Critique of Cruelty in the Bible

AvisG · Oct 18, 2019

yeshuaslavejeff said:
Justified how ? For themselves? For others ?

Yahuweh does not say that He Justifies anyone by what they believe only. ('believe' in Hebrew Way of Life is much fuller than in English/ Western definitions and ways of life)

According to Scripture, there are multitudes have already 'justified' themselves (they think), and really believe until they die that they are going to be in heaven. They don't find out until Judgment Day that they were wrong, if they were wrong.

justified
adjective
jus·ti·fied | \ ˈjə-stə-ˌfīd \
Definition of justified
1 : having or shown to have a just, right, or reasonable basis

We're done now. Bye-bye.

yeshuaslavejeff · Oct 18, 2019

shalom

public hermit · Oct 18, 2019

AvisG said:
I do want to emphasize that I (and I'm sure you) am talking about the Resurrection as a real-world historical event.

You're correct. To put it kind of as you did earlier, the resurrection doesn't stand or fall with the scriptures. The scriptures are not why the resurrection is true, but simply a communication of the "real world" event, i.e. the gospel.

AvisG said:
I can make no sense of those like Bultmann and Crossan who take the position that "Of course we enlightened folks know the Resurrection didn't really happen, but it's the central myth of Christianity and it's the 'meaning' that's important."

When I demythologized Bultmann I found it was simply Heidegger dressed up as the gospel.

I've read Bultmann, but have only observed Crossan from a distance and didn't feel like I missed anything.

AvisG said:
To be a Christian, one surely has to believe we live in a God-created universe - right? That being the case - i.e., creation ex nihilo being one giant miracle - I don't see how anyone can have an intellectual objection to the Resurrection or any other OT or NT miracle.

Exactly. If one begins with that premise the rest are just footnotes.

I'll check out the Turin site.

Sketcher · Oct 19, 2019

123Michelle said:
Hello everyone!

I was researching info on the bible and found an article talking about many criticisms of the bible. One of the portions that hit me rather hard read the following:

"Cruelty in Basic Christian Teachings

Instances of cruel and unjust behavior by the biblical God are seen in the most basic Christian doctrines. Some of God’s acts that harmed the innocent are as follows.

He damned the whole human race and cursed the entire creation because of the acts of two people (Genesis 3:16-23; Romans 5:18); he drowned pregnant women and innocent children and animals at the time of the Flood (Genesis 7:20-23); he tormented the Egyptians and their animals with hail and disease because pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave Egypt (Exodus 9:8-11,25); and he killed Egyptian babies at the time of the Passover (Exodus 12:29-30).

After the Exodus he ordered the Israelites to exterminate the men, women, and children of seven nations and steal their land (Deuteronomy 7:1-2); he killed King David’s baby because of David’s adultery with Bathsheba (II Samuel 12:13-18); he required the torture and murder of his own son (e.g., Romans 3:24-25); and he promised to send non-Christians to eternal torture (e.g., Revelation 21:8)."

I have always believed in a loving God, so these points did make me think for a while. I would love to hear other Christian (or otherwise) perspectives on this!

Why would any of this be unjust? What does/did God owe these people and why?

SkyWriting · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
You apparently have the inside scoop. Why did Jesus preach to the "spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19) - just for practice? (Just tweaking you. Demonology really isn't my thing, but I understand the conventional wisdom is that demons can't be saved.)

But you miss the point: My Christian essentials, like the Nicene Creed or any statement of faith, are simply what someone must believe in order to be justified in calling himself a Christian. If one of those essentials is "acknowledge the saving work of Christ" or "sincerely repent of sin," then obviously to be a Christian one must both believe this and do it. You simply seized upon the word "believe" in my post as though it had some significance it wasn't intended to have.

No writings are required of any kind.

Genesis 1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Romans 1
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So men are without excuse.

SkyWriting · Oct 19, 2019

123Michelle said:
Hello everyone!

I was researching info on the bible and found an article talking about many criticisms of the bible. One of the portions that hit me rather hard read the following:

"Cruelty in Basic Christian Teachings"

God loves his children. But you can only do so much for your kids
to force them to love you in return. And forcing involves rape.

AvisG · Oct 19, 2019

SkyWriting said:
No writings are required of any kind.

Genesis 1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Romans 1
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So men are without excuse.

Creation, of course, points toward a Creator. At least that's the Christian position, and I don't disagree. Creation does not, however, inevitably point to the God of Christianity and it certainly doesn't inevitably point toward the Gospel. Human history since the dawn of time demonstrates that for the vast majority of human cultures creation has not pointed toward the God of Christianity or any religious or philosophical system even vaguely resembling Christianity. Indeed, that was the central problem for the Jews - even with the OT in hand, Jesus and the Gospel did not resemble what they'd been expecting.

Do you really think that you, I or anyone else would have arrived at the Gospel message with no NT writings?

You, like yehsuaslavejeff, miss the point of what I thought was a pretty straightforward and innocuous post. Every Christian has an understanding of what he or she regards as the "Christian essentials" - those minimal things a person absolutely must believe to qualify as a Christian in his or her own mind or to recognize someone else as a Christian brother or sister. Many people say the Atonement, the Trinity, the deity of Christ or even the Virgin Birth.

OK, we'll say your essentials are in your head as opposed to being written down. This is irrelevant. I don't care if someone's essentials are written or spoken. If you say you have none, then on what basis would you understand yourself to be a Christian? How would you know whether you would be a better fit for a Baptist church, a Catholic church, an LDS church, a Jehovah's Witnesses church or any other church? Does it really make no difference to you? How would you know Buddhists weren't Christian brothers and sisters?

Of course you have such an understanding of essentials. Every Christian does, even if he or she allows some denomination to define it for him or her through its creed or statement of faith. (I don't care what yours is, so please don't feel compelled to share it.) My point was simply that when I've engaged in this essentials-sharing exercise with other Christians, my "essentials" are always far simpler and less dogma-laden. Is every paragraph of the Nicene Creed (for example) an essential - you can't call yourself a Christian unless you accept every paragraph? I would emphatically say no, every paragraph is not even close to being an essential; someone else may disagree.

I actually participated on a forum where participants were prohibited from challenging anyone's claim to be a Christian. The forum was dominated by "Christians" who had reinvented Jesus as some New Age feel-good guru. The had utterly no concept of sin, repentance or atonement - and they made no bones about it. Those of us who did were regarded as Neanderthals. The message of the Gospel was simply "tolerance" and "celebration of diversity." Were they Christians by your understanding? If not, why not - were there some essential(s) they lacked?

(I'm not talking about whether God regards them as Christians - that's not my call or your call. I'm talking about whether there are absolute bottom-line essentials someone must believe according to your understanding or my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. And my concern isn't whether your essentials or mine are "right" or "wrong" - simply "What are they?" My point being, in the context of the post you quoted, that mine are typically far simpler and less dogma-laden.)

AvisG · Oct 19, 2019

Sketcher said:
Why would any of this be unjust? What does/did God owe these people and why?

It isn't a question of what God "owes" people. The point is (1) Christianity maintains that God is perfectly holy, omnibenevolent and perfectly just, and (2) Christianity maintains that humans have been created in God's image and that God's morality has been implanted in our hearts. Yet the actions of God as described in the Bible often strike humans as exceedingly cruel or grossly unjust. There is a massive disconnect between (1) and (2) - which is why, in order to preserve #(1), Christians must resort to unconvincing rationalizations.

SkyWriting · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
Creation, of course, points toward a Creator. At least that's the Christian position, and I don't disagree. Creation does not, however, inevitably point to the God of Christianity and it certainly doesn't inevitably point toward the Gospel. Human history since the dawn of time demonstrates that for the vast majority of human cultures creation has not pointed toward the God of Christianity or any religious or philosophical system even vaguely resembling Christianity. Indeed, that was the central problem for the Jews - even with the OT in hand, Jesus and the Gospel did not resemble what they'd been expecting.

Do you really think that you, I or anyone else would have arrived at the Gospel message with no NT writings?

You, like yehsuaslavejeff, miss the point of what I thought was a pretty straightforward and innocuous post. Every Christian has an understanding of what he or she regards as the "Christian essentials" - those minimal things a person absolutely must believe to qualify as a Christian in his or her own mind or to recognize someone else as a Christian brother or sister. Many people say the Atonement, the Trinity, the deity of Christ or even the Virgin Birth.

OK, we'll say your essentials are in your head as opposed to being written down. This is irrelevant. I don't care if someone's essentials are written or spoken. If you say you have none, then on what basis would you understand yourself to be a Christian? How would you know whether you would be a better fit for a Baptist church, a Catholic church, an LDS church, a Jehovah's Witnesses church or any other church? Does it really make no difference to you? How would you know Buddhists weren't Christian brothers and sisters?

Of course you have such an understanding of essentials. Every Christian does, even if he or she allows some denomination to define it for him or her through its creed or statement of faith. (I don't care what yours is, so please don't feel compelled to share it.) My point was simply that when I've engaged in this essentials-sharing exercise with other Christians, my "essentials" are always far simpler and less dogma-laden. Is every paragraph of the Nicene Creed (for example) an essential - you can't call yourself a Christian unless you accept every paragraph? I would emphatically say no, every paragraph is not even close to being an essential; someone else may disagree.

I actually participated on a forum where participants were prohibited from challenging anyone's claim to be a Christian. The forum was dominated by "Christians" who had reinvented Jesus as some New Age feel-good guru. The had utterly no concept of sin, repentance or atonement - and they made no bones about it. Those of us who did were regarded as Neanderthals. The message of the Gospel was simply "tolerance" and "celebration of diversity." Were they Christians by your understanding? If not, why not - were there some essential(s) they lacked?

(I'm not talking about whether God regards them as Christians - that's not my call or your call. I'm talking about whether there are absolute bottom-line essentials someone must believe according to your understanding or my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. And my concern isn't whether your essentials or mine are "right" or "wrong" - simply "What are they?" My point being, in the context of the post you quoted, that mine are typically far simpler and less dogma-laden.)

This forum also prohibits any challenge to a person claim to be a Christian.
Keep that in mind.

So my requirements:

- Recognition that God created the Cosmos -

(We consider that the world was created through Jesus, but that is not a requirement.)

SkyWriting · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
It isn't a question of what God "owes" people. The point is (1) Christianity maintains that God is perfectly holy, omnibenevolent and perfectly just, and (2) Christianity maintains that humans have been created in God's image and that God's morality has been implanted in our hearts. Yet the actions of God as described in the Bible often strike humans as exceedingly cruel or grossly unjust. There is a massive disconnect between (1) and (2) - which is why, in order to preserve #(1), Christians must resort to unconvincing rationalizations.

The Old Testament shows why and how that people are unable to live by the written law and remain Holy. Now we live by man's laws, which God creates, and we are forgiven our imperfectness and inability to be judge.

2PhiloVoid · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
No good deed goes unpunished, as they saying goes. Your post invited an explanation, and so I provided one. I don't have the faintest idea whether you're a bibliolator or in "violent agreement" (as a Jewish friend of mine always used to say) with me. I don't think anyone "needs" to hear what I have to say, any more or less than anyone "needs" to hear what anyone else on a forum such as this has to say. I have written what I have written.

I do want to address possible misconceptions arising out of these comments and then I’ll be done.

If anyone suspects my Christianity is some intricate, elaborate, Ph.D. dissertation-like patchwork of doctrines that lesser intellects couldn’t possibly grasp, EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.

I’ve read, watched and listened to William Lane Craig extensively. He is largely responsible for one of my epiphanies.

As you may know, his site is Reasonable Faith (reasonablefaith.org). Making Christianity rational, logical and reasonable is his thing.

After being immersed in the efforts of folks such as Craig, my epiphany was: “When the Bible talks about the wisdom of the world being foolishness to God, it’s talking just as much about William Lane Craig as about Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists!”

The Gospel isn’t “reasonable.” It’s too simple and radical for that. In their well-meaning efforts, people like Craig (and there are many like him) really do more harm than good. They only confuse and divide.

As Karl Barth suggested, the Gospel is living, self-sufficient, self-authenticating. Efforts to make it reasonable or intellectually acceptable just muck it up. One of the great challenges, human nature being what it is, is not to muck it up.

On other forums, I’ve challenged believers to give me their absolute, bottom-line Christian essentials. What does someone absolutely have to believe in order to legitimately call himself a Christian? Their lists never look anything like mine, typically resembling something like the Nicene Creed or some denominational statement of faith.

Nah, the Gospel is way simpler and way more radical than that. It doesn’t require a Ph.D. or even an elementary school education to understand it or apply it to life.

So my version of Christianity, far from Ph.D-ifying it, actually pares it down to maybe 100 words. Maybe I'll eventually pare it down to 50. The non-essentials I mostly neither “believe” nor “disbelieve.” In all, essentials and non-essentials, I trust in the ultimate wisdom and goodness of God.

(No, I'm not going to list my essentials. I'm finished with that game. Everyone must develop his or her own list with fear and trembling.)

....being that I'm a proponent of both Philosophical Hermeneutics and an Existential mode of capturing the Christian Faith, and since I thought that I, and I ALONE was THE epitome of ecumenical brotherhood and of Christian fraternity here on CF, regardless of what one's denomination or methodological preference may be, I still have to say that I'm just dying to hear what your "pared down 50-100 word" Gospel actually looks like.

Care to share? Or are you just going to leave it up to our predilections for assuming that all of this talk is a manifestation of some huge bunny-like figment of someone else's imagination? As far as I'm concerned here, you haven't done a very Thoreau job thus far.

Yours Truly, 2PhiloVoid

AvisG · Oct 19, 2019

SkyWriting said:
This forum also prohibits any challenge to a person claim to be a Christian.
Keep that in mind.

"I don't believe God exists and I certainly don't believe Jesus ever existed, but I'm a great admirer of the fictional character described in that work of fiction called the New Testament. So, yeah, I think I'm a Christian." Welcome aboard! We take it you'll be checking the "Non-Denominational" box, brother?

So my requirements:

Belief in the Creator God as evidenced by creation = Christian?

Well, I must say, you're the first person I've met whose Christian essentials are indeed far simpler and less demanding than mine.

Do you think it's possible to infer one's sinful nature, estrangement from God, impossibility of bridging that estrangement through self-effort, need for repentance and forgiveness, as well as the saving work of Christ, from creation - or are those things not Christian essentials to you?

Tinker Grey · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
It isn't a question of what God "owes" people. The point is (1) Christianity maintains that God is perfectly holy, omnibenevolent and perfectly just, and (2) Christianity maintains that humans have been created in God's image and that God's morality has been implanted in our hearts. Yet the actions of God as described in the Bible often strike humans as exceedingly cruel or grossly unjust. There is a massive disconnect between (1) and (2) - which is why, in order to preserve #(1), Christians must resort to unconvincing rationalizations.

I can hear it now. A sniper trying to get out of an arrest, "What?!?! I didn't owe those people anything!"

AvisG · Oct 19, 2019

2PhiloVoid said:
....being that I'm a proponent of both Philosophical Hermeneutics and an Existential mode of capturing the Christian Faith, and since I thought that I, and I ALONE was THE epitome of ecumenical brotherhood and of Christian fraternity here on CF, regardless of what one's denomination or methodological preference may be, I still have to say that I'm just dying to hear what your "pared down 50-100 word" Gospel actually looks like.

Care to share? Or are you just going to leave it up to our predilections for assuming that all of this talk is a manifestation of some huge bunny-like figment of someone else's imagination? As far as I'm concerned here, you haven't done a very Thoreau job thus far.

Yours Truly, 2PhiloVoid

You quoted the last paragraph of my post, so you obviously saw it: "No, I'm not going to list my essentials. I'm finished with that game. Everyone must develop his or her own list with fear and trembling."

The post in which I made that statement was in response to what you suggested was my "Ph.D.-ification" of Christianity. I was simply making the point that my Christian essentials would look more like a first-grade primer than a Ph.D. dissertation.

Every time I've listed my essentials it has produced an unproductive stream of debate as to whether they are correct, sufficient, yada yada. I'm just not interested in that anymore. I don't care about anyone else's Christian essentials or what they think about mine. On top of which, that would be completely off-topic for this thread.

I'm not trying to be mysterious. Perhaps sometime I'll start yet another "Christian essentials" thread and watch it spiral out of control.

Oh, wait, here you go, just to appease your curiosity. I was able to locate this from another forum several years ago. It's 110 words, but I was in my verbose period back then. I could do better now.

You're a created being in a created universe, wholly dependent on the creator God.
God is perfectly holy, just and loving.
You and other humans have breached your relationship with God through disobedience and unrighteousness.
You cannot repair the breach through your own efforts.
God offers forgiveness and reconciliation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
You can receive forgiveness and participate in the reconciliation by acknowledging and repenting of your disobedience and unrighteousness, prayerfully accepting God’s offer of forgiveness, asking the Holy Spirit to transform your life, being baptized, and prayerfully doing your best to follow the teachings of Jesus as set forth in the four gospels.

This was an extremely conservative evangelical forum, so the above was somewhat tailored to that. Nothing too radical, eh?

S.O.J.I.A. · Oct 19, 2019

gaara4158 said:
Well, you can say that, but then it's a pretty tough sell to say we owe him our adoration. He owes us nothing, we owe him everything, and we're not allowed to judge him no matter how homicidal he gets. I think I'll pass.

bye..

2PhiloVoid · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
You quoted the last paragraph of my post, so you obviously saw it: "No, I'm not going to list my essentials. I'm finished with that game. Everyone must develop his or her own list with fear and trembling."

The post in which I made that statement was in response to what you suggested was my "Ph.D.-ification" of Christianity. I was simply making the point that my Christian essentials would look more like a first-grade primer than a Ph.D. dissertation.

Every time I've listed my essentials it has produced an unproductive stream of debate as to whether they are correct, sufficient, yada yada. I'm just not interested in that anymore. I don't care about anyone else's Christian essentials or what they think about mine. On top of which, that would be completely off-topic for this thread.

I'm not trying to be mysterious. Perhaps sometime I'll start yet another "Christian essentials" thread and watch it spiral out of control.

Oh, wait, here you go, just to appease your curiosity. I was able to locate this from another forum several years ago. It's 110 words, but I was in my verbose period back then. I could do better now.

You're a created being in a created universe, wholly dependent on the creator God.

God is perfectly holy, just and loving.

You and other humans have breached your relationship with God through disobedience and unrighteousness.

You cannot repair the breach through your own efforts.

God offers forgiveness and reconciliation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

You can receive forgiveness and participate in the reconciliation by acknowledging and repenting of your disobedience and unrighteousness, prayerfully accepting God’s offer of forgiveness, asking the Holy Spirit to transform your life, being baptized, and prayerfully doing your best to follow the teachings of Jesus as set forth in the four gospels.

This was an extremely conservative evangelical forum, so the above was somewhat tailored to that. Nothing too radical, eh?

.........................don't worry, my friend. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you!

Well done! But I think I have you beat in being able to reduce it all down like a fine wine and mushroom broth over a dish of nicely roasted duck w/roasted potatoes ... and with maybe a cheap roll thrown in on the side.

In fact, my version is so brief, so small, I can't remember what past post I left it in.............

Anyway, welcome to CF, AvisG! Now we just have to haggle over the finer facets of all of those ugly things that prevent us from jumping over Lessing's Ditch.

holo · Oct 19, 2019

SkyWriting said:
Yes, He still is.
Kids often feel their parents are too strict and they blame
adults for all kinds of stuff.

Being born into fluffy clouds of cotton candy is not healthy for the soul.

I think that explaining God's ways being mysterious to us by likening us with children and God with a parent has some validity. His ways would obviously be "higher than ours" as it were. But I think the analogy fails if it's used to condemn us for anything. I mean, a toddler can throw a tantrum because he doesn't get to stay up late or whatever, and we can agree that the parent is justified in denying him. But we wouldn't pass moral judgment on the kid, as if he knew better, or as if he were being immoral.

SkyWriting · Oct 19, 2019

holo said:
I think that explaining God's ways being mysterious to us by likening us with children and God with a parent has some validity. His ways would obviously be "higher than ours" as it were. But I think the analogy fails if it's used to condemn us for anything. I mean, a toddler can throw a tantrum because he doesn't get to stay up late or whatever, and we can agree that the parent is justified in denying him. But we wouldn't pass moral judgment on the kid, as if he knew better, or as if he were being immoral.

I try to never judge.
What Does the Bible Say About Judging Others?

Sketcher · Oct 19, 2019

AvisG said:
It isn't a question of what God "owes" people. The point is (1) Christianity maintains that God is perfectly holy, omnibenevolent and perfectly just, and (2) Christianity maintains that humans have been created in God's image and that God's morality has been implanted in our hearts. Yet the actions of God as described in the Bible often strike humans as exceedingly cruel or grossly unjust. There is a massive disconnect between (1) and (2) - which is why, in order to preserve #(1), Christians must resort to unconvincing rationalizations.

You can't talk about what is just or unjust when who owes what to whom hasn't been defined. God wrote on our hearts what we owe each other. But there's a reason for that - our rights are all God-given. God gave us the right to life for instance, so no matter what any government says to the contrary, no one may be rightly dragged out of his house and shot - whether by his neighbor, a mob, or government forces. Why? Because God gave it. No man or body of men may take it away, it can either be respected and protected, or trampled on. Men did not give it, so men cannot take it away.

God however, is the giver of life and the giver of rights. As such, there is no reason why he cannot rightly take a life away, or a right away. Everyone in that sense, belongs to him (Exodus 19:5b, Job 41:11, Ezekiel 18:4). Vengeance is his right, not ours (Deuteronomy 32:35, Roman 12:19). Taking life is up to him, not us. If it is his therefore, to give and take away, that leaves no basis for claiming he is unjust when he does take away.

AvisG · Oct 20, 2019

Sketcher said:
God however, is the giver of life and the giver of rights. As such, there is no reason why he cannot rightly take a life away, or a right away. Everyone in that sense, belongs to him (Exodus 19:5b, Job 41:11, Ezekiel 18:4). Vengeance is his right, not ours (Deuteronomy 32:35, Roman 12:19). Taking life is up to him, not us. If it is his therefore, to give and take away, that leaves no basis for claiming he is unjust when he does take away.

I don't think you've actually done anything but describe the "massive disconnect" to which I referred.

At least in my theology, human beings are creatures made in God's image (which most scholars understand to mean we are to be "God's imagers" on earth, vested with administrative dominion over the rest of creation). We have some level of free will (however you understand the concept - I believe libertarian free will). We have morality planted in our hearts by God, and even atheists generally do their best to live by that morality (without agreeing the source is God). To love God and do unto our neighbors as we would have done to ourselves are the highest expressions of this morality.

But then when we get to the level of God, it all collapses. We're just God's toys - billions of G. I. Joes action figures and Barbie dolls. God is completely unaccountable, can do whatever He wants. His morality doesn't have to reflect in the slightest the morality he has supposedly planted in our hearts. "Vengeance is His right," even when we are unable to fathom what it is He's avenging. We have "no basis for claiming He is unjust" - except the morality He has planted in our hearts, which SCREAMS "This is unjust!!!"

Sure, you can take that perspective - but you'll have to do some fancy mental tap-dancing and rationalization to preserve your "faith." Not for me.

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