Offshoot discussion of "what religion are you" thread

[GrayMouser]

No need to do a search; it seems pretty simple to me:

Is the Bible true or not? Did this happen, yes or no?

If yes, either:

A) Murdering pregnant women, grandmothers, and babies is GOOD because God commands it.

B) Murdering pregnant women, grandmothers and babies is NOT good, and therefore God sometimes commands that which is Evil.

C) I can't say whether murdering pregnant women, grandmothers and babies is evil; maybe sometimes it's good, maybe sometimes it's evil; it's a mystery.

.

And if you're saying the Bible is not "easy" or whatever, I'll put you down for "C"


If you can pick something other than the above, please tell me

[Finrod Felagund]

Basically, you must remember. These women had turned the Israelites away from God. It had nothing to do with them being pregnant, bu them sleeping with men who were not their husbands. These women were Cananites, who God hadsent the Israelites to Eradicate. No I know you're going to say something about God ordering war...BUT...the Canaanites did much worse. As an example, the God Molech was a hollow statue which would have a fire buit inside. The Canaanites placed children in his arms and they were burned alive.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
Could it be that we think it's wrong to kill people because it is not good for the survival of the species if we go around killing everybody we see?

or perhaps its because it wouldnt allow our genes to propagate themselves if we all went around killing each other without any qualms whatsoever. In this case it would have the same effect (allowing the species to survive) but the ultimate motivation would be from the genes themselves. oh no am i oozing my biogenetic argument over from the dreaded good/evil thread now?

[Ruinel]

GrayMouser has a point.

Modern Christians want to believe in a merciful, loving god that forgives all sins and opens his arms to all walks of life.

In fact, the bible states otherwise, and in many places.

This loving god they worship in reality is nothing more than an excuse to subjugate the masses and justify acts of horror against their fellow human.

God is with us, drop a bomb on 40K people, it's ok. God is with us, round up people because they worship differently the same god, but not his son. We'll gas them all and dump their bodies in mass graves. But it's ok, god is with us. Let's capture people from their homes, stuff them in ships under inhuman conditions and take them (if they survive the journey) to various continents to be sold as chattel because the color of their skin is different. It's ok, the bible says we can keep slaves.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think this kind of justification is exclusive to Christians. Muslims do it to. As well, others.

[Finrod Felagund]

I'm a Christian and I don't believe that those thingsshould have been done in the name of God at all! The Crusades? F***ing retarded. But people did that in the ame of God. Did God tell them to? NO! The pope did! But lets not get into that. (I'm not Catholic as I'm sure you can guess)

[Artanis]

Originally posted by cassiopeia
Could it be that we think it's wrong to kill people because it is not good for the survival of the species if we go around killing everybody we see?

Originally posted by RÃ*an
And re your "survival of the species" thought - see, you introduced a moral judgement - you used the word "good". Where did your sense of morality come from? If evolution is just one possibility out of a zillion-plus chances (the one that "happened" to work), then all other chances are just as "good" (or more accurately, none of the possibilities are either bad or good). How can "chance" have good/bad attached to it? (unless we bring in our own judgement, put into us by God, to evaluate things). IOW, it would have been equally "good" for the species to NOT survive, if evolution is the only thing in town...

RÃ*an, I wanted to answer you exactly the way cass did, but she beat me. I don't think cass meant 'good' as morally good, at least I wouldn't have meant it that way. Perhaps a better word would be 'useful', or 'effective'? If evolution is the only thing, as you say, then survival is the only thing that matters, and we, humans, have 'learned' that our chances to survive are better if we live together in societies where there are rules and laws that govern and protect us all.

I also question the assumption that we all have a universal sense of what's right and wrong. I don't think we're born with a sense like that, rather I think our moral code is something we learn as children, and our feelings of what's right and wrong depends on what society teaches us.

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
I'm a Christian and I don't believe that those thingsshould have been done in the name of God at all! The Crusades? F***ing retarded. But people did that in the ame of God. Did God tell them to? NO! The pope did! But lets not get into that. (I'm not Catholic as I'm sure you can guess)

But this is not just Catholic Christians. All religions are at fault. They all err in this fallacy that their god is on their side, therefore they can justify whatever horrible act they choose. Because their god wills it. And how do they know their god wills it? Because some man is designated as the voice of this god. And this man brings the message of this god to his people. And therefore, it is not a god's message, but a man's.

[Finrod Felagund]

I agree. It's not just Catholics. Protestants are as bad too. But I believe God doesn't just speak through one "Almighty voice of God leader". I believe he speaks to all and anyone who will listen.

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
I agree. It's not just Catholics. Protestants are as bad too. But I believe God doesn't just speak through one "Almighty voice of God leader". I believe he speaks to all and anyone who will listen.

*ring ring* Oh... hold up... gotta get the phone. *picks up phone*

"hello?..... yes... this is Ruinel... god?! ... ok.... I'm listening... mmhmmm... righteous, dude ... mmhhmmm.... uh, cool... right on... *chuckles*... yeah... I'll tell him... oh, yeah... cool... yeah, later, dude." *hangs up phone*

... god says we're not married.

[Finrod Felagund]

Scowl...scowl...scowl...scowl...starts to crack...scowl...scowl...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!...ahem...scowl...scowl.















































But seriously, I've never heard of God using the phone directly. Although he speaks to us through other people, who may speak to us through the phone!



Anyways, I still love you Ruinel. PM me and tell me you email. Iwon't pester you. and i mean that in all seriousness.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Ruinel
*ring ring* Oh... hold up... gotta get the phone. *picks up phone*

"hello?..... yes... this is Ruinel... god?! ... ok.... I'm listening... mmhmmm... righteous, dude ... mmhhmmm.... uh, cool... right on... *chuckles*... yeah... I'll tell him... oh, yeah... cool... yeah, later, dude." *hangs up phone*

did he sound like george burns? or Alanis Morisette?

[Ruinel]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
Scowl...scowl...scowl...scowl...starts to crack...scowl...scowl...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA !!!...ahem...scowl...scowl.

Yyyyyyeeessssss... *does arm pull movement*... another man broken. *puts another name in 'book of broken men'*

But seriously, I've never heard of God using the phone directly. Although he speaks to us through other people, who may speak to us through the phone!

Why not? If this god can speak from a burning bush, why not a telephone.

Anyways, I still love you Ruinel.

Yeah... they all still love me. hehehe

IR: Alanis Morisette. I loved that movie.

[Finrod Felagund]

I never said God couldn't use a telephone. Just that I'd never heard of him doing so directly before.












And I quite enjoyed Dogma to.

[Ruinel]

Well... originally I had this post that would be considered by many sacrilegious. And although, I do not believe in there is a supernatural being, I stopped and thought about it. I was thinking that there are many Mooters who's feelings I care about and do not wish to offend. So, I decided to delete all that and put this up instead.

I don't really care what religion the person next to me is. I don't care what they worship or don't worship. What I do care about is that humans in general have used their religion and the deity that they worship as an excuse to persecute, harass and even torture and kill people who are of a different religion than they are. I'm not talking about thousands of years ago, or even hundreds of years ago, or even 50 years ago. I'm talking about today, in your own backyards.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally posted by Ruinel
GrayMouser has a point.

Modern Christians want to believe in a merciful, loving god that forgives all sins and opens his arms to all walks of life.

In fact, the bible states otherwise, and in many places.

Guess I'm not a modern Christian then. I always thought that olden was better than modern, so yay! The blasphemy of the Son will be forgiven man, but the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven man.

And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "opens His arms" to all walks of life...?

[Coney]

Originally posted by Finrod Felagund
But seriously, I've never heard of God using the phone directly. Although he speaks to us through other people, who may speak to us through the phone!

I once had to listen to Julie Andrews warbling her way through The Hills Are Alive (with the sound of music) while on hold .............it might not be God, but I guess it's a pretty good second

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

Well, I've never heard of god calling people up on the phone either, but what about email? hmm, God@heaven.org? or would it be .com? .edu? .net? what exactly would heaven be then?

*is very curious as to what Ruinel was originally going to say in her post* *grin*

[Elven Archer]

at a beta club convention a few years ago the motivational speaker said that he was about to kill himself of something but he was going to call his mom before he did or something like that. or maybe he just picked up the phone. can't remember the details but he said God talked to him on the phone. or maybe it was that he picked up the phone right before he was gonna kill himself and god told him to call his mom. i can't remember. i just know he said that God talked to him on the phone.

[Rían]

OH......MY.......GOODNESS!!!

Houston, we've got some problems here......

*I'm going to be up packing very late tonite - sigh*

OK, first Grey Mouser...

by Grey Mouser (numbers added by RÃ*an for reference)
(1) No need to do a search; it seems pretty simple to me:

(2) Is the Bible true or not? Did this happen, yes or no?

(3) If yes, either:

A) Murdering pregnant women, grandmothers, and babies is GOOD because God commands it.

B) Murdering pregnant women, grandmothers and babies is NOT good, and therefore God sometimes commands that which is Evil.

C) I can't say whether murdering pregnant women, grandmothers and babies is evil; maybe sometimes it's good, maybe sometimes it's evil; it's a mystery.

And if you're saying the Bible is not "easy" or whatever, I'll put you down for "C"
(end 3)

(4) If you can pick something other than the above, please tell me

I most certainly CAN pick something else. You're not including all the options. (Anduril used to do this, too - tell me what options I had and say I had to pick one. Well, if I think there is another valid one, I won't pick one of yours, I'll pick what I think is the right answer, because I'm interested in what I believe to be the truth).

(1) Well, you're wrong, IMO; it's NOT simple. If I think that something is simple and another person who has studied that field says it's not quite as simple as it seems, then I at least give them the benefit of the doubt and think that perhaps it only looks simple to me because I don't know much about it. Will you give me the benefit of the doubt and think that perhaps it's not as simple as it appears to you?

(2) yes; yes.

(3) This is a pretty simplistic analysis, IMO. I think your problem lies in a common misconception that non-Christians have - the (wrong) idea that "love" and "good" are only fluffy, nice, friendly things. As C.S. Lewis puts it, we want a "grandfather in heaven" who is rather senile and just wants to give us candy and let us have fun. We don't want a father who loves us and cares enough about us to correct us when we do wrong things.

My oldest son just turned 13, and we're starting wrestle over some things (not physically, at least yet!). I told him just yesterday, "you can make this hard for me, or you can make it easy - your behavior is your choice - but I"m going to keep working on this, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!". Your view of God (and some other people's views that I see here) does not seem to allow for that kind of love.

Also, what about consequences? Do you want a God that turns his back on horrific behavior? Is it "GOOD" for me to discipline my son for his bad choices? He may not think of it as "good" in the simplistic sense (like you used in your options above), but it IS "good" in the real sense - it is in his best interests! And again, I don't "like" it, either - it's very difficult for me - but I do it BECAUSE I LOVE HIM AND BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT.

[Rían]

(3 continued)

Your analysis is simplistic in another way, too, IMO - you're saying that whatever God commands is "good". I would say that whatever God commands is "right" and "just" and "the perfect choice for the situation" - it is "good" in THOSE senses, and not in a silly, fluffy type of meaningless "good" sense. In THIS case, what was commanded was also sorrowful, but because of the free will that God has, in His wisdom, allowed us, it was necessary. I would NOT use "good" for this situation, because I think the meaning of the word is not adequate for the situation, esp. the common, popular meaning.

Would you please reconsider your view that it's a simple subject, and look up Wayfarer's posts? He had quite a few posts on this subject, and I think they were very good. I can add some more thoughts next week, too, if you would like me to.

(4) I can, and I did