Theism's Perversion of Basic Terms

Originally posted by finnegan
That is an empty question without meaning. What makes anything important? It is also a diversion.

To repeat. You challenged the forum to supply an example of God acting in a way that is arbitrary and unjust. In the Book of Job I gave you a perfect example which also illustrates the weakness of your position, which I consider ranks with sunday school sta ...[text shortened]... dern, ideological / political agenda that is not religious in its motivation or its practice.

I know you choose the Book of Job, I was there when you did it. That doesn't mean
anything unless YOU come up with something in it that shows God doing something
that is arbitary and unjust, and what in Job did God do that was either of those
things? I asked you what was important in this life, knowing that this life is very
short and what is to come isn't. What is it about our lives that are important to
God and why? If you don't know or even can hazzard a guess, how in the world are
you going to show me or anyone God doing anything that both arbitary and unjust?
You do not seem to grasp what God is doing in this life with us, so how could you
know when God is doing anything wrong?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I know you choose the Book of Job, I was there when you did it. That doesn't mean
anything unless YOU come up with something in it that shows God doing something
that is arbitary and unjust, and what in Job did God do that was either of those
things? I asked you what was important in this life, knowing that this life is very
short and what is to come i ...[text shortened]... s doing in this life with us, so how could you
know when God is doing anything wrong?
Kelly

I see. The destruction of ten children of Job is not important in the scale of things. All that matters is their resurrection in the next life. Yes that and similar themes are central to your type of religious thinking though not to all types. It also reduces to utter nonsense all concern with morality and all humane values. There is no morality - or if there is, it is not based on what we know about God. Nothing in this life has value.

Which rather clarifies my own point. The Bible is not a guide to morality or justice or values or ethics. Indeed, as many others point out, it is littered with injustice and inhumanity and casuistry.

Christoper Hitchins captured this very acutely in his study of the sainted Mother Theresa of Calcutta. She enjoyed a celebrity lifestyle and attracted millions and millions of dollars / pounds / whatever to her religious order, which expended this on fancy altar ornaments and the trappings of a religious practice, but the donors were under the illusion they had donated to the care of the poor. Not so. The poor were left to suffer greatly, without appropriate modern health care and particularly palliative care, in unacceptable spartan conditions. As Hitchins points out - she was not really dishonest, in that she always said she would use donations to do God's work. It's just that God's work was primarily religious and not caring.

Similarly with religious interventions in politics. It is not offering justice or addressing inequality, in fact it preserves the interests of the wealthy and corporations. Yet it uses the language of justice and the language of caring. It promotes the smug assurance that the wealthy are benefitting from their own personal merit and the poor are suffering for their lack of personal merit. Hence the theme of this thread which I endorse.

There are alternative approaches to religious faith I agree. Interesting to examine the history of the Celtic faith before it was dragged into the Roman fold for example. But they do not indulge in a confusion between faith and politics or simplistic morality of the sunday school variety. They do not declare that science is from Satan. They do not seek power.

Ultimately of course it is not possible to reconcile faith and the religious way of thinking and teaching with reason without destroying all that is beneficial in faith. But reason is not going away - it was hard earned and has achieved too much now to give way to sorcery and humbug. It is necessary, eventually, to abandon magical thinking, however attractive and soothing, without ignoring what was and remains good and attractive in our religious history, and start to deal with reality.

Originally posted by finnegan
I see. The destruction of ten children of Job is not important in the scale of things. All that matters is their resurrection in the next life. Yes that and similar themes are central to your type of religious thinking though not to all types. It also reduces to utter nonsense all concern with morality and all humane values. There is no morality - or if the ...[text shortened]... was and remains good and attractive in our religious history, and start to deal with reality.

I believe you are confusing what Satan does with what God does. 😏

Originally posted by finnegan
I see. The destruction of ten children of Job is not important in the scale of things. All that matters is their resurrection in the next life. Yes that and similar themes are central to your type of religious thinking though not to all types. It also reduces to utter nonsense all concern with morality and all humane values. There is no morality - or if the ...[text shortened]... was and remains good and attractive in our religious history, and start to deal with reality.

Well you tell me, everyone (human) in that story is now dead, everyone from
Job to all the kids, and grandkids, and great grand kids! In the grand scheme
of things if your God, did you see that coming? We are not talking about how
if affects us by way of making us feel good or bad, but is God doing something
that is worthless or meaningless or whatever negative words you want to
apply. What is God doing and how do you know if what He is doing is bearing
fruit or not? You are accusing God of that, not some human, so how are you
judging God for things you have no clue about?
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Well you tell me, everyone (human) in that story is now dead, everyone from
Job to all the kids, and grandkids, and great grand kids! In the grand scheme
of things if your God, did you see that coming? We are not talking about how
if affects us by way of making us feel good or bad, but is God doing something
that is worthless or meaningless or whatever ...[text shortened]... d of that, not some human, so how are you
judging God for things you have no clue about?
Kelly

I am reading and discussing what the Bible says. You are making the strangled contortions of someone lost in your own word games. Why are you trying to walk away from what is written so clearly and readably in the Bible? There is nothing terribly obscure about all this. A lot has been said and written about Job and I am not walking terribly far away from well trodden turf. Obviously, the implications I draw are my own but that is how the game is played. We share an agreed text and discuss its implications as we see them. But the text is agreed and you are not acknowledging that.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe you are confusing what Satan does with what God does. 🙄

you wouldn't know.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You are putting God again next to a human with all the human flaws.
God isn't going to act that way, yet you keep dragging Him down on par with us.
How about you just treat God as God and man as man?
Kelly

How about you just address my hypothetical instead of dodging it?

See, this is exactly why I preemptively prefaced it with the disclaimer that it is a hypothetical, I repeat a hypothetical, that is in the business of probing the implications of your view. It's blatantly false that I dragged God down since my hypothetical implies nothing about God; it only takes on some supposition regarding God for the express purpose of argument. The hypothetical has nothing to say about God; it has something to say about your view. Your view is absurd. It's apple versus identical apple and yet your view suggests that one is evil to the core and that the other is loving and just.

Originally posted by LemonJello
How about you just address my hypothetical instead of dodging it?

See, this is exactly why I preemptively prefaced it with the disclaimer that it is a hypothetical, I repeat a hypothetical, that is in the business of probing the implications of your view. It's blatantly false that I dragged God down since my hypothetical implies nothing about God; i ...[text shortened]... and yet your view suggests that one is evil to the core and that the other is loving and just.

I told you why! You are turning God into human with all the human flaws and
intents! You keep coming back to the same error, we are not talking about a
man in robes here, but the One who created the universe and everything in it,
and holds it all together by the power of His Word. You reduce God into
someone who for kicks just desides to kill for kicks.
Kelly

Originally posted by finnegan
I am reading and discussing what the Bible says. You are making the strangled contortions of someone lost in your own word games. Why are you trying to walk away from what is written so clearly and readably in the Bible? There is nothing terribly obscure about all this. A lot has been said and written about Job and I am not walking terribly far away from we ...[text shortened]... cuss its implications as we see them. But the text is agreed and you are not acknowledging that.

Like I said I'll just go to the Web site and see what it says, since I don't require
you to get your thoughts.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Like I said I'll just go to the Web site and see what it says, since I don't require
you to get your thoughts.
Kelly

The rest is silence.

If it be now, 'tis not to
come, if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now,
yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has
aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I told you why! You are turning God into human with all the human flaws and
intents! You keep coming back to the same error, we are not talking about a
man in robes here, but the One who created the universe and everything in it,
and holds it all together by the power of His Word. You reduce God into
someone who for kicks just desides to kill for kicks.
Kelly

I didn't reduce God or turn Him into anything. Again, I presented a hypothetical to further examine your view, and you have not actually addressed it.

I described a morally relevant action: I described the act itself along with the underlying motivation. Apparently on your view, moral agent A could perform this action and his doing so would be evil to the core, whereas at the same time agent B could perform the same action and his doing so would be consistent with perfect justice and love. I have yet to hear from you any explanation that would reconcile this.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I didn't reduce God or turn Him into anything. Again, I presented a hypothetical to further examine your view, and you have not actually addressed it.

I described a morally relevant action: I described the act itself along with the underlying motivation. Apparently on your view, moral agent A could perform this action and his doing so would be evil t ...[text shortened]... rfect justice and love. I have yet to hear from you any explanation that would reconcile this.

I beg to differ you most certainly did,
" Suppose that God also decides to line up a bunch of Jewish people and execute them because He is bored and thinks it will be fun."

You have God lined up to act because....He is bored and thinks it would be fun.
That is reducing God to a human by filling His motivation to that of boredom
and going to do something just for the fun of it. God has a purpose in all He does
and He even takes those things we do and work them out for the good.

As I've pointed out to you countless times now it seems, it is God who we owe all
life too, and God who assigns each life the fact it will end in this place. So if God
gives humans 120 years, a fly one day than at the end of each they die. If God for
some purpose ends a life early or allows one to go on a little longer it is up to
God to do that not us. You want to take something that is completely in God's
control and say if God does this one way it is okay and if He does it another it is
not, and I'm telling you it is always up to God and He can do it as He wills.
Kelly

Originally posted by finnegan
I am reading and discussing what the Bible says. You are making the strangled contortions of someone lost in your own word games. Why are you trying to walk away from what is written so clearly and readably in the Bible? There is nothing terribly obscure about all this. A lot has been said and written about Job and I am not walking terribly far away from we ...[text shortened]... cuss its implications as we see them. But the text is agreed and you are not acknowledging that.

So you say that the Holy Bible is just a word game, in which anyone can change the meanings to meet his own desires. Christians don't see any word games in the Holy Bible. To us it is the writtings of holy men inspired by God. So what atheists say about it means diddly-squat. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
So you say that the Holy Bible is just a word game, in which anyone can change the meanings to meet his own desires. Christians don't see any word games in the Holy Bible. To us it is the writtings of holy men inspired by God. So what atheists say about it means diddly-squat. 😏

Reading comprehension FAIL. 😞

Originally posted by SwissGambit
Reading comprehension FAIL. 😞

Thanks: I don't respond to Hinds.

Incidentally, I thought I was gone from this debate but I'm unlikely to debate Job again any time soon and I just wondered, does anyone think that this tale in which God takes on a challenge from Satan (we are told - I didn't write it remember, it's the BIBLE) and looks to see what Job will do if all his wealth is taken away from him - anyway, my question is does this answer Einstein's famous dictum that God does not play with dice? Apparently he does - well, he gambles anyway.