![Hundie Jo [Dot] Com](http://www.hundiejo.com/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache2/7d6a910bbe08845c0836a517a70936d5.png){kind=small}
Henry Imler July 14th, 2008
Perhaps the best argument leveled against Judaism and Christianity is the angry child of a god that people construct out of choice samples of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These criticisms should not be taken lightly nor should the texts they reference be whitewashed.
To this end, I came across an article via the Codex that I plan on reading tomorrow (for it is 2:11AM and early evening naps should be avoided, no matter how crappy one feels) entitled Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?:The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics which takes a critical look at the claims of the “New Atheists” and attempts to construct and honest and workable Christian reply to such criticisms. Take a look online via the link in the preceding paragraph, or download the 30 pages of textual goodness in this pdf.
While you are reading that article, I recommend you also read the one which referenced it over at the Codex entitled Yahweh - a Moral Monster?, which begins a discussion on the Canaanite genocide.
- Philosophy
- Comments(17)
I read the article and it’s very similar to what I’m hearing at my site: God made people and if he wants to destroy them, that’s his prerogative. I respond to that in the comments to that post, but I’d like to mention a couple of things from the article here. This paragraph from page 26 about Biblical genocide makes my insides crawl (emphasis mine):
Cool, let’s apply that to the victims of 9/11, too. Once they meet Allah in the afterlife, they probably had a good laugh and thanked Allah for sending the hijackers and delivering the victims from the great satan. Does this guy seriously think that it’s “momentary, light affliction” and “collateral damage” for women and children to be hacked to death by the swords of religious zealots? If so, he should be locked up. On page 28 he pulls out the “hardness of heart” card and says that God never really wanted some of those bad things to happen, but those damned Israelites were so stubborn that the God of the universe couldn’t convince them to change. That could apply to some things, but he overextends this point into some acts of evil that God himself commanded, such the genocide of Canaan.
Danny,
Be that as it may, what about everything else he is saying? There are slews of intertwining arguments in there (and I am only on page 12 as of now) and he has a lot to say on the subjects on which you are speaking at your site. How are you interacting with those arguments? Or are you writting all of his arguments off because of one area you disagree with?
I think I’ve responded to most of the points he made in the comments on my site. They all come down to something like “He’s God, so whatever he does is right.” That view makes good and evil mean a lot less, imo. And even if god-ordained genocide can be made to work with Christianity in an internally consistent way, I still see that whole system as reprehensible. None of the answers I’ve heard make any more sense than this: The Bible is a human document and the stories are all either made up or (unreliable) accounts of human activities.
There is another answer available to Christians who aren’t devoted to Biblical inerrancy: The Bible is at least in part a human document. Some parts are true and some parts (including the genocide and slavery and probably most of the OT) are myth. That lets you have a god who doesn’t do evil stuff. I’m really surprised that more people haven’t taken this route.
Danny, I have a few questions for you. If you were an all powerful god, and you had people worshiping something other than you, and in there worship they sacrificed children, and prostituted women, how long would you let that go on without any punishment?
Second, if there was a God as described in the Bible, does he not have a right to choose how to judge people?
Lastly, is a judgment unjust if it affects anyone besides the person being judged?
Andy,
If I was an all-powerful God, I don’t think that I would be so insecure as to throw a hissy fit when someone refused to worship me, especially if I couldn’t be bothered to provide that person with any good evidence of my existence. If there was a God that executed swift judgment on people who do evil things, then the world would be a very different place. But you and I both know that it doesn’t work that way. So, we have a few instances of a group of people claiming that God told them to execute judgment. But, you will just have to take their word for it, because we have no way to know if God really commanded that.
You’re telling me that you believe in a God who stands idly by while women in the Congo get raped every day, but when a certain tribe in Canaan has the audacity to make the wrong choice from among a group of gods for which there is no evidence, those people should be destroyed? And if I was going to rescue some children who were in danger of being sacrificed, I don’t think that slaughtering the children along with the men and women would be the best way to do it.
If I believed the Bible, and I would probably agree that God has the right to punish people however he pleases. But that’s a pretty big if. If you thought that a Koran was true, would it be okay for you to kill innocent Christians? I’m talking about reasons that I don’t think the Bible is true, so your question misses the point.
Your last question is a good one. Obviously, we want to minimize the effects on the innocent parties. If someone is sent to jail for murder in America, they might have a child who would be left with no one to care for them. That child would become a ward of the state and would be taken care of. It’s not ideal, but it’s a damn sight better than slaughtering whole family.
Danny,
Let me just take a few things you said and see if I can show my point.
First you say:I don’t think that I would be so insecure as to throw a hissy fit when someone refused to worship me, especially if I couldn’t be bothered to provide that person with any good evidence of my existence.
Well, lets study how the Bible records this part of history, and if it is true, then your statement here does not apply to the Canaanites. First, remember 40 years before the conquest of Canaan, there were the 10 plagues in Egypt, and then after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. The people in Canaan knew about this. If you read the story of Rahab and the spies she says that the people know about their God and are afraid of them, because of these things. So to say that they didn’t have any proof of God’s existence, at least according to the Bible.
Next, is this God throwing a hissy fit? Well if you read the story of Abraham, God already knows what the people in the land are doing. He waits 400 years to do anything about it. Then if all he wants to do is destroy a certain ethnicity of people, then why does he let Rahab live? If you read the Bible you see that God gives forgiveness to those are penitent. Another story of God showing mercy to people is the story of Jonah, he says if they don’t change he will destroy them, they change and he lets them live. So maybe instead of blaming God, realize that they had ample time and opportunity to change and didn’t.
Now your next paragraph, you are right, I don’t understand. That is about the only thing I can say. However as I mentioned before God had patience with the Canaanites for 400 years, maybe he still has that kind of patience.
I think how you end the first question and how you answered the second question brings up a real problem with your line of reasoning. First, you don’t like extreme evil. You question the existence of God because of it. Then you complain about how God destroyed a tribe in Canaan, saying that this is completely immoral. Yet, when you look at the things the people in Canaan did, you see pretty extreme evil. Then God uses the Israelites to punish the people, and you get pissed. You are basically limiting God to either not being able to take care of evil, or only being able to do what you want him to do in order for him to exist. Doesn’t something seem odd about that?
Lastly, I think we agree in principle. While I will say death is incredibly harsh, I will take the warning and realize what I do can have a great affect on those who I have influence on and I better act correctly.
Poppycock.
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that any of your arguments that depend on the Bible are going to fall flat with me. I think it’s a collection of myths. I’m only arguing against the idea of god that some people hold, not against a real being.
Yes, I stand by my use of the phrase “hissy fit.” There are accounts of patience, but that doesn’t explain away the egotism and insecurity of a being who would condemn a person to unending torture just because they didn’t worship him. Andy, do you think that God will send me to hell just because I don’t believe in him? Even if I wanted to believe in him, I couldn’t. I can’t force my mind to accept an idea that it thinks is false. (Why do you think that Christian families, churches and especially Bible colleges go to such lengths to insulate people from other opinions?) If god exists and thinks that believing in him and worshiping him is such a big deal, he should have provided some evidence. The concept of god that you’re describing is a holdover from earlier, more ignorant times. It’s past its expiration date.
Regarding punishment, if the god of the Bible was even remotely consistent when meting out his punishments, you might have a point, but he’s not. Innocent children were killed in Canaan. Let that sink into your brain. The god of all the universe, infinite in power and love, couldn’t find a way to punish the adults without the wholesale slaughter of the children as well. If that doesn’t give you pause, then we might as well be speaking different languages.
Henry, I’d like to hear your response to Andy. I’m thinking that you have a more reasonable view of this stuff and you’re willing to admit that at least parts of the Bible are myth. If so, please state it clearly. When you’re ambiguous, you provide unintentional support for dangerous ideas.
If god exists and thinks that believing in him and worshiping him is such a big deal, he should have provided some evidence. The concept of god that you’re describing is a holdover from earlier, more ignorant times. It’s past its expiration date.
To the first half of that statement, you have severely limited your mind. Don’t you trust historical evidence? Just look at the historical evidence that supports the Bible, and then look at the evidence that supports any other historical writing from that time and see which has the most support. Of course, you only believe science, from what I have read from you earlier. However don’t forget, science can only test what is natural not anything supernatural, so to bring up some study about the power of prayer and how it didn’t show anything, therefore there is no god is faulty because science can not test supernatural.
Lastly, more ignorant times? Seriously? This is the biggest lie atheists tell. I mean how did those stupid people build the pyramids? They must have grabbed their clubs and beat a rock until it became a huge pointy building with elaborate tunnel systems inside, which they placed their accidentally mummified kings in. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle they were morons. What I am saying Dan is that you can’t equate technological advancement with intelligence. The people of this time were not Neanderthals they had the same intellectual capacity that anyone today has, but not the technological advancement.
“Don’t you trust historical evidence?” Yes, but it’s just not there for the Bible, which is a religious document and can’t be relied on to convey historical fact any more than the book of Mormon can tell you the truth about the life of Joseph Smith. http://personman.com/the-bible-unearthed
“you only believe science, from what I have read from you earlier.” Wrong.
“to bring up some study about the power of prayer and how it didn’t show anything, therefore there is no god is faulty because science can not test supernatural.” If God really answers prayers by helping people get better, then a carefully designed study should be able to detect that. The fact that every such study has shown that there’s no affect doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, but it does mean that there is no god that answers the intercessory prayers of those particular Christians by changing the health of the patient. Maybe God just blesses their soul, or maybe he doesn’t hear them because they’re wicked. Or maybe he was taking a nap that day. Science can’t say for sure, but it can say that intercessory prayer does not help people have better health. Anytime that someone claims that the supernatural is affecting the natural world, science can test that. The fact is that science has never detected those effects. The religions have adapted to that and now make fewer of those claims.
“Lastly, more ignorant times? Seriously? This is the biggest lie atheists tell.” I didn’t say that people were less intelligent, though I’m sure that could be debated. I said they were more ignorant, meaning they knew less. They had less knowledge. Surely you can agree with this. They didn’t know what caused disease, lightening and the motion of the planets. That made them more susceptible to religious explanations. Once we learned the cause of thunder, Thor’s hammer didn’t seem like such a good explanation.
I’m gonna back Danny on the “ignorant” comment here.
Architectural design is very reliant upon a proper understanding of physical laws. The Egyptians were most certainly ignorant or many such laws discovered since then, just as they were ignorant of nuclear and astro physics. Ignorant, you know, isn’t just a pejorative; it means they were unaware. I don’t suppose you’d care to claim the Egyptians understood, for instance, calculations regarding metal fatigue in steel?
“But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” - Mt. 17:27
My premise is the same: Did it or did it not happen? And if not, to what lengths will we go to justify?
I hope to read though the comments and the linked article carefully this weekend and have something measured to say then.
What I can say now is that in addressing these issues, one should consider the whole of the Old Testament and look at its incredibly novel (at the time) moral stances and the development of those ideas throughout its remembered history. In addition to that, I am starting a book (as I am considering using it for a college group I am leading in the fall) that deals with the very issues that Danny brings up over there and what that dude at least attempts to address up at the top of this conversation. I have only read the first chapter, but he challenges the reader (and the implied reader is a conservative evangelical) to look at the Bible and with a focus on the Old Testament in the same light as we view the incarnation. That is to say, evangelicals should look at the Old Testament as written 100% by God and 100% by humans. Evangelicals usually stress the divine origin of the books at the expense of the human element. He promises that viewing it this way will help bypass all the thorny issues evangelicals paint around themselves while maintaining that the Old Testament was authored by God. We will see how this pans out.
To be honest, as I pointed out on Danny’s site, the OT and all the issues surrounding it are not my intellectual forte. I have only really studied the NT and the issues surrounding it.
Hopefully sometime this weekend I’ll be able (i.e. take the time) to look at Smile’s and Danny’s comments and weigh in on what I like and dislike about their approaches.
Do you really think the OT has novel moral stances?
If you compare it with the cultures that were situated around it, oh yeah - there were major improvements in the way women, slaves, and money were dealt with and viewed. And, internally, we see developments in those themes at the book progresses. Lastly, we only really have a business judging a culture by those that came before it and those that it was surrounded by. Anything else would be irresponsible and foolhardy.
Again, I just woke up and I am heading over to my buddy JR’s new place to help him, I don’t have the time to go into it in detail, but I’ll add that to my saturday morning list.
Are you comparing it to the surrounding cultures of the time that the Torah claims to have been written or when it was actually written? If you date it in the 7th century, its morality is a lot less impressive than it would have been in the 14th century.
Doesn’t really matter whether you compare it to the culture that surrounded it in 700BCE or 1400BCE - I still think the comparison holds. Furthermore, something that needs to be remembered is that being committed to writing is one of the last stages of textual composition (followed up only by editing and preservation). Just going off of memory of what you alluded to on the Bible Unearthed post, if the Pentateuch was the result of an editing process in the 7th century BCE, then you have to presuppose that the texts behind the two traditions were written well before that and that they likely existed in oral form before that. Additionally, if they represent the combining of two similar traditions at or around the 7th-5th cent BCE, then there is a much longer chain of tradition:
Thus, while the final text might date to the 7th century, the tradition behind the text, which is a text in an of itself, is much, much older than the final product. So, whether it be 14th, 7th, or somewhere between, I think the comparisions are there.