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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: God the pathological killer?
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I have just got done reading Jesus Against Christianity by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. N-P is on the far liberal wing of anything that could conceivably be called Christianity--much more liberal than I, but one point of his really troubled and stuck with me.
A major part of his thesis is that most of the Bible portrays God as a pathological killer. He points out the numerous instances of God's violent vengeance or threats thereof--whether directly against the pagan nations such as in Egypt's plagues, whether against rebellious Israel, or whether authorized by God for Israel to carry out against pagansm, like the conquest of Canaan. He suggests that to write these off as "one aspect" of God's character totally misrepresents the situation: this is the overwhelming aspect of God's character that is presented more than all the rest, although it is neatly excised from much Chrisitan liturgy and sermonizing, and is downplayed for children's consumption in stories like the Flood.
Now this has ALWAYS bothered me. I can remember times when the adult Bible study group at church was studying Judges, or on another occasion 1 & 2 Kings, when I literally could not attend because even trying to read and discuss these horrifically bloodthirsty passages was just too difficult for me. But all I've ever heard from fellow conservatives were rationalizations and explanations that generally fell under the "well, it's a mystery" heading.
Nelson-Pallmeyer sums it up thus: "Either God is a pathological killer because the Bible says so, or else the Bible is wrong about God." He opts for the latter conclusion, observing, as have many others both liberal and conservative, that this bloodthirsty deity bears little or no resemblance to Jesus who apparently came to reveal what God is like. Of course it's fairly easy for an extreme liberal like N-P to just write off major portions of Scripture as distortions of God's character. I'm not an extreme literalist but I do take the Bible more seriously as God's inspired word, and I have to admit that I can't figure out why, even if we concede that these are not God's literal exact words, God would want "His Word" to contain such blatant character assassination of Himself--unless those stories really DO reflect what God is like? (Petulant, vengeful, spiteful, bloodthirsty, etc etc).
So, what do you think? Is God a pathological killer because the Bible tells us so? Is the Bible wrong about God? Or would you argue for another position? Do you think the Bible (specifically the OT, though not entirely) doesn't, in fact, portray God as a pathological killer?? Or do you think that it must be OK for God to be a pathological killer because God can do anything God wants?
This really bothers me...would love to hear other people's opinions on it.
[ 08. January 2006, 21:59: Message edited by: Erin ]
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
No, you're right. The OT particularly does often portray a morally reprehensible God.
And your author is correct that this stands in contrast to the way Jesus revealed God - for example, when the disciples want to bring fire from heaven on the unbelieving towns, and Jesus rebukes them, saying "you don't know what spirit you belong to". I read this as clearly meaning "you've got it completely wrong what God is about".
There are those who will tell you that it's just our modern liberal consciences that are offended by these things, but personally I rather think it's right that we be offended by, for example, the wholesale genocide of Jericho.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Bothered me since I was a small child, actually. My real name is Deborah, and I was named for the one that fought the battle in the book of Judges. Every year on my birthday the story was read to me, until around the age of 9 I revolted.
I found it fascinating how the kids reacted when I was teaching the story of Moses in Sunday School. When we got to God's order that the Canaanites should be slaughtered, one of the older boys, aged 12, said, "But that would be like God telling the British that they were to slaughter all the Maori when they came to New Zealand." And we had a great discussion about colonialism and God's part in it, particularly since God tells Moses that there will be trouble later if Moses doesn't commit genocide.
Funnily, The Prince of Egypt doesn't deal with that bit!
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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FatMac
Ship's Macintosh
# 2914
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Posted
My approach is to see the Bible as a progressive account of how Israel has struggled with learning about and understanding God and God's nature. God takes them only step by step and the genocidal stories in the OT are the early steps - where purity is seen as important but love for one's enemies is not yet in sight.
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Do not beware the slippery slope - it is where faith resides.
Do not avoid the grey areas - they are where God works.
Posts: 1706 | From: Sydney | Registered: Jun 2002
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you):
this is the overwhelming aspect of God's character that is presented more than all the rest, although it is neatly excised from much Chrisitan liturgy and sermonizing, and is downplayed for children's consumption in stories like the Flood.
With all due resepect, maybe in your Christian liturgy.
I don't even find the mass murders the most disturbing parts of the Bible. quote:
"Your brother came deceitfully and has taken away your blessing." Gen 27:35 for example.
God redeems suffering. Denying suffering or those parts where it is found in the Bible would deny God's redemption of suffering. From my Christian liturgy we learn that suffering isn't ipso facto bad, God has redeemed it and so suffering can be redemptive.
P.S. I bet you would find a correlation between those who object to "God, the pathological killer", and those who object to "The Passion of the Christ".
[ 22. March 2004, 21:38: Message edited by: Ley Druid ]
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Freehand
The sound of one hand clapping
# 144
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Posted
Yes, I think that the Bible presents a terrifying image of God. It's easier to stick to the nice passages. I cannot reconcile a God of love with the God of the Bible without making a myriad of arbitrary interpretive choices, i.e. assume that God is love, therefore chuck out verses (even books) XYZ.
Here's a scary thought. What if God really is the genocidal God? It makes it easy to answer the problem of evil. The world is the natural consequence of an emotionaly dysfunctional God that is trying really hard but has botched the whole thing up. This, I think, is easier to reconcile with scripture than the truly loving God.
Freehand ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
Posts: 673 | Registered: May 2001
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
This is one of the reasons that I am comfortable IMO with the bible being a series of writings that tells a story about God through human eyes, rather than a story literally penned by the hand of God through glovepuppet disciples (thanks Wood).
If God told those stories about itself, god is a really big asshole.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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frensic2003
Apprentice
# 5667
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Posted
This is not the most coherent response in the world because, put quite simply, I have not ever bothered to fully reason this puzzle out. But somewhere in the back of my mind I think I have always thought/felt the following:
The God of the OT was rather a parochial one - ie., He was the God of the Jews and therefore particularly interested in their welfare. Some OT characters showed a glimmer of the faith that was to be fully realised in Jesus later on, and they are the heroes of that book. But they are the ones generally considered peace-loving...
Jesus revealed something greater than that parochial, local God. He revealed a loving, forgiving God.
Now, whether this means that in the dim, dark corner of my mind where this 'theory' has been loitering, God has undergone some kind of mutation between the OT and NT, I don't know. It might be that Jesus managed to show his Father that He was something greater, but this would be difficult to square away with the idea of Jesus having a 'mission'.
However, my final thought is this: the OT is not the exact and literal word of God. It is open to interpretation, being, as it is, the work of a number of minds. Jesus came along to show that God was greater than the OT vision of a war-mongering tyrant and in doing so enabled that God to be embraced by anybody, rather than just Jews. In other words, were it not for Jesus, only Jews would still worship Jahew of the OT - what would be the point of the rest of us worshipping a deity who cared not a jot for us and who, indeed, might smite us for being of the wrong lineage?
Damian.
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If God exists, everything is still permitted - but might not be such a good idea.
Posts: 23 | From: Earth | Registered: Mar 2004
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by frensic2003:
However, my final thought is this: the OT is not the exact and literal word of God. It is open to interpretation, being, as it is, the work of a number of minds. Jesus came along to show that God was greater than the OT vision of a war-mongering tyrant and in doing so enabled that God to be embraced by anybody, rather than just Jews. In other words, were it not for Jesus, only Jews would still worship Jahew of the OT - what would be the point of the rest of us worshipping a deity who cared not a jot for us and who, indeed, might smite us for being of the wrong lineage?
If the OT is not the exact and literal word of God, then how is the NT? Isn't the NT the work of men as well?
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
I think MSG is the closest to the heart of this conundrum. The Bible was, of course, put together by human beings who told of how they saw their God acting in their lives. And, if you think of their lives, it was a violent world (as is our times) where ther were other gods who supposedly fought and acted in behalf of their followers. Could the Hebrews have any less potent a God? Also there is a body of scholars who believe that the Hebrews never did come from Egypt and conquer the land of Caanan but were actually nomadic tribes who gradually assimilated the Caananites and incorporated some aspects of that relgion into the formation of a Yahwistic monotheism. If this is true we can regard the stories of bloodbaths by or for God to be heroic myths. This is not to deny that there is truth inside those stories as in all myths. It is still a true revelation of God as men came to see God.
The NT is another step along the progressive revelation. We do have historical evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified but, other than that, we must take the rest of the story on faith. The test for that faith is whether it is pragmatically true in our lives regardless of questions or contradictions. In this regard we are in much the same position as the Hebrews who formed the OT.
But we have a faith that promises that eventually we will know as fully even as we are known.
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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hermit
Shipmate
# 1803
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Posted
Christians noted the apparent difference between the OT and the NT God long ago, some of the Gnostic Christians came up with the idea that the god of this world and the OT was indeed evil or petty or spiteful, and that Jesus was sent by a higher level more universal god. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
I've always shied away from the OT because of the reasons stated above, but there doesn't seem to be any question that Jesus affirmed the Torah and the Prophets. I don't remember him commenting on the validity of the other books contained in our OT.
I don't know why you would use modern academic liberal standards to call God a nasty name like "pathological". I understand though that most people here don't believe He is pathological, but that the OT is mainly legendary or mythical, and that God is all sweetness and joy.
Since I believe Jesus was God incarnate, and that the record of his teachings in the NT is accurate (not necessarily perfect), I have little choice but to accept the record of genocide etc as likely accurate and from God. But I'm not sure what the problem with that is, other than emotional distaste on first reading it.
It's perfectly accurate to call God a killer ... He kills everyone who doesn't commit suicide or get murdered, doesn't He? He gives us all life on this planet, and then takes it away ... often with much more suffering involved than a relatively quick genocide. He owns our lives and has the right to make judgments individually and on tribes or nations.
My goodness, think of violence inherent in this particular Creation, don't shy away from it ... what's involved in simply living? We have to kill and eat other living creatures that we have dominion over! We also killed God, who gave us his flesh and blood to eat and drink. And He shall kill us and perhaps in some sense eat and drink our souls! And apparently that will be a very good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.
The rules for human/human interaction aren't the same as the rules for God/human interaction. And He made the game, so He gets to choose the rules.
All the saints have said there was value in suffering, so maybe we should believe them.
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"You called out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness... You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain that peace which was yours." Confessions, St Augustine
Posts: 812 | From: Seattle | Registered: Nov 2001
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Sean D
Cheery barman
# 2271
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Posted
I think there can be quite a lot of scope for explaining this with the idea of progressive revelation, which Linzc alluded to.
A couple of people have objected to this on the grounds that if one accepts Scripture to reveal God, how can we think that the OT does not reveal God if the NT does?
If you polarise it this much, you are left to choose between the twin errors of Gnosticism (OT=different God) and actually believing in a God who commits and commands genocide, the torture of women and so on.
The problems this raises is down to the fact that in a good and right desire to uphold the idea that Scripture reveals God to us, some people make out that God must therefore be equally revealed in every single tiny passage of Scripture.
But surely it makes much more sense to regard God as being revealed by the whole of Scripture. So the Bible as a whole reveals the whole of God in Jesus. But Jesus is not mentioned in 1 Kings, or in Haggai for example. Therefore there is some kind of progressive revelation. God is not disclosed as Trinity until the Incarnation, for example.
So, we can use the revelation of God in Jesus (which we only have through Scripture in the first place, of course) to see that the OT does not fully reveal God. This is NOT using modern, liberal ideas about God to critique the Bible, but acknowledging that God's revelation of himself doesn't happen all at once (otherwise we'd get the Incarnation right at the beginning)!
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postpostevangelical
http://www.stmellitus.org/
Posts: 2126 | From: North and South Kensington | Registered: Feb 2002
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
quote:
So, we can use the revelation of God in Jesus (which we only have through Scripture in the first place, of course) to see that the OT does not fully reveal God. This is NOT using modern, liberal ideas about God to critique the Bible, but acknowledging that God's revelation of himself doesn't happen all at once (otherwise we'd get the Incarnation right at the beginning)!
Maybe it's not so much that God's revelation of Himself doesn't happen all at once, at the beginning, as much as that the world view of the writers was such that they didn't have the means of assimilating, or even seeing, the revelation that was there. To Joshua (he comes in for such a lot of stick!) all gods were tribal war-gods. There is no way he could have conceived of the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It was out of that paradigm that he "wrote" and acted. Now doesn't that change the lesson of the genocide stories for us today! Are there any areas in which we are similarly blind?
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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English Ploughboy.
Ship's tiller
# 4205
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Posted
I think separating the angry wrathful God of the old testament from the kind loving and forgiving God of the new is a gross misrepresentation. We cannot escape from the fact that:'Rom 1 v18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.' Surely this is Pauls central thesis and he spends the remaining chapters explaining what God has done to get us out of this particular mess. I think any theology which seeks to minimise the wrath of God ends up trivialising the immensity of his love and compassion to us human beings, and the cosmic importance of His death and ressurection.
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Christmas: celebration of un-created love let loose upon a needy world,
Posts: 386 | From: Sussex and Rwanda | Registered: Mar 2003
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frensic2003
Apprentice
# 5667
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Posted
quote:
If the OT is not the exact and literal word of God, then how is the NT? Isn't the NT the work of men as well?
I never said it wasn't. Indeed, I would say the same for the NT - it is only the work of a number of minds. But the difference (which to my mind and personal faith is crucial) between them is that the NT has Jesus in it, and it is through His teaching that we learn of this 'greater' God. In other words, God is for everybody in the NT - and for us as non-Jewish Christians, that must be fundamental.
Damian.
[fixed UBB for quote]
[ 23. March 2004, 10:35: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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If God exists, everything is still permitted - but might not be such a good idea.
Posts: 23 | From: Earth | Registered: Mar 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
I think separating the angry wrathful God of the old testament from the kind loving and forgiving God of the new is a gross misrepresentation. We cannot escape from the fact that:'Rom 1 v18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.'
You also can't escape the numerous examples in the OT of a God who isn't the "angry wrathful God". For example, as I mentioned on the Biblical Inerrancy thread in Dead Horses, we have a story of God looking at a sinful city and instead of destroying it (like he did Sodom and Gomorrah or some cities in Canaan) decides to send a prophet to call them to repentance and show mercy on them. In this case, the prophet felt this was a very bad idea and God really should do the angry wrathful thing, so took a boat the other way only to run into a big fish.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by frensic2003:
I never said it wasn't. Indeed, I would say the same for the NT - it is only the work of a number of minds. But the difference (which to my mind and personal faith is crucial) between them is that the NT has Jesus in it, and it is through His teaching that we learn of this 'greater' God. In other words, God is for everybody in the NT - and for us as non-Jewish Christians, that must be fundamental.
Damian.
Although as Alan Cresswell rightly pointed out on the inerrancy thread, God's rejection and wrath at some people in the OT was clearly not just because they were not Jewish - in fact I think this is the point of the book of Jonah and that of Ruth.
I believe God is just. He shows his justice at the cross. I don't believe he acts unjustly. Its as simple as that for me really.
I think the question of whether this permits genocide today "in the name of the Lord" only crops up if you don't believe God ordered it. Of course something God said to Joshua then cannot be applied to us directly now. And we believe God has spoken definitively and finally about how his people today are about to behave towards the world in the NT.
But if you take it as just the behaviour of God's people, then there is no reason to assume that it shouldn't be the behaviour of God's people today.
My own view is that this is a paradigm - not of how God's people should react to the world today, but of the judgement God will bring to his enemies through Jesus (Joshua clearly being a Christ prototype). If you read it as such there is no problem harmonising it with the Jesus of the apostolic message who will, on the last day, judge every man woman and child, absolutely justly.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Sean D
Cheery barman
# 2271
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Posted
English Ploughboy:
I am in total agreement that God's anger against sin must be real in order for his love to be real. If the evil and injustice to which we subject one another don't mightily tick God off then he's hardly abounding in compassion.
But it doesn't necessarily follow that he commanded genocide to be committed - rather, that would seem to lump him in with those who he is angry with, rather than set him above and apart and thus able to lovingly judge and justly love.
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postpostevangelical
http://www.stmellitus.org/
Posts: 2126 | From: North and South Kensington | Registered: Feb 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Joshua a Jesus figure?
Where does Jesus kill thousands of innocent along with the guilty? Where, indeed, does Jesus kill anyone at all? What is His reaction every time?
"You do not know the spirit you belong to"
"Forgive them Father"
"Put your sword back in its place. For those who live by the sword will die by it"
Ploughboy - it's not the wrath of God I find so offensive in the genocide passages. It's the wholesale slaughter of the innocent along with the guilty - even babies and young children - are they really rightful objects of the wrath of God? Not of any God worthy of allegiance, that's for sure.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Ploughboy - it's not the wrath of God I find so offensive in the genocide passages. It's the wholesale slaughter of the innocent along with the guilty - even babies and young children - are they really rightful objects of the wrath of God? Not of any God worthy of allegiance, that's for sure.
That is it PRECISELY, Karl. Well put. Actually even the slaughter (rather than reformation) of the guilty seems different from Jesus' approach...but the slaughter of the innocent is what makes this portrait of God so scary. And we get that in so many OT stories... put everyone in the city to the sword, leave no-one alive except the virgin women (presumably to be raped by Israelite soldiers, though to the Bible's credit it doesn't specifically prescribe that in any passage I'm aware of...but it's certainly implied). There are just waaayyyy too many such examples for it to be lumped together under the heading of "God's justice." In the NT God's wrath (as in the Romans passage quote earlier) seems to be against SIN rather than SINNERS, as evidenced by the fact that Romans also teaches that "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." In the OT God's wrath is directed against sin, sinners, the innocent children of sinners, people who happen to be standing next to sinners, etc etc etc.
BTW, to the person who wondered why I used the term "pathological," I was quoting Nelson-Pallmeyer there; it wasn't my choice of term. But as I look at some of these passages, it doesn't seem that far off.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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I_am_not_Job
Shipmate
# 3634
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Posted
Does anyone know how Jews interpret these passages? The conversations I've had with them have only been on Judaism and Christianity, so not on this specifically, but they're always stressing that there God is one of covenant and love and mercy and salvation will also come to the Gentiles (and hence there was no need for Jesus). Do they just accept this as part of God, or do they try to explain it away like we might?
Posts: 988 | From: London | Registered: Dec 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
It depends which Jews you ask, I imagine. A member of the progressive synagogue would probably reinterpret the passage as a metaphor for God's judgement on sin rather than a historical event. A member of an Orthodox synagogue would probably treat it as a historical event. A member of Gush Emunim (sp?) would probably see it as precedent for the current disputes in the Middle East.
Jews read and interpret texts in diverse ways, just like Christians do.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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GeordieDownSouth
Shipmate
# 4100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TrudyTrudy (I say unto you): <snip> In the OT God's wrath is directed against sin, sinners, the innocent children of sinners, people who happen to be standing next to sinners, etc etc etc.
<snip>
This is something I've been wondering about as well. It looks a bit like God deals with whole nations/tribes and their collective behaviour. So even if you're personally innocent, if your tribe isn't then you're just as stuffed.
Which i don't like the sound of it. But has made me think about where our identity lies. Not sure where to go with this though!
As an interesting aside to this, my girlfriend who studies theology mentioned to me that Jesus Parable about the sheep and the goats implies that it is whole nations who are separated out and judged, rather than individuals. Apparently this comes across stronger in the greek. I don't know if this is relevant!
[Sorted out quote.]
[ 23. March 2004, 15:34: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
Posts: 689 | From: Birmingham | Registered: Feb 2003
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English Ploughboy.
Ship's tiller
# 4205
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Posted
In a way God orders the death of every mortal in that he predetermines to some extent the date of their death. To order the death of a whole city summons the bad to destruction and the righteous to eternal life in his presence. The good do not have to mourn the loss of their beloved. This is very different from a human perspective on the event.
[ 23. March 2004, 12:56: Message edited by: English Ploughboy. ]
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Christmas: celebration of un-created love let loose upon a needy world,
Posts: 386 | From: Sussex and Rwanda | Registered: Mar 2003
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Jerry Boam
Shipmate
# 4551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
To order the death of a whole city summons the bad to destruction and the righteous to eternal life in his presence.
Almost exactly the same argument is put forth by Al Qaeda in their declarations that American cities must be attacked with nuclear weapons. Somehow I fail to see it this as morally acceptable argument. Take the logic a bit farther: why not just kill everyone right now? If all that piss against a wall, or all that breathe, or every man, woman and child were snuffed out in the next five minutes, wouldn't this just be an efficient way for God to bring the wicked to destruction and the good to eternal life in his presence? Would the good actually want to spend eternity in the presence of one who authored such horror?
quote:
The good do not have to mourn the loss of their beloved. This is very different from a human perspective on the event.
Do the good never count the wicked among their beloved? How wicked do the wicked have to be to make the cut? Doesn't God mourn the loss of the wicked and their failure to realize the potential good within themselves? Or are we taking the double predestination view--in which case I think the question of the sanity and justice of God is wide open (I do not believe this).
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If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you.
Posts: 2165 | From: Miskatonic University | Registered: May 2003
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
Man, oh man. We don't really know do we? I dunno about you, but I haven't really got the foggiest whether God sanctioned indiscriminate killings or not - how are we supposed to know?! Just because it's written in the Bible?
Ah, I guess that's faith.
And could someone explain to me what wrath is and why God seems to have so much of it?! We're bad, yeah, but God gets to judge us in the end, so why does he need to lay into us now, particularly as He always planned to send Jesus Christ to save us, to bring us into a deep communion with Himself...Jesus doesn't avert wrath...Jesus averts us from becoming spiritually dead individuals who aren't living lives to the full...somehow he does this by dying on a cross...don't ask me how or why though...or even whether that's what God wanted to happen...
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jerry Boam:
Take the logic a bit farther: why not just kill everyone right now? If all that piss against a wall, or all that breathe, or every man, woman and child were snuffed out in the next five minutes, wouldn't this just be an efficient way for God to bring the wicked to destruction and the good to eternal life in his presence? Would the good actually want to spend eternity in the presence of one who authored such horror?
The more I read this, the less I get why it's a bad thing. I mean, isn't that pretty much what's going to happen at the end of the world anyway? It all ends?
Or is it the "wicked to destruction" bit you've got a problem with?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Tomorrow, a nuclear attack will destroy Birmingham. Everyone there will die.
Do you have no problem with the person responsible for this attack?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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English Ploughboy.
Ship's tiller
# 4205
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Posted
Yes, especially if it is friendly fire from the Americans.
The only person who can legitimately end life is the wise all knowing creator who made it in the first place. Comparing an infinate all wise all loving being with a terrorist is totally absurd.
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Christmas: celebration of un-created love let loose upon a needy world,
Posts: 386 | From: Sussex and Rwanda | Registered: Mar 2003
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English Ploughboy.
Ship's tiller
# 4205
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Posted
Sorry my last reply was to Karl
[ 23. March 2004, 15:49: Message edited by: English Ploughboy. ]
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Christmas: celebration of un-created love let loose upon a needy world,
Posts: 386 | From: Sussex and Rwanda | Registered: Mar 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by English Ploughboy.:
Yes, especially if it is friendly fire from the Americans.
The only person who can legitimately end life is the wise all knowing creator who made it in the first place. Comparing an infinate all wise all loving being with a terrorist is totally absurd.
The problem is the doubts that the genocide passages in Joshua cast over God's status as being all wise and all loving.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
Dunno about that, but I'll certainly be asking him why he bothered if so many innocents were going to die.
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?
Consequently, He cannot, with any consistency, have ordered Joshua to commit mass murder either. The whole point here is that the Joshua genocides are akin to the nuclear attack concept I suggested - man attacking man. What, ultimately, is the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden? Both believe(d) it is conceivable that God would order genocide, both are/were willing to do it. Who are we to say that Joshua was right and Bin Laden is wrong?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
P.S. I bet you would find a correlation between those who object to "God, the pathological killer", and those who object to "The Passion of the Christ".
I wouldn't like to be judged as disliking a (literally) bloody film because I'm too much of a wuss to also go for the idea of an annihilating deity.
Isn't it possible to dislike a work of film-art on the grounds of its subjectively perceived artistic demerits; and also dislike the idea of a certain interpretation of God based on OT histories, because one does not believe it to be a representative picture of him? I don't see how there can be a logical correlation in that.
(I'm hoping to see the film when it eventually arrives in my own little backwater. But I really doubt if it will chill me as much as the straightforward unadorned passion narratives do every year during Holy Week.)
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
I wager that there are just as many revelations of God as the relenting and passionate lover of mankind in the Old Testament as in the New. What do you have right the way through the Bible is a growing relaisation of his true nature. This differentiation is only a problem for the inerrantists. The Bible does not censor itself ... it includes the full range of human perception and emotion as the arena for divine revelation. That's the secret of its true authority .... provided a person does not treat it naively as an oracle.
Hosea 11
1 'When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son. 2 As they called them, So they went from them; they sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images.'
3 'I taught Ephraim to walk, Taking them by their arms; but they did not know that I healed them. 4 I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed
them.'
5 He shall not return to the land of Egypt; But the Assyrian shall be his king, Because they refused to repent. 6 And the sword shall slash in his cities, Devour his districts, And consume them, Because of their own counsels. 7 My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, none at all exalt Him.
8 'How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. 9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; And I will not come with terror. 10 "They shall walk after the LORD. He will roar like a lion. When He roars, Then His sons shall come trembling from the
west. 11 They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, Like a dove from the land of Assyria. And I will let them dwell in their houses,' says the LORD.
[ 23. March 2004, 21:35: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?
Unless He's bigger than the law, and the law was made to define our behaviour, not His. A supreme God would surely define ethics, rather than come under them. (Maybe we overrate our own significance? Unpopular idea for sure, and I'm not convinced.) But all that is problematic when we come to the question of Him commanding ethnic cleansing.
I tend to revert to the "it's a mystery" answer here, rather than select a specific interpretation. But not in a naff way. I face it perodically, I ask "did You? How could You? What does that mean?" I wrestle and get half answers that tend not to stick firmly. But I actually get a better understanding of God and myself in the process - in every other issue but this one. So it's mystery in a positive sense, not in a "don't ask such questions please" sense.
Something does strike me in my recent reading of the OT. Several times God says "I'm gonna fry them" and someone intercedes, and God relents. (eg. Moses and the Israelites more than once.) I read an interpretation of the Sodom story a while back that saw God's telling Abraham his intentions as a test of Abraham's understanding of his responsibility in the covenant, to which he responded by trying to find an out for the city on the basis of the few rescueing the many.
At the back of my mind is the possibility that this partnership issue has some merit. God says "these guys must go" and really wants Israel to recognise that they are agents of grace and intercede saying "No God, surely you're big enough to solve this another way." and God says "well done Tonto, you spotted my deliberate mistake."
But that could be quite shallow.
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Posts: 2405 | From: Aotearoa/New Zealand | Registered: Feb 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?
He drowns most of the world.
He kills all the firstborn of Egypt.
He drowns the Egyptian army in the Red Sea.
He turns a woman into a pillar of salt.
Fire and Brimstone rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah.
He says to the rich man: "tonight your life will be demanded of you".
He gives, and He takes away. That includes life.
Forget man-made atrocities (whether they think they're told to do it by God or not), what's so bad about God Himself deciding to end it all tonight?
[whather?]
[ 23. March 2004, 23:15: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by kiwigoldfish:
At the back of my mind is the possibility that this partnership issue has some merit. God says "these guys must go" and really wants Israel to recognise that they are agents of grace and intercede saying "No God, surely you're big enough to solve this another way." and God says "well done Tonto, you spotted my deliberate mistake."
But that could be quite shallow.
I like this idea (shallow or not) ... it probably appeals to my obsessive need to involve human free will in the process. Of course, the Jonah story might suggest that when we humans *don't* get the idea and intercede, God might save the pagans in spite of us, to teach us a lesson.
But I think Jonah represents a later stage in Hebrew thought and theology than, say, Joshua, which brings us back to the progressive revelation thing again. I remember being told in a youth Bible study when I was about 16 what progressive revelation was...and why it couldn't be true. Darn. For a few minutes there it looked like I had an answer that might help me make sense of the Bible. Twenty years later, I find myself going back more and more to that answer and being helped by it when little else helps.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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hermit
Shipmate
# 1803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?
Consequently, He cannot, with any consistency, have ordered Joshua to commit mass murder either. The whole point here is that the Joshua genocides are akin to the nuclear attack concept I suggested - man attacking man. What, ultimately, is the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden? Both believe(d) it is conceivable that God would order genocide, both are/were willing to do it. Who are we to say that Joshua was right and Bin Laden is wrong?
Hmmmm .... let's say there are 1000 fatal heart attacks tonight across America ... and assume that's about the usual amount. If God decided their time was up ... and I suppose most of us would take that view .... how is that different from 1000 Amalekites judged after numerous attacks against the Jews? Innocent children? They die every day as well, often of painful cancers. I have a lot harder time understanding that than a quick death in a genocide!
The difference between Joshua and Osama is that Joshua was told to do it by God, and received evidence it was God who was speaking to him. It's certainly not man against man when God has commanded it! Osama simply decided on his own that Allah wanted him to kill people.
Now let's say that leftwingers are right about President Bush being worse than Osama, worse than Hitler, worse than the Antichrist .... let's say he goes on a rampage around the world, conquering nations for oil, sandalwood incense, enchiladas, whatever. And let's further say that most Americans enthusiastically support him, bombing innocent civilians and withholding nourishment from little children around the world, even as the loving Saddams of the world desperately try to save the little ones.
Wouldn't you want to see some sort of judgment on the USA if that happened, eventually? That we be humbled, that some measure of justice would be served on us as a nation? But I don't think we could get a just punishment without it affecting some innocent people.
And as we know, innocent good Christians even as we speak are having bad things happen to them. So the innocent ones may have to suffer from the punishment even if they're not being punished.
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"You called out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness... You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain that peace which was yours." Confessions, St Augustine
Posts: 812 | From: Seattle | Registered: Nov 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hermit:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There's a difference between man-made destruction and God deciding to end the world.
Or are you planning to go up to God after you die and accuse Him of murder?
No, because I don't believe God is a murderer. He can hardly say "Thou shalt not murder" and do it Himself, can He?
Consequently, He cannot, with any consistency, have ordered Joshua to commit mass murder either. The whole point here is that the Joshua genocides are akin to the nuclear attack concept I suggested - man attacking man. What, ultimately, is the difference between Joshua and Bin Laden? Both believe(d) it is conceivable that God would order genocide, both are/were willing to do it. Who are we to say that Joshua was right and Bin Laden is wrong?
Hmmmm .... let's say there are 1000 fatal heart attacks tonight across America ... and assume that's about the usual amount. If God decided their time was up ... and I suppose most of us would take that view .... how is that different from 1000 Amalekites judged after numerous attacks against the Jews? Innocent children? They die every day as well, often of painful cancers. I have a lot harder time understanding that than a quick death in a genocide!
If I thought that these painful cancers were the work of God, I'd drop Christianity like a brick.
quote:
The difference between Joshua and Osama is that Joshua was told to do it by God, and received evidence it was God who was speaking to him. It's certainly not man against man when God has commanded it! Osama simply decided on his own that Allah wanted him to kill people.
So the only thing wrong with Bin Laden killing lots of people is that he's wrong about God ordering it. It'd be perfectly OK if God did do so? No. Evil is evil. If God orders a genocide, then God is ordering an evil act. I don't believe in completely relative morality.
quote:
Now let's say that leftwingers are right about President Bush being worse than Osama, worse than Hitler, worse than the Antichrist ....
Raise that strawman of the leftwing position again and I'll see you in Hell. Misrepresentation will get your hide tanned fast, matey.
quote:
let's say he goes on a rampage around the world, conquering nations for oil, sandalwood incense, enchiladas, whatever. And let's further say that most Americans enthusiastically support him, bombing innocent civilians and withholding nourishment from little children around the world, even as the loving Saddams of the world desperately try to save the little ones.
Is that "loving Saddam" statement another strawman or just you being stupid?
quote:
Wouldn't you want to see some sort of judgment on the USA if that happened, eventually? That we be humbled, that some measure of justice would be served on us as a nation? But I don't think we could get a just punishment without it affecting some innocent people.
No. I'd want to see you turn around and mend your ways. I would like to see you make recompense for the ills you had done. But I would get no pleasure or satisfaction on seeing any kind of disaster happening to you.
Do you remember all that fuss about Pinochet standing trial or not doing so some years ago. I was one of those lefties who thought he should. Why? Did I want to see him hang or be imprisoned? Not particularly. What I wanted was acknowledgement that he was responsible and the truth to be outed.
quote:
And as we know, innocent good Christians even as we speak are having bad things happen to them. So the innocent ones may have to suffer from the punishment even if they're not being punished.
Are you suggesting that the bad things that happen to Christians are God punishing someone else and them getting in the way?
[Edited for quote UBB.]
[ 24. March 2004, 08:29: Message edited by: Tortuf ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua a Jesus figure?
Where does Jesus kill thousands of innocent along with the guilty? Where, indeed, does Jesus kill anyone at all? What is His reaction every time?
"You do not know the spirit you belong to"
"Forgive them Father"
"Put your sword back in its place. For those who live by the sword will die by it"
Karl,
it never ceases to amaze me how selective your memory becomes in these discussions.
Try these
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law"
or, as I have quoted to you before:
"So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. "
And I think, if you read any of the Gospels carefully you will find Jesus predicting his own role in a judgement far worse than that brought about by Joshua. One of many possible for examples:
""Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me."
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cheesy*:
Have you ever read John 3:17 Lep?
C
Of course. Which is again another passage relevant to this issue. My point was to say that its not as easy as saying "Jesus didn't agree with condemning people to death every time" as Karl did. Obviously his attitude was somewhat more complex than that.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua a Jesus figure?
Where does Jesus kill thousands of innocent along with the guilty? Where, indeed, does Jesus kill anyone at all? What is His reaction every time?
"You do not know the spirit you belong to"
"Forgive them Father"
"Put your sword back in its place. For those who live by the sword will die by it"
Karl,
it never ceases to amaze me how selective your memory becomes in these discussions.
It's not my memory that's selective. It's my judgement of what's relevant.
quote:
Try these
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law"
Do you really interpret these to mean that Jesus wants men to take swords and kill their fathers, daughters their mothers and so on? Of course not! It's about the fact that folk will be divided about Him, and that He will create stronger loyalties than biological familial ones. So they're not relevant to discussions about genocide. Not even nearly.
or, as I have quoted to you before:
quote:
"So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. "
And we've discussed it before, as well. Do you really think Jesus kills children to punish their parents? Not any Jesus I'd touch with a bargepole. Why do you want to believe in a God whose such an evil git?
quote:
And I think, if you read any of the Gospels carefully you will find Jesus predicting his own role in a judgement far worse than that brought about by Joshua. One of many possible for examples:
""Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me."
But you see the point here - it's a just punishment on thse who have done evil. Joshua's genocides were not - they killed evil and innocent alike. Everyone slain. That is not justice, it is mass murder. That you try to defend it makes me even less interested in your way of understanding the Bible and God, to be frank.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Joshua's genocides were not - they killed evil and innocent alike. Everyone slain.
"There is no one righteous. Not even one."
Who were the innocent exactly?
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Babes in arms spring to mind
Unless you're really going to suggest that babies deserve death?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Surely you wouldn't suggest that mass genocide is a correct way to behave today Lep - even if you believe God was telling you?
If God was telling me that, I hope I would have the sense to go and see a doctor.
C
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
We all deserve death. It is God's right to give life and take it away. That he allows any of us to go on living is grace, not justice.
That does not imply (as you suggest)that we have the right to kill each other. But it does mean that God can deal with people as he sees fit.
Unless he is to be constrained by Karl's conception of justice? Much as I respect you Karl, I have no wish to worship you.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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