Don't think I said "these ramblings are just your own intepretations" did I? If I put it like that I can only assume I was drunk and stroppy so apologise.
I presume what I meant was that I didn't see how you arrived at your interpretations - why you chose to accept some parts of scripture and not others. Having it both ways, as it were. Saying that the "bad" OT stuff must have been altered or interpolated (them bleedin' pharisees at it again
) for example. How do you know? Basically, what is your interpretation/answer/belief to the questions and objections raised by myself and others, how and why you chose those particular interpretations/answers/objections over others and why those alternatives are wrong. Is perhaps asking a bit much, I realise, but am interested cos I just don't see it no matter how hard I look. In fact the harder I look the harder it is to make any sense out of.
Raas said:
Seems He feels some individuals do not need to be included in the "Search for God", and their role becomes to help others know of his existance and aid them in their persuit of God. Your perception that the system is set up so that we'll all fail unless we've recieved divine intervention is not true. The system is set it up to so that if people are willing, they can find God. "He who seeks will find", as scripture puts it. Beauty is all around us, it comes down to the individual to recognise it.
I didn't say it was set up so we'd all fail, I said it was set up heavily skewed to making failing "the test" almost inevitible for anybody who really looks into this stuff. Expecting faith in the face of all evidence to the contrary. That's perverse.
Beauty and horror are all around us, yes. And... ? How is that relevant? Neither are evidence for anything but aesthetic appreciation and the brutality of nature.
In regards to the "eternal suffering". God doesn't put you in hell. You put yourself there. Whatever suffering you incurr in the next life is your own doing. A repercussion of neglecting truth.
Yes he does. He didn't have to create such a place (obviously I don't believe he did anything due to lack of existence but we'll take that as read, eh?
). It was a choice and he apparently decided that eternal torment was the best option and make it incredibly easy (by many interpretations anyway - I know there is a very wide range of beliefs about Hell and precious little actually said about it in the book) to be sent there too for good measure. Infinite punishment for finite crimes as it's often succinctly put. By definition this is unjust.
Well many people have been inspired and amazed by that instruction manual. So it certainly plays it's part. By saying it is "untrue" are you referring to those OT stories where God is a warmonger tyrant? Because we've been through all of that before. Did you take nothing in?
And many people have been inspired to acts of horrific inhumanity - argument works both ways and the horrendous stuff vastly outweighs the good deeds imo. You don't need me to list the evils various religions have committed in the name of their god(s) nor the good deeds done by believers.
When I spoke of large sections of the Bible being demonstrably untrue I was talking about the obvious stuff: Garden of Eden, The Flood, The Exodus and so on. Probably the majority of the OT can certainly be shown not to have ever happened. Or if it did all traces of evidence have been miracled out of existence so it looks that way (which would again be rather perverse to say the least). Some of this stuff is absolutely fundamental to the theology so is not just a few unimportant quibbles. Not even the standard response that such sections must be metaphorical, allegorical, poetic and so on really cuts it either. How is it determined which parts are not to be taken too literally? If there was no Adam and Eve there was no Fall, no Fall no need for the Crucifiction. That's fairly fundamental stuff. And if most of the... more "out there" OT stuff is meant as metaphorical lessons then why are they such bad lessons? Why is wickedness and immorality so frequently rewarded and held up as something to aspire to?
If you think of the case of the "Moors murders", Brady was persuading Hindley that "there is no God" as a reason to continue with their murders. For a lot of people who want to indulge in evil, the idea that "there is no God" can become an incentive, as it was in the aforementioned case.
I have to assume that's a joke? Disbelief makes people more inclined to evil acts? Really? Cos believers are so well behaved in comparison, I'm sure :D
I'll skip the blindingly obvious stuff (Crusades, Inquisitions, genocides, etc) and stick to a modern example not a million miles from your own -
Andrea Yates. Difference being that she did what she did as a
direct result of her religious convictions. Ian Brady was a deviant in many ways and Myra Hindley was easily led and probably somewhat sociopathic. I'm sure it might help a bit to lack belief in a vengeful god to do shit like that but I'm guessing he'd have done it anyway. The charming Ms Yates did what she did because she totally believed in a vengeful god and a Fallen world and genuinely thought she was doing the only sane thing out of love (I'm assuming some degree of mental illness must've been involved too but she wasn't just another psychopathic killer like Brady/Hindley - mental illness + strong religious beliefs = trouble). Not saying one is worse than t'other, just that to say disbelief makes one more prone to evil acts is just so far wide of the mark it's untrue. People do terrible things for any number of reasons and religious reasons are worryingly common.
