Evolutionism vs creationism

[Dorten]

Facepalm

1) When did I say, that I accepted Scriptures entirely based on what they say?
2) So, we have different view of what moral is. We still do not know who's right about that, though.

I'll try to use logic again.

Any christian belief is Scriptures + Tradition. Scriptures are the same, Traditions differ. (Well, protestants claim, that they have no Tradition, but in this line of thought, lets agree to call anything that is present in belief and is not derived entirely from Bible to be Tradition)

So, you have some view of christianity. Let's call it JellySlayer Tradition, or JST. "Adam had no knowledge of good and evil" - part of JST. "God made tree of knowledge with intent of punishing..." - part of JST.
There also is Orthodox Tradition (OT). "Adam had basic knowledge of good and evil" - part of OT. And so on and so forth. I won't discuss cahtolics or protestant Tradition, cause i'm not familiar with them enough.

So, you found out that JST+Bible=immoral and untrue. Fine, I absolutely agree on that.
Then you imply that because of that Bible+OT=immoral and untrue

Where's logic?

OT has explanations, and not a simple ones, for God's deeds in Old Testament. And they do not contradict with both Old and New Testaments, and with the idea of loving and caring God. But you do not want to learn these explanations, saying "I don't see why the interpretations of any of these people that you're speaking of are particularly more valid than mine". Only thing I can answer: read, learn, think (sorry, gut) and see for yourself.


And if you do not want to. Then, well, it only means, that you are not really interested in Truth (or truth, whichever you prefer), and feel fine with whatever view you have regardless of it's validity

[JellySlayer]

2) So, we have different view of what moral is. We still do not know who's right about that, though.

No, I'm not going to let you off that easily. You said that you accepted that God commiting/advocating rape, murder, genocide and human sacrifice was loving, and that this God, this faith tradition, is moral. I'm sorry, but if that's the view of Orthodox Christianity, I don't need to know any more. It doesn't matter what else you believe. None of the details matter in comparison to this. That belief system is abhorrent; it's terrifying. It gives license to commit any crime, no matter how outrageous, as long as you can justify to yourself that it is making someone's afterlife better.

It's wrong.

And you know it.

You don't do any of these things. You'd never believe someone who told you that they raped their children because they loved them, and you'd never do it yourself. You'd never believe someone who told you they killed their children because they loved them, and you'd never do it yourself. You'd never believing someone who told you that they fed their children to hungry bears because they loved them (the children, that is, not the bears), and you'd never do such a thing yourself. You are morally superior to your religion if they think this is okay. You are morally superior to your God if He thinks this is okay.

[Dorten]

No, I'm not going to let you off that easily. You said that you accepted that God commiting/advocating rape, murder, genocide and human sacrifice was loving, and that this God, this faith tradition, is moral. I'm sorry, but if that's the view of Orthodox Christianity, I don't need to know any more. It doesn't matter what else you believe. None of the details matter in comparison to this. That belief system is abhorrent; it's terrifying. It gives license to commit any crime, no matter how outrageous, as long as you can justify to yourself that it is making someone's afterlife better.

It's wrong.

And you know it.

You don't do any of these things. You'd never believe someone who told you that they raped their children because they loved them, and you'd never do it yourself. You'd never believe someone who told you they killed their children because they loved them, and you'd never do it yourself. You'd never believing someone who told you that they fed their children to hungry bears because they loved them (the children, that is, not the bears), and you'd never do such a thing yourself. You are morally superior to your religion if they think this is okay. You are morally superior to your God if He thinks this is okay.

I've bolded your mistake. Not people justified it, but God did.
The whole essence of Old Testament is: mann cannot justify what's right and what's wrong, because his nature is broken. God can.

[F50]

So when God had his children murder thousands of his other children in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Judges then rape all the virgin women, this was somehow showing his love to those people? When God wiped out all of mankind with a flood, that was an example of divine love? What great love was shown when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his blind obedience? When he sent bears to maul dozens of children for calling Elisha bald? Every one of these things are in your Holy Scriptures.

Ah wonderful, lets take these one by one, starting with the easiest. The text you quote regarding Elisha reads "Go on up, baldhead". This is spoken by a group of youths, probably teenagers, telling him, to go on up, like Elijah did. Now the question is, was this meant as a death threat?

The theological significance of the near sacrifice of Issac is probably best described by this song (lyrics here): Great love was shown by Abraham to God. Also, Abraham is interpreted by Paul to have reasoned that God could/would bring Issac back from the dead, since God promised descendants through Issac. The fact remains that if the bible is true, then God is sovereign over all, and the ultimate faith demands nothing be put before God. Of course, God never intended to kill Issac.

The most difficult issue is of course (re-quoted):

So when God had his children murder thousands of his other children in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Judges then rape all the virgin women, this was somehow showing his love to those people?

I searched for reference to this raping of virgin women of which you speak, but could not find it. However there was mass murder, and I support it.

Further Reading:

http://christianthinktank.com/midian.html
http://www.christianthinktank.com/rbutcher1.html
http://www.thinkingchristian.net/ser...-and-genocide/

Although I haven't read the last article very thoroughly.

Ultimately their destruction is based on this: "These were cultures that needed destroying. They were idolatrous and rapacious. They practiced a host of moral outrages including ritual prostitution and child sacrifice." In some cases we know that God sent prophetic messages and warnings to these people for considerable lengths of time. Honestly, this would be like more like killing all Nazis than anything else from our culture. Only unlike here a considerable number of Germans were not Nazis. I highly doubt that many of the people of those cultures dissented from the state religion, which in). I apologize for the comparison, but the fact was, this is the sort of culture in the Ancient Near East (ANE) where "wicked men" would surround the house of a guest from outside the town and bring the guest out to rape them.

The words "God is love" were written a thousand years after the passages that we're discussing. That means the original interpretation of this text could not possibly have included this information. That means that your saints are re-interpretating this passage from its original meaning based on their new theological standpoint. My point of view is entirely consistent with the Old Testament God: malevolent, petty, capricious, ruthless, and violent.

Thats like saying that the Trinity is not in the bible. God introduces himself as merciful in Duteronomy, and is called merciful in the prophetic works many times. The Psalms use the word "loving" to describe God. This interpretation of the text existed long before the time of Christ.

I do think you're misinterpreting what I mean when I say Christianity is untrue. I don't mean that I believe my interpretation of Christianity was untrue. I think that Christianity is based on things that are not true.

True.

As a few examples: the first five books of the Bible were not written by Moses. They were written by at least four different people, spanning a period of hundreds of years in time, and their works have been mashed together uncritically. This can be easily demonstrated through historical linguistics.

Nowhere in the Bible is it specifically stated that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch. It *does* however state that moses wrote particular parts. However according to the wikipedia article (you can check the sources if you like) on the Documentary Hypothesis: "While the terminology and insights of the documentary hypothesis?notably its recognition that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands and many centuries, and that its final form belongs to the middle of the 1st millennium BC?continue to inform scholarly debate about the origins of the Pentateuch, it no longer dominates that debate as it did for the first two thirds of the 20th century...in their place scholars are confronted by competing theories which are discouragingly numerous, exceedingly complex, and often couched in an expository style that is 'not for the faint-hearted.'" To tell the truth, I highly doubt there is any decent way to determine the difference between the various authors, both Elohim and Jehovah are used by J and E in the traditional theory for instance, and D essentially charged with the required style to put in genealogies. I don't think you can really call this a scientific procedure.

There is no extra-biblical evidence for Abraham, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the walls of Jericho: Israeli archeology has spent decades looking for such evidence. The account of the birth of Jesus is lifted more or less directly from older Egyptian myths. There is no extra-biblical evidence for any of the events surrounding Jesus' death or resurrection, and the accounts that we do have don't even agree on the basic facts of the matter. This is but a small sampling of things that the Bible claims that, at best, have no evidence to support them, and, at worst, are flat wrong or plagarized from other religions.

Interesting that you should say Egyptian, most mention Mithraism (which in fact plagerized Christianity). Can I have a link please?

As for Jesus' death, I believe there are historians who state that there ways a Jesus, and that he was crucified. Ressurection is of course out of the question, as anyone who would say that he saw Jesus after he died or had any other evidence for his ressurection is by definition a Christian, and is immediately excluded from your search. Perhaps you should look up Cornelius Tacticus or Lucian of Samosata, or perhaps even the Talmud.

I don't see why the interpretations of any of these people that you're speaking of are particularly more valid than mine, or, if not mine, than those of modern scholars. Or why the councils should be assumed to have chosen everything correctly: how do we know that Arianism wasn't correct rather than Homoiousianism, to take one rather infamous example?

Well the thing is the question here is not whether there are interpretations of Christianity which see God as a demon. Creating such interpretations is quite easy, considering some of the things God did are counter-cultural (which we should expect). The question is whether or not there are valid interpretations of the Bible which can resolve issues like the mass slaughter in a way which does not contradict its own ethics. What argument could you possibly make from "There exists possible interpretations of the Bible which do not view it as true or morally upright". Only if there are no arguments that can declare the Bible as morally upright (which it declares itself to be) can one say anything of much use to an atheist. Of course, Christians should ask these questions to form a moral code from the result.

Old Testament God is absolutely the same as New Testament God. Only people differ. But you just do not want to use your brain, and think. It's always simple to stick to your stereotypes after all...

Perhaps you should use your brain and think of a response, or just not respond to this argument at all. Honestly a lot of your answers have really been non-answers. However, it would be hard to find a Christian who would disagree that the OT God is the same as the NT God.

If a person did half the things that I just described above your God doing, he'd be considered the greatest villain and history and we'd consider hanging him from the nearest tree a service to humanity.

I'd say this is true, but only because few humans are so arrogant as to assume that they know completely the results of their actions, have a perfect vision of what morality actually is, have absolute sovereignty, etc. Which incidentally is the definition of God, minus the arrogance. In short, God has something of an omniscient morality licene, and having actually created all people in the first place adds to this.

You'd never believe someone who told you they killed their children because they loved them

Its been done before. Deuteronomy 21:18-21. Some random fellow posting on a CNN blog said it fairly well: "There is a slight group of parents who feel that it is better to kill their wayward children than let them stay alive and ruin their lives." Saying this probably will sound revolting to you, however, but its right there in the Bible.

Gut, please correct me if I'm missing anything, or if you have differing views. There is always more sides to the argument than Christian/non-christian (Arianism is a good example, if a bit out there)

[F50]

I apologize for my huge wall of text, I'd put this message in the previous post, but it would cause that post to exceed the character limit Oo

[Silfir]

Screw ADOM, this now a theology forum. Nothing more exciting!

And here we thought we were joking when we predicted this thread would outdo "TH sucks". It's already well on its way.

[JellySlayer]

Ah wonderful, lets take these one by one, starting with the easiest. The text you quote regarding Elisha reads "Go on up, baldhead". This is spoken by a group of youths, probably teenagers, telling him, to go on up, like Elijah did. Now the question is, was this meant as a death threat?

There is no suggestion in the text that this was meant as anything but ridicule for the fact that Elisha apparently was lacking in hair. Considering that Elijah didn't die, I don't see how that could be taken as a threat.

Great love was shown by Abraham to God. Also, Abraham is interpreted by Paul to have reasoned that God could/would bring Issac back from the dead, since God promised descendants through Issac.

God asked Abraham to do something monumentally evil and immoral.

Of course, God never intended to kill Issac.

But Abraham did. Abraham, as far as he was concerned, was going to offer his son as a human sacrifice to his God. The fact that he didn't succeed is almost irrelevant. God asked Abraham to commit murder, and Abraham would have done it.

I searched for reference to this raping of virgin women of which you speak

Judges 21:10-24
Numbers 31:7-18
Deuteronomy 20:10-14

Ultimately their destruction is based on this: "These were cultures that needed destroying. They were idolatrous and rapacious. They practiced a host of moral outrages including ritual prostitution and child sacrifice."

Without being too glib, but from my point of view, the Israelites were hardly ones to complain about these things. They practiced idolatry fairly frequently (Golden Calf most memorably; throughout the OT they're also being badgered about praying to Baal or Ashera--I think that's the name, but I might have misspelled); as I note in the verses above, they aren't above rape; the convenant with their God was established based on the sacrifice of a child, namely Isaac.

In some cases we know that God sent prophetic messages and warnings to these people for considerable lengths of time.

Which of the kingdoms wiped out by Joshua received these warnings?

Honestly, this would be like more like killing all Nazis than anything else from our culture. Only unlike here a considerable number of Germans were not Nazis. I highly doubt that many of the people of those cultures dissented from the state religion, which in). I apologize for the comparison, but the fact was, this is the sort of culture in the Ancient Near East (ANE) where "wicked men" would surround the house of a guest from outside the town and bring the guest out to rape them.

None of the kingdoms wiped out by Joshua displayed anything remotely comparable to what you're suggesting.

Thats like saying that the Trinity is not in the bible.

Well, strictly speaking the Trinity concept isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible. Each element of the Trinity is discussed separately, but it wasn't until well after the writing of the NT that the Trinity became accepted in the form we know it today. After, I might add, much dispute within the competing Christian factions of the day.

God introduces himself as merciful in Duteronomy

If God has an "omniscient morality license", then He could be lying. We can't assume that anything He says is true.

"While the terminology and insights of the documentary hypothesis?notably its recognition that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands and many centuries, and that its final form belongs to the middle of the 1st millennium BC?continue to inform scholarly debate about the origins of the Pentateuch, it no longer dominates that debate as it did for the first two thirds of the 20th century...in their place scholars are confronted by competing theories which are discouragingly numerous, exceedingly complex, and often couched in an expository style that is 'not for the faint-hearted.'"

You left out the last line. "A majority of scholars, if by no means all, continue to follow some version of the classic formulation of the Documentary Hypothesis".

To tell the truth, I highly doubt there is any decent way to determine the difference between the various authors.

If I gave you a book from the 18th Century and one from the 20th Century covering the same material, you don't think you'd be able to figure which one was which?

Interesting that you should say Egyptian, most mention Mithraism (which in fact plagerized Christianity). Can I have a link please?

Here might be a good place to start. The Egyptian parallel story is that of Horus, although the evidence isn't, admittedly, as conclusive as I recall it being.

As for Jesus' death, I believe there are historians who state that there ways a Jesus, and that he was crucified. Ressurection is of course out of the question, as anyone who would say that he saw Jesus after he died or had any other evidence for his ressurection is by definition a Christian, and is immediately excluded from your search. Perhaps you should look up Cornelius Tacticus or Lucian of Samosata, or perhaps even the Talmud.

Cornelius Tacticus was born a few decades after the death of Christ. There is no evidence to suggest he ever visited Judea. Even the scant evidence he does report on Jesus is heresay.

Lucian of Samosata was born over a century after the death of Christ.

The Talmud was written almost two centuries after the death of Christ.

I'd say this is true, but only because few humans are so arrogant as to assume that they know completely the results of their actions, have a perfect vision of what morality actually is, have absolute sovereignty, etc. Which incidentally is the definition of God, minus the arrogance. In short, God has something of an omniscient morality licene, and having actually created all people in the first place adds to this.

No, God does not get a free pass on morality. He certainly can't claim to get a free pass on morality and expect to be loved and worshipped for it.

Its been done before. Deuteronomy 21:18-21.

...

And you consider this a good thing?

Some random fellow posting on a CNN blog said it fairly well: "There is a slight group of parents who feel that it is better to kill their wayward children than let them stay alive and ruin their lives." Saying this probably will sound revolting to you, however, but its right there in the Bible.

You know what we do with people who do these sorts of things? We lock them in a tiny room for a very, very long time to keep everyone else safe from them.

Gut, please correct me if I'm missing anything, or if you have differing views. There is always more sides to the argument than Christian/non-christian (Arianism is a good example, if a bit out there)

Arianism came within a hairsbreadth of becoming orthodox doctrine, actually.

[gut]

> However there was mass murder, and I support it.

I don't like the idea of being merciful to victomizers at all, and sometimes desire for them to die,
but if it was up to me to pull the trigger, I wouldn't if I had a choice. With all power at god's
disposal, I would imagine options to be possible. Murdering when one doesn't have to doesn't sound
very christian.

> Honestly, this would be like more like killing all Nazis than anything else from our culture

we decided not to kill all nazis. things are prolly better because we didn't.

>> If a person did half the things that I just described above your God doing, he'd be considered
the greatest villain and history and we'd consider hanging him from the nearest tree a service to humanity.

> I'd say this is true,

I wouldn't. History is written by the winner. We have statues built in the images of murderers everyday.
Yeah, they had other problems too: slavery (USA), incest (britlanders), drunkards (prolly irish ), and
rape was prolly universal.

> You'd never believe someone who told you they killed their children because they loved them

conditionally, I might, but would still not like them very much

> Gut, please correct me if I'm missing anything, or if you have differing views. There is always more
sides to the argument than Christian/non-christian (Arianism is a good example, if a bit out there)

Well, I suppose I can try to give the Arian point of view, though it isn't really my forte:

Um, most religions that are followed today were created by people who spent too much time in the desert
heat. The sun disturbed their minds and darkened their skin horribly. That is why everyone should cast
off all beliefs that didn't originate in the geographical territory of northern europe.

> God asked Abraham to do something monumentally evil and immoral

for what it is worth, this is one of those things I labeled as mistaken upon hearing it.
God would have better things to do, and if he doesn't, that is sad. This is a story that
people tell to other people, not an account of god.

On a somewhat side note, I want to talk a bit more about this:
> There is always more sides to the argument than Christian/non-christian

Particularly, I want to ask you and dorten (and any other specific religion followers) how they feel
knowing that the religion they follow is based 99% on geographical location of birth.

Also, I feel a bit funny about being thought of as a straddlepole. I really do lean toward christianity
in many ways, it's just that I see too many holes to follow blindly.

[fazisi]

The problem with these threads are everyone feels the need to quote everything because if they don't, people will start to misunderstand statements. It makes it very hard on the eyes for the ADD nation.

I like the old testament God. There is a guy who knew how to get things done.

The first five books developed over time. It wasn't a saucy romance novel written over a particularily cold winter. More than one author supplying text for five seperate holy texts (they weren't all contained in one handy pocket Bible in your hotel drawer) would not be surpising. Don't forget there wasn't as sophisticated information storing technology back then.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

18If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:

19Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;

20And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.

21And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

This sounds like a pretty good rule to me. Imagine how few fat stay-at-home 30 year olds parents would have to put up with today if we kept this one.

Ah wonderful, lets take these one by one, starting with the easiest. The text you quote regarding Elisha reads "Go on up, baldhead". This is spoken by a group of youths, probably teenagers, telling him, to go on up, like Elijah did. Now the question is, was this meant as a death threat?

There is no suggestion in the text that this was meant as anything but ridicule for the fact that Elisha apparently was lacking in hair. Considering that Elijah didn't die, I don't see how that could be taken as a threat.

This is because OT God is bad ass. Respect holy men or get eaten by bears.

Judges 21:10-24
Keeping the tribes alive. This is proof that we have a natural instinct to preserve our genes.

Numbers 31:7-18
Sounds like a pretty successful military endeavor. This is the bonus of having God on your side.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14
These are the spoils of war. Modern morality is lame.

Without being too glib, but from my point of view, the Israelites were hardly ones to complain about these things. They practiced idolatry fairly frequently (Golden Calf most memorably; throughout the OT they're also being badgered about praying to Baal or Ashera--I think that's the name, but I might have misspelled); as I note in the verses above, they aren't above rape; the convenant with their God was established based on the sacrifice of a child, namely Isaac.

A lot of human sacrafice was practiced in our not-so-distant history. The covenant with God was established based on the substitution of animal sacrafice instead.

> God asked Abraham to do something monumentally evil and immoral

for what it is worth, this is one of those things I labeled as mistaken upon hearing it.
God would have better things to do, and if he doesn't, that is sad. This is a story that
people tell to other people, not an account of god.

This is part of the formation of the entire religion. It is part of the essential relationship that started between God and his promise to Abraham of an entire nation to be spawned from him.

[grobblewobble]

Oh my god.. discussion asploded.

Why not throw a random unrelated controversion into teh flamewar? What do you guys think of Wikileaks?