Why do some modern intelligent minds accept Yahweh?

[marco]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

It seems obvious that Yahweh is born of primitive imagining. Yet many intelligent people do accept he is a real being. Why? Some like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis have changed sides and embraced Christianity with both hands, presumably admiring the unlovable OT God. What makes people do this?

Love seems out of the question, so is it fear?

[Volbrigade]

[Replying to post 20 by JehovahsWitness]

Excellent post, Muff.

Volbrigade wrote:
Does He love us? That's a tough question.

Not really "a tough question" at all ... for the faithful.

Well -- not to get too semantical about it, but I think it's a "tough" question, anyway you look at it. JMO.

And I wasn't addressing the "faithful", was I?

[Kenisaw]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

Those look like reasons to suppose that the deity was not an enlightened 21st century Australian. Are they reasons to suppose that he's not real?

Yes, when you combine that with all the all-good all-loving stuff about the same god creature elsewhere. All those contradictions make the existence of the god of abraham utterly impossible...

[Kenisaw]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

It seems obvious that Yahweh is born of primitive imagining. Yet many intelligent people do accept he is a real being. Why? Some like G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis have changed sides and embraced Christianity with both hands, presumably admiring the unlovable OT God. What makes people do this?

Love seems out of the question, so is it fear?

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares,

a rather selective scope.

Says the guy who takes the word of one person (Paul/Saul) as evidence that 500 people saw a dead person's resurrected body. Interesting choice of words on your part...

creating and destroying,

I do not find anything like the Hindu god Shiva in the O.T.

I guess your "version" of the Bible doesn't have world wide floods and Sodom & Gomorrah in it...

commanding and punishing,

My parents gave commandments and punishments when I broke them. I never have nightmares about them. I suppose some might think an amoral deity more sophisticated.

No one ever claimed your parents to be all-loving, all-good, never deceiving supernatural entities that I am aware of. Your comparison is not relevant.

crazy with jealousy

Would it have been more rational if Yahweh said, "You shall love all the gods equally, sacrificing to any idol you care for"

I guess being "all-love" doesn't count for the other gods, eh?

and obsessive about being "loved."

Obsessed? As I recall the command to love God appears only a few time. It should also be noted that the ancient term carried a connotation of obedience, less of sentiment.

All your god does in the OT is hand out warnings of punishment for disobeying, followed by actual punishments. For an all mighty creature it sure does need human attention in order for it to be happy...

It seems obvious that Yahweh is born of primitive imagining.

To you perhaps. To others it does not. Israelite religion eludes modern explanations for the rise and character of religions. It is very peculiar that a monotheistic (or at least monolatrous) religion should arise in the ancient near east: there was only one other attempt recorded and it was hardly monotheistic, and failed within a generation. To find something like the Yahwehism in that time period is like finding a mountain flower springing up in the desert: the environment does not explain the origins, let alone the endurance.

Yahweh was the Canaanite god of war and weather. That's where it came from. The Israelites brought it with them when they stopped being cattler herding nomads and settled down. Yahweh was not even the first main god of the Israelis, El was (hence the name israEL)

[Kenisaw]

Here is a quote from you in a different thread:

It was no benevolent God who flooded the planet.

How do you know that? If a pack of wolves were devouring a flock of sheep, would you say “no benevolent shepherd would get rid of the wolves?�

Since no one claims the wolves are all loving, all good god creatures, your comparison is not useful. Since the shepherd didn't create them, or tell them to behave a certain way beforehand, there is no reason to compare your tale to the Bible god and it's evil actions...

[1213]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

Perhaps the reason is that they have actually read the Bible and found truth, wisdom and reason.

I personally don’t see it true that OT God is “the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved��.

[Kenisaw]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

Perhaps the reason is that they have actually read the Bible and found truth, wisdom and reason.

I personally don’t see it true that OT God is “the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved��.

So the worldwide flood that drowned newborns was, what, a bath?

[marco]

You mean love seems out of the question to you. I think the majority of Christians don’t share your views seeing God as a destructive, crazy nightmare. I think Chesterton, Lewis, me, and many others do see God as all knowing, all just, and all merciful and see Him this way out of love not fear.

I am normally happy to let people accept what they believe. In the case of people "loving" God, I make an exception. It is not possible to love God. It is possible to deceive ourselves into thinking what we experience is love. It isn't.

I think it odd to think or believe prayer or worship takes away time that could be in your opinion better spent.

Prayer is one of man's absurdities. Millions congregate to thank God when there is nothing to thank God for. Millions congregate to ask God to help in some situation. He invariably refuses. Sometimes many assemble in a church and God watches as an earthquake destroys it. Prayer is an indignity.

.... so not sure one can say belief in God is an alternative to hard work and progress. What an odd statement.

If we are reduced to praying for a solution, there is none. Scientists got to where they were not by prayer but by intelligent research and calculation. If they modestly attribute their efforts to the Holy Spirit's inspiration, that's got nothing to do with me -or the Holy Spirit. Man works unaided by heaven.

[marco]

The Old Testament God is the stuff of nightmares, creating and destroying, commanding and punishing, crazy with jealousy and obsessive about being "loved."

Perhaps the reason is that they have actually read the Bible and found truth, wisdom and reason.

Then they read selectively, with the bad parts cut out. To kill a few people might be unfortunate; to destroy almost all the people on the planet is a work of wickedness. To ask for bits of a man's genitalia might be weird; to ask for the murder of a man's son is wicked. There is no love in the OT God unless death and love are synonyms.

[bluethread]

You mean love seems out of the question to you. I think the majority of Christians don’t share your views seeing God as a destructive, crazy nightmare. I think Chesterton, Lewis, me, and many others do see God as all knowing, all just, and all merciful and see Him this way out of love not fear.

I am normally happy to let people accept what they believe. In the case of people "loving" God, I make an exception. It is not possible to love God. It is possible to deceive ourselves into thinking what we experience is love. It isn't.

Apart from my initial post #4, I have stayed out of this debate, mainly because, as that post points out, this is sparring between the absolute rationalists and the romanticists. The reason why reasonable people believe in deities, is because no one is absolutely rational. Also, the "love" spoken of in the Scriptures is not universal or a matter of mere emotion. The romantic and the rationalist both project their philosophies onto the universe. The honest rationalist will admit that the universe is not absolutely rational, and that is where the honest rationalist parts ways with his rationalism to presume a rational force behind the universe. That is not because it is rational, but because without such a rational force, one is left with nihilism, which undermines rationalism.

[marco]

The honest rationalist will admit that the universe is not absolutely rational, and that is where the honest rationalist parts ways with his rationalism to presume a rational force behind the universe. That is not because it is rational, but because without such a rational force, one is left with nihilism, which undermines rationalism.

That's fair enough. One deduces that the reason we employ is a fraction of a larger reason, which in turn is a fraction of a larger reason.... This gives us a view of our very modest place in the universe but it does not give us Yahweh.