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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 1:13 pm
"No, as a believer I can simply say that his guidelines for man are not binding on himself."
Somewhere along the line there is a glaring miscommunication between theists and atheists on this point. I simply do not understand your position. Let me try to illustrate and maybe you can enlighten me:
With no rights to do so, speaking on behalf of atheists, my understanding of the theist position is that God is supposedly the perfect being. Something like Jesus being without sin but the part of God that isn't Jesus (as you can see I still don't get the trinity thing either - but lets not go there).
The acts of God described in the Bible are not those of a perfect being. This isn't a case of the rules he made don't apply to him - they (and more besides - we are aiming at perfection here) HAVE to apply to anything that claims to be perfect.
Your examples of how we treat lower orders of animals is fine for imperfect beings such as ourselves (although there are Buddhists that go out of their way to never kill or harm any living thing) but a perfect being should not be a lowly as we are. At the very least he should be able live up to the Buddhist ideal (if they can).
OT God is vengeful, proud, wrathful, vain, impulsive, malicious and a variety of other things besides (I know the last 2 aren't in the original list - but they are generally not considered signs of good character).
??????
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:07 pm
(September 17, 2013 at 11:52 am)John V Wrote: As noted in another post, there's a reason that the doctrine isn't explicitly stated.
It would be too easy to understand?
(September 17, 2013 at 11:52 am)John V Wrote: You don't seem to understand: if we don't have free will, then it's nonsensical to say we're suffering, or even to call us "we." A better analogy then an anthill would be a really complex novel.
Even a lizard can suffer. I'm not sure about ants. To deny the existence of suffering is to deny your own experience. If you can prove that suffering requires free will, you'll have proven free will. Get to work, I'm rooting for ya.
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:20 pm
(September 18, 2013 at 10:17 am)Zone Wrote: Cthulu now he's threatening.
Nah, really, I'm just misunderstood.
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Quote:and that my positions admittedly rest to a degree on faith
To a "degree?" Are you competing for Understatement of the Century?
You have nothing but delusions.
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm
(This post was last modified: September 18, 2013 at 2:26 pm by John V.)
@max:
Any claims made in the Bible regarding god being perfect are necessarily based on a Biblical understanding of perfection. Atheists, however, substitute their own definition of perfection. This is equivocation and/or a straw man.
(September 18, 2013 at 2:07 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Even a lizard can suffer. I'm not sure about ants. To deny the existence of suffering is to deny your own experience. Exactly...if all thoughts and actions are preprogrammed by god, there is no such thing as my "own experience."
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:27 pm
I agree that's a strawman.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:32 pm
(This post was last modified: September 18, 2013 at 2:34 pm by Mister Agenda.)
(September 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm)John V Wrote: (September 18, 2013 at 2:07 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Even a lizard can suffer. I'm not sure about ants. To deny the existence of suffering is to deny your own experience. Exactly...if all thoughts and actions are preprogrammed by god, there is no such thing as my "own experience."
That doesn't seem to follow. If I build a robot and it does exactly what I program it to do, the things that happen to it as a result are still happening to it. If it loses an arm, it loses an arm. If I program it to feel pain and it feels it, it is what is feeling pain.
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:41 pm
(September 18, 2013 at 2:32 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: That doesn't seem to follow. If I build a robot and it does exactly what I program it to do, the things that happen to it as a result are still happening to it. If it loses an arm, it loses an arm. If I program it to feel pain and it feels it, it is what is feeling pain. I disagree. In this scenario "Ouch that hurts" only goes through its mind because you determined before it was even created that "Ouch that hurts" would go through its mind at that point in time. It didn't happen "as a result" of anything beside your programming.
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Or emergent behaviour.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Genocide in the Old Testament
September 18, 2013 at 2:52 pm
(September 18, 2013 at 2:22 pm)John V Wrote: @max:
Any claaims made in the Bible regarding god being perfect are necessarily based on a Biblical understanding of perfection. Atheists, however, substitute their own definition of perfection. This is equivocation and/or a straw man.
What do you mean? There is no sliding scale of perfection. Either something is perfect, or it is not.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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