david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris) (01/03/84)
Tim Maroney recently posted an article stating the reasons why he is not a Christian. Here is my reply; and it is quite long (as Tim's article was quite long). I am posting this reply for the sake of those individuals who would like a Christian response to Tim's blasphemy (it can be nothing else), and I do not propose to begin another useless debate with Tim. If you are not interested, use your delete key. > I am not a Christian. In my discussions of this fact with Christians, I > have repeatedly run into one major misunderstanding. The Christians assume > that if I believed the Bible were true, I would become a Christian; that is, > they believe that my reason for not being a Christian is that I don't > believe in their god. This is not the case. > > One disclaimer: The thesis of this essay is that even if a God as described > in the Bible does exist, he is not fit for worship due to his low moral > standards. Consequently, I speak sometimes as if I did believe the Bible, > when in fact I do not. > > If I had undeniable proof of the existence of Yahweh, aka Jehovah, aka > Adonai, aka El Shaddai, aka Yahweh Elohim, the father of Jesus and the > ancient leader of the Semitic peoples, I still would not worship the > bastard. If an angel appeared to me and removed my appendectomy scar so I > could never deny the reality of divine power, I still would not be a > Christian. My primary reason for not being a Christian or Jew has nothing > to do with my lack of belief in their god. My primary reason is that the > Bible is a disgusting book describing the behavior of a god without the > morality of an average high school student. Then you have placed God in a no-win position. Your main point seems to be that you would not accept the Christian God if you had absolute proof that He exists; whether you believe the Bible or not becomes irrelevent, doesn't it? And since you are using the Bible as your basis for rejecting God, you at once accept it as fact and reject it as false. Since you use verses out of the Bible to support your theories about God, I must assume that a well-based argument, based on Scripture, that refutes your claims about God will sway you in the opposite direction. But then, you don't believe in the Bible... the argument seems sort of circular to me. But I will proceed on the basis that we have accepted Scripture as reflecting the truth about God, and that my arguments will not be rejected because they contain references to the Bible. > That God does what he wants, when he wants, without even an attempt at > self-justification, and all for what reason? According to Paul, all for his > own greater glory. Oh, how charming. For his own glory he condemns > billions to eternal torment, drowns millions of innocent beasts and > thousands of children, orders the slaughter of entire cities down to the > last man, woman, and child, creates a race that he knows is flawed and will > hurt itself (so that in their pain they can worship him better), refuses to > deal with any other god on a friendly basis, restricts the normal expression > of the sexual function, rains doom on those who dare to try to be as > knowledgable as he is, and so on. 1. God does not condemn anyone to eternal torment who has not made that choice already. You don't have to go, you know. God has condemned Tim Maroney to eternal torment because Tim Maroney wants to go there instead of heaven (see final paragraph on Pride). You may as well blame the rock when it falls on your head because you didn't move, or the professor who gives you an "F" because you didn't turn in a term paper. 2. As for Noah, you have carefully left out "man" who was drowned. Man had become utterly wicked, there was no good in him. The love of God had suffered heart-rending disappointment (literally, "naham" means taking a breath in extreme pain). Sinful man had prevented God's purpose and plan. God's handiwork had been ruined because of sin. God's love shone through this even then. "He loved us so much he destroyed us", I hear you say! But for God's plan of salvation for man to come to fruition, He had to wipe the slate clean. He saw the only way to extend His love to future man (I believe God saw ALL men, including myself, at the time of Noah) was to begin again with Noah. God had to remove a cancer so that the body would live. 3. Destruction of cities covered later, when Tim expands on this point. 4. Man was not "flawed". But he had free will, and the choice to obey or to disobey God. You do not seem to understand the doctrine that God was under no need to create. "God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them." Creates because, being Love, desires to give. 5. Refusal to accept others gods covered later, when Tim expands on this point. 6. Without understanding what you mean about sex, I will not start attacking strawmen. 7. Restriction of knowledge covered later, etc. > Jesus preaching love in no way atones for these many hideous crimes; lest we > forget, it was at the time of Jesus that he created Hell. This cruellest of > all concentration camps (certainly far worse than the ones created by the > Nazis) was at no time mentioned in the Old Testament, and the wrathful and > threatening god of the Old Testament would hardly have omitted any chance to > terrify his worshippers. > > I have heard some Christians who believe that there is no everburning Hell > in their religion, that the "lake of fire" is purely destructive, that > sinners will be annihilated rather than tortured after the Last Judgment. > Sometimes, they claim that medieval Catholics created that "myth", and that > they would revile any god who made this concentration camp. > > Well, get ready to start reviling then. The myth of Hell was not created in > the Middle Ages. It is explicitly stated in a set of books called the > Synoptic Gospels, you know, the ones by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Since some > people don't seem to be very familiar with these books, usually considered > the cornerstone of Christianity, I'll fill them in. As I have already said, God has not committed any serious crimes. That Hell is a concentration camp is, I think, a very bad analogy. You are sent to a concentration camp; you volunteer for Hell. God does not want you to go there. Whether Hell is a literal lake of fire, purely destructive, or xxx is not the point. Hell is simply "un-heaven". Where Heaven is the presence of God, Hell is the absence of Him. Where Heaven contains the everlasting love of God (for God is love), Hell is the absence of it. Therein lies the suffering. God's grace has been removed, His offer has expired. Tim states that Hell is never mentioned in the Old Testament, and I disagree with him. Hell is translated from the Hebrew "sheol", in the following OT verses: Deuteronomy 32:22 II Samuel 22:6 Job 11:8, 26:6 Psalms 9:17, 16:10, 18:5, 55:15, 86:13, 116:3, 139:8 Proverbs 5:5, 7:27, 9:18, 15:11,24, 23:14, 27:20 Isaiah 5:14, 14:9,15, 28:15,18, 57:9 Ezekial 31:16,17, 32:21,27 Amos 9:2 Jonah 2:2 Habakkuk 2:5 Forgive me if I have missed any. But this reminds me of Satan using Scripture to tempt Jesus. Satan was no dummy; he knew the Scriptures. But he took them out of context; Jesus handily turned him away by using other Scripture. That Tim makes such a statement about the Bible (and there are over thirty verses that refute him.. maybe more?) makes me wonder if he has ever read the Bible or is just trying to deliberately decieve us. Tim was correct when he said (in another article) that intelligent people could filter out sarcasm. But when Tim's sarcasm is filtered through the sieve of knowledge, there doesn't appear to be much left. > Matthew 18:8-9 has Jesus saying, "If your hand or your foot should cause you > to sin, cut it off and throw it away: it is better for you to enter into > life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into > eternal fire." The same message is conveyed in Matthew 5:27-30. Jesus wanted people to see that the real source of sin lies not in an organ but in your heart. Your evil heart must be changed if you are to enter the kingdom of heaven. Tim expounds on hell for a few paragraphs, citing more Matthew, then some Mark and Luke. That such a hell exists I do not doubt; the nature of hell has been debated, but as I said, that is not the point. And again, verses taken out of context. Tim cites Mark 24:51, stating that hell is an eternal place with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Funny he forgot the part about "assign him a place with the hypocrites." > You hear a lot from Christians about Yahweh's "infinite compassion and > mercy". Tell it to the Midianites. Numbers 31 is a classic example of > wholesale slaughter and rape under the direction of Yahweh. A sample of > this delightful tale: "They waged the campaign against Midian, as Yahweh had > ordered Moses, and they put every male to death.... The sons of Israel took > the Midianite women captive with their young children, and plundered all > their cattle, all their flocks and all their goods. They set fire to the > towns where they lived and all their encampments.... Moses was enraged with > the commanders of the army ... who had come back from this military > expedition. He said, 'Why have you spared the life of all the women? ... > So kill all the male children. Kill also all the women who have slept with > a man. Spare the lives only of the young girls who have not slept with a > man, and take them for yourselves.'" Yes, friends, this is infinite mercy > and compassion for you. I particularly like the way that Moses got upset > with them for sparing women and male children, but allowed the young girls > to be kept for later raping. If only humans could keep to such lofty > standards without the necessity of divine revelation. Again, out of context. You have created your own reasons why God commanded the destruction of the Midianites; chapter 25 (a few pages back) explains that they were vile people, responsible for the Baal-peor orgy. In 25:2 "They called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods." The subject (they) is feminine, and refers to the daughters of Moab, with whom the men of Israel committed fornication (this method was used to weaken Israel by Balak, with Balaam's advice; see Rev 2:14). The Baal cult had festivals which dramatized the mating of Baal with the goddess of fertility. Archeological discoveries reveal that prostitution was practiced as part of their worship. This seems like a harsh judgement, but God is actually choosing the lesser of two evils. The alternative was to allow the Midianites to live and corrupt (and thereby destroy) Israel. And read Jeremiah 19:5, where we discover that the Midianites sacrificed their children to the god Baal. Is this what you are defending? Give me Yahweh any day. And remember, the Christ was to be of God's chosen people. Perhaps (if the Midianites had had their way) Israel would have been destroyed and Christ would never have existed (but I am speculating here). > I could go on for quite a while in this vein. I don't think the firstborn > in Egypt during the captivity would have agreed with the verdict of > compassion and mercy (Ex. 11:5,12:29), particularly since it was due to > Yahweh's hardening of Pharoah's heart in the first place that made this > neccessary. Also, with omnipotence, Yahweh could have teleported the Jews > out of captivity without bloodshed, or put the Egyptians to sleep while they > left, but no. That wouldn't be gory and exciting enough for him. I have discussed Pharaoh and Moses in another article. Briefly, of the times it was mentioned that Pharaoh's heart was hardened, only the first time does it indicate that God intervened. And it does not imply divine intervention; God probably allowed his heart to harden by "not softening it"; that is, to let man's own sinful nature take its course. But the concentration on doing it better takes away from the real purpose of God's chosen people and the Old Testament. The OT is not just a history book; it is a lesson on the nature of man's evil heart. The ten commandments are not just a good set of moral rules; they are designed to show men that, no matter how hard they try, they can't make it without God's help. They don't make the grade. Thus, Jesus Christ was the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Testament. > Then there are the charming instructions about women taken in war, from > Deut. 21:10-14. You are probably misinterpreting the verses. What don't you like? That such women must shave their heads? Compare Leviticus 14:8, where such treatment is also prescribed for everyone for infectious skin diseases (this also explains the nail trimming and putting-aside of clothes). The one month mourning? Contrast Deut. 34:8. That God outlines methods to prevent skin disease is not so awful to me. And these instructions were given to men to limit their authority. Now, this does not mean that He likes slavery. He does not like divorce either, but permits it because of the relative hardness of the human heart (see Matthew 19:8). And Sulfodene had not been invented yet. > And there is Deuteronomy 28:20-46, a long stream of > invectives and curses straight from the prophet's mouth, all about the nasty > things Yahweh will do if you upset him a tad. The curses actually begin in verse 16, and proceed to verse 68. In contrast, read the blessings in 28:1-14. These were the consequences of the sworn covenant between Israel and God. The curses would not fall on an Israelite if he "upset him a tad", they are the result of disobeying God. In order for God to be what He is, He must follow His own rules. This may sound like blasphemy, but it is essential. God could not break his own promise, whether the results were good or bad. > The entire book of Joshua is > a long sequence of atrocities. I have not given all these quotes for space > reasons -- I urge you to look them up for yourself. If you are not shocked, > then your moral standards must be low indeed. The purposes of Joshua are to continue the history of Israel and to demonstrate God's faithfulness to His covenent. I will only add that, when you look up such verses, also look up verses relevent to the subject matter. Remember, the Christian view of the Bible is that it is a book of oneness, and you can't get the whole picture unless you examine the whole thing. You may as well try to draw an outline of the human body by peering at a white blood cell. > Of course, you will sometimes hear rationalizations of this slaughter. > There are two major forms: the corruption argument and the mercy argument. > The former says that those slaughtered were evil and deserving of their > fate; the latter says that since they were religiously incorrect, it was a > mercy to terminate their existence. > > The corruption argument simply does not hold up. The people slaughtered in > the Old Testament were almost uniformly blameless (with a few exceptions, of > course -- for instance, the Sodomites violated the conventions of > hospitality.) Usually, no justification is offered beyond the fact that > since they were of another tribe, it was OK to kill them. Then you wouldn't mind if your son or daughter were sacrificed to their god? I have already explained how "blameless" these people were. The justification IS presented, for those who care to do their research properly; Moses and Noah are only a few examples. Follow Tim's advice; read the Bible! But don't read one or two verses out of context and put the book down; or worse, read what someone else says about the Bible. You can make the Bible say just about anything you want by taking verses out of context; i.e., when the Lord taught us to be as doves, we were meant to lay eggs. I will not try defend the mercy argument; I am not sure I believe it. I know of no case where God senselessly slaughters *innocent* people in the Old or New Testaments. > Most of us, given omnipotence, would be able to do a far better job than > Yahweh. What would you do if given omnipotence? If your answer is anything > other than "abolish world hunger", there's something more than a little > skewed in your perception of mankind. There is no question that this is the > greatest evil in the world today. The second thing would be to abolish > disease, right? This doesn't take "infinite mercy", just normal compassion > and a bit of common sense. God's supposedly infinite mercy is apparently > the same thing as no mercy at all. Tim seems to have a high opinion of himself, and has never heard of the old maxim, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Personally, I think that most of us, given omnipotence, would become evil and treacherous manipulators of the universe (see final note on Pride). The belief that world hunger is the greatest evil in the world is a mistaken one. Far greater evils are the hearts of men that permit such hunger at their own profit, or persecute and punish those who do not adhere to such-and-such {political system/religion/ etc} (The argument that Christianity persecutes others is a valid one, but not relevent to my point here). And anyway, you appear to expect that which you do not deserve. Mankind cannot expect ultimate goodness from God when we scorn him and have rejected God's greatest offering of His love. That His love is still offered is remarkable. But this assumes a knowledge equal to God's. Omnipotence is one thing; all- knowledgable is another. Until I learn how to "make a fish from scratch", I will assume God knows what He is doing. > What makes this particularly unforgivable is that even Jesus's own standards > demand feeding of the poor. See Matthew 26:35, in which it is stated that > the blessed feed the hungry, and that the damned do not. Does the old saw > about "practicing what you preach" not apply to Yahweh? Is his hypocrisy > not a sin? Follow your own advice. Matthew 26:35 is about Peter's denial of Christ, and has nothing to do with feeding the poor. Perhaps you mean Matthew 25:37? But this verse pertains to God's servants love for God demonstrated by their love for their fellow man; even then there is nothing about being "damned". Perhaps this verse does exist; but I have researched and have not found it. In any case, this argument sounds suspiciously like Satan in Matthew 4:3... > One popular rationalization of this is that for Yahweh to feed all the > hungry would somehow (and it is never explained how) make it more difficult > for people to get into Heaven. Sure, and another reason is that it would > make the quality of newspapers worse, right? You can't just say that two > things are connected when there is no apparent or explained link between them! > > The charge against Yahweh of infecting us with disease is particularly > strong. God made these micro-organisms, and made us subject to them. If I > made a bunch of plague germs and set them loose, you would rightly hold me > accountable. Since (according to Genesis) all disease comes from Yahweh, I > hold him similarly accountable. Maybe I should approach this from another viewpoint. Believers in Christ are told that they will have life eternal. Eternal means forever, without end; mathematically stated, infinity. Whatever the lifetime of an individual, that compared to infinity (x/infinity) = 0. My point should be obvious. The pains and pleasures of this lifetime are nothing compared to the joy and happiness (or eternal pain and suffering) of the hereafter. Tim is concentrating on a humanistic viewpoint and ignoring eternal consequences. > Suppose you were a god and there were other gods. What would you do? What > I would try to do is the same thing I do as a person among other people -- > try to make friends or at least truce with as many of them as possible. The > jealous Judeo-Christian god does the opposite. Tim is fond of making this supposition. Again, see last section on Pride. But I personally have my doubts whether I would be around for long if this supposition (for Timyah Maroneyweh) became true. > Some people feel that Yahweh is the only god, and therefore cannot be > faulted for not having friendly relations with other gods. This idea is a > fairly modern invention: that not only is he the best god, but the only one. > Yahweh is repeatedly referred to as "our God" in the Pentateuch, and there > is no implication that he is the only real one. Also, try Deut. 5:7-9. It > is psychotic to be jealous of nonexistent beings. The statement "You shall > have no gods except me" clearly implies that the contrary is possible. Tim has confused "other gods" with some form of polytheism. Satan is, in a sense, a god. Extreme patriotism can also be a god, as can sex, food, your job, etc. God is trying to tell us that He is to be first; others take a second seat. > Suppose you were an omnipotent god and there were no other gods. What would > you do? Perform a continual sequence of verifiable miracles; after all, > this doesn't require any effort, and keeps people from delusion. No such > luck in the case of Jehovah. He demands absolute fidelity without any > demonstration of his existence, beyond some visionary manifestations of the > sort that you can get from any religion. You are being a hypocrite. You have stated that such evidence would not sway you, so why bring it up? God has presented plenty of evidence for his existence through His chosen people and through His Son. But we are back to the circular argument (I don't believe in the Bible, but if I did I wouldn't believe in God because the Bible says He is awful, but I don't believe in the Bible...). > Christians commonly rationalize this in one of two ways. First, they claim > that there is a virtue in believing something without proof; that is, faith > in itself is held to be a virtue, and Yahweh doesn't want to remove our > opportunity to indulge in it. All I can say to this is that I do not > consider faith to be a virtue -- I consider it to be a sign of intellectual > weakness, and a significant barrier to scientific and other intellectual > progress. (I consider scientific progress desirable because it is so > efficacious in improving the quality of people's lives.) I see no virtue in > accepting a thing on faith, since it may well be false, and it is clearly > not a virtue to believe the false. Given the willingness to have faith, how > does one decide whether to put it in Christianity instead of Hinduism? > There is no way; you just have to cross your fingers and take the plunge. > Whichever choice you take, you will hear voices in your head, see divine > manifestations, and so on, so even once the plunge is taken there is no way > to know you are correct. Then you will have to abandon most of what you have learned, for you have accepted most of it on faith. Do not confuse faith with blind faith; faith is continuing to believe that which you know to be true, when your feelings or even temporary circumstances say otherwise. I have faith that my little home computer (usually :-) does not randomly destroy my files; but there are times that I frantically search a disk for a "destroyed" file (I lose "faith" in my computer), only to find I have the wrong disk. Jesus said "blessed are those who do not see and believe"; but this does not imply blind acceptance. I believe on faith that a fellow named "Galileo" existed, but I have never seen him. This puts the rest of the paragraph in a different light. > The point to remember here is that if we don't believe in him, we go to > Hell, and this is a greater evil than a lack of the "virtue" of faith or a > stunting of science, or anything else conceivable. If Yahweh is concerned > about the good, he will do what he can to keep us from Hell, and keeping > vital information from us is the exact opposite of this. God has died to keep us out of Hell; I don't know what else you expect Him to do. And anyway, you are being a hypocrite again; what difference does this "vital information" make to you when you have already made up your mind? > I have heard the claim that Yahweh does not restrict us from learning, that > he encourages us to learn all we can. Tell it to the workers at the Tower > of Babel. In case your memory fails you here, Gen. 11:6-7 says, "'So they > are all a single people with a single language!' said Yahweh. 'This is but > the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to > do. [ Horrors! -- tim ] Come, let us go down and confuse their language on > the spot so that they can no longer understand one another.'" Yahweh > deliberately acts to restrict man's capability for understanding. More verses taken out of context; you have left out the reason the people were building the tower. The people were building the tower for two reasons: first, to assure unity, that they might be powerful without God's help. Second, they were determined to make themselves renowned; the sin of Pride predominated their thinking. Man's motive was not so pure, after all. And anyway, Acts 2:5-11 can be thought of as a reverse of the confusion of tongues. But the Bible explains about a dozen different kinds of knowledge. And any study of the Scriptures reveal that God desires knowledge for men: see Ephesians 2:17,18; Philippians 1:9; I Corinthians 12:8; and especially, Matthew 7:7,8. > One thing in particular would keep me from worshipping this god. That is > the fact that he desires worship. The only reason why this would be is that > he gets something out of worship, perhaps power, perhaps just pleasure. In > the former case, it would be totally unjustifiable for me to increase the > power of this hugely arrogant and malefic being. In the latter, well, I > don't LIKE this deity, and I don't think it deserves such a reward for its > heinous career. What you don't like is the strawman Christian God you have created in your own mind. And what really peeks out of your paragraph is not that God is ugly, but a statement akin to a child who refuses to share his lollipop with another; "You can't have it, so there!", or some sort of tongue-poking. > Some of the responses I have heard to this sort of argument in the past are > shown below, with my answers. I will reply to those responses that I would have given. > "You can't judge God by the same standards as man." In that case, why is it > that I keep getting told that God is good? Are there two meanings of the > word "good", one of which forbids murder, deliberate starvation, infecting > people with disease, and so on, and another which allows these things? I > suggest that there is already a word for the second meaning. That word is > "evil". If you think that it's OK to worship an evil god, that's your > business, but you can't expect me to do the same. Good and evil are absolutes in Christianity; God is absolute good. "Judging God", on the surface, sounds like a good intellectual thing to do. But to Christians, this argument is illogical (and we are told not to judge, lest we be judged). Are you asking God to put Himself on trial? But comparisons of good and evil depend on some sort of standard of good and evil. And since God is the ultimate standard of good, we end up comparing God with Himself. And I would be a poor Christian if I did not point out that, when comparing man to the same standard, we all fail. And from a Christian point of view, it is you who are worshipping an evil god. > One particularly curious rationalization here is that "starvation and > disease and all the other evils of the world come from breaking God's laws." > Starvation comes from not having enough food. Disease comes from exposure > to various nasty micro-organisms, and from genetic infirmities. If you can > show me how these two things come from breaking god's laws, I will be > greatly surprised. Perhaps at the root they are caused by Adam and Eve > falling from grace, but you can't hold some starving infant in Namibia > responsible for the actions of two long-dead people, any more than you can > hold me responsible for the acts of Jack the Ripper. There just isn't > sufficient connection to establish guilt. I would not make such a rationalization; the book of Job tells me better. But this is, in a sense, true. Some time ago I actually was upset that Adam committed the original sin; "we would have been better off", I thought. But this just stems out of pride again. I wouldn't have done any better than Adam, nor would anyone else. So I cannot expect any goodness from God (but I get much more than I deserve). > "Everything God does is really good, even though we can't always see that it > is." There is no possible amount of good that can counterbalance the > deliberate, perpetual starvation of the human race. Maybe we Americans have > it so good that we can't see this, but most of the people in the world are > starving. Children are dying by the truckload, not for any sin, but just > because there isn't enough food for them. If you could see these children, > and you had food, you would give food to them. (Either that, or you are an > unfeeling monster.) Not so with the omniscient god you worship. He sees > their bellies bloat, sees them run out of nutrients and rot alive, sees > their brains dying, and doesn't do a damn thing, despite the fact that he > has an unlimited supply of food to give. Another example of his mercy. World hunger appears to be one of Tim's major concerns. I would suggest that if he were actually that concerned about the starving children in Namibia, he would be in Namibia helping them out instead of telling us all about it. And before anyone pops back with the "I have donated $$$ and <xxx>, what have you done?" argument, I would suggest that they are not as concerned about the children as they are about their own self-ego (Pride again). But Tim has ignored the fact that God works through His believers. > Christians have been claiming that there will be wonderful events, that will > more than make up for the abominable pain and suffering on Earth, for about > two thousand years now. It is clear from the gospels that Jesus thought > that it was about to happen shortly after his death. Before the Christians, > the Zoroastrians were saying it. Yet the world still turns as it has, and > there is still no reason to think of these claims as other than pipe-dreams > to mollify the masses. It isn't clear to me. And your earlier biblical mistakes shed further doubt on your statement. Useless sarcasm isn't much of a basis to deny God. > "Don't ask such questions." People who say this are cowering slaves, > beneath my notice. They would as soon serve the devil as god in their > blindness and faith. No amount of evidence could convince them that the > devil was bad once they had decided to worship him; their basic assumption > is that they are correct, so they are untouchable by any rationality. (More pride) I ask questions and get answers; Tim asks them and makes up his own answers (or gets them from somebody else who made them up). > In closing, let's see how Yahweh/Jesus stands up to his own standards. In > Matthew 26:41-46, we hear the King, "Next he will say to those on his left > hand, 'Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire > prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave > me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a > stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick > and in prison and you never visited me.' ... And they will go away to > eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life." Have you forgotten the loaves and fishes? Or have you fed 5,000 people at once lately? > In the light of this, your god himself is the worst of sinners; if there is > no double standard, he will be at the head of that line into eternal > punishment. He is guilty of every crime of which he accuses the damned. Tim has done a thorough job of beating his strawman to death. Your last statement is rather a large leap with no supporting evidence. The crimes for which he accuses the damned are many. But this can easily be proven false from one of the commandments "love God". Are you going to prove to us that God hates himself? > I do not believe in the reality of Jehovah, except as a psychological > phenomenon, but if I did believe I would not worship that horror. It could > send me to the Hell it's made for those it dislikes, and I would walk in > proudly, knowing that I was no slave to be broken down by force. This last paragraph sums up Tim's belief of God quite handily, and is both interesting and very sad from a Christian point of view. But Tim has hit upon an ultimate truth. Laura Creighton, in an earlier article, ended her article with almost the same sentiment. This surprised me at first, for I thought that most people reach this decision in a more roundabout way (this may still be the case). Nevertheless, here is the final and uttermost reason for going to Hell: better there than in Heaven. Better to "be your own person", "slave to no one", etc., then be God's servant. For God asks nothing less of us. Pride is the ultimate sin; the reason Lucifer was booted out. The belief that you could do a better job, your morals are better, etc. And isn't this what Tim has been telling us all along? "If I were a god, I would...", or "Gods morals are not up to an average {i.e., lower than Tims'}", etc. In this light, all of his arguments become superfluous. And why do I have this feeling that these were Lucifer's thoughts when he was cast out of heaven? Other closing comments: Tim's view of the Christian God is false. God's spirit works through the hearts of his believers. He seems to view God as an entity that lives "up in heaven", as opposed to "within Christians". He does not understand that God's love is transmitted through His believers to others; it is a living thing. His view of God is based on a man's view of the world, not God's. This humanistic approach is inherently fatal, for it leads to conclusions based on a very tiny fraction of what God is doing. You may as well say that I am destroying an automobile when I take the engine out, when, if you had been around for a little longer, you would see I am only repairing it. Now, I am not saying that we cannot understand God. But you can't understand how a car works if you only look in the glove compartment. Sarcasm. Tim has openly said that he uses sarcasm as an effective tool to communicate with. And, as we know, effective lies are based on some truth. Isn't it interesting that Satan uses the same thing? "If you are the Son of God, command these stones turn into bread!" Now, Satan knew that Jesus was the Son of God, as did Jesus Himself. Satan was using sarcasm to tempt Jesus to sin. Jesus refuted him with Scripture. Unfortunately, Tim's knowledge of the Scripture is extremely weak (compared to Satan's) and so it is easy for a layman like me to refute Tim's arguments (especially when he makes such gross errors in Scriptural references). What we are left with is empty sarcasm. Now, I have no doubts that there are others who could present better arguments against the Scripture (I know of better ones myself). But I cannot always respond to articles such as Tim's; I do not go on Christmas vacation very often. Again, follow Tim's advice: *read* the Bible. The possibility of pain is inherent in any usable system for the universe. People who do not understand this do not understand what love is. I would state that Tim's version of a Shambala world where there is no pain or suffering is a pipe-dream. To love anything is to risk tradgedy; to prevent the risk of tradgedy we must love nothing. And this is the ultimate evil. Men, especially proud men, have a hard time accepting someone or something that loves them, not because they are lovable, but because love is in the other person. For such a man wants to be loved because of his belief that he is justified in being loved, or deserves to be loved. This requires a virtue not found in proud men: humility. God's love cannot enter a proud heart; there is no room for it. And so until man's pride can be broken down, he will not be able to understand God's love. Finally, I am sorry for Tim (and others who believe as he does), believe it or not. It hurts me to think that he is indeed walking proudly into Hell. But at that time, I will not be able to be sorry. For all of the curses and "wailing and gnashing of teeth" that those in Hell create will be easily drowned out by the joyful noise of one Christian in heaven. And then, despite whatever you believe now, you will be forced to see the truth. -- David Norris -- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david
emjej@uokvax.UUCP (01/09/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-72700:uokvax:8300025:000:5834 uokvax!emjej Jan 7 14:10:00 1984 Lines prefixed with ">" are from David Norris's response to Tim Maroney. (Apologies for the length of this note.) >... [Tim's] argument [about why he does not worship the Christian God] >seems sort of circular to me. I think not; it's of the form of the proverbial Caliph's argument for burning the Alexandrian library (the comparison is intended *solely* as a brief description of logical form, not to indicate disapproval), i.e. 1. p -> q 2. !p -> q therefore q. >1. God does not condemn anyone to eternal torment who has not made that choice >already. You don't have to go, you know. God has condemned Tim Maroney to >eternal torment because Tim Maroney wants to go there instead of heaven (see >final paragraph on Pride). You may as well blame the rock when it falls on >your head because you didn't move, or the professor who gives you an "F" >because you didn't turn in a term paper. Well, perhaps, but then my professors are neither omniscient nor my creator. I refer people to the literature of the problem of evil. (Gee--if people are willing to accept methods that say that odds are better than 1 - epsilon that a given integer is prime, how much better might God be able to say that the odds are, even if one presumes that humans have free will, that disobedience will spread to practically the entire human population. Once again, given that knowledge, a God that creates humans anyway strikes me as unspeakably sadistic.) >4. Man was not "flawed". But he had free will, and the choice to obey or to >disobey God. You do not seem to understand the doctrine that God was under >no need to create. "God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly >superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them." Creates >because, being Love, desires to give. I'd greatly appreciate a description of what you mean by the term "free will," and what it means for a creature to have free will given the existence of an omniscient and omnipotent God. >As I have already said, God has not committed any serious crimes. That Hell >is a concentration camp is, I think, a very bad analogy. You are sent to a >concentration camp; you volunteer for Hell. God does not want you to go >there. Surely God is aware we all fall short, or rather at the time (if that makes any sense) we (or the universe) were created He knew we would all fall short of His standards. If we were created despite that knowledge, then God either indeed wants many of us to go to Hell or considers it worth the suffering of the vast majority of us to have a few escape. (This brings to mind >You may as well say that I am destroying an automobile when I take the >engine out, when, if you had been around for a little longer, you would >see I am only repairing it. That analogy holds if one is only concerned with the automobile as a whole, or to follow the inverse map, humanity as a whole. If one accepts this analogy, one grants that it's worth the eternal suffering of some to save others, although under this analogy the proportions are skewed.) >You have stated that [evidence for the existence of God] would not >sway you, so why bring it up? God has presented plenty of evidence for >his existence through His chosen people and through His Son. Only those people who already believe consider that to be evidence of the Christian God's existence. >Then you will have to abandon most of what you have learned, for you have >accepted most of it on faith. Do not confuse faith with blind faith; faith >is continuing to believe that which you know to be true, when your feelings >or even temporary circumstances say otherwise. I have faith that my little >home computer (usually :-) does not randomly destroy my files; but there are >times that I frantically search a disk for a "destroyed" file (I lose "faith" >in my computer), only to find I have the wrong disk. Jesus said "blessed are >those who do not see and believe"; but this does not imply blind acceptance. >I believe on faith that a fellow named "Galileo" existed, but I have never >seen him. This puts the rest of the paragraph in a different light. I fear that your usage of the word "faith" differs from that of everyone else I have heard use the word. As for accepting knowledge on faith--perhaps. Much knowledge is such that if I wished to spend the time necessary, I could verify it myself. Historical "facts" are rather more difficult to pin down, and religious propositions just about impossible. Belief in a God has infinite explanatory power (if you're willing to accept the same explanation practically every time) but zero predictive power. >Some time ago I actually was upset that Adam committed the original >sin; "we would have been better off", I thought. But this just stems >out of pride again. I wouldn't have done any better than Adam, nor >would anyone else. OK. Granted that, surely God knows that as well as you do, so again, why would He create a race that was certain to wind up in eternal torment? >But Tim has ignored the fact that God works through His believers.... >God's spirit works through the hearts of his believers. He seems to >view God as an entity that lives "up in heaven", as opposed to "within >Christians". He does not understand that God's love is transmitted >through His believers to others; it is a living thing. Operationally, that's not distinguishable from there being no God at all, but just people. >The possibility of pain is inherent in any usable system for the universe. >People who do not understand this do not understand what love is. You may be right; please give details of the proof of the former statement, being sure to include what you mean by "usable" (I assume that information about what love is will be included). James Jones Usenet: ...!ctvax!uokvax!emjej
andree@uokvax.UUCP (01/11/84)
#R:ssc-vax:-72700:uokvax:8300026:000:844 uokvax!andree Jan 8 15:36:00 1984 /***** uokvax:net.religion / emjej / 2:10 pm Jan 7, 1984 */ >... [Tim's] argument [about why he does not worship the Christian God] >seems sort of circular to me. I think not; it's of the form of the proverbial Caliph's argument for burning the Alexandrian library (the comparison is intended *solely* as a brief description of logical form, not to indicate disapproval), i.e. 1. p -> q 2. !p -> q therefore q. James Jones Usenet: ...!ctvax!uokvax!emjej /* ---------- */ No, james, that isn't quite right either. The chistians are claiming that p -> q (Biblical truth -> worship of Jehovah), whereas Tim is claiming that p -> !q (Biblical truth -> Jehovah is not worthy of worship). He states that he doesn't believe the bible (!p), but will act as if he did. I think we can assume that !p -> !q in this case :-). <mike