The Prodigal Son for debate

[Divine Insight]

I just watched the video posted by Otseng in the Holy Huddle forum. It's a story I'm well familiar with.

However there appears to be a grave contradiction in this story. The obedient son who had become jealous at the end of the story was supposedly upset that his father had killed the fatted calf to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.

Buy then the father turns to is righteous son and says, "Everything I have is yours".

How is this not a contradiction? According to the story the righteous son was upset because his father wouldn't even give him a goat to share with his friends. (see video @ 3:15) But now the father is claiming that everything he has also belongs to his righteous son.

Is the son only just now being told that everything his father has is also his free for the taking? If that's true then what's up with him complaining that his father never gave him so much as a young goat?

These are the kinds of self-contradictions that tend to always plague the Biblical stories.

Sure, from a purely moral perspective, we can make some kind of moral justification for this tale as being nothing more than a moral parable. However, that doesn't change the fact that the parable contains serious contradictions.

The righteous Son in this story apparently felt that his father would not permit him to take a young goat and share it with his friends. In fact, the mere fact that the righteous son was so upset about this implies that the son had actually requested this in the past only to have his father deny him.

So the story appears to me to have some serious self-contradictions associated with it.

Question for debate: How is this parable not self-contradictory?

Note to Otseng: Great video production by the way. It's not your fault that the original story contains these contradictory inconsistencies. If what the father claimed was true (that he would deny nothing from the righteous son), then why would the righteous son have any reason to be jealous of the prodigal son?

The story shoots itself in its own foot with this extreme contradiction concerning the righteous Son. He was upset about something that supposedly didn't even exist. Supposedly he could have had a young goat to share with his friends anytime he wanted and apparently just didn't know. This seems a bit problematic to me.

[shnarkle]

If nobody ever made any stupid choices, then it's evidence that we have no free will.

I'm not sure why that would necessarily be the case. If nobody ever made stupid choices, it could also be evidence that people aren't stupid enough to make the wrong choice.

Ideally, the reason people should do good is simply because it is the right thing to do.

I don't think that's quite ideal. Let's say you're married and your spouse is faithful simply because it's the right thing to do. Would you say that is ideal, or would the ideal be that your spouse is faithful because of the love that is overflowing from their heart?

When someone does good because they love doing good, isn't that ideal? It seems to be the biblical ideal. When we see God's promise of a new covenant based not upon one's ability to know right from wrong, but based upon God giving his people a heart to keep his commandments.

[Divine Insight]

After all, we have absolutely no evidence for the existence of any God, and we actually have tons of evidence for why there most likely is no God.

I'd like to debate with you on that sometime in a separate thread.

I would be very happy to have this debate with you. Perhaps we can set it up as a head-to-head. No purpose to win or lose the debate. Just a public exchange of views.

But that doesn't mean that I can't claim to still be a Christian. Human language is abstract and we are free to use terms pretty much however we see fit. As you well know, on this site it's forbidden to even tell someone who claims to be a Christian that they aren't a Christian.

Of course I'm well aware of that rule. I'm not saying you aren't a Christian, but I just want to find out what you mean by being a Christian.

What I mean by being a Christian is what I consider to be a very down-to-earth practical matter.

First off, just to get a feel for what I'm talking about I'd like to recall Richard Dawkin's views. He thinks it's ridiculous that children are considered to be "Christians" (or Muslims or Jews) simply because they were born into a family that believes in those religions.

I was certainly indoctrinated from early childhood into Christianity. I was told by my parents, relatives, and clergy that the religion is true. The Christ was God's Son and the Bible is the "Word of God". Not to imply that they were fundamental literalists, but they certainly believed that the Bible was a correct description of God, etc. They believed the stories told in the Bible, from Adam and Eve, to the Great Flood, to the story of Jesus and everything else the Bible had to say.

I bought into it. Why shouldn't I? I was young, naive, and I trusted my parents and other adults to have clue what they were talking about. As it turns out they clearly didn't now. They too has simply been indoctrinated from their childhood and apparently simply never questioned the authority of the Bible. In fact, it was even taught that to question the "Word of God" was a sin.

Not only did I believe the stuff. But I wanted to be on the good side of God. Not to avoid his wrath, but simply because I too wanted what was "good". I didn't like bad things either. And I accepted Jesus Christ as my "savior". So I became a "Born Again" Christian. Born again in the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ my savior.

That was the idea that I had been taught. And I actually believed this stuff so I wanted to understand it better. In fact, I already noticed that the preacher were not clear on many issues. Some of my uncles were preachers and we used to have preachers over for dinner a lot, so I got to see a lot of conversations between preachers and it was crystal clear that they had different opinions on things. They would discuss these issues extremely politely, but in the end it was clear they held different views on what the answers should be.

I wanted to know the TRUTH. So I turned to the studying the Bible find the answers to these questions. Not only for myself, but I also wanted to teach the word of God. How could I teach it if I hadn't yet learned it? So I studied the Bible and that was when I came to the realization that it cannot possibly be true. So that was the end of my belief in the Bible. And in Jesus as the Son of Yahweh.

To now say that because I no longer believe in the Bible this means I'm no longer a "Christian" is an insult to my entire childhood life clear up to my mid 20's. It kind of makes it sound like I know nothing of the religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm simply an indoctrinated Christian who accepted Christ as my savior, only to discover later that the whole religion is simply false.

So that's what I mean when I say that I'm a "Christian". I certainly can't be associated with any other religion. I never officially became a Buddhist. Neither have I ever became an official Wiccan. I enjoy practicing Wicca, no so much as a serious religion, but simply because it's fun and I enjoy it.

So I'm not surprised that people who want to believe in various religions go through life finding support for what they would like to believe.

Actually, I believe not because I'd like to believe it, but because there is rational support to believe in it and it makes more sense than any other worldview.

Well, we could debate the merits of whether or not there is rational support to believe in it. Obviously I feel quite different on that point.

Instead all I have rejected is a totally false and grossly incorrect picture of what God is NOT.

Me too. I reject the God that you've portrayed as well.

Funny, but when I discovered that the Bible was false, and that Jesus could not possibly have been the Son of God I actually felt very strongly that the "Real God" was very happy with my new insight into reality.

Because that's another thing. When I realized the Bible was false and that Jesus was not the Son of God. I didn't take that to mean that there is no God. All I took it to mean is that the Bible doesn't describe God. So I didn't instantly become an atheist when I discovered that fallacy of the Abrahamic religions.

In fact, to this very day I don't claim to be an atheist. I much prefer to use the label of agnostic. I simply don't know whether there is a higher being or not. I just don't see any evidence for one.

But getting back to the point I don't see how you can justify the God described in the Bible. But then again you seem to think that the behavior of the father in the Prodigal Son story is acceptable. I don't even condone the behavior of that father. He should have had a far better relationship with the son who chose to stay home, IMHO. And I refuse to pin the blame on the son, because IMHO, it's the father's job to cultivate that relationship. The father can't be blaming a bad relationship with his son on his son, IMHO.

So I would imagine that you and I would have significantly different ideas on what we might find acceptable in terms of a Creator God.

Way back when I was studying the Bible and began to realize that it wasn't making sense and was full of contradictions I sat down and made two lists.

1. Things I believe an omnipotent omniscient God would do.

AND

2. Things that sound like incompetent men made up.

I believe the fundamental flaw in logic is the assumption that God is omnipotent. Note this is an assumption because the God of the Bible is not described this way. This would be another good topic to debate.

From my perspective I wouldn't even need for God to be omnipotent. All I would expect is for God to be smarter than me. And I don't see that in the God described in the Bible. So that kills it right there.

Historian, scientists, politicians, law, medicine, economics, your friends, etc, do not claim to be Perfect Creator Gods. So why should you expect any of those things to be flawless?

I do not claim God is a "perfect creator god" either.

Well, just as I said above. I would at least expect my Creator God to be a far cry above me. And I just don't see that in the Biblical God.

You may have heard me say this before, but when reading through the Bible there were only about three characters I could even identify with, Moses, Noah, and Christ, and even all three of those let me down in terms of being a better example than myself.

I would just expect far more of the Creator of the Universe. Especially in the case of the Christ. Moses and Noah, are permitted to have flaws. But even that brings up the question of why God couldn't have found better people to do his bidding?

Why were God's priests such grave hypocrite that Jesus himself proclaimed that they deserved the greater damnation?

Why can this God not even find decent humans to carry out his bidding on earth?

I just see no excuse for this. The common sense conclusion that these are just poorly written superstitious fables is just a far more rational explanation.

If Christianity is God's message to humans then there's no excuse for Christianity to be flawed in any way. We should indeed expect it to be absolutely 100% perfect. After all, just a moment ago you justified condemning anyone who isn't perfect. But now you're allowing your God to be as imperfect as the Republicans. How is that supposed to work?

Depends on what you mean by "perfect". In terms of a relationship with God, we're to be morally perfect and without sin. In terms of perfect in that God is omnipotent, I don't believe that.

I agree! In fact, I have even defended the words attributed to Christ when he said, "Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect". I claim that he was only talking about being morally perfect, not absolutely perfect in every imaginable way.

Unfortunately for this theology even that fails, because Christ would then still be telling us to do something that we supposedly aren't even capable of doing until we accept him as being our puppet master. In this religion we aren't permitted to be perfectly moral. That would be a violation of this religious theology. No human can possibly be perfectly moral as this would make Christ unnecessary.

But this religion tosses morality out the window anyway. Christ offers salvation to anyone, it doesn't matter whether they are a moral person or not.

And we really can't even restrict this to just Christianity, which is itself a highly self-divisive theology with all its disagreeing factions and demoninations, but instead we must look at the entire Abrahamic picture, including Judaism and Islam and all of their divisive disagreeing factions and dogma.

I don't disagree that there are divisions in Christianity. But, divisive beliefs are not isolated to Christianity or to religions. Just being a football fan can make people divisive.

But who cares about football fans? They have nothing to do with a God.

These religions are supposed to have something do with with a God.

Everyone who believes in Christ as the Son of Yahweh should be on the same page.

In fact, everyone who believes that Yahweh is God should be on the same page.

But we don't see that. Even people who claim to be worshiping this God can't agree on what the God wants from us. That's a very powerful red flag that there's most likely no God behind these religions.

If there's a Perfect God behind this original religion how could it be that he allowed his message to humanity to become so corrupt? In fact, reading the Bible I would say that the messaged had to have become corrupt a very long time ago starting with the fables of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Because humans are involved, things will get corrupted. But, just because there is falsehood, it doesn't mean everything is falsehood.

But that cannot be true. Why? Because my chance at salvation cannot depend on humans having screwed everything up.

If I am convinced that the Bible has nothing to do with any God and that Jesus cannot be the Son of Yahweh, and this is all because humans were involved screwing up the "Word of God", then how can I be blamed for having rejected the whole shebang?

So that can't work. Any God who demands to be worshiped, loved and obeyed, had darn well better make sure his message to humanity remains pristine, unambiguous, and crystal clear, as well as being totally compelling and convincing.

I see none of that in the Bible.

You can't have a supposedly righteous God condemning people for merely not believing in a totally screwed up theology or doctrine. That wouldn't be right.

So there can be no excuse for God's message to humanity to be anything other than 100% crystal clear and compelling. I don't see the Bible as exhibiting either of those two qualities.

And all the while he was having communications problems with the son who stayed home and didn't rebel. Again, a father who was incapable of having a meaningful relationship with either of his sons. It's not the kind of father I would want to spend eternity with.

I don't see how it was some miscommunication by the father. The problem was the heart of the older son that believed good works would entitle him to rewards. Jesus presented this as a story to reveal the heart of the religious leaders. He was communicating with them. But, should we blame Jesus for the Pharisees to remain obstinate? OK, if you claim that Jesus was omnipotent then he should've been able to convince the Pharisees. But, laying that aside, the Pharisees had a free will and to decide how they'd react.

We'll just have to disagree on this one. I feel that you are letting the father off the hook for having any responsibility for having brought up his sons intelligently.

I mean sure, we can make this excuse for a human father because human fathers are incompetent mentors, etc.

But we can't make this excuse for a Creator God. So when you allow the failings of a human father to serve as the excuse for a Creator God, you've already lost sight of the real issue.

That argument basically boils down to an argument that our Creator God is a lousy teacher/mentor/parent. That's basically what your argument here amounts to. I don't buy that excuse for a God.

If the father wants to have a relationship with the son he needs to become the son's best friend and treat him as an equal partner, not as a slave.

The story never says the father treated his sons as slaves. It was either the son that wanted to come back home and was willing to be a slave or the son that acted like he was a slave.

The bottom line appears to be that neither son was very impressed with their own father. That doesn't look good for the father. Trying to pin all the blame onto the son while pretending that father had no responsibly for the bad relationship just isn't going to work for me.

As I mentioned before, you and I may have totally different criteria of what we expect a God to be capable of. I expect the Creator of the Universe and all of Humankind to have a little more abilities and intelligence than you appear to be expecting from such a supreme being.

You may reject the idea of "omnipotence". But surely you need to give the Creator God the ability to create an entire universe that is beyond human comprehension from scratch. And surely you should expect our Creator God to be far more intelligent than the most intelligent mortal human who has ever lived.

I just don't see this level of potency or intelligence in the Biblical God or any of the stories or parable that serve to supposedly describe how he might behave.

It seems to me that you are willing to allow the Creator God to be almost at a human level of intelligence and abilities in an effort to support the Bible.

There's no way that I am prepared to do that.

The story sounds more like how a rich human father might treat his sons, not how a supposedly Perfect Creator God should treat the objects of his creation.

Since there is no Perfect Creator God, then we can dismiss that option.

Exactly how inept are you going to end up arguing that this God has to be?

Apparently you've already come to grips with the fact that the God described in the Bible cannot be very powerful or intelligent. But doesn't this then run into problems when it comes to explaining how this God was able to create the entire universe and everything in it?

Again, this is going to be a major point of disagreement between us. I expect a Creator God, to be quite a bit more powerful and intelligent that you are apparently willing to give him credit for.

If we need to belittle the creator and reduce him to having no more intelligence than your average human male just to "save" the Bible, I think that's a pretty desperate apologetic position to be in.

In fact, creating immature and stupid humans and giving them free will would be an utterly stupid thing for a Creator God to do in the first place.

So, IMHO, if a Creator God exists then there is no reason why any human should be less than mature and intelligent. The fact that there are so many immature and stupid humans on planet earth is extremely powerful evidence that there is no purposeful Creator God.

Stupid and immature decisions are the result of a free will. So, it was not God specifically creating stupid people, but creating people with a free will. If nobody ever made any stupid choices, then it's evidence that we have no free will.

Ever hear of repeat offenders? People who have been released from having been punished only to turn around and repeat the same crimes?

Yeah, but not everyone is a repeat offender. So, it cannot be argued that punishment is useless since some people are repeat offenders.

Ok, fine. So it's just not very effective. But again, how inept do we need to make God to keep the idea alive?

Shouldn't a God who is capable of creating the entire universe and designing everything in it be able to deal with these petty problem effectively?

The excuse that God's methods aren't very effective, doesn't seem like a very powerful apologetic excuse to me. To the contrary it sounds like nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep the idea of a God alive in a world that shows absolutely no signs of any God existing.

So punishment as a deterrent would be antithetical to the theme of Christian theology anyway.

Ideally, the reason people should do good is simply because it is the right thing to do.

I agree. And if God had created people with intelligent brains they'd know what the right thing to do is. And being intelligent they would do the right thing. Because doing the wrong thing is just plain stupid.

People should not do good with the expectation that there would be some sort of recognition or reward (like the older son in the story).

Exactly. And so there is no good reason to believe that the older son in the story had been designed by an intelligent Creator God. The son having evolved from a primate naturally explains this so much better.

Chalk one up for natural evolution and mark a zero for a Creator God.

There have been several interesting topics raised in this thread. Seems like one huge stumbling block for people believing and accepting Christianity is the concept of hell. So, I'll be moving on to this thread:

What is the Biblical view of hell?

Ok, I might stop in there sometime if I can find the time. I'm actually trying to spend far less time on these forums lately.