Alright, Jehovah Exists - Why Worship Him?

[Purple Knight]

Let's assume the God of the Bible exists. Taking aside that he has named himself God, why is he God?

What makes an entity God?

And if this entity exists, why worship him?

[Purple Knight]

Biblically God does not punish anyone for what they did not do, nor does he hold anyone or anything responsible for other people's poor choices. That said, He allows suffering to exist. If children suffer it is not because they are being punished by God but because they are being betrayed by their caregivers.

If I understand you correctly, it's wholly possible that both 1) the Amalekites might have needed to die, and 2) they all or most of them (or at least the babies) went to Heaven because it wasn't necessarily their fault that they were raised by an evil culture to be evil and trapped in a chain of evil.

If so, do you have the expectation of an adult to be able to reject evil he is taught and become righteous? Because this is the fundamental core of the topic.

Every day since birth this man was fed evil. He was never taught good. But can he work it out? He has free will and Reason, doesn't he?

If children suffer it is not because they are being punished by God but because they are being betrayed by their caregivers.

You've just contradicted yourself. In post #73 you were asked:

"What did the infants and sucklings do?"

You answered:

"Suckle on the wrong women evidently."

So, according to you, these nasty little infants who apparently suckled on the wrong women (ignoring momentarily the absurdity of this claim) were punished by God for suckling on the wrong women.

I don't think he's saying the babies are immoral; I think he's trying to avoid being trapped in a definitional bear trap about being punished for something one did not do. The babies did technically do something; they drank the wrong milk. I don't think he's claiming the babies are morally responsible for that, just that in the real world, they might suffer for it, whereas if some Amalekite had been Moses'ed and some wholesome mother who would teach him good had found him in a reed basket, that baby would then not have suffered and nobody (neither God nor his People) would have been too terribly concerned with seeking him out and killing him because it was tribal, but not specifically racial.

And it may even have been possible that Amalekites had (for example) blue skin, making it impossible for that little blue baby to break out of evil, because everyone sees his blue face and treats him as evil, leading him to become evil, so that he still has to die, but the reason he has to die is not directly racial, it's just the result of everyone in play being inherently racialised.

If the Amalekites were really, really bad, I can see strong parallels between their evil and the evil of white privilege in that nobody is morally responsible for whose vagina they fell out of, but we still have to deal with the reality of the situation if one group is oppressing others. Religion has a perfectly viable cop-out: Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. It's canonically possible that because the Amalekites were individually innocent but tribally guilty, they all had to die and they went to Heaven anyway. Here in the real world, unfortunately, we have to deal with messy situations like these without this easy fix, and possibly punish people for things they had no control over. Because if action is taken against people because of privilege they didn't ask for, they'll see it as a punishment, and "no lol it's not a punishment, we're just causing you to suffer" will seem as hollow as it is, which is very.

[JehovahsWitness]

If so, do you have the expectation of an adult to be able to reject evil he is taught and become righteous? Because this is the fundamental core of the topic.

EZEKIEL 33 :11 NLT

As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?

[Purple Knight]

If so, do you have the expectation of an adult to be able to reject evil he is taught and become righteous? Because this is the fundamental core of the topic.

EZEKIEL 33 :11 NLT

As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?

Well there you go, people - adults - can be expected to turn from wickedness to righteousness.

This is where I derive an obligation to examine. Because if you aren't alert to the taste of that evil milk, you'll never spit it out. So taste it critically.

If everyone (adults) has the obligation to examine, and if good is within us all to find, everyone can be expected to turn away from wickedness.

But here's the rub: 1. If you're just expected to trust whatever you're spoonfed, then we can't expect anyone to turn. (Logical.)

Here's where it becomes a syllogism. 2. We can expect anyone to turn. (We get this as a premise, for free, because Ezekiel gave it to us.)

Therefore, we can't just trust what we're spoonfed. We must examine.

Boom, obligation to examine. Obligation to reject, if we find the milk to be sour. For adults, anyway.

Now, I'm still struggling to make sure that I have honest examinations and rejections. There's a lot of sour taste in my mouth from being fed a very pacifist version of Christianity by my Unitarian family. So how do I know if I really hate avocados, or, if I'd been born somewhere else, fed them prepared well from an early age, maybe I'd like them. I can't spit out without examination. That's as bad as swallowing without examination. So honesty with onesself... it would have to be greater about this than people typically are. People typically lie to themselves.

This Amalekite thing doesn't even put me off, this thing that everyone always uses as a red herring, and it's because I did examine it! But there are some other aspects of Christianity I find troubling and irresolvable.

[JehovahsWitness]

If so, do you have the expectation of an adult to be able to reject evil he is taught and become righteous? Because this is the fundamental core of the topic.

EZEKIEL 33 :11 NLT

As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?

Well there you go, people - adults - can be expected to turn from wickedness to righteousness.

This is where I derive an obligation to examine. Because if you aren't alert to the taste of that evil milk, you'll never spit it out. So taste it critically.

If everyone (adults) has the obligation to examine, and if good is within us all to find, everyone can be expected to turn away from wickedness.

But here's the rub: 1. If you're just expected to trust whatever you're spoonfed, then we can't expect anyone to turn. (Logical.)

Here's where it becomes a syllogism. 2. We can expect anyone to turn. (We get this as a premise, for free, because Ezekiel gave it to us.)

Therefore, we can't just trust what we're spoonfed. We must examine.

Boom, obligation to examine. Obligation to reject, if we find the milk to be sour. For adults, anyway.

Now, I'm still struggling to make sure that I have honest examinations and rejections. There's a lot of sour taste in my mouth from being fed a very pacifist version of Christianity by my Unitarian family. So how do I know if I really hate avocados, or, if I'd been born somewhere else, fed them prepared well from an early age, maybe I'd like them. I can't spit out without examination. That's as bad as swallowing without examination. So honesty with onesself... it would have to be greater about this than people typically are. People typically lie to themselves.

This Amalekite thing doesn't even put me off, this thing that everyone always uses as a red herring, and it's because I did examine it! But there are some other aspects of Christianity I find troubling and irresolvable.

Really Knight is this just an outpouring of consciousness or is there a point you are trying to make? Nobody is born wicked but some people grow to love wickedness; ultimately only God can judge and he is gracious enough to give us all time to reveal what we truly are.

JW

[Purple Knight]

Really Knight is this just an outpouring of consciousness or is there a point you are trying to make?

Yes, the point is, obligation to examine. Derived from the Bible itself. There absolutely must be one, otherwise you can't expect people to turn from wickedness if they were taught wickedness.

Since we can expect people (adults anyway) to turn from wickedness, there must be an obligation to examine.

[JehovahsWitness]

Really Knight is this just an outpouring of consciousness or is there a point you are trying to make?

Yes, the point is, obligation to examine. Derived from the Bible itself. There absolutely must be one, otherwise you can't expect people to turn from wickedness if they were taught wickedness.

Since we can expect people (adults anyway) to turn from wickedness, there must be an obligation to examine.

Fair enough but as Paul said, one cannot do that without help, you can only examine if you have been alerted to an alternative ...

ROMANS 10: 14, 15

However, how will they call on him if they have not put faith in him? How, in turn, will they put faith in him about whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? 15 How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent out? Just as it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who declare good news of good things!"

[Diagoras]

Nobody is born wicked but some people grow to love wickedness;

Is wicked synonymous with sin? Because I understood one of the tenets of Christianity to be that everyone was born into sin and had to be saved by turning to Jesus.

[Diogenes]

You are being a bit free and easy with your classifications here, only God can pronounce a person evil, we do well, to recognize evil acts do not an evil person make. Racism is bad, even evil perhaps, but a person can be racist without being evil.

Talk about 'free and easy!' Your imaginary 'god' does not have a good track record on morality or pronouncing who is 'evil' and who is good. This is that same fictional character who told Abraham to kill Isaac to prove his loyalty to the God-Tyrant. This is the same character who supposedly created humans, called them 'good,' then called them evil and drowned them all, save one family whose patriarch got naked drunk and cursed his mocking son.
The point is this 'god' of yours is a fictional character, who, if real is a bumbling jackass with the morals of Stalin. I am not mocking God; just this absurd fictional character in Genesis, the one you refer to with an English name, 'Jehovah.' Jehovah is as real as Lex Luthor, but with more questionable morality.

[JehovahsWitness]

Nobody is born wicked but some people grow to love wickedness;

Is wicked synonymous with sin?

No.

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

SIN , WICKEDNESS/EVIL and ... DEATH

[Purple Knight]

Really Knight is this just an outpouring of consciousness or is there a point you are trying to make?

Yes, the point is, obligation to examine. Derived from the Bible itself. There absolutely must be one, otherwise you can't expect people to turn from wickedness if they were taught wickedness.

Since we can expect people (adults anyway) to turn from wickedness, there must be an obligation to examine.

Fair enough but as Paul said, one cannot do that without help, you can only examine if you have been alerted to an alternative ...

ROMANS 10: 14, 15 How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach?

By always asking the question, any time you do anything, "What if this is actually wrong?"

It won't get you into Heaven in the Christian canon and I get that this is the main point he's talking about, but as far as just not being wicked and choosing righteousness instead, I think this is a reachable goal, based both on my assessment and yours.

You're not supposed to have blind faith. You can't be. Someone could hand you the Book of Lies in infancy and tell you it's the Bible. That's why it must be good to always be thinking about whether that's been done to us.

If you're just expected to swallow whatever tripe you're fed, even if it goes against your conscience, then nobody would turn from wickedness. Or at best, it would be a coin flip. The way it's not a coin flip is if peoples' internal compasses are built to be correct. Those Israelites Ezekiel pled to, to change their ways, must have known in their hearts that they were wicked. And that doesn't mean they will change, and it's hard, and most people don't do it... but it's not a coin flip. On some level, people know when they do what is wicked. And if they honestly asked themselves, "Wait, is this actually wrong?" they'd get a yes. This must be the case. Otherwise you can't expect people to know who to listen to.

told Abraham to kill Isaac to prove his loyalty to the God-Tyrant

This is actually one of the things I'm talking about, which seems to fly in the face of the obligation to examine which I did get JW to admit to.

Now, to be fair, you can say that a genuine examination might produce Abraham's reaction if he trusted God enough. I can give you a similar example. Let's say you're Doctor Who's traveling buddy for 20 years and you trust him implicitly. One day you have a child and he says, I already tried to change it before you and your spouse got pregnant and I failed. I already tried to get you the abortion and I failed. You can't cross the same path twice, or those langolier things eat reality. You know the ones, you've seen them. And now you already have the baby and I have the task of telling you, he's the next Hitler.

Be honest. You might do the unthinkable. If you trusted someone enough.

But that's sort of the rub here because while that might be the case for Abraham, okay fine, for us, looking at what's written in that book, it doesn't exactly engender that kind of trust, and we, unlike Abraham, have never met this being we're supposed to be trusting. That's the thing about trust. It's earned.