Mythology and the Bible

Then morality is completely meaningless and arbitrary. It is based on nothing more than God's whim at the moment, entirely subjective to that. Divine Command Theory, which you are proposing here, is one of the most morally bankrupt and contradictory systems in existence. G.E. Moore completely destroyed it, and virtually no philosopher these days still promotes it. And, to top it off, it is completely unbiblical.

 

are you not sentient? You said you agree when I said god is all that exists. If god is all that exists, and you are sentient, then god must be sentient, because nothing exists but god, as you agreed to.

 

How can the Bible be unbiblical when it is what it is. It is a history spanning four thousand years of some of Gods interactions with the offspring of Abraham. It ended two thousand years ago when they rejected and crucified the Jewish Messiah for teaching his Fathers gospel of repentance, then ceased to be a nation and were scattered to the earth.

Your referring to "God's whims" suggests to me that your own ethics are situational and animalistic rather than principled or anchored in God. Of course that's your right, but it's hardly a substitute for a perfect Father in heaven.

As for philosophers, I know by the intercession of his spirit, that God lives and that my true life is in him rather than in myself. So I have no interest or need of men's philosophies because I am already acquainted with the divinity of the spirit of the living God, who is the God of the whole earth, universe, and mankind.

 

Solid argument for your case.

 

I didn't say god is all that exists. Please don't invent things to criticize. Criticize what I actually say. Goodbye.

 

His premise is garbage. I didn't say god is all that exists. I didn't even say god exists. What I said is that god is another term for the laws of physics. If you want that to mean what he wants, then we are arguing semantics. Weak, not solid.

 

Why do you say that there is no God beyond the laws of physics. Did you get that from Hitchens? What about people and all living things?

 

I said:
"God is all that exists. All the joy, love, death, suffering, and everything in between is simply God/creation/existence experiencing itself. Every one of us is just a tiny aspect of God, from the worst serial killer to the saintliest saint, from the most toxic particle of pollution to the most pure molecule of water."

You said:
"Ah. We agree god is mother nature, the laws of physics."

That sounds like we agree to me.

 

If God ordered you to kill your child (or any child for that matter) would you?

This is what it boils down to. If you believe that God is perfect than anything he orders you to do is, by definition, "moral"

If you would ever the question the morality of an order from God then that means you are, in certain circumstances, willing to put your morality above that of your god. If you are willing to do that then that means you don't think you're god is perfect.

And you can't even fall back on the "God would never order me to do that" because the very Bible you think is the unerring word of God says that God has ordered the slaughter (or even carried out the slaughter) of children multiple times.

 

I suppose your are referring to a single event from thousands of years ago when God commanded Abraham to offer up his Son as sacrifice. Abraham obeyed after a personal struggle with himself. But then God stopped him. So it was a test of Abrahams love for God. Abraham was a great man by all standards. If I was Abraham, I would do what Abraham did. That was exclusive to Abraham, not some right of passage on the path of everyone's salvation. When you say God ordered the slaughter of children many times, I don't know exactly what you are talking about. Are you referring to the flood, to Sodom and Gomorrah, to Israel's struggle with other peoples, or what?

At any rate, yes I would hope to follow Gods commands. As for me, merely keeping him in remembrance, forgiving trespasses, etc., is a daily chore. I shudder to think what his Prophets and Jesus Christ sacrificed. They did that for our salvation, so we wouldn't have to. It is written that there is no other name under heaven than Jesus Christ by which we can be saved. I am reconciled to that. And I don't see it as kooky. What's kooky is thinking we descended from apes, that we live for nothing, and when we die we rot as if we had never lived or hoped for anything more than stuffing our bellies. That would be a lead zeppelin.

 

When you use yourself as an argument for the goodness of god, you are assuming that you are a representation of gods will and that others see it that way. But, the problem isn't how you view your religion.

You can't minimize the violence by choosing a few incidents. Religiously based violence has gone on through the ages, and Christianity has partaken in that throughout. There are NO clean hands.

As for the last, EVERY life form dies and returns its components to the environment. Claiming that humans are some special case is what is weird. Evidence shows that humans evolved from precursor life forms. We see evolution continuing in humans, further indicating that humans are part of the story of life on this planet.

 

Do the dead horses you beat ever come to life?

 

I don't know who Hitchens is nor do I care, but everything exists as it exists because of the laws of physics.

 

How is it that you perceive these laws, while the things to which they apply do not. How are you separate from them?

 

Not a single event.

God drowned everyone on earth (presumedly there were babies and children among the drowned)
God killed everyone in Sodom and Ghemorra (again, presumedly there were babies and children among the dead)
God ordered Joshua to kill every living thing in the city of Jericho
God sent two bears to slaughter young me who made fun of Elisha's bald head.

I know there are other instances, these are just off the top of my head.

 

You do realize that God is synonymous with perfection in all things. So if something seems amiss to you in the scriptural record, then the issue is either with yourself or the record, not with God.

 

No, I don't "realize that"

What I realize is that God character of the Bible is imaginary. That he is just like every other god created by men during the entire history of mankind. That the Biblical Character of God is petty, violent, childish and without morals.

The ONLY difference between the God of the Bible and Zeus or Jupiter or Odin or any other of a countless number of gods throughout human history is that here, in the early 21st century, we have a shockingly high number of people who still believe that he exists and are willing to try and follow his commands.

 

That is the assumption upon which religion is based.

It's not something discovered. It's not something that could ever be tested by man.

Is the slaughter of Palestinian men, women, and children the same as Joshua's slaughter of every man, woman and child of Jericho? Is it your god's will that Israel bulldoze the homes and shoot the kids in West Bank?

Even in these serious events, humans can not know whether there is a god who is at all interested.

 

That is what you have reasoned and concluded. As for me I know that God lives. And I didn't arrive at that by reason, conclusion, imagination, surmising, belief, hearing or by reading. But by the visitation of his spirit, which awakened me to a remembrance of him and to know that true life is in him. I was born into and raised in a non religious home. So my spiritual revelation was not preceded or guided by indoctrination. But rather was made more easily accomplished by the absence of such. So believe what you will. But I do know that God is real, that he lives, and is divine. And by that same knowledge, I know that I am not. Therefore it is my desire to conform to him or to his invitation in the likeness of his spirit, just as we might clean up in preparation for a dinner or marriage invitation. Is that so odd or uncivilized?

 

Do you take the Quran at face value?

 

Even in modern times, that statement about the sun stopping is a manner of speaking of how long a day seemed.

Jumping to the literal, especially when it is spectacularly unbelievable, is a problem, not a solution.

 

No. I'm not familiar with it. I'm not a student of religion.

 

The Quran is someone's account of their relationship with God. So what else do you need to know? Per your criteria it should be taken at face value. At least we know who wrote the Quran.

 

There's only one true God. He is the God of ancient Israel and is the same today. I know this and am reconciled to it. So your proposed quandary is yours. Even the tens of thousands of differing denominations in Bible based religion competing for attention, don't eclipse my personal knowledge and relationship with God. To me, the multitude of interpretations and religions are like gossip and rumor. There is no new God. I would defer to Jesus Christs words in the Bible:
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
I and my Father are one." John10: 27-30

 

God cared enough for Injeun that he revealed himself in a way that even doubting Thomas would appreciate. The rest of humanity can eff off.