The "Horrific God" Charge

Another thing the Holy Bible says as that when God's purpose is finished
that there will be no pain or death and He will wipe it out of our memory
and we will have a glorified physical body like Jesus has and live eternal
from that point on. So we will not care what we have had to endure on
this earth during this temporary life in this temporary body. It will all be
for the better good. Read all of Paul's letters to the Churches for more
understanding.

P.S. An example of this for us in this life is the pain a woman has to go
through to have a baby. The woman soon forgets about the pain and
feels it is worth it now that she has her baby to love.

Originally posted by RJHinds
No. 2

typical response, one i would expect from someone who has no clue what the biblegod is.

Originally posted by RJHinds
God does not threaten, abuse, or torture us if that is what you think. Being
told the punishment for sinning is not a threat. It is a promise of judgment
on the wicked. What do you think is the abuse and torture? Being in
torment is punisment but not abuse and torture.

torment means infliction of torture!

your biblegod threatens to inflict eternal torture on those who refuse to feed his enormous ego or even those who don't acknowledge his existence. he is definitely the #1 psychotic child taking pleasure in tormenting puppies type.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I don't believe either exists, but that's beside the point. It's what you believe I was getting at.

And of course you answered as expected, by saying your god is more powerful than Satan,
which is doctrinally right as far as I understand these things.


If satan is less powerful than god, (Much less powerful one is given to understand)

Then Sa ...[text shortened]... s it or satan does it,
god is responsible either way, because he is the one with the power.

You used a capital "s" for satan and a small "g" for god. Be careful or RJ will think you are trying to do the will of satan or some such 🙂

While I digest bbarr's article I would like to repose my questions. I don't see that anyone answered

I believe that in all human history no one I can think of surpasses Jesus of Nazareth in displaying the qualifications to assess the level of "goodness" of God. Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good or bad, how just or how "horrifically" unjust God was.

1.) If you believe someone else in human history more exemplifies the position to evaluate the moral character of the God described in the Bible, who is that other person or persons ?


2.) Why do we see Jesus of Nazareth discribe this God as "Righteous" (John 17:25) ?

" Righteous Father, though the world has not known You, yet I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me."

"And Jesus said to him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One - God." (Mark 10:18)

Why didn't Jesus, Who seems highly qualified to speak to the subject, not inform us of how horrible, unjust, horrfic God was ?


For those of you who disagree with Jesus and protest that God was not "good" alone and not "Righteous" but "HORRIFIC!" I would like you to roughly rank your level of morality against that of Jesus Christ.

On a scale of 1 to 20 with 1 being the lowest level of truthfulness, righteousness, and goodness and 20 being the highest level of these characteristics, where on the scale would you rank yourself roughly and where would you rank Jesus Christ of the New Testament roughly ?


Taking a few of our vocal skeptics of the Bible I would expect to see something like this:

20 Highest Degree of Morality
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1 Lowest Degree of Morality

Rank yourself and rank Jesus Christ in comparison with yourself please.
I expect to see rankings from VoidSpirit, Rwingett, bbarrr, googlefudge and a few other of the more eloquent skeptics and Atheists on the board.

Originally posted by rwingett
You do not have the right to kill your children.

No, but I'm also saying I did not create my kids too.
Kelly

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
any moral thinking being will come to this conclusion.

having the power and ability to destroy does not grant one the right to do so.

I've been saying have the ability to create allows the creator to do as the
creator wills. Simply being able to destroy does not require creation or the
ablity to create.
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]the potter will do what the potter will do to his pot.

That the potter will do what the potter will do is just tautological. So this is vacuously true and says nothing.

You want to put a standard
upon the creator and I'm asking you, who are you to do such a thing?

This thread concerns the application of the term 'horrific' to the ...[text shortened]... to imagine a literal reading of it under which all the actions of God are fair and just.[/b]

I started a reply to this, but don't have a lot of time.
I'll try to write tomorrow, not feeling very well today I'm ready for some
sleep.
Kelly

Originally posted by jaywill
While I digest bbarr's article I would like to repose my questions. I don't see that anyone answered

I believe that in all human history no one I can think of surpasses [b]Jesus of Nazareth in displaying the qualifications to assess the level of "goodness" of God. Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good udge and a few other of the more eloquent skeptics and Atheists on the board.[/b]

If Jesus was who he claimed he was, and who is generally thought to be (ie irrelevant of whether he was fictitious or not), then I would expect him to have had an understanding into the true nature of God.

When you say "Jesus seems to be the most qualified to be in a position to critique how good or bad, how just or how " horrifically" unjust God was", I assume that He was talking about God that is the ground of all being, the everything , the all.
You assume the he was talking about an entity separate from creation,(as in some super-natural,super-intelligent and powerful being,perhaps like an advanced E.T.).
This is where I always get stuck with you and other christians and yet we both know there is only one true god.
It is a shame that you will not consider reading this from my point of view, you are so sure of yourself, that you have the correct interpretation.
I will however, consider that 'God' here is a being separate from creation and follow the rest of your points. Lets see where we end up.

1.I believe there were some others who were "christ-concious",(to put it in christian terms), ie elevated to the conciousness of JC. Guatam Buddha. Osho. Mohammed. The Zen masters. Krsna. The thing is, God is so overwhelmingly huge, so impossibly complicated that no 2 enlightened persons will have the same thing to say about It/Him. They will all just have their version, one aspect, of the truth (called "God" ).
On the outside no 2 Zen masters will seem to agree while inwardly they both share the same Mind, the same 'Ground of Being'.

2.Jesus was 'talking up' God because thats what the people of the time needed to hear. By all accounts they were pretty thick back then, and he wanted to keep it clean and simple. He did not inform us of how horrible God is, because It/He isn't. (That was the easy one, the one I suspect we both agree upon).

The way I read the intentions (and other subsequent posts) of the OP is this: If the God of the bible was good,loving,etc. then why did he cause so much suffering? much like a meglamaniacal ruler.
Again, I see this as a rational and logical way to interpret the biblegod. Of course both of us know that much violence was perpetuated in the name of biblegod BY PEOPLE. They used the bible as an excuse for murder, torture,etc. God (neither yours or mine) did not intend this, but stepping in would've negated our free will and disturbed the natural (spiritual) evolutionary process.

I will pass on you morality test-I am not an atheist anyway.

I contend that the god who is described as fatherly, who is in heaven, who sees all,etc. is actually an anthropomorphised, watered down version of a being who was responsible for part creation of our world. This being was obviously so powerful that Jesus even bowed down to him/her/it.
For there is no being called "God" . God is just a word we use to describe stuff, a very handy and useful word, but a word nevertheless. If there was no biblegod then many would not have followed the way of Jesus and christianity would not have been spawned.
For all it's bad sides, christianity has actually done a lot of good and unified many people. For example if Hitler didn't do what he did, then some other git would've stepped in and tried to do what Hitler did-the thing is that all these type of lessons needed to be learnt by the human race so that they would not be repeated.
The goal of evolution is to get 'us' back to Godhead. The problem that you and I have is universal among unenlightened humans, ie. we dont know who we are, for we are not the body we drag around all day , the body that decays. We are the 'force' that animates this body. There is no way to get to heaven except through the example that Jesus (and a few others) have laid down. Also we can access heaven while we are alive. That is another lie perpetuated by humans to keep us in our place. So that we may trade our lives, our time , for limited satisfaction.
The truth is we are the truth. Each and every one of us. The truth is so simple yet so hard in practice that most people pass it by everyday , aye, some even cry out for water in the midst of rain.

Originally posted by bbarr
So, here we go:

[b]a) Suppose (2) is false.
b) If so, then every instance of suffering is logically necessary for the greater good.
c) Hence, had any instance of suffering not occurred, the world would have thereby been less good than it could have been.

As before, 'less good' here just means 'less morally preferable'. So, a world that is less g imself appear to me and tell me about the sacrifice of his only begotten Son, or…[/b]

Excellent post! There's just a little point I wanted to go over.

In short, it is insufficient for the theist to attempt to explain away the suffering in, say, the Holocaust, by claiming that the Holocaust was instrumental in awakening the world to anti-Semitism, or the horrors of genocide, or whatever. Such a claim could only be maintained if there are good reasons to believe that had even one fewer person fell victim to the Nazis then whatever greater good the Holocaust engendered would have been, of logical necessity, precluded.

Basically I think the Sorites paradox arises here. Let's say that the Holocaust was a necessary step in the world awakening to anti-Semitism. Now you are suggesting here that the historically recorded number of victims in the Holocaust was not logically necessary for this result. Presumably one less would have achieved the same global result. Presumably then too, one less again would have achieved the same global result. So, in essence, if n is sufficient (where n is the historically recorded number of victims), n-1 is sufficient. Therefore n-2 is sufficient. Eventually however that leads us to the conclusion that n-n is also sufficient, which can't be right, unless we believe that the world awakening to anti-Semitism could have occurred without the Holocaust. That however just contradicts the first premise.

I think the theist could object to your argument here. They could reply that some number was sufficient for this global result but that a fallible human could not possibly determine what that number is: the presumption that one less would be sufficient just eventually leads to the Sorites paradox. God however is omniscient and knows exactly what number and exactly who must suffer. It is quite a chilling thought but I think the theist could reply with that.

Originally posted by KellyJay
No, but I'm also saying I did not create my kids too.
Kelly

The postman? 🙂

Seriously though, why do christians constantly affirm their separation from God? Is it prideful ,iyo, to say that I/we are equal to God? (Because we are)

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
torment means infliction of torture!

your biblegod threatens to inflict eternal torture on those who refuse to feed his enormous ego or even those who don't acknowledge his existence. he is definitely the #1 psychotic child taking pleasure in tormenting puppies type.

The tormenting I am talking about is a mental thing and is not torture.
It is like "waterboarding" which can be torture if taken to extreme, but
if done correctly, it is just tormenting enough to be a highly effective
interrogation technique. 😏

Originally posted by karoly aczel
The postman? 🙂

Seriously though, why do christians constantly affirm their separation from God? Is it prideful ,iyo, to say that I/we are equal to God? (Because we are)

We are no where near being equal to God. That kind of thinking is
probably why you have so much trouble accepting the existence of
the God of the Holy Bible. We are all sinners.

Originally posted by RJHinds
We are no where near being equal to God. That kind of thinking is
probably why you have so much trouble accepting the existence of
the God of the Holy Bible. We are all sinners.

Like I said: you christians constantly put up a barrier between you and God. (you do this with your mind, with your thinking)
I totally refute the God of the bible. There is no such being.
We may all be born sinners but we have all been given free will to become non-sinners. Of course to do that you must first understand what things like "sin" is.
To me a "sin" is anything that is "god-eclipsing" . Mull over that one for a while and get back to me if you wish.

(I'm not saying you magically turn into an immortal being if stop thinking dualistically , ie put up a barrier between you and God. It is a tricky process but you must start with a correct premise otherwise you just go in circles.
And you must get creative, there is an onus on you co-create the universe along with it's other sentient inhabitants. )

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Like I said: you christians constantly put up a barrier between you and God. (you do this with your mind, with your thinking)
I totally refute the God of the bible. There is no such being.
We may all be born sinners but we have all been given free will to become non-sinners. Of course to do that you must first understand what things like "sin" is. ...[text shortened]... e is an onus on you co-create the universe along with it's other sentient inhabitants. )

That is crazy talk, man. If anyone is puting up a barrier, it is the one that
refuses to believe He exists. We have been given free-will and can try not
to sin; but Jesus is the only man able to do it up to now.