Genocide in the Old Testament

[max-greece]

John V,

My apologies - you are correct - I did misread your response.

Frankly - I am mystified by it. I chose Christian values to measure God by - the seven deadly sins are not my invention - they are of the church and, whilst not biblical, appear very early on in church history.

"The Bible claims that god is perfect. If this were not so, it wouldn't matter if you could identify imperfections."

And so we are proving that the Bible was wrong and God isn't perfect (which is rather the point).

" We can't identify imperfections without a definition of perfection. It's not really a shift of focus."

Er...nonsense? My car is making a funny noise - I do not need to know the exact combination of frequencies that come out of it normally to recognise that fact.

Arsenal's goalkeeper is not good at dealing with crosses.
Communism doesn't work.
The taxi is late.

All easily identifiable imperfections without any reference to perfection.

"No, you have asserted that we should use the seven deadly sins. I have not agreed that those are applicable to God. My position is that we should go to the Biblical claims of God's perfection and see what they are. Unfortunately for you, those claims are tautological: his ways are perfect. "

Well this is where you are obfuscating merely to cover your position. Any being claiming to be perfect can be measured against known or recognised imperfections. In this case we are using Christian ones - were we using mine we might have a different set. I chose the Christian ones deliberately to avoid this situation.

Surely you see that the above makes a mockery of your counter-argument which you yourself describe as tautology:

God's perfect because God's book says God's perfect.

[Ryantology]

It's not special pleading to apply concepts differently to different objects. It wouldn't be special pleading, for instance, to tell a 5-year-old that he shouldn't drink beer while I have a beer in my hand, because adults can presumably handle the effects of beer better than 5-year-olds.

If you tell a child that you will punish him if you see him hit a girl, and then turn around and beat up his mother? If you insist that the rules only apply to people not in authority, that's special pleading.

Whiskey tango... do any of you people pay attention to what I write? It seems that you're just arguing against the stereotype in your head. I have said repeatedly on this forum that no, I do not believe that there is such a thing as objective morality. It's no "admission," it's been my position all along.

My apologies.

[Cyberman]

They bombed Nagasaki when Japan failed to surrender the first time around to show they weren't joking they even had another one lined up for another city.

Nagasaki wasn't even meant to be a target. The list of possible targets originally drawn up was Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama and Kokura. Nagasaki was later added to the list, being a major sea port, but the high civilian population was a concern. Hiroshima was a major military and communications base, so it was an obvious choice for primary target. Also, it was felt that the mountains in the region might contain the blast and enhance the destruction. Kyoto was the seat of Emperor Hirohito's palace, so another obvious choice.

It was only because Secretary of War Henry Stimson had spent his honeymoon in Kyoto and argued that it would be a shame to destroy a beautiful city of such cultural importance, that the secondary target was changed. To Kokura, another military stronghold.

In the event, heavy cloud cover prevented the crew of B-29 Bockscar from dropping "Fat Man" on Kokura. A major worry was that their bomb was already armed on take-off; that, plus dwindling fuel reserves (dwindled even more by repeated bombing passes over the city) forced them to select a secondary target: Nagasaki.

The rest is history.

Source

[Captain Colostomy]

Secondly, if our argument is flawed due to imperfect understanding, why would your claim of having a valid point be worth entertaining? The imperfect understanding would also be yours.

Works for me. My point re: perfection is basically that it's a matter of opinion.

This makes little sense coming from a Christian, but little sense sounds about right.

[John V]

John V,

My apologies - you are correct - I did misread your response.

Frankly - I am mystified by it. I chose Christian values to measure God by - the seven deadly sins are not my invention - they are of the church and, whilst not biblical, appear very early on in church history.

As I've said to others, God is not bound by his rules for others. Take pride for instance. Pride isn't wrong in principle. It's generally wrong for humans because we're not worthy of it. It isn't wrong for god, as he is worthy of it.

Er...nonsense? My car is making a funny noise - I do not need to know the exact combination of frequencies that come out of it normally to recognise that fact.

Implication - a perfect car doesn't make funny noises.

Arsenal's goalkeeper is not good at dealing with crosses.

Implication - a perfect goal keeper is good at dealing with crosses.

All easily identifiable imperfections without any reference to perfection.

All imply a criterion of perfection.

Well this is where you are obfuscating merely to cover your position. Any being claiming to be perfect can be measured against known or recognised imperfections.

Known or recognized imperfections for that being. Slowness is an imperfection in a race horse, but not necessarily in a donkey.

In this case we are using Christian ones

And so they apply to Christians, or perhaps to humans in general.

Surely you see that the above makes a mockery of your counter-argument which you yourself describe as tautology:

God's perfect because God's book says God's perfect.

You can't make a mockery of a tautology. It just is what it is.

[Brian37]

"Works for me"

That is the most telling statement any theist of any religion can make. It is an unwitting admission that they have no evidence. If it actually worked in reality, the claimant could go to a patient office and the world would beat a path to their door.

How convenient that it works for the believer. Yet if others of other pet god claims used the same arguments they do, they would reject the same arguments they themselves make.

When you pull shit out of your ass of course it "works for me". Human concocted fantasies make for emotional placebos, but are horrible for understanding the nature of reality".

I hate to tell believers this, but there is no such thing as "perfection" or fictional utopias. There are simply people who want their fantasies to be true.

[John V]

If you tell a child that you will punish him if you see him hit a girl, and then turn around and beat up his mother?

No, more like, if you tell someone that they can't force someone else into handcuffs and imprison them, but the police and courts can.

If you insist that the rules only apply to people not in authority, that's special pleading.

No, it's recognition of two different classes, and that some rules apply differently to the two.

[max-greece]

John V,

My apologies - you are correct - I did misread your response.

Frankly - I am mystified by it. I chose Christian values to measure God by - the seven deadly sins are not my invention - they are of the church and, whilst not biblical, appear very early on in church history.

As I've said to others, God is not bound by his rules for others. Take pride for instance. Pride isn't wrong in principle. It's generally wrong for humans because we're not worthy of it. It isn't wrong for god, as he is worthy of it.

Er...nonsense? My car is making a funny noise - I do not need to know the exact combination of frequencies that come out of it normally to recognise that fact.

Implication - a perfect car doesn't make funny noises.

Arsenal's goalkeeper is not good at dealing with crosses.

Implication - a perfect goal keeper is good at dealing with crosses.

All easily identifiable imperfections without any reference to perfection.

All imply a criterion of perfection.

Well this is where you are obfuscating merely to cover your position. Any being claiming to be perfect can be measured against known or recognised imperfections.

Known or recognized imperfections for that being. Slowness is an imperfection in a race horse, but not necessarily in a donkey.

In this case we are using Christian ones

And so they apply to Christians, or perhaps to humans in general.

Surely you see that the above makes a mockery of your counter-argument which you yourself describe as tautology:

God's perfect because God's book says God's perfect.

You can't make a mockery of a tautology. It just is what it is.

Brilliant - we can therefore imply perfection without defining it - thank you.

So:

Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins.

Implication - a perfect being is not a jealous one.

Wrath is one of the seven deadly sins.

Implication - a perfect being does not suffer from wrath.

Maliciousness is a bad thing (we both agreed).

Implication - a perfect being cannot be malicious.
Etc. Etc.

Therefore God of the OT and NT is not perfect WHATEVER it says in his Bible.

[Cyberman]

If you insist that the rules only apply to people not in authority, that's special pleading.

No, it's recognition of two different classes, and that some rules apply differently to the two.

So biblical authority, or at least your espousing of it, hasn't even caught up to the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. I'd have liked to think we were a bit more enlightened than that as a species.

[John V]

Brilliant - we can therefore imply perfection without defining it - thank you.

So:

Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins.

Implication - a perfect being is not a jealous one.

<sigh> A perfect human is not a jealous one, and so on - although as already noted, the seven deadly sins are not a biblical concept, so I don't even know that this is correct.

---

So biblical authority, or at least your espousing of it, hasn't even caught up to the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. I'd have liked to think we were a bit more enlightened than that as a species.

Nothing like the smell of atheist desperation in the morning.