Translate

Sunday, August 11, 2019

The Character Of God Examined Pt. 1

Many biblical critics assert their criticisms as if the world had not begun to "think" until they had an idea.

One of the ideas circulated by the new atheists, which have the same old ideas, claimed to be new, circulated by new or different people, is that God is so full of murderous ways that he cannot possibly be God.

A commentor named "Kellz", who at one time pretended to be R. Kelly on this blog , falls right in line with the new atheist song of "God is not moral" and that "God is a megalomaniac" because when he "they" read scripture all they see is death, destruction, rape of women and murder of innocent adults and children. But is any of that true? 

Are The Arguments Persuasive Against God's Character?

Slavery ~
1- Beat your servant just don't kill him (Exodus 21:20-21)
2- Perpetual servanthood breaking up family Exodus 21:2-6

Rape ~
1- Women taken in battle: Deut 20:10 & 21:10 (are they only sexual objects?)
2- Deut 22, raped woman must marry the man, (is this actually a restoration of power and authority?)
3- Judges 21 (the critic claims this is the repeated rape of women)

Child Murder ~
1- Jepthah, & Judges 11:29-40
2- Midianite boys were killed while girls were kept alive (to be raped) [Numbers 31]
3- God kills the man that would not strike the prophet, (1 Kings 20:35-36)
4- The Kids "Bald Head" joke. was this mere innocence condemned by killing youth?

In tranquility: "dash the children against the stones" Psalms 137:9 (Was this a prophetic look at how the enemies of Israel would feel about killing Israel in God's judgement against Israel or an incitement to evil?)

Let's take a look at these and other more popular criticisms and handle them. At the end of the day what we will see is a loving and all wise God who is not only love and mercy, but also justice, judgement and truth.

9 comments:

  1. Glad to see I was the inspiration behind your posts. I don't know why you're trying to make the bible out to say other than what it says.

    I lied. Actually, I do know. You have this belief where you are required to believe that everything that Yahweh does is good. Even when it obviously isn't. Hence, the far fetched rationalizations to defend which otherwise would be indefensible. You can't admit that Yahweh could be evil. Because that's the only alternative. You'd have to admit that Yahweh is evil.

    This is a textbook example of motivated reasoning:
    Motivated reasoning is an emotion-biased decision-making phenomenon studied in cognitive science and social psychology. This term describes the role of motivation in cognitive processes such as decision-making and attitude change in a number of paradigms, including:

    Cognitive dissonance reduction[1]
    Beliefs about others on whom one's own outcomes depend[1]
    Evaluation of evidence related to one's own outcomes[1]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes like the heretic Marcion you were one like a pebble in a shoe that just had to be dumped out with the rest of the dirt-LOL

      And you're no psychoanalyst...If so analyze yourself because noone ever told you to LIE about your identity in order to post...in fact nobody asked you to come to this site and post anything, but you do. Now what does psychology tell you about that?

      In fact, your argument is bogus, you haven;t present anything including any historical narrative that supports any of your assertions...so not only are you a looser, but a spre one at that.

      Now, IF you have any retort to the material...I said material...I said MATERIAL, that I present go at it...until then save the psychoanalysis for your twice per week sessions (which I am sure you have)...

      Your claims are unsupportable even by language used in the text itself. Please TRY to present an argument or case with something similar to evidence. You haven't so far in any of your rantings.

      Delete
    2. You and I both know that you'll never say that the Bible is wrong or that anything that Yahweh is said to have done is wrong. You HAVE to believe that Yahweh is always right and that the Bible is true and inerrant. You are not allowed to even hypothetically consider otherwise. Hence all of the far fetched rationalizations. This is indeed a textbook example of motivated reasoning.
      https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/motivated-reasoning

      Also, cognitive dissonance. Back in 1954, there was a psychologist the late Leon Festinger. He infiltrated a religious doomsday group who preached that aliens would come and destroy the world, but that they, the faithful few, would be saved. He pretended to be a believer so that he could observe their reactions when the prophecy inevitably failed. At midnight on the day the destruction was supposed to take place, nothing happened. A quick thinking member rationalized that the clock was 10 minutes slow. And hence it began. The rationalizations that is. More time passed and nothing happened. You'd think that they would have just abandoned the belief as they had been proven wrong beyond a reasonable doubt, right? Wrong. Eventually, they rationalized that the aliens had spared the world because of the faithful few and that they were now charged with spreading the word. Even more remarkable was that the members who had invested more time, emotion and even material resources in the group were much more likely to accept the rationalization as true than those members who had not invested as much. He then came up with what he called cognitive dissonance.

      Delete
    3. This is the reason why I continue to block some of your commentary. It is repetitive and for a long time it displays signs of OCD. Since you are a "psychology" buff, which is probably another misrepresentation along with your LYING and trifulling pretense to be a woman abuser and PEDOPHILE of all things...A person with OCD can be identified as experiencing the following:

      "Their mind is trying to make sense of what happened. The issue is unresolved in their mind. By repeating the same thing over and over, they want to resolve it and do away with it. Many things that we encounter on a daily basis get easily resolved (I fell because I slipped, he laughed because I said something funny, etc.) but some things are not so easily resolved and leave deep impressions on us...Consequently, our [YOUR] minds get stuck in this loop of trying to make sense of them because they haven’t yet made full sense to us.

      There is one other reason, aside from immaturity like a child continually asking for candy when parents have said no, that a person would engage in the behavior you do...That would be FEAR.

      A person in FEAR has to rationalize to themselves and others why they continue to insist things are different than they are found to be. They are out of their comfort zone. Like you have displayed, they cannot deal with the facts, but whether deliberately, or inadvertently, create a fantasy by which their world becomes less intimidating and more easy to cope with.

      Now ANYONE reading your commentary sees signs of both, OCD and FEAR. You are afraid that your world and reinterpretation of the bible, which only the most extreme radicals embrace, is the way it is because only then is your world made to feel comfortable, at peace and at ease.

      So, I don't believe that you are cognitively dissident because I don;t believe that you have come to cognition on the issues. You are living in a fantasy and haven't yet gotten out of the proverbial barn. In other words, you are in some kind of matrix, not because the truth or an opening to escape has not come, but because you are AFRAID to deal with the implications of TRUTH and the bible being RIGHT in regards to what it records.

      Delete
    4. For those who did not know, OCD is OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER. Saying the same thing, over and over could be a sign of this disorder and this fake Kellz has displayed that amptly in his diatribes over and over again.

      Further, I expect those who are not saved to disagree. Why? Because the BIBLE states that a "Carnal mind" is an emnity against God and cannot "understand" HIM.

      Romans 8:7 ~Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

      So anyone committed to their secular worldview and so irrational to look at the proof against it and not address the arguments, and further so radical as to reinterpret passages contrary to nearly every credible historical scholar in history, I would expect that they would have a hard time with the biblical narrative.

      The fact is that the BIBLE has not been shown to be wrong in what it records. Whether that be history and or prophecy. Real history is not based on one method. There is a historiological method to discovering truths of history. The bible passes EVERY generally accepted criteria. SO it has been found to be TRUE about what it records...

      What Kellz is referring to is the actions or morality of the bible. Once again, THE RECORDING deals with his assertions of God's immoral acts etc, and by the evidence his argument FAILS there as well.

      One can say a wheel is wholly inadequate for transportation, and that a person can do nothing with an engine or engine part, however, put the wheel on the care, the engine and engine parts in their proper place and you just may have transportation.

      Like the radical Kellz is (or pretends to be) he takes parts off the car and disputes whether they are designed properly...Any FOOL can do that but that is both irrational and as stated earlier done out of fear OCD (as I believe he has adequately displayed)...

      So DEAL with the arguments. We are aware of your OCD, and maybe you can't help it, but I will not entertain your disorder any longer on this blog...Love to deal with arguments, cannot deal with your disorder however.

      Thanks Kellz or whoever you are...I can't believe that out of all people, this guy would pretend to be a pedophile and a woman abuser...Couldn't he have called himself Geoffrey Epstein instead??? [Ooh I forgot, that is probably worse]

      Delete
    5. https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/08/30/Dozens-of-Yazidi-women-sold-into-marriage-by-ISIS.html

      I guess this isn't rape...after all, they married their female captives first.

      Delete
    6. Told you, you suffer from OCD...We are NOT ISLAMIC...Isis sells women into marriage and it's Christianity's or God's fault??? You are very ignorant.

      And by the way, comments I don;t post from you are only REPETITIVE, you asserting DUMB stuff with no foundation and or basis and refusing to deal with any arguments or what I say...I don't have to entertain you at all. All I ask is that you stick with the topic but your OCD doesn't allow you to do that. STAY ON YOUR MEDICATION please.

      Delete
    7. ISIS is doing the EXACT SAME THING that ancient Hebrew soldiers did under Yahweh's direction. THE EXACT SAME THING. One more time, THE EXACT SAME THING! It's even in the same geographic area. The reason you don't post my comments is because you know that any objective person reading them will see Yahweh for what he is. So you don't post the one's where I thoroughly explain why Yahweh is no different than any evil dictator ever.

      By the way, R. Kelly may have abused some women, but Yahweh, according to his book, drowned every woman and girl on the face of the Earth, except for 4. Yahweh>>R Kelly.

      Delete
    8. First of all, ALL souls and lives are God's and he can do what he will with them...Since this life is NOT the end of life and existence, I think his decisions are ultimately good and purposeful and we don;t have all knowledge to know what we don;t know, that HE knows.

      Now, in materialism, NOTHING makes sense and suffering has an equal value to hedonism, so as leading atheists have said, why suffer at all?

      To your argument that the Command of Allah (God) in the Quran are the same as the command of God in the bible...I would say NO, based on certain criteria. For starters:

      1- The Bible God's command to "utterly destroy" was only upon 5 nations (from memory) not the entire world or all people who simply "disagreed" with God's leadership.

      2- In the Quran Allah not only hates sinners but seeks to destroy everyone who disagrees or who does not choose to live under his rule.

      3- When God commands destruction on the heathen, there is a considerable amount of time given for them to either move, relocate and or repent and the judgement is usually if not always pronounced in JUDGEMENT or adjudication of their (the nations) past behavior.

      From scripture we are told that the nations not only defiled themselves by serving other God's but they defiled the land b y their immoral practices and living, such as sacrificing babies to Molech and other idols, indiscriminate murder and other immiral sexual practices.

      So IF it is that Isis is being faithful to the Quran or Allah, which is arguable, their divine command is wholly different than what we see in the Bible.

      In Joshua, Rahab was not only a sinner, but also in Jehrico. The command was that God would destroy all the inhabitants of Jehrico. Rahab, not only knew that Israel was coming (they were in the wilderness for 40 years) and found mercy and she and her family were saved alive.

      The Gibeonites were supposed to be "utterly destroyed" also. They tricked their way into slavery and were spared. In other words it was BETTER to be a slave to these nomads than to die or fight to be free...I wonder why you never mentioned that in your criticisms????

      Anyway, they were also spared ultimately but were also aware of Israel and the intent of God.

      If Isis is correct, the Quran says that the infidel (unbelieving) should not only be driven away but killed everywhere they are:

      Sura(4:89) - "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks."

      and killing of the enemy or unbeliever was a way of life according to the Quran:

      Sura(2:216) - "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not.

      Enemies were destroyed, not because of judgement, but because of disbelief

      Sura (8:12) - "(Remember) when your Lord inspired the angels... "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"

      So NO this was not the "EXACT SAME THING" as what the Bible God teaches and or endorses.

      Now, you may say the people "acted in response" to the divine command in a similar fashion, but you, like me, can know no more than what the narrative says. There is no proof that Israel acted in any other manner than what God proscribed in the text.

      Anything you say contrary would only be conjecture and I know your OCD has you FULL or conjecture rather than fact.

      Delete

I've switched to real time comments for most posts. Refresh your screen if you post and do not see it right away. Please send me an email if you try to post a comment and cannot do so. Dunamis1@netzero.com. Thanks.