Originally posted by Agerg
There shouldn't be much danger of that happening since in my OP, that such verses don't [b]actually apply to the Bible god is quite explicit. Indeed I said:

[quote]For those with a creative streak ...

Here's how it goes ... try to create an authentic looking Bible passage which paints "God" in a bad light. Then, show how to defend it an ...[text shortened]... rses and in order to make the point I intended it was important to preserve this correspondence.[/b]

Creative streaks you need to go to evolutionist, they make it up as they
go all the time.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Creative streaks you need to go to evolutionist, they make it up as they
go all the time.
Kelly

Amen, brother. 😏

Originally posted by DeepThought
I don't think they want to play games of defend the indefensible unless it actually is a part of the Bible. It is fairly natural for them to want to try to square some of the God's more brutal moves in the Bible with their conception of God as good. I agree that Suzianne's defence didn't work, the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having h ...[text shortened]... stion on existence. It's fairly easy to argue that something that's been made up doesn't exist.

I don't think they want to play games of defend the indefensible unless it actually is a part of the Bible. It is fairly natural for them to want to try to square some of the God's more brutal moves in the Bible with their conception of God as good. I agree that Suzianne's defence didn't work, the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his heart hardened" and therefore not acting as a free agent. The obvious way out is that God, who is not bound by time, can arrange for all the first-born to be philosophical zombies.

Well let's be fair, most of them would want as little interaction with atheists as is practically possible, and they wouldn't want to have to square anything with their conception of the notion of "God" they happen to believe in if they could get away with it. For fundies, it is a dangerous business all this thinking malarckey; "heaven forbid" they should think too much and question whether the primitive and hyper-literal interpretation of the Bible they favour now is actually tenable any more!
As for your proposed solution, really!?? a way out is to contrive that all the first-borns be magic'd into not having (and never having had) sentience such that they could all be slaughtered without the means to suffer pain themselves (yet still causing unthinkable anguish to families with no connection to the Pharoah (human and bovidae) also affected)!???

I should have used impersonal rather than abstract. Whether a God exists or not is irrelevant to whether the God is personal or not. In the language of logic "personal" and "abstract" are predicates not existential quantifiers.
My training in logic was in maths not philosophy, but limping on a few steps behind you in terminology, the personal god anchored within their thoughts is at best only a very poor approximation to some god that might exist (and of course perhaps no gods exist). At any rate, I don't need to (or have desire to) shatter their notion that there is a personal god, I wish to shatter their illusion that the cruel, depraved, prejudiced, and primitive notion of "God" they have now is the best way to conceptualise a personal god.

Psychopaths don't usually have voices, they just don't empathise properly with other people or connect with the consequences of their actions. The voice in the head of some one with paranoid schizophrenia would count as a personal "god", and that voice is certainly real, it is just not an external god but part of their brain chattering.
I should have been more careful with my terminology ... that acknowledged, what is that is real? 1) the mechanics behind the voices or 2) the mechanics AND that the manifestation is an entity which communicates with a mind of it's own, with its own personality distinct from that of the sufferer!?? (what I was essentially driving at, and I'm liking my choice of analogy less and less, is that any belief on the part of the sufferer that this voice really is an external entity is false - it is all them)

I needed a name of someone who is dead. Arthur Wellesley is better known as the first Duke of Wellington.
Yeah I should have googled that ... I even thought about googling it but for some reason I didn't ... ah well.

The problem with your last paragraph is that your construction "human defined god" begs the question on existence. It's fairly easy to argue that something that's been made up doesn't exist.
But the notion of God I am challenging here has also been invented, it was very much defined by humans (over many centuries no less). I assume somehow that by some special pleading the conclusion that it too doesn't exist does not apply then!???

Originally posted by Agerg
[b]I don't think they want to play games of defend the indefensible unless it actually is a part of the Bible. It is fairly natural for them to want to try to square some of the God's more brutal moves in the Bible with their conception of God as good. I agree that Suzianne's defence didn't work, the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his he ...[text shortened]... w that by some special pleading the conclusion that it too doesn't exist does not apply then!???

Logically they should be trying to convert us, so should welcome the presence of non-believers.

Regarding the stuff in Exodus, I had to read it to remind myself of the exact story. Having done that I realised it was basically impossible to justify in modern terms. At the time it was written down collective punishment was pretty much standard practice so the Bible writers wouldn't have thought they were writing anything that shocking. On reflection, in the event I believed I'd probably just ask why an atheist was taking the Old Testament literally.

There's a Weltanschauung problem, you think that "the notion of God I am challenging has also been invented", they think that God is real, tangible, and more-or-less as described in the Bible. They are sort of stuck with him. As a 'real' entity he has the nature he has, so you are trying to convince them that the only available option is evil. I actually think you'd have an easier time trying to persuade them there is no God.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I agree that Suzianne's defence didn't work, the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his heart hardened" and therefore not acting as a free agent.

You say:

the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his heart hardened" and therefore not acting as a free agent.

This is a misunderstanding. In the beginning, Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” The Pharaoh always had the free will to comply to the words of the Lord given to the Pharaoh by Moses. However, the Pharaoh's heart became more and more hardened by his own actions in response to the repeated requests followed by predicted plagues coming true when the Pharaoh refused to acknowledged the request from the Lord God.

This is what Moses means when he refers to the Lord God hardening Pharaoh's heart. When someone becomes more and more stubborn to the point that nothing is going to change his mind because he has become too prideful to admit his own faults and that he could be wrong, then this is having his heart hardened. There is nothing in that idea that insists that Pharaoh was denied free will, otherwise there would not have been repeated requests that would have allowed the Pharaoh to respond positively to the requests over and over again until God had to say something like, "enough is enough". Moses just refers to these plagues and Pharaoh's pattern of the same response against the will of God as God hardening the Pharaoh's heart.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Logically they should be trying to convert us, so should welcome the presence of non-believers.

Regarding the stuff in Exodus, I had to read it to remind myself of the exact story. Having done that I realised it was basically impossible to justify in modern terms. At the time it was written down collective punishment was pretty much standard practic ...[text shortened]... on is evil. I actually think you'd have an easier time trying to persuade them there is no God.

Logically they should be trying to convert us, so should welcome the presence of non-believers.

Not necessarily, they might be inclined towards converting implicit "atheists" (those who just haven't given the matter any thought) or agnostics; but the die-hard atheists like myself (who still don't assert no gods), in general they want little to do with us.
Apparently we are all minions of Satan, who have turned away from "God" because we want to satisfy out insatiable thirst for sinning (because the word 'sin' really is meaningful to someone who doesn't believe in the entity upon which the definition is anchored upon), and make up our morals as we go along.

Regarding the stuff in Exodus, I had to read it to remind myself of the exact story. Having done that I realised it was basically impossible to justify in modern terms. At the time it was written down collective punishment was pretty much standard practice so the Bible writers wouldn't have thought they were writing anything that shocking. On reflection, in the event I believed I'd probably just ask why an atheist was taking the Old Testament literally.
Well I don't know how your suggestion got past quality control even without a reading of Exodus. Putting that aside however, and moving on to your next move here - we would take it literally because the fundamentalists take it literally ... and the consequence of taking it literally is a notion of "God" that defies sense for the rest of us (moderate theists included), and inspires a mode of thinking that is still a couple of millennia behind the times.

There's a Weltanschauung problem, you think that "the notion of God I am challenging has also been invented", they think that God is real, tangible, and more-or-less as described in the Bible. They are sort of stuck with him. As a 'real' entity he has the nature he has, so you are trying to convince them that the only available option is evil. I actually think you'd have an easier time trying to persuade them there is no God.

Are they really stuck with "him" though!? is the twisted notion of "God" they have settled for the *only* possible "personal god"!? Have (sorry for name-dropping here) Divegeester and Zahlanzi who have much more sensible, and mellow notions of a personal god got it wrong?

Originally posted by Agerg
[b]Logically they should be trying to convert us, so should welcome the presence of non-believers.

Not necessarily, they might be inclined towards converting implicit "atheists" (those who just haven't given the matter any thought) or agnostics; but the die-hard atheists like myself (who still don't assert no gods), in general they want little to do wit ...[text shortened]... ter and Zahlanzi who have much more sensible, and mellow notions of a personal god got it wrong?[/b]

They aren't allowed to give up hope.

So you are saying that this is aimed at the fundamentalists rather than theists in general? You see the problem is that I don't think that was clear to anyone. It just looked like a generalised attack on believers. You'd need to say something like "the God of the fundamentalists" to make clear the distinction you are making.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You say:

the problem being that the Pharaoh is continually "having his heart hardened" and therefore not acting as a free agent.

This is a misunderstanding. In the beginning, Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” The Pharaoh always had the free w ...[text shortened]... aoh's pattern of the same response against the will of God as God hardening the Pharaoh's heart.

The first time "hardening his heart" appears is when Moses is visiting his father-in-law before he has even spoken to the Pharaoh:

The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”
Exodus 4:21-23

Although it does explain the point of the plague on firstborn sons. The bit you quoted about Pharaoh asking who the Lord is doesn't happen until Exodus 5:2. So the "hardening of his heart" is predicted in advance.
If you are going to take a literal reading of this then it is difficult to make the interpretation that you did. It says: "I will harden his heart". If you are going to argue as you did that Pharaoh does have free will then you aren't taking the Bible literally and I have to ask why you insist on the Creation Story being literally true but not Exodus, which is at least set in the historical era?

Originally posted by DeepThought
The first time "hardening his heart" appears is when Moses is visiting his father-in-law before he has even spoken to the Pharaoh:[quote]The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Ph ...[text shortened]... Creation Story being literally true but not Exodus, which is at least set in the historical era?

God is able to predict future happenings regardless of peoples free will. God already knows about the prideful heart of the Pharaoh and can predict what the request from Moses and these predicted plagues will have on the heart of the Pharaoh. The fact that God predicts what the response of the Pharaoh will be does not mean God forced Pharaoh's responses by not allowing him free will. It never says that God took away the Pharaoh's free will to react as he wished.

Originally posted by FMF
Rather than this wishy washy scatter gun ad hominem, I would be more interested to hear you share how you feel about 'explaining' some of the more difficult (so to speak) passages in say the OT. Sonship is a poster here who has, on occasion, written some thoroughly thought out stuff about the morality of things like slavery and genocide as depicted in the Bible. ...[text shortened]... ng about the Science Forum here on the Spirituality Forum and engaging in banter about "jokers".

Wo! I didn't know anyone actually responded to that! So... what specifically do you, as someone who had been a Christian for many years, want or need to know about the Bible?

BTW, I forgot just how long you said you were a Christian. Did you do much reading of the Bible during that time?

Originally posted by lemon lime
BTW, I forgot just how long you said you were a Christian. Did you do much reading of the Bible during that time?

A few years shy of three decades.

Originally posted by FMF
A few years shy of three decades.

Am I being presumptuous in assuming (that during that time) you spent some time actually reading and pondering what you read in the Bible?

If you don't know yet what I'm leading up to, then no problem... I'll just keep going with this until you see that proverbial light bulb turning itself on over your head. Unless of course the bulb is burned out, then I might suggest you getting a fresh bulb.

Originally posted by lemon lime
Am I being presumptuous in assuming (that during that time) you spent some time actually reading and pondering what you read in the Bible?

If you don't know yet what I'm leading up to, then no problem... I'll just keep going with this until you see that proverbial light bulb turning itself on over your head. Unless of course the bulb is burned out, then I might suggest you getting a fresh bulb.

I was a regular kind of Christian who read the Bible, prayed, and was involved in Christian activities.

Originally posted by FMF
I was a regular kind of Christian who read the Bible, prayed, and was involved in Christian activities.

Based only on your brief description here it sounds like you were simply going through the motions. However, aside from what you thought you should be doing as a Christian, what I really wanted to know is did you spend any time actually thinking about God? Did you really believe there is a God, or was your belief a sort of fuzzy acknowledgement of the possibility of God? Did you examine your belief the way you might examine anything else in your life, or to you does 'faith' simply mean you are supposed to believe without any evidence whatsoever? In other words, was your faith actually based on anything other than wishful thinking?

The reason I ask these questions is because your criticism of Christianity, and apparent agreement with atheists about the nature of God himself, sound suspiciously like any argument coming from a life long atheist who has never believed in the existence of God. It doesn't sound like you ever did believe in anything outside of the physical reality we can all touch taste smell see and hear. I'm also guessing that most of your attention (if not all of it) centered around other members of your church and/or Christian community, and not so much on God himself.

Originally posted by lemon lime
Based only on your brief description here it sounds like you were simply going through the motions.

Far from it.