- A cruel god would place the tree of knowledge there and either: not tell them the consequences or trick them into eating it.
- A cruel god would create a bunch of lesser creatures and force them into unscrupulous situations and declare that they obey his own rules or suffer when they never deserved it in the first place
Neither case is that of the Christian God. Now unless you're talking about certain other views like that of the Westboro Baptist Church...
Your first point, I simply say - why place the tree there at all?
Your second point, I disagree. I see your situation as follows. We were created by a being so we could love and worship and obey him for eternity. When this is not done, we are punished. For many, the punishment is eternal torture. This is to me exactly the situation you prescribed a cruel God would create.
No. Archeological and Historical findings did show us that slaves and free workers existed throughout Egypt. Historians and archeologists made it clear, however, that most of the slaves and workers were not foreigners but rather came from their own people. The problem is people like to then falsely extrapolate that the Israelite were never there in the first place. Nobody said the Israelite constituted the entirety of the slave population to ever have existed in Egyptian culture, not even the Bible said that these people built all the pyramids and structures of that time. They were for what, about a couple centuries? And think about how long the Egyptian civilization has been around. If the historians were able to properly and perfectly map out every detail of the longest recorded civilized human society in history, we wouldn't have historians or archeologists anymore. Unless we were there some millenniums ago, we may never know whether anything ever existed and not a huge collusion or lie, but anyways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Historicity_debateComplimentary wiki link, see the Archeology section, the other sections are good reads as well. For those wishing to whine about Wiki's veracity, click the citations and read the cited sources. Basically this is your word against overwhelming archeological evidence from experts in the field. The Israelites themselves did a massive search on it and came away empty handed, and they had every reason to find even the tiniest shred of evidence they could.
Here is a good overview of the slavery misconception as well:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/slaves.htm I don't blame you, I was falsely taught the same during high school and only recently discovered otherwise. It is a shame findings such as these take so long to circulate through society. Honestly, I suspect religious influence is to blame.
Innocent? Egyptians? They burned their own children to worship their gods and idols, they brainwashed their children and other people at the time. Pharaoh's people aren't as pristine as you think they are (besides, if the people did, they'd probably try to stir a revolution).
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/humansac.htm -info on human sacrifices in egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice - wiki link see egypt section
Also, regarding the first borns. First nobody knows for sure if every one of these people were all innocent and innocuous. Like I said it's possible they could've been brainwashed by their parents.
This is an appeal to ignorance. Starting with a fallacy as your first point does not fill me with confidence.
In addition, I only have to say that just one innocent first born was killed. Your the one that has to then try to justify that fact with an omnipotent being going on yet another killing spree.
Second, sure the Egyptian first borns may have died but think about how many Israelite first borns the egyptians killed annually. Historians have said that the ratio of Egyptian first borns killed to a few years worth of Israelite first born deaths is about 1:40.
Can you cite this please I can find no such thing. In fact here is another wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Ancient_Egypt saying there was no evidence of infanticide. Perhaps you are confused with the Greeks or Romans? At this point I am suspecting you just made that up. Ignorance is something I can forgive, wilful ignorance is something I abhor.
Even killing ALL the egyptians at the time wouldn't have equaled the cumulative number of deaths the Israelites suffered - your assertion that "the Egyptians are hurting people, so we will hurt them back even harder" is invalid because God actually went pretty easy on these people.
Once again can you please cite this 'fact' which I now suspect you are pulling out of your arse.
In addition, my assertion still stands. Regardless of how many Egyptians he killed and to what ratio it was compared to Israeli deaths does not change the fact that it is the same old barbaric thinking that you come to expect from authors of that time period "they are hurting us so we will hurt them back". Eye for an eye.
Third and more importantly, when innocents die, they aren't being punished at all, thus god wouldn't be sending these people to hell. There's this whole issue of the "age of understanding" theologians talk about everyday.
This is basically going back to what I have said in my previous post. If you are accepting that God is omnipotent as step 1 then every single action no matter how tremendous you will have to justify. Your third point shows this to the letter, you have basically conceded that God can kill anyone he wants for any reason and we would not be able to condemn him for it, have you not?
If you start with the question "IS God omnipotent?" and then look at his actions, which is what I have done, you will of course come to the obvious conclusion. He most certainly is not.
You have also failed to mention perhaps my biggest gripe I have with the whole firstborn slaughter thing. Why is it moral for God to transfer the punishment for one person's sins to other people? If my father murders someone, I do not go to jail. Yet when the Pharoah sins, others pay for it.
It is the same with Jesus, every single person, no matter how their sins, can earn forgiveness through redemption in Christ. Their sins can just slip away. Scapegoating! Transferring your own moral responsibility onto another. This is a cowardly, monstrous action that I despise. When a man rapes and murders a woman that evil will
always taint him. He will always be a murderer. Always be a rapist. Yet your God says no, forget about all that, Jesus will take all that on to himself. That is what Heaven is full of, scapegoats. People who have thrown their moral responsibility onto another. Frankly, I would despise such company.
You have yet to show me an example of where God murders innocent people for no reason at all. Please show me examples in the Bible and I'll tell you why God did what he did.
Well as I have just said this is a rather meaningless task if you concede in your third point that God can murder innocents for whatever reason he wants. And I'm not saying God kills for no reason, I'm saying God kills for stupid and bad reasons. Especially when he doesn't have to kill at all there are so much more peaceful ways for an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God to remove someone. Here is one of my favourites I like quoting:
2 Kings 2:23-24From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. %u201CGet out of here, baldy!%u201D they said. %u201CGet out of here, baldy!%u201D He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. Here's another good list for you to go ahead and justify:
http://lukeprog.com/religion/evil_bible_stories.htmlYou asked or raised issues regarding what's in the Bible so why would you refuse biblical quotes which corroborate what I'm telling you? If you hold such a bitter sentiment towards what the Bible says, fine, but if you are only going to continue posting here with a closed and bigoted mindset and only argue for the sake of venting out your hatred, then you need to stop wasting your time and move on.
Yes that was a nice little rant there but hardly becoming on a forum such as this. Refrain from throwing around such accusations in the future...
Now I do not hold a 'bitter sentiment' towards the Bible, I merely believe the majority of its contents to be inaccurate and not useful to today's society. Even treating it as a work of fiction I can find little enjoyment from it.
I will expand upon what I said, quoting Bible passages mean nothing to me. I want to hear what is actually your own words, just throwing some random line out from the Bible and leaving it hanging there as if it actually represents a coherent argument is laughable. I'm asking why God is it moral for God to punish us with something for which we have no control. Every human is born with sin already burdened on their shoulders. It is impossible for a human to live free of sin as they are born with it due to ancestral/original sin. We are created by God caged, and then Jesus is the key dangled in front of us. Now, in your own words, why is it moral for God to do this. Why must we be born imprisoned and already condemned to the flames.
I already told you, "beaming" his message of loving into everyone's brains is NOT giving people the choice to love and develop relationships. Thus my point still stands.
Ugh, wow. That is all you have to say? Beaming the message people still have the choice to follow that message or not.
Aaand I'm still asking the same question from my previous post. Why was his method of forgiveness a
human sacrifice. A human sacrifice!!! Not anyone of you here today witnessing that same event would just sit and watch a god damn human sacrifice. That is barbarity and stupidity of the enth degree, yet stopping such an act would have been an affront to your God.
And WHY is it conditional, if to forgive people, why not forgive them, unconditionally? Is he really so petty and spiteful that he will condemn millions to eternal torture for not thinking he exists?
Just like how laughable I find your views on Christianity/religion. I've seen better and less myopic arguments/views from Christians and apologists. In fact, even the other Atheists here on this site and other communities I'm a part of offer more thought provoking and mature arguments than anything you have said here. I suggest you learn from those people first.
Yes nice bit of ad hominem here in an attempt to shore up your wet-tissue argument. I guess I can say the same, you are basically doing what the majority of other internet-Christians I have discussed with are doing.
Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to be true. Put that aside and look only at the facts.
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 26 2011, 2:19 am by DevliN. Reason: There we go. Fixed.