Why Did Uzzah Die For Touching the Ark?

[Redbeard The Pink]

You married? Have kids? What happens to discipline in your house when you tell your son, "Don't pull the dog's tail", and he ignores you? He might get bitten or he might learn that dad is a wimp and there are no consequences for disobedience. So what happens later when he is playing ball in the yard and chases that ball into the street and you yell "Stop!" because a car is coming but he ignores his wimpy dad?

God says, "Don't touch the ark." Uzzah touches it. What do the Israelites learn from that? That God's rules can be broken? What happens when later God gives them some important life-and-death instructions, and they decide to ignore Him again? Lots more than one person might have died.

Remember that false equivocation thing we talked about earlier? Well, in case you wanted an example of how to refute an argument based on it, here it comes:


Your argument here draws a false equivalency between telling a child not to do something dangerous and god telling Uzzah not to touch the ark. The ark was not a hot stove or a biting dog. It was just something god liked a lot.


To answer your example, if my kid were doing or about to do something dangerous, I would warn him not to. What I would do if he ignored me would depend on the level of danger. If the danger were mortal (like getting hit by a car), I would act to snatch him out of danger and then punish him to teach him a lesson. If not, I might let him learn the lesson by experiencing the pain of his actions, which would teach him that pulling a dog's tail hurts both him and the dog, and that dad knows what he's talking about if he says something will hurt. Whether he actually learns those things from it is mostly up to him, but hurting an animal (especially my animal) would be a pretty severe offense in my house, so if the dog didn't teach him the lesson, I certainly fucking would.


This example isn't a good equivalent to the situation in question, though. Here's one that is:


Let's say I have something important to me that I don't want fucked with; for the sake if the hypothetical, we'll say it's an urn with my grandmother's ashes in it. Let's say I consider this urn sacred, and have instructed my kids not to touch it (not for their safety necessarily, but mostly because it's my thing and I don't want them touching or breaking it.)


Now let's say one day we're moving a new table in, and the dog runs past and bumps the table with the urn on it, sending it teetering toward the edge of the table, potentially (but maybe not necessarily) about to fall and break. Because my son is the only one within reach and he knows that the urn us precious to me, he makes the split-second decision to reach out and catch it instead of following my order to not touch it, saving the urn from damage in the process.


What would I do in this situation? Weeell...if I were the kind of parent Jehovah seems to be, I would get angry, draw my gun from my coat, and blow that little fucker's head off without mercy or hesitation to teach his siblings that I MUST NOT BE DISOBEYED on pain of death.


I'd like to think that I'd be a better parent than that prick, though. I would probably thank my son for saving the urn, praise his critical thinking skills for realizing that the exact wording of my rules takes a back seat to their intended purpose, and apologize to him for valuing grandma's ashes so highly in the first place when I have a family who loves me enough to risk my wrath in attempts to save something I clearly care about.


So yeah...your sky-man is a hateful prick and a horrible father. He even killed his own kid to free the mean neighborhood kids from accountability (which doesn't even make sense). If he were a human and treated his kids the way he supposedly treats us, social services would fuck him in the ass for years, and they certainly wouldn't let him see his kids again.


And yeah, I'm married. No kids, though. Fuck that shit.

[Minimalist]

Wasting your breath with that asshole, Red.

[Crossless2.0]

It's really quite simple. If you are part of the Priestly class and are power hungry and wish to preserve your status and perks, how do you go about it? Well, a spooky story about the bad things that can happen if people don't act precisely as you tell them they must is a good bet, especially in a superstitious and gullible culture.

Fuckin' duh!

[Minimalist]

Exactly.  We have a winner.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Wasting your breath with that asshole, Red.

In my view, rhetoric isn't usually for the person it's directed at, but the spectators. I also don't really take any of this too seriously. I'm mostly here because I enjoy crushing apologists under the weight of their own bibles. It's legitimately entertaining to me. I think the reason I relish attacking theism so much is that I spent so long getting rooked into believing it.

Anyway, if my posts look like I'm getting red in the face from frustration, it's actually more excitement, passion, and amusement that's coming across. Nothing like taking a hammer to a bunch of stained glass.

[tonechaser77]

It's really quite simple.  If you are part of the Priestly class and are power hungry and wish to preserve your status and perks, how do you go about it?  Well, a spooky story about the bad things that can happen if people don't act precisely as you tell them they must is a good bet, especially in a superstitious and gullible culture.

Fuckin' duh!

Bingo! Wow...only took 15 pages to pull that one out.

[Nope]

There were very specific rules about touching and handling the ark, and the handling described here was apparently out of line with that.


The moral of the story? Good does not care about anything but absolute obedience. Even if your response is a reflex reaction that bypasses critical thought by nature of how he designed it, even if your response comes from a good place and is even a noble deed...doesn't matter. You disobey, you die. No second chances, special cases, or mercy.


What a loving god.

You married? Have kids? What happens to discipline in your house when you tell your son, "Don't pull the dog's tail", and he ignores you? He might get bitten or he might learn that dad is a wimp and there are no consequences for disobedience. So what happens later when he is playing ball in the yard and chases that ball into the street and you yell "Stop!" because a car is coming but he ignores his wimpy dad?

God says, "Don't touch the ark." Uzzah touches it. What do the Israelites learn from that? That God's rules can be broken? What happens when later God gives them some important life-and-death instructions, and they decide to ignore Him again? Lots more than one person might have died.

In order for the comparison to work, you would have to only talk to one of your children. That child would tell the other children your instructions. When one child obeys an order from the child you put in charge, you KILL the child that broke the rule A parent would have to be both mentally and physically abusive to compare to bible god's treatment of Uzzah.

[Randy Carson]

Now let's say one day we're moving a new table in, and the dog runs past and bumps the table with the urn on it, sending it teetering toward the edge of the table, potentially (but maybe not necessarily) about to fall and break. Because my son is the only one within reach and he knows that the urn us precious to me, he makes the split-second decision to reach out and catch it instead of following my order to not touch it, saving the urn from damage in the process.

Because you are finite and not able to prevent the permanent damage to the urn or the mess that would be created if it shattered, it would seem really great to you that your son caught the urn.

What would I do in this situation? Weeell...if I were the kind of parent Jehovah seems to be, I would get angry, draw my gun from my coat, and blow that little fucker's head off without mercy or hesitation to teach his siblings that I MUST NOT BE DISOBEYED on pain of death.

If you had a couple of million people whose very lives might well depend on how closely they obeyed you, then you very well might. And if you were an infinite being, you MIGHT be in a position to bring that child into an eternal state of bliss after he died.

I'd like to think that I'd be a better parent than that prick, though. I would probably thank my son for saving the urn, praise his critical thinking skills for realizing that the exact wording of my rules takes a back seat to their intended purpose, and apologize to him for valuing grandma's ashes so highly in the first place when I have a family who loves me enough to risk my wrath in attempts to save something I clearly care about.

As a finite being who did not have a GREATER purpose in mind for the clear instructions issued to his children, you would be correct.

So yeah...your sky-man is a hateful prick and a horrible father. He even killed his own kid to free the mean neighborhood kids from accountability (which doesn't even make sense). If he were a human and treated his kids the way he supposedly treats us, social services would fuck him in the ass for years, and they certainly wouldn't let him see his kids again.

And yeah, I'm married. No kids, though. Fuck that shit.[/color]

Do you talk like this all the time? Or only online when speaking to Christians?

[Randy Carson]

In my view, rhetoric isn't usually for the person it's directed at, but the spectators. I also don't really take any of this too seriously. I'm mostly here because I enjoy crushing apologists under the weight of their own bibles. It's legitimately entertaining to me. I think the reason I relish attacking theism so much is that I spent so long getting rooked into believing it.

Dude, you have absolutely met your match in me. You cannot possibly "crush" this apologist under the weight of my bible. And I enjoy the game just as much as you do...though I play for different reasons.

Anyway, if my posts look like I'm getting red in the face from frustration, it's actually more excitement, passion, and amusement that's coming across. Nothing like taking a hammer to a bunch of stained glass.

As long as you are reasonably polite (I'll make some concessions due to your youth and your atheism) and making decent arguments, we can hit the ball back and forth a few times to see how it goes. If not, you can take that hammer and go pound sand for all I care.

[Crossless2.0]

The Black Knight was undefeated too.

Just ask him.