JLB32168 wrote:
What do the Gospels say about Creation, which is what we’re discussing? It says creation happened and God did it and that’s all it says about creation. Are you actually reading my post?
And there you go JLB, that's a slavishly literal interpretation.
You can "complain" all you want. That's obviously the topic of your thread. But if you are trying to hold up the idea that the Bible should actually be believed just because it makes claims that some invisible God created the world, then you are the one who is demanding a literal interpretation.
Apparently you and I don't mean the same thing when we speak about taking the Bible "literally". I'm not talking about acting stupid, as you seem to be proposing. I'm talking about taking the Bible literally for the claims that it is making.
I don't care how "metaphorical" you read the actual text, if you claim that there actually exists a God who did the things described in the Bible then you are demanding that we take the stories to be "literally true".
The bible is indefensible, and all you are doing here is attempting to play word games to try to have your cake and eat it too. That's doesn't fly.
JLB32168 wrote:
Hypocrisy is the pretense to high morals or principles while practicing the opposite. Your use of it in this context makes no sense.
Sure it does. Jesus did not practice the very things that he taught, and therefore he was a hypocrite. So it makes perfect sense. Jesus didn't practice love toward his enemies, instead he condemned them to hell.
JLB32168 wrote:
You left out “til all be fulfilled.�
From the cross, Christ said, “It is finished� which in Greek is actually, “It is consummated,� which is even how the Latin translators rendered it. Consummated=Fulfilled. Your interpretation of this passage is based upon your butchering of the passage.
Sorry, but you left out "till heaven and earth pass".
Matthew 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
So don't accuse me of being a "butcher" when you refuse to address what's actually written in these fables.
JLB32168 wrote:
Pick one apology. Explain why you reject it.
How about the one you just gave? You accuse me of butchering scripture while you are the one who is denial of what the scripture actually says.
Till Heaven and Earth Pass. Try going back and reading it for yourself.
Your "apology" amounts to nothing more than an easily discredited accusation toward me for supposedly "butchering" scriptures when I'm accepting them for the they actually say.
So you'll have to do far better than that.
JLB32168 wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:
First off, if this omnipotent omniscient God knew that the Canaanites were irredeemable then why did he continue to place new baby souls in the wombs of the Canaanite women?
Do you mean “Why did God allow women to bear children?� I don’t know why. Of course, since not all of them were destroyed if their parents converted. What does this have to do with the Hebrews exterminating them because they threw their infant boys and girls into the fire?
Does God create human souls or not?
If you claim that humans are the ones who create human souls simply because they decide to have sex, then you are going to end up with an extreme problem in your religious theology.
Actually I accept the latter. I believe that we are the ones who decide whether or not a life will be created. In fact, I purposefully chose to not create life. And the reason I chose to not create life is because I could not guarantee the fate of the "
living soul" that I would create. Therefore I am necessarily far superior to the Biblical God on moral grounds already. Apparently God creates souls, or allows them to be created, even when he knows full well that the vast majority will be cast into his hell of everlasting punishment. The God of the Bible is far beneath me in terms of moral integrity.
And I don't say this to claim that I'm morally superior to some imaginary God. I simply point out this truth to demonstrate why the Biblical mythology must necessarily be false. There can obviously be no such God as I would clearly be morally superior to such a God. That basically reveals that the God myth is necessarily false.
So I am living proof that the Biblical God cannot exist as described in the Bible.
JLB32168 wrote:
These stories claim that this God caused his own "Chosen People" to wander around aimlessly in a desert for 40 years!
And this is apparently bad because . . . why? Is being nomadic a bad thing?
Clearly, you've missed the point. This God can supposedly control and blind his own chosen people to the point of causing them to wander around a small desert for 40 years yet he can't keep the Canaanites from settling on his precious Promised Land?
Are you capable of looking at the Bible with rational skepticism at all? Or are you just locked into making endless excuses for it no matter how utterly absurd or self-contradictory they need to be?
It's a serious question. If you aren't capable of looking at the Bible with unbiased skepticism then you'll never see all of these obvious problems contained within it.
JLB32168 wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:
This event was clearly nothing more than one culture using religion and their imaginary made-up God as justification for committing genocide on another tribe to STEAL their land.
But the atheist opinion is that the Hebrews were never in Egypt and were in fact a part of those people. Furthermore, the further view is that Moses didn’t write this stuff but later generations who wouldn’t have been around wrote it – people who didn’t do these things but said their ancestors did.
It my understanding that this isn't an opinion of atheists, but rather this is a consensus among the majority of historical scholars. I imagine the assessment you gave above most likely is the truth of reality.
However, my point is that even if we allow the Biblical fables to be accurate in the own claim to history the story still become self-contradictory. Why would an omnipotent God who is trying to "
raise" his chosen people to obey his moral commandment "
Thou Shalt Not Kill" lead them to a "Promised Land" that had vile evil people living on it and expect his chosen people to do the dirty work of committing mass genocide on them?
I just offered you an extremely simply solution to this problem. All the God needed to do was to make the Canaanites sterile so they couldn't procreate and they would have died out naturally. He could have done this in a timely fashion so that by the time his chosen people got to the Promise Land no one would be living on it.
Again, I must ask if you are even capable of looking at these ancient fables from an unbiased view?
Keep in mind, that my original view of these stories was not to be skeptical. I actually read them originally with the hopes of understanding why these things had to be the way they were. But at the same time I didn't close my mind to the possibility that they could be false stories. And because of this I was able to see the truth that they don't make any rational sense.
You seem to think that I had some sort of predetermined agenda to decide the Bible was false BEFORE I read it. Sorry, but nothing could be further from the truth.
JLB32168 wrote:
The amount of ire you have for a deity you don’t think exists for committing atrocities you don’t (or shouldn’t think) happened seems odd. Such wrath strikes me more as one trying to talk him/herself into disbelief.
And see, this is a fabrication created entirely in your own imagination. I have no ire for any God. I actually started reading the Bible with the hope (and the belief) that it
would make sense and that everything would become crystal clear to me. This is totally the opposite to what you are accusing me of right now.
The fact is that the Bible shoots itself in its own foot repeatedly and consistently in every story it contains. I"m not going to take the blame for that.
JLB32168 wrote:
Divine Insight wrote:
Yet more proof that Christianity is inconsistent and utterly absurd.
People have different ideas on minor points and this shows something is false. That has no logic in it whatsoever.
But I've offered undeniable proof at every story within the Bible. And no one has ever offered a better explanation.
Please explain to me why a supposedly omnipotent God, who is also omniscient, and wants to raise his chosen people in accordance with his moral values and commandments, would present them with a "Promised Land" that was filled with evil people that his chosen people would need to murder to take over their land?
Please explain to me how this make sense to you.
And keep in mind that you can't justify this by claiming that an omnipotent omniscient God had "no other choice".
JLB32168 wrote:
Your post is in the right place – random ramblings.
Keep in mind that this thread was created by you because you wanted to
complain about atheists.
If you can't justify your supposedly omnipotent omniscient God then I don't see where you have any room to complain about atheists at all.