An Empirical Theory Of God (2)

madaz said:

I dont want to talk about Moses, I made that explicitly clear to you numerous times.

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But you keep wanting to talk about genocide in spite of the fact that I don't personally believe that God has *ever* ordered humans to commit genocide to start with.

I have even told you to stop bringing Moses into the discussion as Moses is irrelavant.

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Fine, I won't, but that still leaves you trying to justify *your* (obviously not my) belief that God orders genocide.

I even told you to forget Moses. You are the one using Moses as your scapegoat. You are bearing false witness against your neighbor by accusing me of doing so. Very dissapointing!

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Oy! Fine. You still haven't convinced me that God has anything to do with genocide. Human documents have described war since the dawn of human time, but I have no empirical evidence that genocide is the will of God. I often hear humans claiming such things, but that doesn't mean that I'm obligated to believe them.

You really do seem to be wearing your emotional reactions on your sleeve and you seem to be taking this *way* too seriously from my vantage point.

Michael I mistook you as a decent person.

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Are these sorts of ad homs really necessary, let alone warranted? I'm doing my best to understand why you keep trying to hand me personal ownership of a "god" that I don't even believe in.

The bottom line as I see it is that you personally are free to "interpret" the Bible (since you keep referring to that one book for some reason), or anything other human document any way that you wish. That's your prerogative. You are also free to accept or reject your *interpretation* of any 'deity' you personally derive from that document, be it the Qur'an, the Bible, the Bagavad Gita, or whatever floats your boat.

What you *cannot* do is require me to *agree with your personal interpretation* of that document, agree with you that it has something to do with my beliefs about God, and agree with you about various qualities of God.

I really am doing my best to understand you. I've offered to discuss the red letter parts of the Bible, since I will agree that these specific parts of the Bible represent my beliefs about "God". Unless you're willing to meet me in the middle somewhere, I feels pretty unfair for you to *insist* on stuffing your personal interpretations of any book down my personal throat without threat of being called a "liar". IMO that aggressive insistence of agreement isn't helping this conversation move along.

I still have no idea why you expect me to agree with you that God orders genocide. Until you can explain that to me, I'm afraid you aren't discussing my beliefs at all, in fact I don't even understand where you're coming from if your *not* talking about the OT. I strongly suggest you move fasts forward a few thousand years to the teachings of Jesus. I'm sure if you limit your definition of the *qualities* of "God" to that person, and the words that came out of his mouth, we may actually get somewhere constructive. I'm willing to go there with you, but I simply cannot agree with your *assertion* that God orders genocide, just because you found someone making that claim somewhere in some book.

madaz said:

There is a difference between freely interpreting and blatantly ignoring. The bottom line as I see it is that you incorrectly believe this is simply a case of differing interpretations.

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It is! I am in fact *blatantly ignoring* any religious text that professes that humans committing genocide against one another is the will of God. It's not limited to *one* religious text, but all of them. No such claim is congruent with the teachings of Jesus Christ.

It is a recorded fact that Mickey Mouse was an anti-hero. Regardless of how one might interpret the record.

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Nope. It's clearly recorded in all those red letter parts that God is a loving, compassionate, forgiving father. You're just personally intent on blaming Mickey for the sins of Donald, simply because Donald told you that Mickey told him to do it!

"keep referring to that one book for some reason"???

Michael you lost the plot.

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It's apparently your own interpretation of the "plot". It's certainly not mine.

I'll jog your memory with point 3 (once again)

3. The bible demonstrates your god is not all-benevolent.

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Notice how you are trying to make truth statements about *my* beliefs related to God, not *your own beliefs* about a deity that I personally lack belief in?

What gives you the right to make any statements about *my* God, when you're not even talking about anything that I actually believe to be true? Even you personally don't believe Donald was telling the truth in the first place, but you *insist* that *I personally must do so*! Why?

How do you expect me to substantiate point 3 without "referring to that "one book"?

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I don't know. You're the one that claimed you could describe *my beliefs* about God based upon some book you picked out. I *assumed* you'd be talking about Donald, but apparently you're just intent on blaming Mickey the the sins of Donald, whether I personally agree or not, even though you don't believe Donald for a second! Talk about bizarre head trips. I'll admit, you're making this whole process a tad weird by talking about *my God* without talking about Jesus and/or the teachings of Jesus.

You atheist now? We both agreed to discuss the God in the bible remember. (Post#576)

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You personally are deciding now what the "God of the Bible" is to you, and then attempting to stuff *your* opinions, down *my* throat, like it or not!

You believe Jesus Christ existed because you found someone making that claim somewhere in the same book.

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Indeed. I've never distrusted the historical value of the book you keep referring to, but in terms of who I believe in that book and who I do not, there seems to be a difference between us. Care to explain why I'm personally obligated to agree with you?

As I mentioned, I identify myself as a *Christian*, yet you haven't mentioned a single red letter part of that book, and it's the only part of that book that I personally actually value.

Where do we go from here? I'm not about to let you make claims about *my* beliefs about God based on some book you picked out, and some interpretation you took from it.

madaz said:

I'll jog your memory with point 3 (once again)

3. The bible demonstrates your god is not all-benevolent.

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Let's try a different way of attempting to resolve this impasse.

Had you said: "*If we assume everything written in the Bible is true*, the God depicted in the Bible is not all-benevolent", I'd be inclined to agree with you.

*Because* you assigned *personal ownership* of God to me personally, a belief I don't even hold in the first place, your statement is *necessarily false* from my perspective.

If we *do not* assume every statement recorded in that book is "fact", then your statement may not be true. Only *if* you quit trying to assign *ownership of your beliefs to me*, and only *if* we begin our *interpretation* of that book with the *assumption* that everything is true, can you make any statement about the character of God based on that book.

By attempting to assign ownership of God to me personally, you're effectively attempting to stuff your *own* interpretations and beliefs right down my throat without even bothering to ask me any question whatsoever about my beliefs related to God or that book. It's as simple as that.

As I said, if you intend to make any claims about *my* beliefs related to God based upon the contents of that particular text, you'll need to stick to the red letter parts of the NT of that book, since I lack belief in the concept of Biblical infallibility, and therefore you can't stuff that claim/assertion down my throat.

bhsmte said:

Michael,

I would agree a person who claims the bible is 100% accurate is taking a giant leap and that person would be out of touch with reality.

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I'm certain even madaz doesn't believe that to be true, but he needs it to be true for the sake of his argument.

With that said, how have you come to define the qualities of the God that you do believe in? What would the traits of the God you believe in be?

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As I've tried to explain to madaz, if he wants to discuss *my* beliefs about God, I'd be happy to debate the qualities of God as expressed in the red letter parts of the NT. I trust the words and actions of Jesus Christ, but I lack belief in many of the claims of other people mentioned in that particular book. Whatever qualities of God he wishes to assign to God from the lips of Jesus are fine by me. I won't however be bound by his interpretation of any other parts of that book, particularly if he intends to assign ownership of such beliefs to me.

madaz said:

So the bottom line is-

You choose to ignore parts of the bible.

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Actually, I simply do not subscribe to the concept of Biblical infallibility, and your argument essentially requires it. Besides, so far you've completely ignored the only parts of that book that I'm actually interested in.

You can't actually expect me to feel guilty for rejected *less* of the statements from that book than you do?

madaz said:

Michael, if we were discussing the OP I would be asking you questions about what you are "interested in" and why you constantly refer to the Bible as "that book". But we are not discussing the OP here.

I am attempting to explain my "point 3" as requested by you.

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The only way to do that from my perspective is to make your point based on the red letter content of the NT. I will absolutely defend every single word uttered by Christ, but I do not subscribe to the concept of Biblical infallibility anymore than you do. Please make your case based upon the *appropriate* material from that particular text, and I'll be happy to talk about it. I'll even toss in the Gospel of Thomas if you like.

bhsmte said:

Michael,

How do you know the "red letter" portions of the NT are accurate?

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I technically don't know that each word is accurate. I do however see a *highly* consistent thread running throughout that particular material of the Bible that jives *extremely* well with my own experiences God, and that testifies for it's validity, even if it's not a word for word accurate representation of his teachings. In fact it gets even more subjective and "dicey" when considering texts like the Gospel of Thomas, a work that wasn't even Canonized to start with.

In terms of describing the "character" of the "God" that I happen to believe in, those red letter parts of the Bible are highly *important* to me personally and very representative of my experiences and beliefs.

If he insists on discussing *my* (personal pronoun) beliefs about God, and the character of God, madaz will need to limit himself to the statements made by Christ himself. I will accept all statements as recorded in the red letter text of the NT, as well as the statements attributed to Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas.

madaz said:

FYI I don't believe the Jesus (as depicted in the Gospels) existed.

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But you think the parts about genocide are correct?

Anyhow, if you had just told me in the first place that you ignored facts from the Holy Bible then it would have saved us from constantly banging our heads together for the last umpteen posts.

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If you had simply *asked* me if I personally believed in the concept of Biblical infallibility, before accusing me of owning that particular belief, it would also have saved us a lot of time.

madaz said:

I should have listened to my instinct when you ignored/denied the word Omni.

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From my perspective you should have *asked* me if I believed in the concept of Biblical infallibility before *assuming* it. IMO that's where things first ran off the rails.

bhsmte said:

I'm not certain how many "facts" are contained in the holy bible to begin with. There are a lot of claims, but whether they were indeed "facts" is another story.

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Hezekiah's Tunnel - Biblical Archaeology Truth

I would say that at least some of it is archaeological fact.

bhsmte said:

Michael,

Do you believe in the miracles attributed to Jesus in the NT?

I know you do believe the God you believe in is a personal God, but the rest of what you say, seems close to what Thomas Jefferson believed in as a diest. Jefferson made his own bible, in which he removed all of the miracles attributed to Jesus, because he didn't believe in them and thought they were added for effect, but he created his own bible with only the teachings of Jesus.

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I respect Jefferson's deistic position, but God has been *personally* active in my life IMO.

I would say that I can logically "explain away" virtually every (walking on water being the exception) so called "miracle" attributed to Christ without resorting to any supernatural constructs. Parlor tricks are utterly irrelevant from my perspective.

My love of Christ comes from the *effect* that his teachings have had on my life over the course of a lifetime (I'm 53 now). My attachment to Jesus has nothing to do with requiring anything supernatural or unusual from "Jesus the man". I love what he has done for my life *today*, not because he did some 'special magic trick' 2000 years ago.

In short, the "miracle" parts of the NT (whole Bible) are rather irrelevant from my perspective.