Four questions for Christians

[The Grand Nudger]

Gladly.
The Egyptians, unlike the Israelites, didn't die violently, and then went on to infinite joy. The thing about heaven is that it surpasses every other want or desire (as Christians believe).
So, potential problems of being dead are:
Pain in death, which was nonexistent.
Missing your parents, which infinite joy blots out.
Not getting to be a lawyer or a doctor or a pharaoh, which infinite joy blots out.
So, which one of these ambitions is so special, or which sorrow is so deep, that God couldn't possibly compensate for with spending eternity in his prescence.

God and lollipops. Irrelevant now for the same reason that it was irrelevant before. It doesn't matter what you imagine the egyptians to have done to the isrealis, this is an inadequate defense of the actions or justifications of your "god". As far as what you feel might be adequate compensation for such an immoral and illogical act, why would anyone want to associate themselves with such a creature as you've described? What joy could there be in the presence of such a horrid thing?

You can't calculate the equivalent of having lost a child. But, say you could, by observing pain sensors in the brain or something. A governmental law that says that identity theives should have their toes cut off just sounds unfair.

Seems like two trains of thought might have just hit head-on there, am I missing something? In any case, I agree - mutilation probably doesn;t have a place in our system of justice.

By reciprocating the actions of the Egyptians according to Egyptian law, it was impossible for the Egyptians to even imagine that they had been punished unfairly. God wanted them to know that they had been judged for what they did, and had not simply had slaves stolen from them or been attacked by a demon.

This has already been explained to you. It's still inadequate, for the same reason as before. Whether or not the egyptians felt they were "punished fairly" is irrelevant, and you would have no idea how they might have felt in any case.

To add a bit to your response above (to Nora) about atheists not "stepping up to the plate" with regards to god and evil. I don;t see why it would be required. You've done fantastically in that regard, or hadn't you realized? I've been chatting with you for what, two pages now...trying to suggest that your god is not as evil as -you- have described.

[Consilius]

fr0d0 is the one who talked about atheists not stepping up to the plate.
You previously claimed that God had been unfair to the Egyptians by punishing them for thought-crime. However, they had physically drowned babies just a while before and had physically refused to let the thousands of men and women they had physically enslaved go free.
Had I claimed that God was compensating for the death of the kids? I was too mild. Try rendering every potential cause for sorrow forgotten and absolutely meaningless (which it was already, since these kids would have had a future in a nation that disregarded human rights based on fear, but that's not the point).

[Tonus]

It is becomingi clear to me that moral relativism is every bit as real to Christians as it is to us. To a Christian (especially the Waldorfs and fraudos of the world) there is no such thing as a moral act or an immoral act; whether an action is good or evil depends entirely upon who is doing it.

I think the idea is that there are two standards. God's standard for himself, and his standard for mankind. They aren't the same: god is a magnificent and powerful being who is far beyond the comprehension of men. We don't think twice about swatting a fly, after all. It boils down to a might-makes-right argument.

To me, this indicates that there are no absolute or objective morals, at least for humanity. In the Bible, there was a time when it was moral to kill a man who performed physical labor on the Sabbath, or who killed another person accidentally. Today, a Christian would not consider those to be moral acts. God's acts are always moral because there is no one who could demand an accounting from him. A dust mite never asked me to explain myself to its satisfaction.

[Ryantology]

Secondly, we're making no exceptions for God. God hasn't been shown as a murderer. Genocide (death on a large scale) is no more exempt from justice than killing one person. Your claims are unfounded.

I can't convince you it's murder, if you are of the mindset that genocide is acceptable and righteous under certain circumstances. I couldn't convince a committed Nazi that the Holocaust was wrong. My argument runs into the wall of your obvious disregard for human life and willingness to justify atrocities. The Bible depicts a maniacally enraged God screaming for the blood of infants and children. This is not behavior most people would tolerate in any human being, no matter what the justification. So, it is nothing but a special exception for God.

Atheists here are dodging the responsibility for their claim that God is evil as revealed in the bible. Not one has stepped up to the mark, because the position is indefensible.

That's all a matter of perspective. In my view, you dodge the responsibility of defending the claim that God is good, when so many of his actions in the Bible can be compared 1-1, to actions considered intolerably evil by humans. The position that God is good and just is indefensible, and you never bother doing so. For you, it just is, and it's arbitrarily unquestionable.

I think the idea is that there are two standards. God's standard for himself, and his standard for mankind. They aren't the same: god is a magnificent and powerful being who is far beyond the comprehension of men. We don't think twice about swatting a fly, after all. It boils down to a might-makes-right argument.

To me, this indicates that there are no absolute or objective morals, at least for humanity. In the Bible, there was a time when it was moral to kill a man who performed physical labor on the Sabbath, or who killed another person accidentally. Today, a Christian would not consider those to be moral acts. God's acts are always moral because there is no one who could demand an accounting from him. A dust mite never asked me to explain myself to its satisfaction.

There absolutely should be two standards. The problem is, Christians hold humans to the higher standard, rather than God (note the frequency with which Christians compare God's actions to those of imperfect humans in order to justify them). Humans don't think twice about swatting a fly or cleansing a rug and killing millions of dust mites, but humans are incapable of comprehending and communicating with flies and dust mites. This is not a limitation God is said to have; he "knows our hearts". Flies and dust mites also present problems for humans, and we have no recourse to solve those problems that doesn't involve destroying them and depriving them of desirable environments, which also should not be a limitation for an omnicapable God.

One would imagine that, if we had God's powers and capabilities, along with a respect for life similar to what we currently possess (though of course, we should expect much better), we would consider it immoral to harm these insects, for we would be able to empathize with them fully and, if they presented a problem of any kind (or us to them), we could solve it fully to everybody's satisfaction.

[Minimalist]

But, as long as you are on that topic, where DID the Israelites come from and what were they doing during the time they allegedly lived in Egypt?

Archaeology indicates that the groups which LATER coalesced into the Israelites arose at the end of the Late Bronze Age ( c 1200 BCE) in the Eastern Hill Region of Canaan. There are two main ideas for where they came from. Either indigenous pastoral nomads who were forced to settle down after the Sea People onslaught destroyed their agricultural trading partners, or, refugees fleeing the coastal regions which were being attacked.

For the first concept - read Israel Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed." For the second, try William G. Dever's "Who Were The Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From." Both dismiss Exodus as later propaganda.

[fr0d0]

You can easily convince me Ryan. All you have to do is explain how genocide is always unjust. I haven't bothered looking at a dictionary but it could be there in black and white.
What that doesn't buy you, sadly, is yet another wild claim that the bible is supporting your outrageous suggestions.

So man = god in Ryan world.

That's nice. But there's the subject over there on another planet. The subject here if that God is a lot different to man.

Where does God act in any way less than perfectly morally? REMINDER: You haven't shown us yet!

[Tonus]

There absolutely should be two standards. The problem is, Christians hold humans to the higher standard, rather than God (note the frequency with which Christians compare God's actions to those of imperfect humans in order to justify them).

I think that they run into a problem when they claim that god personifies good. There are actions that would be considered good and actions that would be considered wicked. But where god is concerned it is not the action that determines morality, it is the identity of the person performing the action. Killing an infant would be wicked in the extreme... unless god does it, or orders it, in which case it has to be a good thing.

To present god as being capable of wicked acts is to make him capable of evil. And that makes it difficult (if not impossible) to love him for who he is. And then the offer of heaven and hell becomes a matter of coercion and not love. You wouldn't serve god because he deserves your love, you'd serve him because an eternity in heaven sounds a lot less painful than an eternity in hell. So god has to be good. And that leads to rationalizations and beliefs that I find difficult to reconcile.

[The Grand Nudger]

fr0d0 is the one who talked about atheists not stepping up to the plate.

Mea culpa, it all bleeds together.

You previously claimed that God had been unfair to the Egyptians by punishing them for thought-crime.

Whether or not you feel that thought-crime is a solid charge is your own business. I just wanted to make sure you understood that this was your defense.

However, they had physically drowned babies just a while before and had physically refused to let the thousands of men and women they had physically enslaved go free.

Still as inadequate as the first time you tried it, still the same reason. Help me help you, what is so difficult to understand about this?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I think so too (although I doubt anything will change for several years on that topic).

But I also think the get out of jail clause of being able to retrospectively exonerate oneself from past decision is a bit of a cop out for the RCC. It wasn't a false belief up until V2, then it was. Although as a pragmatist I do appreciate when an organiastion is able to change and adapt to the societal status quo, although I don't much like the idea of being a de facto catholic regardless of what I actually [dont] believe.

The belief was very real with the Pope and among Christians, but it wasn't officially and infallibly set in stone until Vatican II. The Pope himself is fallible as a person, and he can only learn the doctrine the others learn and make his best possible ruling on it. But there are times when the Church comes together and the Pope and the bishops try to get things straight.

Well, again, as a pragmatist, I appreciate all attempts an organisation makes to ensure that it fits in with societal norms and the evolving status quo.

But equally I think an organisation such as the RCC, which after claims to have authority on all messages/directions of the divine, is in a catch-22 with the the evolving of it structures. I guess one could split the structure between temporal and supernatural, and I guess it would also be fair to say that may would feel that the temporal message/structure changes whilst the divine message does not. People's first interaction with the church (as children, say) is always the temporal message and the authoritative structure that it puts in place. I'm an advocate that children are born with no knowledge of any deity (I use myself as evidence as I've never believed in any god or gods), so its the temporal structure that gets one into believing in the divine one (the same of course is true of the bible).

So my point I suppose is why believe in anything the church says if the message it puts forward can be diluted? Again, I think it's good that the position shifts on things like inclusivism (although I wouldn't like to be thought of a catholic if i'm honest), but equally, it inevitably leads to schism and splits (most famously through the reformation and the crisis of dissolution I guess) as people become hard advocates of one message over another. this inevitably leads to even the divine message being disagreed upon (again, the reformation).

I must ask though, how anyone could know what 'Christians' thought prior to V2 on the subject of inclusivism. I would say it's impossible to know prior to the event, really.

[fr0d0]

where god is concerned it is not the action that determines morality, it is the identity of the person performing the action. Killing an infant would be wicked in the extreme... unless god does it, or orders it, in which case it has to be a good thing.

What nonsense. The bible is written about a good god. It's reasoning for him entails goodness. To say that the bible is evidence of the opposite is to say that the authors wrote the opposite of what they understood. You seriously need to go find a credible source of evidence. Trying to retrofit your ignorance onto Judaism shows up the depth of your dishonesty.