If God and the Bible are so bad,

[Elijah John]

To listen to many here on this site, one would think that the Bible is irredeemably bad, and the God of the Bible is wicked.

Now for this topic, I am not saying the Bible is perfect. And I am not saying that the Bible always perfectly represents God, nor am I attempting to prove that God exists.

But the question for debate is this. IF the Bible and the God of the Bible are as bad as it is claimed so often here, (especially on this forum), they why does so much good come from them?

As Jesus said, "a bad tree cannot produce good fruit".

And consider the good fruit the Bible and the God of the Bible has produced.

-They have been a source of comfort and strength for millions in difficult times.

-They have motivavate millions to be their best, and live lives of virtue, compassion and generosity.

-They have inspired many charities, and philanthropic movements.

-They have produced many wise, reflective and peace loving sages, including many Jews, Christians, and by extention, Muslims too.

Are these fruits insignificant? Does the Bible and the God of the Bible still stand indicted as "wicked or evil"?

How can so much good come from something so "bad"?

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by Elijah John]

But the question for debate is this. IF the Bible and the God of the Bible are as bad as it is claimed so often here, (especially on this forum), they why does so much good come from them?

I think you are confusing the Bible with those who say they believe what the Bible says. Christians are not Christianity, so the good that Christians have done should not be credited to Christianity and the Bible. For example, many Christian apologists argue that Christianity has benefited science by pointing out that many great scientists have been Christians. However, this claim is equivocation. It is not logical to claim that Christianity is pro-scientific because some Christians have been pro-scientific.

I should also add that it's really not correct to say that the Bible and its God are evil. Books and imaginary beings cannot be evil in a practical sense. We humans may do evil if we take the Bible and its mythological figures seriously. If we would see the Bible as the work of fiction that it is, then I don't believe we would still do evil because of the Bible.

[Bust Nak]

IF the Bible and the God of the Bible are as bad as it is claimed so often here, (especially on this forum), they why does so much good come from them?

If you are granting the premise that the God and the Bible are as bad as is often claimed then the answer should be obvious, any good that is said to have came from them, does not come from them but from us human, along the following lines:

They have been a source of comfort and strength for millions in difficult times.

We are strong and are can overcome more than theists think.

They have motivavate millions to be their best, and live lives of virtue, compassion and generosity.

They have inspired many charities, and philanthropic movements.

We are inheritiely compassionate and generous.

They have produced many wise, reflective and peace loving sages, including many Jews, Christians, and by extention, Muslims too.

We have produced many wise, reflective and peace loving sages, all of whom are human.

Are these fruits insignificant? Does the Bible and the God of the Bible still stand indicted as "wicked or evil"?

How can so much good come from something so "bad"?

It can't. The source of said goodness is simply misidentified, given the Bible and God is so "bad."

[Divine Insight]

But the question for debate is this. IF the Bible and the God of the Bible are as bad as it is claimed so often here, (especially on this forum), they why does so much good come from them?

I suggest that this is already an erroneous or misleading debate question. For one thing I think it's misleading to suggest that people are saying that the God of the Bible is "so bad". Instead what they are suggesting is that he's "bad" according to his very own standards. His behavior contradicts what he's supposed to stand for. So it's a matter of contradiction, not any absolute moral judgement.

Secondly, I think it's also misleading to suggest that so much good comes 'from' the Bible. Instead, I would suggest that many naturally well-intention people are simply attracted to religious organizations that appear to be doing "good things". And this applies to ALL religions, not just religions based on the Bible.

For example, what you are suggesting would need to apply to Islam and the Quran as well as the Christian Bible. There are many Muslims who want to do good things as well. It's not that they get this inspiration from their religion, but rather they participate in altruistic activities that their religion provides.

Finally you can hardly ignore all the horrible things that these same religions have inspired over the centuries as well.

So I would argue that neither good nor bad come from these religions, but rather these religions are simply used to support various activities, some which are good, and some which are bad.

Now for this topic, I am not saying the Bible is perfect. And I am not saying that the Bible always perfectly represents God, nor am I attempting to prove that God exists.

For me the question really doesn't even come down to a question of whether or not the Bible represents perfect morality. The question for me is whether or not the Bible exhibits a compelling and convincing picture of how an omnipotent omniscient entity would behave. And for me the answer is clearly no. Therefore I see no reason to believe that there is an omnipotent omniscient entity behind it.

The attempts made by this God to solve his problems are extremely ignorant and violent. And far more to the point, they don't even solve the original problems.

The Bible has this God cursing Satan to crawl on his belly and eat dirt. Has that solved the problem? According to the Bible it hasn't. Satan is supposedly just as much of a problem today as he was in the Garden of Eden.

The Bible has this God drowning out the bulk of humanity in a Great Flood. Has this solved the problem of sin. Clearly not.

The Bible has this God commanding his chosen people to commit genocide on another culture so they can live on the so-called "Promised Land". Has this solved any problems? Apparently not.

The God of the Bible can never solve anything, and all of his methods are as ignorant and barbaric as the people who wrote these stories. Why should we think that an omniscient omnipotent God would be as stupid and ignorant as ancient barbaric humans?

So it's really not about whether this God is "good or bad", it's really about why we should even believe there is any God associated with these fables in the first place.

Clearly this God would be both inept at solving problems, and extremely unintelligent and ignorant to boot. Not a characteristic we should expect from an omnipotent omniscient entity right?

And Christianity takes this ineptitude to the extreme. Christianity has this God basically tossing in the towel, giving up, admitting failure, and ends up having humans brutally and barbarically crucify his only begotten son, just so he can offer them undeserved amnesty for being the sinful people that he supposedly hates.

This would be a creator who has totally failed in his attempt to create a decent human soul and has instead given over to accepting that the best he can do is offer the sinners undeserved amnesty and take these sinners up into his heaven simply because they were willing to condone having humans brutally crucify his son for THEIR SAKE.

How sick is that?

And how does it even begin to make any sense? Why should sinful humans be forgiven their sins just because they agreed to let Jesus be their penal substitute for their supposedly earned punishment?

So for me, you are totally missing the point of why we should reject the Biblical God by focusing on whether or not it might appear to have inspired either good works, or bad works.

All religions do that. This is certainly not unique to Biblical religions.

So you can hardly "Redeem" the Bible by suggesting that some followers do good works. Some atheists do good works too, does this "Redeem" atheism? Or ask this about ANY religion or secular philosophy.

As Jesus said, "a bad tree cannot produce good fruit".

Jesus was clearly wrong. We have seen bad people change their ways and become good people. So it's false that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit if you take this as a generalized metaphor.

Jesus also said that God feeds the birds, and he was clearly wrong about that as well. Just because some words have been attributed to Jesus doesn't make them true.

And consider the good fruit the Bible and the God of the Bible has produced.

You're already basing this argument on the fallacy that just because Jesus said that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit it must then be necessarily true. But I've already shown that it's not.

And beside, the same thing can be said for the Quran, or any other religious text. So your argument here would need to apply to these other religions as well. Even Greek mythology has inspired people to do good things, does this then "Redeem" Greek mythology?

Are these fruits insignificant? Does the Bible and the God of the Bible still stand indicted as "wicked or evil"?

I have already disagreed that these are "fruits" from the Bible to begin with. Good people want to do good things, bad people want to do bad things. The good people who are attracted to religion bring their own goodness into the religion. We have also see many examples throughout history where bad people have brought their evil ways into the religion. So to say that these are "fruits" that come from the Bible is, IMHO, quite naive.

Remember, there are many Muslims who do good works in the name of the Quran as well. So people bring their "Goodness" or their "Badness" into the religions they represent.

How can so much good come from something so "bad"?

Because the "goodness" doesn't come from the Bible.

In fact, look at how much hatred is spewed in the name of the Bible and in Jesus' name.

People use the Bible to hate on gays. They used the Bible to condone the slavery of blacks, and to treat blacks as less than human.

You simply can't ignore all the bad things that the Bible has been used for as well.

So this religious doctrine can be used to support both good works, and evil works.

That alone should tell you that it didsn't come from any all-wise, all-loving omnipotent God.

Surely an all-wise God would have known better than to create a doctrine that could be used to condone slavery, or the killing of innocent women as "witches" for over 300 plus years.

An all-wise God would have known better. So there can't be an all-wise God behind the Bible. It's really that simple.

So this is no judgement on the God portrayed in the Bible. It really just an assessment of these religious tales and why they can't have anything to do with any actual God.

It's not about any God at all.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 3 by Bust Nak]

Hi Bust Nak. Not saying it's an either/or, or that skeptics do not have their own ways to find comfort and virtue.

Yes, I agree that much goodness is innate in human nature. But I think you and I would differ in that I see that inclination toward the good to have been implanted by our Creator.

[Divine Insight]

Yes, I agree that much goodness is innate in human nature. But I think you and I would differ in that I see that inclination toward the good to have been implanted by our Creator.

And, even if true, how does that support your argument that this "good" comes from the Bible?

If human goodness is innately implanted by our Creator, then the idea that it comes from any particular religious doctrine would be a lost argument.

Also, if human goodness is an innate characteristic of human nature, doesn't this violate the entire Bible theme that humans are more inclined to sin than to be good?

I would agree that the vast majority of humans are "good people", and the violent troublemakers are the minority to be sure. But that observation actually disagrees with Christian doctrine. According to Christian doctrine only the few who turn to God are supposed to be good people. Not the vast majority of human population including atheists and non-Christians.

[SkyChief]

I once served as a juror on a criminal (assault) case. The judge told us (the jury) that if we felt confident a witness was lying, we we should disregard the entire testimony.

This doesn't mean that everything a lying witness says is false, it just means that that they cannot be relied on to tell the truth.

I regard the Bible the same way. Obviously, there are many lies told in the Bible. Folks shouldn't burden themselves with the task of separating the fact from the fiction. They can discount the whole mess.

I did. No regrets!

[Willum]

You premise was already partially answered in your "Golden Rule," topic.

Where we discovered that most of the tenets of Christian goodwill were actually originated in Hellenic Philosophy.

So, once again, history and chronology disprove the myth.
We find that Greek Philosophers invented the Golden Rule before Jesus or the Torah.

You asked where the good of a neo-Palestinian work came from?
It came from taking Greek principles and ascribing them to a religion, hundreds of years after the fact.

[Elijah John]

You premise was already partially answered in your "Golden Rule," topic.

Where we discovered that most of the tenets of Christian goodwill were actually originated in Hellenic Philosophy.

So, once again, history and chronology disprove the myth.
We find that Greek Philosophers invented the Golden Rule before Jesus or the Torah.

You asked where the good of a neo-Palestinian work came from?
It came from taking Greek principles and ascribing them to a religion, hundreds of years after the fact.

Are you discounting the probability that Hebrew sages arrived at the truth of the Golden Rule independently? And other cultures as well?

Isn't ultimate truth universal?

Remember, Greco-Roman influence on Hebrew culture was not there from the beginning, but came later.

[Elijah John]

I once served as a juror on a criminal (assault) case. The judge told us (the jury) that if we felt confident a witness was lying, we we should disregard the entire testimony.

This doesn't mean that everything a lying witness says is false, it just means that that they cannot be relied on to tell the truth.

I regard the Bible the same way. Obviously, there are many lies told in the Bible. Folks shouldn't burden themselves with the task of separating the fact from the fiction. They can discount the whole mess.

I did. No regrets!

That seems a vaild approach in light of the Bible's inconsistencies. But another way to look at it is that would be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".

For those who value the Bible in spite of it's problems, and want to remain in the Judeao Christian tradition, perhaps the example of Jefferson's intuitive approach is something to emulate.

Simply pick out the passages one finds beneficial and helpful, inspirational without worrying too much about attempting to "prove" any given passage or worrying too much about scholastic analysis.

Like "Diamonds from a dunghill".