(December 17, 2015 at 9:27 pm)Lek Wrote:(December 17, 2015 at 5:32 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Nope sorry, tell me why I should value a game set up without my consent on a planet full of disease and natural disaster and crime and war, and expect to be thankful for a crappy home only to become an ass kisser for eternity or be tortured forever? If a parent in the west behaved in the same selective neglectful deadbeat manor helping 1 but not all their 3 kids, left them in a house full of broken glass, cockroaches , ecoli and stuck knives in their hands and the parent says "Last one standing gets to go to live in a giant mansion with me" that parent would be arrested or thrown in prison.
And who is we? You mean if others don't kiss the fictional ass of the sky wizard you claim is real? Yea, Muslims think their Allah will vanquish evil too and all those who support and defend him will get into their cosmic Candyland too. Yep your god character is wrathful, but not like Judge Judy, more like Genghis Khan. Justice isn't about revenge, it isn't like Luke Sky Walker vs Darh Vader. It isn't Superman vs Lex Luther. But from the begining of that bronze age comic book to the end of it, it reads exactly like a comic book super hero verses a super villain.
Why all the drama? If he is all powerful, and didn't have to allow for "sin" then who is to blame for setting up the game? If you want to worship a bloodthirsty sky tyrant whose end goal is to torture everyone who doesn't kiss his ass, you can, but I refuse. I refuse simply because no such character exists, but even as a work of fiction your head boss isn't the nice guy you want to paint him out to be. Just like Kim Jong Un is nice to those loyal to him, but step out of line, bye bye.
You've distorted the whole situation to the max, but you're free to believe what you want.
No I have not distorted a thing. Your problem is that you swallowed the book without skepticism so of course you don't read it objectively. Just like if you point out the nasty parts of the Koran a Muslim will jump all over you as well.
Now, instead of saying my short summery is a distortion because you don't like my book review, try understanding it like you would if you saw a bad movie or read a bad work of fiction.
From the start, as the book goes, the head character is an unmovable figure who does everything by himself and doesn't ask anyone for consent, he simply does it. In reality outside that book, the west has gotten away from the concept of kings and lords which are dictators. The royalty that still exists in Europe and Japan have been neutered to basically diplomat status.
Take your deity googles off. Back in all of antiquity even in polytheism the ruling class where at best puppet governments even in Rome. Some allowed more self governance but ultimately even a Cesar could override what the senate did. Even they moved up through family rule, by the death of those prior or the murder by a competitive family member.
The Egyptians also mistook their success as coming from the divine. So if you go back and read that bible without your beer goggles on, you do see the words like Kingdom and Lord and master. Because back then humans lived in very feudal times and there was no modern class pluralistic rule. Back then in most societies you had family rule, government class, which was upper class, and military class, the rest of society basically were the servants for the other three.
Now again, the head character is not the nice guy you interpret him as. I get that you like him and want to view him like that, but that character was mistaken as real, but he was not written like that for modern society, he is a reflection of the false perceptions of the people back then and their own desires. Just like you'd rightfully accept the Native American's spirit gods are a reflection of what their social norms were back when people made them up.
There is no way to paint the god of Abraham as objectively pluralistic. Being kind some of the time or to some people, and even trying to get out of the concept of hell through cherry picking still puts him in absolute power. In real life, our elected officials don't have absolute power. The god of the bible is not elected like a PM or President in the west. Now instead of seeing that as an insult go back and read the bible word for word and don't skip anything and don't try to justify clinging to that book, just simply read it like you had never picked it up before.
He is a dictator, there is simply no polite way to put it. That is what you call an immovable position.
