(April 21, 2016 at 7:08 am)SteveII Wrote:(April 20, 2016 at 6:35 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: I understand the point you are making, Steve. Actually, you've taken the thread off on a tangent, and perhaps that is my fault for including the part about Hypatia's gruesome murder. My purpose in including the story itself was to show how fragile Christians and the bible make god's glory seem. Why do humans have to dumb down to avoid taking glory from god? Why does god require so much praise and worship?
Even when I was a Christian, I did not understand this. In my view, if I shone as bright as a million suns at mid day on the summer solstice, I could in no wise diminish the glory of the one who supposedly created the sun. I even heard one Christian speaker say that all this emphasis on god's glory is more about what's good for the Christian music industry than what god requires.
That is not what you said. From the OP:
Quote:It drives you to violent jealousy to see your creation going about their business, carrying on their lives with no thought of you, while you have no other business than to watch them and worry about what they do. If they don’t remind you of how wonderful you are, you might forget or even doubt it. So you need praise, incessant and passionate from all your creatures. Everything they do must be done for your glory, and yours alone. You go into a hissy fit if anyone else gets any attention.
Wouldn’t you just loathe somebody like Hypatia? Wouldn’t you love it when your faithful grasshoppers are eager to kill to protect your glory—your fragile, precarious glory?
So wherever you get your data to draw your conclusions about the nature/character of God, it is not correct. If you want to know more about praising God, start here: https://www.guideposts.org/faith-in-dail...-of-praise
How is what I said in this post different from what I said in the op? Are you saying that the church and the bible itself do not present god as a violently jealous deity who craves praise and worship? You have left yourself with the task of convincing the majority of readers that they don’t know what they were reading.
”1 Corinthians 1:19 NIV” Wrote:For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
An appeal to the context does not change the meaning of this verse.
In the 24th chapter of 2 Samuel god got angry and killed 70,000 men because David held a census to see how many fighting men they had. Christian apologist explain that the reason god was angry was because by holding the census, David betrayed a lack of faith in god. In other words god wanted the glory for himself and not for the number of men David had.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.