I am a better father than the god of the bible

[Ray the atheist]

Definitions

Sin - A violation of God’s will or moral standard. Debate concerns whether sin is primarily disobedience, moral wrongdoing, or separation from God.
Punishment - A consequence imposed for wrongdoing. Debate concerns whether punishment should be deserved suffering, correction, deterrence, or restoration.
Harm -Damage, suffering, or loss experienced by someone. Debate concerns whether consequences imposed by God qualify as harm or justified judgment.
Justice - The principle that wrongdoing should receive an appropriate response. Debate concerns whether justice requires punishment, mercy, or restoration.
Good Father / Better Father - A moral evaluation of parenting based on qualities such as love, protection, guidance, fairness, discipline, and concern for a child’s wellbeing.

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The Rather Long Preamble:

My focus these days is the fall of all mankind… due to the sin of eating a prohibited fruit.

To me, the story represents an insanely evil style of parenting.

I have been an actual father, and I can easily compare both of our styles.
When my wife first got pregnant, I read a couple of books on fathering, because honestly, I didn't have a clue what good fathering should be.

I was raised under very unfortunate conditions, and I would qualify my father's care as nil. My dad was a violent drunk who only showed up to cause trouble and left to party until he ran out of money, terrorized us for money, broke things, threatened murder, attempted murder, and left for months after while he had some money to party.

So, I really had a need to be the best father I could be.. It would help me reclaim my humanity, my childhood, and somehow make up for my father's mistakes that lived inside of me. I don't want to give the false impression that I was the perfect father. I was far from perfect. I was not a perfect "God".

I was a struggling human with massive insecurities and faults. In modern parlance, my inner child was truly lost.
I tried my very best at fathering, but of course, since I only knew brutality, I often would fall into that trap. I was more harsh than the children needed me to be. I tried to correct as I went. I wish I could go back in time, but "it is as it is" and my kids love me. My kids are extremely happy in life and to me, that the sure sign that I didn't mess them up too badly.

I feel that I broke that terrible cycle of brutality, ignorance and addiction, and my plan was highly successful.
I judge my success by how compassionate my two children are to their own children, how happy they are, how happy their own kids are.

If I were taking care of Adam and Eve in the garden as a father, I would make rules for my children's own safety and benefit, such as not to eat a certain fruit. That would be my responsibility. If they broke my rule, I would not even think of punishing them, or anyone else. I wouldn't go on a brutal, vengeful rampage.. I would not threaten anyone with murder. My first reaction would be to care for my children, help them learn an important lesson, and not try to harm them in any way. I would try my best to turn their mistake into a connecting, relationship building event that would be intended to help them be more caring of others, and more caring for their own safety and happiness. I would always be concerned to enhance their self esteem, and enhance their understanding of moral concepts.

The god's first reaction is to harm his children and everyone who came after.. Including me and my children and grandchildren. This curse punishment can only be lifted by a belief in a certain religion, and the consequence of that is even more harsh, it's an eternal burning.

In the garden, I would set the rules, I would create the rule that mistakes need to be explained and corrected, that they should be made into an opportunity to learn, and I would explain and correct the mistakes with gentleness and love.

I know from first hand experience how brutality affected me .. And how tragic my childhood story is. Because of my knowledge of insane brutality, I would have "created" my own parenting style, which strives to promote a productive, life enhancing and compassionate atmosphere. I would try my best to model the behaviour that I wanted to see in my children.

God sets the rule, God creates the idea that sin needs punishment, God punishes sins. And God created his own brutally insane parenting style. In the garden, the god set the rules, he created the rule that mistakes need to be punished brutally, and that everyone else should be punished as well. God's example is to treat his children with brutality and shaming.

I would not have created the concept of sin that requires insanely brutal punishment, I would have come up with the idea of compassionate fathering. I truly believe that I was a much better father than the god of the bible. I'd say that in that story, the god was way worse than my father ever was. Almost infinitely worse.

I'd go further that that … I actually believe that any human father is better than the god of the bible.
Any human father, including my own.

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The Argument:


P1: Any father who responds to a child's mistake with compassion, guidance, and correction is a better father than one who responds with severe punishment and harm.

P2: The biblical God responds to human disobedience with severe punishment and harm affecting humanity.

C: Any human father is a better father than the God of the Bible.

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Bible References:


Genesis 3:16-19
“...I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children... Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.”


Genesis 3:22-24
“And the LORD God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden...”


Romans 5:12
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”


Matthew 25:46
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

[The Tanager]

The Argument:


P1: Any father who responds to a child's mistake with compassion, guidance, and correction is a better father than one who responds with severe punishment and harm.

P2: The biblical God responds to human disobedience with severe punishment and harm affecting humanity.

C: Any human father is a better father than the God of the Bible.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. It seems that you are saying the various passages support P2, but could you better lay that part out? Why interpret those passages the way you do?

[bjs1]

[Replying to Ray the atheist in post #1]

Allow me to present a different view of the incident in the Garden. Obviously I cannot prove my interpretation is correct, but I can say that it is more in line with what Christianity has taught over the centuries.

You have described God’s response to Adam eating the forbidden fruit as punishment. I would describe it as a natural consequence.

Let me start with a few conditions that I will take for granted are accepted as true. If you need me to explain any of these then please let me know.
*God desired that His creation be able to do good.
*The only way a person can do what is good is if he can also do what is wrong.
*Even an omnipotent God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot make people both morally free and cause them to do only what is good.
*To forgive someone requires me to bear the cost of what that person has done.

Good so far?

In the story, God gave Adam and Eve an abundance of fruit-bearing trees. However, he said that one tree was off limits. To eat the fruit of that tree was sinful. That is, it was disobedient, morally wrong to take what was not theirs, and would result in separation from God.

To eat from that tree, and thereby be separated from God, would result in death.

So God gave the first couple a warning. God said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die. I desperately do not want you to die, so do not eat from this tree.”

Once Adam and Eve ate from that tree, not even the Almighty could change the fact that sin had separated them from God. God would have to bear the cost of their sin in order to restore them. After asking some questions to see if Adam and Eve would take responsibility for their actions (they would not), the first thing God did was announce how he would restore his people to life.


The story of Adam and Eve is not one of punishment, but of unavoidable consequences. I would not compare it to a father laying down a law. Instead, it is like a father who says to his child, “There is a river at the edge of our backyard. It is a swift river with a strong undercurrent. It is dangerous. Never go near it or swim in it. If you get in that river, you could die.”

The father might take many precautions to keep his child away from the river. However, when the child becomes an adult (as Adam and Eve are depicted in the story), then there is little a father can do to stop his adult son from entering that river.

God did not seek to punish his children. Rather, God was heartbroken by the self-destructive choice they made. God sacrificed a great deal to restore his children to him.

[Ray the atheist]

Let me start with a few conditions that I will take for granted are accepted as true. If you need me to explain any of these then please let me know.
*God desired that His creation be able to do good.
*The only way a person can do what is good is if he can also do what is wrong.
*Even an omnipotent God cannot do the logically impossible. God cannot make people both morally free and cause them to do only what is good.
*To forgive someone requires me to bear the cost of what that person has done.

Good so far?

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

In my reading of the bible, I consider the god to be an insanely evil wizard of great power. Not looking out for our good at all.

In the story of the Fall, we have our second interaction between the god and his "creatures". They are commanded, they disobey and there are consequences.

In your second supposition, I just think that's weird. You assume moral goodness requires the ability to do evil, but that does not follow. A person could freely choose good without having the capacity or desire to choose wrong. I don't have that assumption, because I don't know how to test your hypothesis. I have to reject it.

You claim God cannot do the logically impossible, but that limitation is a philosophical assumption. The Bible does not state that omnipotence excludes logical impossibilities, so the claim requires justification. Once we accept magic, anything can be done.

I don't need to use your requirements for forgiveness. I can simply forgive on compassionate grounds. The harm the person has done doesn't have to have occurred to me in order for me to be capable of forgiving that person.

So, we aren't good so far.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

So God gave the first couple a warning. God said, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die. I desperately do not want you to die, so do not eat from this tree.”

**Adding To The Text**

You are inserting motives and emotions that the text does not state. Genesis says God gave a command and warning, but “I desperately do not want you to die” is an interpretation, not the actual text.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

Once Adam and Eve ate from that tree, not even the Almighty could change the fact that sin had separated them from God. God would have to bear the cost of their sin in order to restore them. After asking some questions to see if Adam and Eve would take responsibility for their actions (they would not), the first thing God did was announce how he would restore his people to life.

Your almighty god is beginning to show a few limitations.

It can't do what is logically impossible and it cannot change his mind about his commands.

What has limitations cannot be omnipotent.

This does not compute.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

The story of Adam and Eve is not one of punishment, but of unavoidable consequences. I would not compare it to a father laying down a law. Instead, it is like a father who says to his child, “There is a river at the edge of our backyard. It is a swift river with a strong undercurrent. It is dangerous. Never go near it or swim in it. If you get in that river, you could die.”

False Analogy

The father did not create the dangerous river, but in Genesis God created the environment, the tree, and the consequence. The analogy removes the creator’s responsibility for the situation.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

The father might take many precautions to keep his child away from the river. However, when the child becomes an adult (as Adam and Eve are depicted in the story), then there is little a father can do to stop his adult son from entering that river.

False Analogy

The analogy ignores that God created the situation, knew the outcome, and allowed the serpent to deceive Eve. A father does not create the danger, arrange the temptation, and impose the consequence.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #3]

God did not seek to punish his children. Rather, God was heartbroken by the self-destructive choice they made. God sacrificed a great deal to restore his children to him.

Unsupported Interpretation

The text does portray consequences for disobedience, but “heartbroken” and “sacrificed a great deal” are theological interpretations. Genesis does not explicitly state God’s emotions or motives. The restoration theme develops later in the Bible.

[Ray the atheist]

[Replying to The Tanager in post #2]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. It seems that you are saying the various passages support P2, but could you better lay that part out? Why interpret those passages the way you do?

P2 is supported by passages where human disobedience results in severe consequences affecting more than the individual. I provided those references in my original post, but the reasoning is that the punishment extends beyond Adam and Eve to humanity.

For example, Genesis describes Adam’s disobedience resulting in death and suffering entering human existence, and Romans 5:12 connects Adam’s sin with death spreading to all people. The interpretation depends on accepting the biblical idea that humanity inherits consequences from Adam’s act. Also pain in childbearing was a new and very painful consequence.

The debate is whether those consequences are justified correction or disproportionate punishment. That is the point P2 is challenging.