AAQ, be honest, you didn’t recently read the Scriptures. The idea that the Bible is filled with horrible stories and God is a terrible being has been around for Ages, has been in numerous books by self described “Freethinkers” to discredit Christianity, and forms one of the central criticisms that is repeated ad nauseum on the Internet. DO you really expect us to believe that you were just randomly reading the Bible and came to this conclusion on your own?
Well, I for one don’t. I think you are just looking for reasons to justify what amounts to an irrational hatred of Christianity, because that Hatred of Christianity has become a core component of your Identity since you identify with a particularly hostile Atheistic Religion yourself, though you will of course deny that you have a Religion.
Not that it matters, your criticisms are Childish, and base don misrepresentation which only furthers my conclusion that you are regurgitating half digested argument from elsewhere, and not subjecting those criticisms to any sort of scrutiny. You just blindly believe them then take credit for coming up with them all on your own, not aware of how obviously shallow the comments are.
You even work in the usual “Pagans were better than Christians” line…
Lets take a look…
I read 'the sins of scripture' recently and I realised this Yahweh character to be extremly hateful, jealous and totally un-godlike. The 'Pagan' religions were childs tales compared to this.
Maybe you should read the actual Scriptures and not a book about them. At the very least read more than just John Shelby Spong. Even Bart Ehrman doesn’t have the same beliefs as Spong about this, and Ehrman is an Atheist!
As to the gentleness of the Pagan Faiths relative to the Bible, ou clearly have not read much of the various Pagan mythologies that exist.
For example, there is this extreme egoistical insistence on believing in him alone. Why does an omniscient being require worship at all, much less belief? Doesnt he know he exists?
This isn’t even a logical question. Why do you assume a demand for Worship is all about affirmation that he exists?
Of course God knows he exists, and even if God was as egotistical as Spong said, and you repeated, that doesn’t mean that he needs our worship to affirm that existence. Arrogant men know they exist, but still seek praise.
Not that it matters, since God is not egotistical for wanting worship. God seeks worship because he Created us, and because said Worship was a part of why we were Created. It’s more about Recognition of our ultimate progenitor than egotism. It’s also about establishing his Authority so we will do his Will, and thus lead better lives.
And whats the deal with "kill all that breaths" just coz it happens to be in the promised land, any amount of decent common sense would tell us that the people who live there, promised land or not, have the first right to the land. If they wanted the land, they should have bought it out or at the very worst, forced a treaty driving the locals out. Why kill them and their children and even their cattle?
If you’d bothered to read the text of the Scriptures you’d’ know.
And then comes the single most infamous quality of christainity.
The real Irony is you are citing Jewish texts… this is Irony because your only Target is Christianity. People never seem to attack the Jews for the use of the same texts…
All humans are sinners coz adam and eve realised they were naked.
This is not True. For oen thing, not all Christians even accept Original Sin. I grew up in the Churches of Christ and Original Sin is not a part of the Doctrines of that Church. The Orthodox don’t really teach it either. Neither do a few others.
As to those that do, the teaching is no that Adam and Eve realised they were naked so we are all Sinners. The Doctrine of Original Sin is that Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating of the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. After which, they acquired the knowledge of shame and guilt, and realised they were naked. However, it is not the Realisation that they were naked that caused all humanity to be born into sin, it was the inherent flaw that Adam and Eve passed on to their Children that caused them to be born with a predisposition for disobeying God’s will. The sin of Adam and Eve was not that they knew they were naked, but that they had disobeyed God and acquired something that they were not intended to acquire. It is this Trait of Rebelliousness against God that is inherited, NOT “I know I’m naked so everyone else is damned.”
If you can’t even get that Right then you have no business criticising the Scriptures.
By the way, Original Sin doesn’t teach we were born guilty of Sin, only that we were born with a Natural inclination toward Sin.
I must say though, I would so not want to be decended from humans who dont even realise whether they have clothes on or not. Wait, thats symbolic?
This is why I no longer take Atheist arguments from modern Atheists seriously. I hope uyou know that. Adam and Eve likely knew they were naked, as in not wearing clothes, even before they partook of the Fruit. You know, the Forbidden Fruit you seem to have not bothered to mention? They simply had no actual shame in it and no concept of Nudity that we have. They knew they were not wearing clothes, they simply didn’t care and it never occurred t them they had to.
The meaning fo this was, they were innocent, and had never felt shame before. Now, thanks to the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they know Shame, and fear, and regret.
I mean, you really aren’t presenting the Fall as it has been understood for 3500 years. You reduced it to “One day they realised they were Naked’ which is to what happened.
They why did god incarnate himself, had himself tortured and killed? For a symbolic tale? And why the sadomasochism? Can't a omnipotent being just forgive a sin, even if such a sin could, in words of St.Augstine, be passed through the semen?
Do you even know what St. Augustine meant?
By the way Dawkins also asked this absurd question, but its absurd because it ignores basic things lime the Culture Jesus came from, the State of Human History, for even Human Nature we live with today.
The concept pf the Sacrifice of Jesus was tied to the Sacrificial offerings made at the Temple. Sin requires Death and Blood. This ties into Human Psychology and a need to feel punished for wrongs and by which we are validated. (One of my upcoming essays is on this by the way.)
In Ancient Judaism, the predecessor to Christianity, the Blood Atonement was usually made via an Animal Sacrifice. The Sins were given to the Animal, who was killed so the Sins may be covered for a Year. Jesus died for all and for all Time. The Sins of the world were given to him so he may Die, and with him the Sins of the World.
As for Omnipotent beings “Just forgiving”, that doesn’t make sense from God’s perspective or mans. If God “Just forgive” in the way you, Dawkins, and perhaps Spong suggests, there would still be no mechanism for reception of that Forgiveness without some kind of Contact. The purpose of the Forgiveness was as much to serve as a Catalyst for Transformation as it was to Reconcile God to man on its own. In fact, that Transformation is the essential element. People need an object to focus on and to draw on as a reference, and a powerful event, such as the Death of an innocent Man, who willingly died for others, has a much more profound reaction than just “I forgive them.”
Jesus’ Life and Death supply us with the basis of Moral Teaching and a perfect exemplar of that Teaching, as well as a Focal pint on which we can pin all our hopes and fears, our anxieties and our comforts, our Sin as well as our Valour. It acts as a Medium for us to channel all of our Highest and lowest impulses and Transform them into a useful mass. You don’t get that out of God just saying “All is forgiven”.
Further, Jesus’s sacrifice enables us to make a choice of whether we accept it or not.
Now I understand why christianity has a disproportionately large number of priests - they are necessary to suger-coat the stories if the general public are to accept them. Of course, threats of eternal fires help too.
This is inherently contradictory. The Priests can’t be busy suger coating the stories whilst relhign on terrifying people with images of Hell.
That said, not all Christian Churches even have a Priesthood, and not all Ministers sugercoat things either. Your just projecting a biased view onto an imagined “Prietshood of Christianity” to suit your claims.
Ps. No offense to christains, needless to say.
I don’t buy this. You clearly did want to offend Christians, and did so with malrepresentitive tripe that rests on Caricature and is supported by Ignorance.
PPS. About the poll.
Personal god:Monotheistic/ Polythiestic god, listens prayers,etc.
Agnostic:Uncertain of His existence.
Atheists: Maintain there's no god.
Diests: A non personal god, created the universe but doesnt work thereafter.
Spinoza's God: Pantheism, einstein and Stephen Hawkin's God.
NonThiest: Buddhists and other nondeity faiths.
Too limited.
