Disprove The Bible, Not Modern Christianity

[FiddlingAround]

 

I wonder, I don't think the word "morality" is in the Bible at all. Does anyone know? It only talks about "sin," which I can see is the concept of disobedience to God. Perhaps the religious people keep on mixing up those two concepts? I can see "sin" as the right/wrong relationship with God, while morality is obviously the right/wrong relationship between people.

 

Thank you, Hans. You just said something I've been thinking towards for awhile, but couldn't quite pin down. The concept of sin, making God the injured party in all disputes, completely devalues, even nullifies morality.

[Karhoof]

I should know better than to even bother, but ...

 

 

Where did you ever get the idea that God sent angels to scout S&G to determine how many righteous people were there? God sent His angels to deliver Lot and his family from the just condemnation that was coming to punish their exceeding wickedness.

 

Maybe perhaps from THE BIBLE?!?

Gen. 18:20,21

20 And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

 

And then god proceedes to spare Lot and his "righteous" family. You know... his wife that couldn't follow one simple instruction... his daughters who immediately got Daddy drunk and slept with him... those "righteous" people.

 

 

Wow! And christians say WE take things out of context.

[bornagainathiest]

rayskidude' date='14 October 2009 - 10:46 PM' timestamp='1255578388' post='494529']

Jesus - as God the Son who took on human flesh - is not mistaken. And where did you get 2300BCE for the Flood? What I've seen in Biblical chronology puts Abraham's birth around 2150BC, and the Flood around 5000BC. I think your chronology is way way off. And BTW, the pyramids were probably built around 3100BC.

 

Didn't that Bishop Usher guy put the creation of the world on October 14, 4004 B.C.E.? How could the flood have happened before the world was created?

 

Whoever said that Bishop Ussher was the final authority on Bibliocal chronology? As we study earth history, we are always uncovering greater understandings. SO the latest conservative evangelical data I've seen says about 5000BC for the Flood.

 

And there is ample scientific evidence for catatrophism in geology, which is why many geologists have moved away from a strict uniformitarianism to explain the Earth's topography and geology.

 

I recommend you read The New Creationism, written by Paul Garner, British scientist & researcher. He presents some of the latest data and theories re: science as presented from a Biblical position. I think you'd find it interesting to view the data from another standpoint to what you have seen up until now.

 

Hi Ray!

 

I'm new(ish) here, so if I blunder, here's a 'Sorry!' in advance.

 

Is the latest conservative evangelical data concerning the Flood (about 5,000BC) drawn up by the Institute for Creation Research? I ask because I'm currently debating this issue with a Fundamentalist Christian in another forum. Pardon the pun, but he swears by the work of Ken Ham and the ICR. How about Paul Garner's Flood timeline? Is everyone singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak?

 

Thanks,

 

BornAgainAthiest.

[Ouroboros]

When my children disobey me, it's not about morality, but just about them testing the ground of making their own decisions. Morality is connected to what they do when they disobey. If I tell them to not hurt someone and they still do then the question of morality is relating to them hurting the other person, not them disobeying my commands.

 

I'm still kind of new at this, but isn't it a popular argument that disobedience itself does hurt God, and so is immoral because it inflicting harm? I have a list of "yes but"s with which to respond to that, but I think that's the assertion.

 

Phanta

That would mean that there is a moral constraint between man and God, which raises the question if morality is equivocal. If morality includes our actions towards God, wouldn't that also imply that God has amoral constraint towards humans? Morality should be equal. Both sides should adhere to the same moral code. Morality, as Ray argues, doesn't apply to God and his actions towards humans, so why should morality apply for human actions towards God? It makes more sense to view morality as the rules of conduct between actor A and B in the sense that both sides have equal duty. A->B apply and B->A apply.

 

Since the Bible doesn't mention or argue morality but rather the concept of sin, and morality was defined by the Greek philosophers as a concept independent of God, I think it makes more sense to keep them apart. Sin is a one way street, human action towards God, while morality involves human to human actions only.

[Shyone]

 

I wonder, I don't think the word "morality" is in the Bible at all. Does anyone know? It only talks about "sin," which I can see is the concept of disobedience to God. Perhaps the religious people keep on mixing up those two concepts? I can see "sin" as the right/wrong relationship with God, while morality is obviously the right/wrong relationship between people.

I did a word search a few weeks ago looking for Morality, Morals and ethics and found none of them (IIRC).

[Ouroboros]

I did a word search a few weeks ago looking for Morality, Morals and ethics and found none of them (IIRC).

As I thought. Christians might argue that the concept is there even though the word is absent, but there's very little explained in the Bible what morality is supposed to be, except blind obedience to God. The only ones that come to my mind are the Golden Rule and love thy neighbor. But unfortunately, the Bible doesn't argue to why these are morally right. They are only authoritative imperatives, and not argued from a foundation of reason. (As opposed to the Greek philosophers, Mills, Kant, et.al.)

[Karhoof]

Why did god have to ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and wait days before stopping him? Wouldn't he already know whether or not Abraham would sacrifice him and thus not need to ask him to do so?

 

What makes you think God didn't know what Abraham would do? But God was giving Abraham an opportuinity to grow in his faith and God was showing Abraham the great strength of his own faith in God. In this testing, Abraham concluded that God would raise Isaac from the dead - certainly Abraham achieved great faith!!

 

Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son,

Heb 11:18 of whom it was said, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."

Heb 11:19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

 

Why go to Hebrews for your reply here? Why don't we go right to the source?

 

Gen. 22:10-12

10And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

 

Sure looks to me like god waited to see what Abraham would do.

Funny... the Hebrews verse seems to imply that Abraham had some kind of forsight that god would have raised Isaac from the dead. But the Genesis verses don't say anything at all about that.

 

Wait... you don't think?... no, surely the anonymous Hebrews author didn't simply create that part out of nowhere... would he?

Lemme check... (here a link. you can read along too. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2022&version=KJV )

 

Nope. Not one word about Abraham even thinking that god would raise anybody from the dead.

Kinda odd that the NT doesn't always line up with the OT, dontcha think?

[Ouroboros]

Ok. So we act a "right" way toward God because that it is "right" (essentially "because"), but we act a "right" way toward one another because it is moral.

Right.

 

This may sound totally fucked up, but the place where Christians have always lost me (even when I was little) in describing God is when they describe God as "good". I will never be able to get out of my head the picture of the angel prying aknife out of obedient Abraham's hands. As a tyke, it was burned into my brain. So, when people argue that I should believe in God because he is "loving", or "good", I think, "bullshit". I think the Phelps crowd are some of the truest Christians out there in their interpretation of the Bible (not necessarily their actions, though...I'm not sure about that yet). Whenever a Christian tells me that God doesn't really hate homosexuals and the Phelps crew is totally over the top, I want to remind them that the Phelps' are teaching what was taught in most churches by most preachers for hundreds of years. I think Bible apologetics around this are pathetic, and the Bible is quick clear that this is wrong. Any sexual interaction outside of "one man, one woman, in marriage, for life". It's just nowadays, it's not such a popular view. The Bible hasn't changed, "Christians" have.

I agree.

 

It only makes sense if God is amoral, i.e neither good or evil. God would be all of it, and not one or the other. The "good" attribute of God is in conflict with God as an amoral actor. The words good and evil only apply when morality also apply.

 

In other words, God can do whatever he/she/it wants. But to call God's action "good" is wrong. How can you measure good when you have nothing else to compare too? The devil is nothing but a lackey and subservient to God's will, so the devil's evilness would then be good too--if God is good.

 

So, if I were to become a Christian, I would have to not only acknowledge that much of God's expectations for right behavior are right "because", and that a lot of it is not "good" or "loving". Some of it is, but a lot of it "just is because". I'd be miserable in this life. And, if I am wrong about "Heaven" (which, frankly, I didn't even have it in me to believe in when I was a kid), I spent my one shot at conscious, physical existence a miserable-as-fuck Christian spreading misery to others.

God's goodness would not be the same as what is good for humans. God's goodness is only about God's own self-fulfillment. And who can worship a egotistic despot? Unless it was only for the reason of you have to. It would be respect out of fear, not respect out of trust. We can't trust God to act according to what is good for us, so it would rather mean that we are in a fight, or conflict, with God's interests and our interests.

 

Anyway. I'm ranting now. I can tell by the way me swears are angry instead of flip.

Just rant on.

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

Sure looks to me like god waited to see what Abraham would do.

Funny... the Hebrews verse seems to imply that Abraham had some kind of forsight that god would have raised Isaac from the dead. But the Genesis verses don't say anything at all about that.

 

One secular explanination that I've heard is that the Isreailtes originally started out as polytheists and in polytheistic culture, it was a practice to sacrifice children to the gods. So, when God told Abraham to stop at the last minute, this was a mythological story that represented the Isrealite's shift between polytheism and monotheism and that child sacrifice would no longer be acceptable or something like that.

[Karhoof]

One secular explanination that I've heard is that the Isreailtes originally started out as polytheists and in polytheistic culture, it was a practice to sacrifice children to the gods. So, when God told Abraham to stop at the last minute, this was a mythological story that represented the Isrealite's shift between polytheism and monotheism and that child sacrifice would no longer be acceptable or something like that.

 

Makes sense to me, but I see virtually all of Genesis as mythology.

I understand that child sacrifice was common at times, but that in itself shows just how old (read primitive) these tales are.

[Karhoof]

Answer #4: To let us know Jesus is coming and show absolute amazing beautiful devotion to God.

 

Me: WTF?!! Are you on crack? Here let me have your children so you don't accidentally slaughter them in your fanatic worshipping? THANKS.

 

Ugh.

 

This is exactly where I am at with this.

 

Okay... breathe... hold... exhale.

Good!

 

[mwc]

This makes so much sense to me. Say some Iraelites had the radical idea (for the time) NOT to sacrifice humans for God. But everyone around him did.

Egyptians got rid of human sacrifice rather early on in their civilization. It seems a short lived "experiment" and after that it was only symbolic. Most cultures did not practice wide-spread human sacrifice (as we might see it) especially that of child sacrifice. What I mean is that it wasn't as common as we've tended to believe.

 

I'll have to track down where I read it (I think it was a journal article) that argues Isaac originally dies in that story. He really was sacrificed which is why his brother has the full lineage and all. Later, in a redaction, the reason for this type of sacrifice was no longer required and so they added the ram. At this point he is saved and animal sacrifice is instituted. This then requires that he gets a legacy and his brother does not. So the rewrite cuts off the eastern tribes and connects the dots through the western tribes and Isaac.

 

So, later generations might say to their fathers and grandfathers in troubled times, "Why are these terrible things happening to us? Look there! The pagans, who are prospering, are sacrificing their most precious thing (humans) to their God. Our God is weakened, because we won't sacrifice to him. The pagans see that we are not fearful enough of our God to sacrifice to him, and think we are weak. If they think we do not fear our God, then they surely won't fear his protection of us, and so won't fear us!" And so the story came to be either by this crazy guy Abraham having this struggle o, putting on a show of almost sacrificing his son, to show the Pagans (not God!) that he did fear his God -- and they should, too!-- or it was made up for this purpose (oh, yeah, we tried to sacrifice to God, but he said "no!"). And to keep his children sound in this radical path of not sacrificing humans.

The reason that many people sacrificed children was to have more children. Look in the bible for evidence as to why people made sacrifices for anything. You would offer the first fruits, or the best of your flock (normally the first born), to the god. This would ensure that you would have a plentiful harvest later on. You'd "invest" the one in order to get a large "return" later. So if a tribe, town or wherever was suffering from low births for some reason (a common problem) then they may call for a sacrifice so that future births will be "good" or successful (to stop, or lower, infant mortality you offer up an infant).

 

Other reasons might be you lost a war and they would sacrifice a child, usually the child of the losers king, so to appease the victor. I imagine this would also serve the purpose of showing the victor that the line had been cut-off and the future threat eliminated. Revenge was always possible so removing this threat was always a "good thing" in their eyes. But I'm sure the connection to deity of the local people was important to them as well.

 

In other places and times they'd leave kids outside, not as sacrifices, but simply to expose them to the elements. If they lived then they were strong enough to survive and worthy of being cared for. This was considered barbaric and outlawed but they still would do it when times got tough. In fact, most of this was outlawed as barbaric as people came to understand the world a bit better.

 

Oh well, these are just a few simple, generic, type of examples. Like most things it really varied over time and place.

 

mwc

[NotBlinded]

((((Phanta))))

 

Phanta, I never experienced that with my mother (father was in another state) so I don't know where you are coming from there, but I do know about the feelings of doing that to my daughter. I used to ask myself, "Who am I, am I this monster or I am I this other caring person?" I was horrified to what I was doing to her. My spiritual persuits helped me, and as I've stated before, saved my sanity and that of my child. I am still a work in progress and I still question if my actions towards my daughter are damaging her. I don't think I am acting badly, or not in her best interest, but I still wonder.

 

Anyway. I just wanted to give you a hug so you won't feel so alone.

[mwc]

[snip]

I'm sorry to hear all of that. I wouldn't have continued if I would have known.

 

Hopefully it will help put a new perspective on it so maybe in the future you can see it in a new light? (That way it won't seem like I said all that to torture you)

 

I'm not sure what to say without stepping in it so I think I'll let old Abraham and Isaac go...

 

mwc

[Deva]

I'm clearly just losing it, here. I'm sorry for this. I have some really deep hurt and clearly this is an area I would be wise to focus on finding some healing in.

 

You guys are always so patient with me.

 

P

 

No need to apologize Phanta. ((((Phanta))))

 

I can't say I know what its like that you faced, but I know that when my brother died recently, no Christian (my whole family) had anything to say to me that was helpful.

[bdp]

Phanta,

 

It's not 'whatever' - it's important.

 

*hugs*

[Deva]

Thanks, Deva. I'm sorry that happened to you. Was there anyone around to support you, or did you go it alone? (((Deva)))

 

Thanks Phanta, sorry I have to put my own stuff in there but I did hire a therapist, which helped. Just got sick of going it alone on other stuff for the last 20 years.

[Azrael]

Why would you be puzzled? People are told the bible is a life guide of how to live from God, of course it should be tested for validity!!!! It is absurd you, a professed Xtian would tell someone struggling to just ignore it.

One can tests its validity, if they like to, but it shouldn't be done using modern standards. There are great gaps between us and them, and therefore it is necessary for us to first study how they understood the world before we can do judgments. I guess it is not hard to find errors from the modern perspective and with the modern knowledge. However, I was puzzled because does it matter if there are errors? It requires we have defined what "error" means.

 

 

That's a cop out! The truth would endure no matter the time period, as sure as Gravity has endured. The truth is Irrelevant to the time period, either something is or it's not. Isn't that the meaning of the same yesterday, today and forever? (Hebrews 13:8)

 

This is what's so irritating with Christians, they have a sliding scale, as soon as something makes then uncomfortable they move the goalpost to fit their skewed view.

 

Oh yeah! They love moving goal posts! Its their favorite tactic. To the OP. You have already disproven the Bible by trying to prove it with itself you cannot do it.