RE: Four questions for Christians
June 25, 2013 at 11:51 pm
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2013 at 12:16 am by Consilius.)
(June 25, 2013 at 10:01 am)Tonus Wrote:Exodus 34:6—"The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandthe generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin."(June 24, 2013 at 6:22 pm)Consilius Wrote: You said people serve God out of fear and not love.I said that if god is considered capable of wicked acts, then he must be served out of fear and not love. To serve him out of love for him, he must be defined as good and as incapable of wickedness. Thus, any act that would ordinarily be deemed wicked must be rationalized as a good act.
Quote:There is nothing negative in these claims.I didn't say there was. But none of them explicitly claim that he personifies good or love. As you note, he is a product of the writers of his time, and thus a powerful, angry, vengeful, warlike god is simply par for the course.
Deuteronomy 4:31—"The Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abondon you nor destroy you."
Jeremiah 31:3—"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."
Psalms 34:8—"O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him."
(June 25, 2013 at 8:52 am)Rhythm Wrote:OK, I went back to your post where you talked about the thoughtcrime and the instance with the judge and the revenge.(June 24, 2013 at 11:46 pm)Consilius Wrote: Hmm…I couldn't find it. I guess that means you win.
Perhaps thats because you will have had to go back 6 fucking pages to see the point at which you went of the rails? You know what I think though? I think you did find it.
nevertheless, try post 27...or 55....or 59.....or 64.....or 67.....or 71
(after that point I lost interest in explaining such a simple concept, you're clearly invested in the argument, and I don't think that you care that its not a valid one.)
Frodo, would you like an explanation of why a logical fallacy is a poor defense for the actions of a god as well - or did you just feel that this was an opportunity for your standard lolpost?
Let's do this.
You can't defend the Egyptians by saying that their only offense was thoughtrime because they had, in a very real and material sense, kept the Israelites from crossing Egypt's borders. During those ten plagues, the Israelites were still forced to bake bricks from mud under their Egyptian slavers.
And yes, an Egyptian judge in 2000 B.C. would kill my kid if I killed someone else's. This would be the punishment I would expect, and I would have absolutely no reason to even think that it was arbitrary in any way. Why should God use laws that just so happen to come from 21st century Europe? It would seem great to you, but terribly unjust to the Egyptian people.
Vengeance can only be taken for offenses done. The defensive party takes revenge on the offensive party for what it has done to the defensive party. Revenge is only fair when the defensive party reciprocates exactly what was done to it by the offensive party. The Israelites had their right to take revenge on the Egyptians, but, instead, their God did it for them, and justly. That is why God is described as vengeful in the OT.
The offensive party has every reason to expect the exact actions they took from the defensive party, no matter how it feels to the offensive party in relation to how it felt to the defensive party. So, if the offensive party spends 80 years killing the children of the defensive party, they should expect the defensive party to slaughter their children for another eighty years. The need for direct revenge is eliminated by a third party, or a judge. This judge takes revenge on the behalf of the third party without having been offended. This leaves no reason for the offensive party (Egypt) to retaliate the offenses done to it by the judge (God) who is, rather, standing up for the defensive party (Israel).