God's Villainy

[Sophus]

Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Why are the only options hate and love?

[i_am_i]

Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Reginus, do you have enemies?

[Tank]

I am aware of what PS is saying, and I still don't accept it. As far as my words you underlined, they are perfectly consistent with the rest of what I said. I don't value a friendship of any kind (including my marriage) based on what I get out of them. A person who claims to be my friend because of what I give them is not a friend. A parasite would be a better definition. That doesn't mean I'm not their friend. I don't require perfection or anything resembling as much for friendship. How could I as I am far from perfect myself?!?

Friendship is mutual.

Love is unconditional. Absolutely unconditional. I know we don't have much of that in our society, but it's the most fulfilling way to live.

There is a mature love versus an immature love, a much more encompassing one versus a petty one, which I refer to as, not love, but symbiotic attachment. But absolute unconditional love? There is no such real thing. Even the great philosopher of love, Erich Fromm, noted this off the bat in his book The Art of Loving.

Friendship has to be mutual, otherwise it is simply one person exploiting another for their own selfish pleasure.

Love can be unconditional, however a better word to describe that sort of love would be infatuation. Stalkers can love unconditionally. Love, unreciprocated, is simply indistinguishable from harassment. Love can be utterly selfish and bear no relationship whatsoever to the feelings of the object of that Love.

[Thumpalumpacus]

No patronizing, Thump. Only written in all sincerity. And I truly hope you do know what it is like to have relationships that you don't value based on what you get out of them. PS doesn't think anyone does . . . I'm sure you would agree, knowing such relationships as you do, how sad such a predicament must be.

Actually, I think he's merely being honest: we all derive something from our relationships, such as the emotional satisfaction Sophus mentioned.  Not all gain is material; even a materialist like me understands that.  I also understand that the Golden Rule is merely a corollary of this basic fact.

What, just because God doesn't do things your way He is either not omnipotent or not omniscient? That represents a claim to omniscience on your own part. Perhaps God has a perfectly good reason you aren't aware of as to why He wants people to have to work at it. Poets do so all the time.

1) It does not mean I claim omniscience.  It means I retain the right to make my own judgments.  Certainly you're smart enough to see the difference.  "Knowing better" does not mean "knowing everything."  I'm surprised one so well-versed in philosophy missed this obvious difference.

2) If your god made me the way I am, then he understands my skepticism better than I do myself.  If he truly loves me and desires me to avoid the hell your religion claims he himself made for me, he might at least reveal his thinking a little.  After all, "because I said so" insults my son's intelligence.  I'm not omniscient, and even I know how unsatisfying that answer is.

3) Poets don't murder people for not understanding, and then torment them throughout eternity.  Your analogy fails.

Besides, your objection could be extended to anything. Why wouldn't God make physics easier? Maybe He has. Who knows. If God were to make certain things impossible, you would never know it. You entire objection, then, assumes knowledge you don't have access to.

[Emphasis added]

Thank you for making plain the non-falsifiable nature of your claim.  And no, my objection assumes nothing but the qualities Christians claim for god.  I know damned well what is moral and what isn't, and it isn't moral to punish someone for ignorance when you have it in your power to enlighten them.

Raising my daughter to believe in Jesus Christ isn't the same thing as coming to the text with preconceived notions. When the time comes for her to start studying her Bible, I'll do my best to see to it that she approaches it absolutely objectively.

Nonsense. You are giving her the preconceived notion that Christ is the son of your god.  You will have already undermined her objectivity.

Second, I have absolutely no idea how God's location (or lackthereof) has anything to do with my attitude when reading a text. That's just a non-sequitur. In any case, you've misunderstood omnipresence. Properly speaking, God isn't located anywhere. That would be a limitation, which would contradict the notion of a limitless God. The point is that all places--and all times--are equally "near" God.

If god is everywhere, why do Christians preach to invite him into our hearts?  Isn't he already there?   Further, if he's everywhere, please point to your evidence.  What markers tell you "this part is my god?"  Again, this is non-falsifiable, and thus useless for the purposes of this discussion.

Third,you had better care what the Israelites believed, because if you don't, you can't do history. In fact, you can't have any kind of conversation at all. People's words mean very different things depending on their situation, relation to the facts, and beliefs. As far as the little contradictions you point out, our current definition of pi is an approximation, as pi is itself an irrational number, just as much as their own.

Not so.  An exact number is not an approximation.  It is an exactitude, and one much less accurate than our non-divinely inspired approximation.  Were it an approximation, they would have said "Well, it's a little more than three stones on the circumference for each stone in the middle," or something to that effect.

Also, your first sentence is taking my terms out of context.  Certainly you should have been able to see that I meant that on a personal, and not scholarly, level.  Of course, their beliefs, false as they've proven to be, have had historical impact.  I'm saying that their beliefs are irrelevant to my personal faith, or lack thereof.

Finally, even a "little" contradiction shows that your god muffed a very simple thing.

Finally, ancient taxonomy is functionally different from modern taxonomy. A bird is a flying animal. A fish is a swimming creature. By these definitions, bats are birds and whales are fish. The word tsippowr may be translated properly as "bird," but it doesn't mean "winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals" (following Wikipedia; pick your source). It just means a flying animal.

Oddly enough, these people in contact with an omniscient god got this wrong.

Ah, the nature of text. Do forgive any patronization you see. None is intended.

Fair enough, and thank you.

I'll open a thread on hell next week as I think the second argument is winding down. It's been on my list of things to do for sometime now.

In anticipation of you so doing, I'd ask you to ponder the justice of meting out infinite punishment for finite "crimes".  Because that is one of the big sticking points with a god who is claimed to be infinitely merciful.  

You should know that you're not lecturing a spring chicken here.  I'm accustomed to discipline, and have had a hard life.  I'm not asking for any favor from your god that I don't ask from anyone else around me:  be plain, make yourself  and your wants clear, and if I can accommodate them, I will.  Why is it that fallible humans around me can meet this simple standard, but your god cannot?  What I ask is easy, not hard, no matter your caricature.

I hardly think you are a "spring chicken." You assertion, however, can hardly be applied universally. Is quantum mechanics clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. Is biology clear? Perhaps, to those who study it. There are certain aspects of QM and biology that are clear.

This is a category error.  I am not asking a discipline to be clear.  I am wondering why this god whom you claim to be all-knowing does not seem to understand human skepticism.  I am not talking of any scientific discipline, which study can make clear.  I am talking of your god not clearing up simple questions about the deep contradictions inherent is his Christian conceptualization.

There are some things that require deeper study. The same is true with theology. Some things are obvious--usually, the important things--God's existence, salvation by faith alone, the resurrection at the end of time, etc. Certainly you can examine each of these issues until you get to very difficult related questions, but almost all of them can be answered, and usually very clearly. You just have to be willing to do the hard work of looking those interpretational questions.

I've asked and looked much.  The problem with your argument here is that your god appears to prefer my ignorance resulting in eternal damnation, rather than simply saying, "here's why I do what I do."  

All discussion entails a level of assumption. If we have to prove every statement before we can make  it, we could never make any statement. On the assumption of Christianity, what I said is precisely true. We can continue to talk about whether or not Christianity actually is true, but I would think that you intelligent enough to look at what it would mean for various topics if it were.

Ah, but the larger the assumption, the deeper my skepticism, and the greater my desire to see support before I lend it credence.  As far as that "if" word popping up again, if Christianity is true, it wouldn't change much for me; I already endeavor to life a right life.  "If" it were true, I'd see the evidence.  The lack of evidence, when combined with its internal contradictions, relegates it to the status of another creation-myth, in my mind, and that of many others.

As it stands, you seem to be trying to eat your cake and have it to. On the one hand, you want to say, "If God were real, He would make this clearer!" and then on the other, "You can't say what it would be like if God were real, because you haven't proven that God is real." You have to decide which conversation you want to have. Do you want to discuss what would be the case if God were real, or do you want to discuss whether or not God is real?

A fair point, and I'll try to do better.  But I'm not telling you what you can or cannot say, I'm just asking you to justify what you do say.

No wager intended. Read the statement again. I am talking specifically about whether or not God should make it easy. People want God to communicate on their terms, and if He doesn't do so the way they insist, then they argue He doesn't exist. The question is simply this: why should God communicate on your terms at all? Why should God do anything on your terms? If He is real, He can do whatever the heck He wants. We play on His terms, not vice versa.

[All emphases added]

The emboldened part is an easy answer: Because Christians tell me he loves me and wants me to go to Heaven, yet he will not do anything to aid the process.

The italicized part is merely the argument that "might makes right".  I'm no longer surprised by this variation on moral relativity coming from those who proclaim morality to be absolute.

So, it is like a game of chicken. You have your rules and God has His. God breaks your rules, and what price does He pay? Nothing. You break His rules, and what price do you pay? A lot. Does that mean, then, that you should believe? Of course not. Fear is no motivation for belief. But it does mean that you have no logical basis on which to make your argument. The prudent thing to do is say, "Well, if God is real, this is what is and is not possible, therefore, etc." As I've pointed out, if God is real, He has no obligation to play by your rules. You can get mad at Him all you want over that, but it won't change His obligation or lackthereof. So, who will blink first? It won't be God. It may not be you. I am just saying that if God is there, I would hate to be the one in that collision.

Again, an appeal to fear, and a restatement of Pascal's wager: "Better safe than sorry;" try as you might to deny it, it is the case, and I'm not the only one in this thread who's seen this for what it is.

Actually, I don't consider alcoholics less than me. I do consider alcoholism, as a lifestyle, an inferior lifestyle. But with that aside, you are smart enough to see that comparing a person's faith to alcoholism is a type of ridicule (or, should I say, ridiculous). I would like to think you are a better person than that.

I'm comparing Christianity to an addiction because, like the alcoholic, most Christians cannot imagine life without their escape hatch.  This is neither ridicule nor ridiculous, because the two phenomena share many parallels, and fulfill some of the same needs.  Why else do you suppose that AA's second step demands belief in a higher power?

[Reginus]

Okay, let's. I very much doubt that Martin Luther King Junior loved those who hated him or engaged in activities that were antagonistic to him. I can, however, imagine that he was convinced that he should, being that he was a Christian.

Did he ever do or say anything to harm an enemy?  Is there any person who knew him well who has testified that he hated or even did not love his enemies?

Reginus, do you have enemies?

Not direct enemies.  Although I suppose I could count an organization like Al-Qaeda as an enemy in some sense.

[Jac3510]

[Sophus]

I'll let this go. If you can't see how there's no justification for comparing someone's most deeply cherished beliefs to alcoholism, I don't know what else to say.

He's not the only one:

"Religion is the opium of the people."

Lots of people use religion for comfort or to run away from their problems. I like this quote from

"In a sense, Islam is like a drug, like alcohol. A small amount can have a healing and inspiring effect, but when the believer reaches for the bottle of dogmatic faith in every situation, it gets dangerous. This high-proof form of Islam is what I'm talking about. It harms the individual and damages society. It inhibits integration, because this Islam divides the world into friends and enemies, into the faithful and the infidels."

Christianity isn't much different from Islam.

What do you mean by autotelic? (Too lazy to  it, and the etymology isn't helping me.) As far as your second part, that's just a simple disagreement. I think there are a great many things we do just because they ought to be done, and specifically from a moral perspective, because people are not means to an end, but rather ends in themselves. I treat my wife like I do not so that she will respond to me in a certain way, but simply because she deserves no less (in fact, far more) by shear virtue of the fact that she is my wife, regardless of how she treats me.

By autotelic I mean it's worth for its own sake.

All virtues have goals. If you want to treat someone with respect then you must want to do so for a reason.

[Jac3510]

Sophus, there is a difference in comparing Christianity to a drug verses comparing it to a drug addiction. Knowledge can be compared to a drug. Alcohol, for instance, is not necessarily bad in and of itself, whereas alcoholism obviously is. To compare Christianity, then, to something like alcoholism is vulgar at best.

As far as your point goes, yes, all virtues have goals, and yes, we do things for a reason. It does not follow, however, that those reasons must be related to what we get out of it.

[PoopShoot]

Yes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

[Jac3510]

Yes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship. Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position. We value people based on who and what they are, not how we feel about them. That's a pretty solid goalpost. Who and what a person is doesn't change. Their attitudes and behaviors might, which is exactly why you can't value relationships based on them.

It's just unconditional, unmerited love. It's grace put in action.

[Tank]

Yes, I value a person regardless of how they treat me, because a person's value isn't relative to their behavior.

You have successfully taken a relationship and reduced it to an internal feeling.  Mobile goalpost much?

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship. Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position. We value people based on who and what they are, not how we feel about them. That's a pretty solid goalpost. Who and what a person is doesn't change. Their attitudes and behaviors might, which is exactly why you can't value relationships based on them.

It's just unconditional, unmerited love. It's grace put in action.

We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be. One is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

EDIT. Changed comment to third person.

[PoopShoot]

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship.

What relationship would you have with a person who stole from you?

Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position.

Yet you've clearly demonstrated that you're talking about FEELING as if the person were valuable.  You claim that you'd remain married to a woman who cheated on you.  I'll take that at face value, you wouldn't be the first sucker in history anyway if that's the case, but you have been markedly silent on what would happen to anyone else whom you claim to value aside form stating that a person would suffer the consequences of their actions.  The implication of this is that the friendship would cease, yet you maintain that the PERSON is valuable as the image of god.  I personally find people to be of value due to their humanity.  It seems that you and I agree on the inherent value of people and merely disagree on the fallen angel/risen ape angles.  This, however, isn't the topic.  The RELATIONSHIP is.  I would still value my wife as a person if she cheated on me.  The relationship, however, would be done.  Similar consequences would ensue from friends or even family members who abused my trust in some way.  In fact, I have a brother who I don't talk to because he is a thief who has shown time and again that he will steal the moment he is alone with something he wants.  Is he valuable as a person?  Yes.  Is he valuable as a unit of society?  No, he is a parasite.  In the end, that's the difference I'm talking about.  We value relationships based on the value of the interaction, not the value of the people involved.

[Jac3510]

We do not 'value people based on who and what they are' but who and what we perceive them to be.ne is not a mind reader, one is not psychic, one does not have second sight.

My wife is my wife. My daughter is my daughter. My Christian friends are brothers and sisters in Christ. People are the very image of God and thus are worthy of the deepest respect. Above all, people are loved by God, which is the absolutely object basis on which I love them, for if God loves them, what possible right could I have not to?

None of these things are a matter of perception. They are matters of fact. When I say, then, that we love people based on who and what they are, I am not speaking of something so trivial as their personalities. Personalities change. They are not who or what you are. One of my favorite songs as the following chorus:

I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling, Lord You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours

If that is true of me, how much more true is it of everyone else? Whether you believe it or not, I am convinced of the fact that you have been created by God, that you are His very image, and that you are loved dearly and incomprehensibly by this same God. You are divine royalty, a son of God. That's not perception, Chris. There's nothing in you that would cause me to believe that anymore than there is something in my wife that would cause me to believe that about her. I know it because God as told me in His Word, which I know you don't accept, but which I obviously do.

So yes, I most definitely love on the basis of who and what people are. I love based on identity, not behavior. The former is immobile and sure and the basis of true trust and unconditional support. The latter is fickle, changing, untrustworthy, and turns me into some selfish, self-serving god in my own mind, in which I declare by my sovereign right who deserves my love and who does not based on how well they keep my commands, my expectations of them.

Is it possible I am wrong? Obviously, yes. Perhaps my wife is absolutely nothing more than a bag of atoms functioning in one way or another. But, either way, I don't love her because of who she treats me, but because of who she is.

Edited to reflect third person.

[PoopShoot]

My wife is my wife. My daughter is my daughter. My Christian friends are brothers and sisters in Christ. People are the very image of God and thus are worthy of the deepest respect. Above all, people are loved by God, which is the absolutely object basis on which I love them, for if God loves them, what possible right could I have not to?

Funny enough, you defined ALL of those people by your relationship to them, rather than them as individuals.  If your wife divorces you, she's no longer your wife.  If a brother in Christ leaves the church, he is no longer your brother in Christ.  While it's true that your daughter cna never stop being your genetic offspring, this is still a relationship.  Not one of your examples identifies a person as that person rather than their relationship to you.

[Jac3510]

How so? You asked how I valued a relationship.

What relationship would you have with a person who stole from you?

A harmed one that I would do everything to restore because it is so valuable to me.

Further, I think it is pretty clear that internal feeling is the furthest thing that could be the basis of my position.

Yet you've clearly demonstrated that you're talking about FEELING as if the person were valuable.  You claim that you'd remain married to a woman who cheated on you.  I'll take that at face value, you wouldn't be the first sucker in history anyway if that's the case, but you have been markedly silent on what would happen to anyone else whom you claim to value aside form stating that a person would suffer the consequences of their actions.  The implication of this is that the friendship would cease, yet you maintain that the PERSON is valuable as the image of god.  I personally find people to be of value due to their humanity.  It seems that you and I agree on the inherent value of people and merely disagree on the fallen angel/risen ape angles.  This, however, isn't the topic.  The RELATIONSHIP is.  I would still value my wife as a person if she cheated on me.  The relationship, however, would be done.  Similar consequences would ensue from friends or even family members who abused my trust in some way.  In fact, I have a brother who I don't talk to because he is a thief who has shown time and again that he will steal the moment he is alone with something he wants.  Is he valuable as a person?  Yes.  Is he valuable as a unit of society?  No, he is a parasite.  In the end, that's the difference I'm talking about.  We value relationships based on the value of the interaction, not the value of the people involved.

No, I don't "feel" that people are valuable. Whatever emotions I do or do not have are just that--emotions. I regard people as valuable because of who they are. Second, as per the verses I suggest, if a person hurt me, I would respond with good rather than evil (ideally, of course -- no one knows the future; emotions, those non-rational things, are powerful at times). If someone lied on me, the proper thing to do is sit down with them, find out their reason for doing so -- most people, I take it, don't hurt others just for the shear joy of hurting others -- and find out what perceived ill I had done to them to lead them to such an action. I would forgive them fully and immediately and, to the extent of my ability, restore the relationship because it is so valuable.

That's the essence of "turn the other cheek." It even holds in non-relationships--that is, people you have no real acquaintance with. If someone takes something from you, give them something else to go along with it. Why not? What have you lost that won't rust or break eventually anyway? And the need for justice or revenge? I leave that in God's hands. If someone has done something so terrible, they've not sinned against me. They've not broken any commandment I laid down, and even if they had, what are my commandments but expressions of my own value systems? There is absolutely no reason for you to live by that! If they have done anything really wrong, if they've broken any commands, it is been God's laws. He will take care of it in His own way. I leave that to Him.

Forgive my silence on this. I was under the impression this was rather obvious given everything I've said so far . . .

edit:

Funny enough, you defined ALL of those people by your relationship to them, rather than them as individuals. If your wife divorces you, she's no longer your wife. If a brother in Christ leaves the church, he is no longer your brother in Christ. While it's true that your daughter cna never stop being your genetic offspring, this is still a relationship. Not one of your examples identifies a person as that person rather than their relationship to you.

On the contrary, I only defined my wife and daughter with respect to my relationship with them, and they are included in the "above all," namely, those whom God loves and values. If you want to start getting technical, my relationship with them is secondary and absolutely viewed through the lens of their relationship with God. As far as my brother in Christ leaving the Church, he is still most definitely my brother in Christ. One cannot lose their salvation, and a lost member of the body of Christ is still a member of the body of Christ.

As far as those aspects go, those types of things define the relationship. A relationship, by definition, requires two people. It answers to the question, "How am I related to this person?" What I am arguing, and have been arguing throughout, is that I don't value relationships based on how the person who is so related to me treats me. I value that relationship because I am so related to another child of God. As happens, some types of relationships take precedent over others (thus, my wife comes first among human relationships). Therefore, the way in which my love is expressed will be different from relationship to relationship, but that as defined by the nature of the relationship. None of that, however, means in the least that the relationship itself is valuable or not, or that the person is valued or not, based on what they do for me.