him and hold him to it:
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it." - Malachi 3:10,
"Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”" - Genesis 18:13-14,

Yes, "Faith is the confidence is what we hope for, the proof of what we cannot see." So in essence, faith is confidence. Humans gain confidence in what they do not see by tried principles.
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Okay, no. Darwin is somewhat ambiguous, but it is known (from his own writings) that he became what I like to call a strict agnostic. Einstein - NO. Einstein was, at best, only akin to a pantheist and stated multiple times (when questioned) that he neither believed in a god, nor found belief in an interventionist deity interested in the trivial affairs of man or wanting of worship, to be anything more than childish.

You're right, I was dead wrong about those two, I'm sorry.
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One of the most terrible things someone could do is become a theist without thoroughly analyzing the evidence. Unfortunately, it's exceedingly common - I'd say at least 99.9% of theists. When a certain person asked Jesus what he had to do to make it to heaven, Jesus told him to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind.

Not to mention accepting him as savior, otherwise they get Hell.

Accepting Him as savior.. you know, if all I had to do was say, "Okay, Jesus is the man." and carry on about my day, and if I didn't I got tormented forever? Yeah, that would be pretty dumb. In fact, that's kinda what I thought Christianity was when I was growing up - that's why I went Atheist for like 6 years.

[Esquilax]

Maybe you should look at it like the scriptures actually teaches. A person's eternal destination is hell, one does not have to choose it, one needs only to go through life and never consider God. Yet God says I have a free gift that will save you from an eternal life you can not escape from without the gift.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that you have no idea what the word "choice" actually means.

Also, please demonstrate that your interpretation of the scriptures is the correct one.