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Goodbye Jesus

God's Sovereignty


deconverted

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After talking to a Christian about this topic, I then read this article.  Basically, my Christian friend was saying that most people reject Christianity because they can't reconcile their ideas of fairness with God's sovereignty.  Basically, anything God does is good...laws don't apply to Him.  As a human, I have an idea of what is fair, but it doesn't match what God does.  I don't have the right to make any claims about God however, since I am not worthy.  So when God hardens people's heart, or causes them to sin, they are still responsible.

 

Despite this argument, I still can't agree.  My resonses would be that:

 

1)  We might as well throw out the words fair(ness) and just(ice) when speaking about God.  Obviously they aren't the same meaning as we know them.  That leaves us with making up a new word maybe for God's definition of fair and just (or maybe there are already such words?).

 

2)  God has (apparently) given me a brain, and a sense of right and wrong.  His behavior goes way beyond my sense of right and wrong, and try as I might, I cannot just be ok with how He runs things (Of course the Christians just point out that I just want to do things my own way, and what right do I have to question God).

 

3)  God's sovereignty seems to boil down to a cosmic game, where we humans are simply meaningless pawns...well I guess we have meaning...but the meaning could be simply that some of us are meant for destruction and some are meant for his glory.  I don't know who God is playing a game with...meaning, I don't know who is opponent is.  If it's Satan, then it's not much of a game because God will apparenlty win all the time.  Why would you ever play a game if you could never loose?  That just doesn't make sense to me, and causes me to doubt the whole scenario even more.  My human nature has a huge problem though if we are just pawns in God's sick game (I think it's sick, but Christians apparently do not).

 

Any comments on my responses or any addtional responses that would be relevant to the discussion with my friend?  I am not trying to be greater than God, or tell God how to do things.  It just makes no logical sense to me, and I am tired of being told how I just want to live my own way and reject God.  God seems to always get a free pass, but I guess if God really does exist how could he not get a free pass?  He would be God after all.

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I have always hated the thought of being a pawn!

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What you have asked here is one of those unanswerable questions. Christianity has come up with pat answers, that I have personally found to be unsatisfactory. On occasions, I wash my mind out with this video.

 

 

Edit: My browser is acting funny and can't tell if the video is posting or not. If you look up "God on Trial - The Verdict", taken from the Holocaust movie on youtube, you'll find what was posted.

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A test of faith? Or a test of how stupid we are prepared to be? Why is it so hard for people to accept that we just ARE... without any particular reason?

 

Any entity that would "test" us in this way needs a good kick in the nuts.

 

Fairness is a nice concept, but humans suck at it.

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I personally don't know how we can reconcile this world to anything but a test of faith....regardless.

 

Faith in which god? There is no evidence for any particular god(s) yet we are supposed to have faith in the christian one during this great cosmic game of twister in order to build our character and avoid eternal hell. Even if there was evidence for christianity it would render faith unnecessary. In regards to the OP, how do we know god is sovereign? Or good, or fair? The bible has been demonstrated to be full of errors, false history, descriptions of an evil god and many other reasons to hold its contents unreliable so where do we get any true picture of what god is actually like? The Koran? No, every spiritual text is equally unreliable. I am still a spiritual person but rejecting all the evidence that demonstrates the massive holes in christianity so I can 'walk by faith' is not something I am prepared to do. From my investigations (which are ongoing) I can see no evidence for ANY personal god interacting in this universe and I am not going to imagine one then have faith it exists to fill a need to make sense of the world. For me I am content to look at my life and the universe at large in awe of the many mysteries it holds, search for truth and experience the richness of each moment being connected to everything, from the depths of my being to the furthest reaches of the universe(s). Now that is meaning.

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Hi Deconverted.  I think your second point is the most significant here.  If we define God as the ultimate arbiter of morality, it is at least logically consistent to say that what he does is always right.  But Christianity says that our consciences, i.e. our sense of right and wrong, come from God.  Now, different people's consciences tell them different things.  See Muslims and adultress-stonin.  However, there does still exist a majority human opinion on most basic issues.  Even most professing Muslims I've talked to say that stoning an adulteress is wrong.  If what the Bible says about morality doesn't agree with our conscience, then it suggests that the Bible is not inspired by God.

 

This, I think, is one of the more damning testaments against Christianity.  If the Bible were inspired by God, should it not speak to more peoples' consciences?  Christians will say that humans are sinful and rebellious against God.  But those same Christians talk about being "convicted" by the Holy Spirit.  This suggests that the word of God is capable of piercing our sinful hearts and telling us that we are guilty of sin.  Most Christians do indeed attempt to make us feel guilty.  But I'm surprised at how little they actually use the Bible.  They spend a lot of time talking about the evils of abortion and homosexual anal sex.  But the latter is discussed infrequently in the Bible, and the former not at all.  Christians do harp on pre-marital sex about as much as the New Testament (but not Old!) does.  But where's all the discussion about the evils of amassing wealth and piercing oneself with many pangs?  Christians spend more time talking about how I should worship the rich, buy a lot of guns, and vote Republican.  This is true even of Christians who actually read the Bible.  Doesn't seem to me like the word of God convicted them terribly much.

 

Here's the point: most of the things Christians try to make us feel guilty about aren't the things the Bible wants to make us feel guilty about.  Most of the sins that the Bible would convict us of are things that Christians are more guilty of than the rest of us.  And as for all the sex stuff, I've never "fornicated" (for fear of old school Indian mother, not God), so that's not a Christian ploy that I'm terribly susceptible to.  The Bible fails the test of confirming what our consciences tell us, and I find that Christians do an awful lot of intellectual gymnastics to get around this.

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Basically, my Christian friend was saying that most people reject Christianity because they can't reconcile their ideas of fairness with God's sovereignty.

 

I can’t speak for “most people” but this is not why I rejected Christianity. I was a Calvinist who fully embraced God’s sovereignty. More than that, I was a supralapsarian Calvinist. I ended up rejecting Christianity because the claims of the Bible were self-refuting and did not line up with reality.

 

Basically, anything God does is good...laws don't apply to Him. As a human, I have an idea of what is fair, but it doesn't match what God does. I don't have the right to make any claims about God however, since I am not worthy. So when God hardens people's heart, or causes them to sin, they are still responsible.

 

Despite this argument, I still can't agree. My resonses would be that:

 

1) We might as well throw out the words fair(ness) and just(ice) when speaking about God. Obviously they aren't the same meaning as we know them. That leaves us with making up a new word maybe for God's definition of fair and just (or maybe there are already such words?).

 

Yes. They’ve robbed words like goodness, justice, mercy, etc. of all semantic purpose. Phrases like “God is good” or any other like description, become merely a meaningless tautology equivalent to saying “God is God.” It’s pointless to even make up new words for God’s definitions as you suggested.

 

2) God has (apparently) given me a brain, and a sense of right and wrong. His behavior goes way beyond my sense of right and wrong, and try as I might, I cannot just be ok with how He runs things (Of course the Christians just point out that I just want to do things my own way, and what right do I have to question God).

 

Right. Paul’s response to the notion of questioning God in Romans 9 is completely evasive and boils down to, “might makes right” which is basically the same answer God gives Job. This is one of the reasons why the moral argument fails under this paradigm. There is no objective morality in this system. It is completely subjective in that God is the subject. As such, people who follow this god do not have a system of morality; they merely have commands to follow. For example, it was right for Abraham to have the desire to slit his son’s throat and burn him on a altar in obedience to God when God commanded it and it was right for Abraham to have the desire not to kill his son after God told him to kill the ram instead.

 

3) God's sovereignty seems to boil down to a cosmic game, where we humans are simply meaningless pawns...well I guess we have meaning...but the meaning could be simply that some of us are meant for destruction and some are meant for his glory. I don't know who God is playing a game with...meaning, I don't know who is opponent is. If it's Satan, then it's not much of a game because God will apparenlty win all the time. Why would you ever play a game if you could never loose? That just doesn't make sense to me, and causes me to doubt the whole scenario even more. My human nature has a huge problem though if we are just pawns in God's sick game (I think it's sick, but Christians apparently do not).

 

God, “for his own glory hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.” That’s the answer you’ll get. “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” It’s the ultimate expression of narcissism, except you’re not allowed to call it narcissism because might makes right.

 

It’s absolutely a game played by a sadistic, maniacal, egotistical, narcissistic, despot. Anyone can see this and people have recognized it for centuries. Pelagius recognized this. Arminius recognized this. Molina recognized this. John Wesley recognized this. Most contemporary Evangelicals and Catholics recognize this. They all try to rescue their god’s character by positing some form of libertarian free will. It’s all just bullshit that amounts to putting some of God's omniscience into a magic box and it doesn’t even match up with the god the Bible actually puts forward in many, many places.

 

This sovereign god tries to absolve himself of blame by using secondary agents. This also doesn’t comport with our own sense of justice. The husband who hires a hit man to murder his wife is still charged with her murder, secondary agent or no. Ah, but sovereign god makes the rules, so as long as there is at least one degree of separation between him and the deed, he’s still holy.

 

This appeal to the sovereignty of God is just an attempted end-run around theodicy that simply admits that God is evil without actually using the word “evil”. But what else are we to think? This god says he never lies and then lies. He repeatedly says he keeps his promises and then breaks promises. He hardens people’s hearts so he can slaughter children. He sends deluding spirits so that people can’t repent. He admits that if certain miracles were done in places that people would repent, but he won’t do them. He makes predictions that don’t come true. He sets up an entire species to fail, condemns most of them to eternal torture for that failure, subjects the rest of his creation to suffering and futility when they did nothing, saves a few of them so they will praise and glorify him for his mercy for eternity, and then proclaims himself good and us evil. Fuck that!

 

I fully admit that it is logically possible for such a being to exist. However, I stand with John Stuart Mill on this one:

 

I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.

 

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HymenaeusAlexander,

 

Thanks for the comments.  I really appreciate your words!  I continued my conversation with my friend last night, and it was just sad to hear him defend and explain words like "just" and "good".  He was clear to point out that the word "fair" is very different than "just".  Regardless, he still is defending an idea of a God who is in my mind evil (I don't beleive he exists, but like you, I admit that it is possible).   He also said that instead of a game, it was basically a court case where God is going against Satan.  We are all witnesses to this cosmic court case.  Just like Job was a key witness in this case.  He was genuinely happy and "glad" to be part of this cosmic court, and was pretty much defending God and saying things like it was "good" that God slaughtered people.  It was all very sad to me, but of course he was even sadder for me that I will be burning in hell for eternity.

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A test of faith? Or a test of how stupid we are prepared to be? Why is it so hard for people to accept that we just ARE... without any particular reason?

 

Any entity that would "test" us in this way needs a good kick in the nuts.

 

Fairness is a nice concept, but humans suck at it.

Why then do we continue in our endeavors?  And try to pursue happiness, success, etc.?  Personally, I don't typically wake up in the morning worried about physical nourisment, but more so relationships, morals, hope for happiness.  Granted these are specific to me, but.  I don't crave survival in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense.  Certainly it's difficult to separate the two. but I somewhat reject humans requiring a herd mentality for survival at this point in time.

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end3, you don't have to wake up in the morning worried about physical nourishment because you happen to have enough resources at your disposal to afford to be more concerned about relationships, morals, etc. See Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But try living without those resources at your disposal for a while and see what concerns you most, or how your behavior might be changed. My hunch is that your concern about "spiritual survival" will become quite secondary. The longer and more desparate your situation, the more you would be willing to compromise your morals or betray your friends to survive.

 

I am not sure I understand what you mean by humans requiring a herd mentality to survive, but there are plenty of examples of how humans tend to survive better in groups. The larger the group, the more need for rules governing behavior.

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A test of faith? Or a test of how stupid we are prepared to be? Why is it so hard for people to accept that we just ARE... without any particular reason?

 

Any entity that would "test" us in this way needs a good kick in the nuts.

 

Fairness is a nice concept, but humans suck at it.

Why then do we continue in our endeavors?  And try to pursue happiness, success, etc.?  Personally, I don't typically wake up in the morning worried about physical nourisment, but more so relationships, morals, hope for happiness.  Granted these are specific to me, but.  I don't crave survival in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense.  Certainly it's difficult to separate the two. but I somewhat reject humans requiring a herd mentality for survival at this point in time.

 

Because we have two choices, lay down and die or get up and live. A lot of the stuff we tell ourselves is pure bullshit, a lot of the stuff we are taught is bullshit.  We pursue "success" and happiness because they are much more pleasant to live with than the alternatives, and the pursuit of such is rammed down our necks from the moment we hit the planet. Personally I dont think money has anything to do with success.

 

I hate the herd mentality, always have, I am the boss of me, not some pack of idiots in a church who use god's sovereignty as an excuse to push me around and parent me. People are so easy to influence and they seem oblivious to that. I hated the church because their standards of how people should treat each other are so much lower than my personal standards. I always wanted to be the best person I could be, but I could not sell myself out to the church for group approval.

 

It is hard to find spiritual survival in a world that is far more concerned with money than it is with people. All I can do these days is hunker down in my bunker and take out each money loving egotist as they come smile.png

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Christianity defines good as "what God does". That's why it's wrong for humans to scapegoat but right for God to punish children for their parents' sins. Right and wrong are abstract concepts. They can be molded into whatever a human desires. The people who God supposedly sends to hell are concrete. They physically exist. If God really does send people to hell, their pain would be concrete. Abstract concepts such as right and wrong are not what we should place our value on. Concrete problems like human suffering are the problems we should deal with. If helping people is defined as "evil" and hurting people is defined as "good", do what is considered "evil"

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Yahweh has clearly been abusing his power and trying to make himself God of his own life.  He thinks he can bully human beings just because he is more powerful than them.  One day, he will answer for his crimes.

 

One day he will meet the One who created him, and the One who created him will judge him and obliterate him.

 

That One is Humanity.  Humanity will overthrow this vile dictator and banish him from the meme pool forever.

 

And not a fuck will be given that day.

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On a more serious note.


The idea being postulated here is what is sometimes known as Divine Command Theory.  That means, whatever God does is good because he is God.  It has nothing to do with applicability to fixed moral rules, which are for humans only.  God has the power to whatever he wants, and it is good because he is sovereign.

 

Fine.  I'll give you that, Christians.

 

Unfortunately, that means he can do things that seem utterly reprehensible to humans.  And whilst these acts might be inherently good because they are done by God, that does not mean that we have to like them.

 

So the point is this:

 

Even if God does exist, how can I love him when he has slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent women and children?

 

I cannot physically do it.  I cannot mentally love this God.

 

All I could do is fear him.  But apparently, that is not enough.

 

So I guess I'm screwed either way.  I will not worship this vile being.  I cannot.

 

I am too good.

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For me it is not the claim itself that matters as much as how the church uses it to hurt and dismiss people. If god is sovereign, then they think they are too.

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For me it is not the claim itself that matters as much as how the church uses it to hurt and dismiss people. If god is sovereign, then they think they are too.

 

True that.  Smug bastards.

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God should read his own bible.

 

1 Corinthians 8:13

Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

 

So, if God works in total truth and yet this causes discord and people to lose the faith or fall, because they can't believe in a God that would murder children and and wipe out entire cities even though this was the "good" thing to do... He shouldn't have done it.

 

Oh yes, but there's the catch again... He doesn't have to practice what he preaches.  That's just for us mere humans.

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Boom!

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the omniscent morality liscence theory. Since God knows the consequences of actions, his killing of women and children might actually cause more good than harm. Supposedly, the children who were killed would have grown up to cause more destruction and death than killing them did. If this is the case, then why doesn't God himself use this excuse and not just his apologists. God rarely if ever uses the excuses that apologists use.

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the omniscent morality liscence theory. Since God knows the consequences of actions, his killing of women and children might actually cause more good than harm. Supposedly, the children who were killed would have grown up to cause more destruction and death than killing them did. If this is the case, then why doesn't God himself use this excuse and not just his apologists. God rarely if ever uses the excuses that apologists use.

 

That's because "omniscient morality license" is more of a literary trope and not a formal theological position. Despite the "omni" prefix, it's more descriptive of beings that have limited foreknowledge of future contingencies or at least lack omnipotence. Think Doctor Who rather than Bible-god. In your example an omnipotent being could've merely done something like sterilize the women in the Canaanite villages in preparation for the invasion rather than ordering the wholesale slaughter of innocent children. This doesn't even take into consideration the metaphysical problem of whether or not even God could be capable of obtaining such a thing as knowledge of counterfactuals. And where would God get any knowledge from if not from himself? Remember the OP was about sovereignty.

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I've seen apologists use such a defense despite the issue. I've heard them say that "he knows something we don't. He probably had a reason to do what he did." The part where God's soveirenty comes into play is the fact that God only has to say "because I said so" to explain how the genocides were supposedly better than not happening. The only one defending God's actions is apologists who use the idea of omniscence justifying his actions. It is true that with unlimited power, I can think of tons of non-violent solutions to problems God supposedly solved with violence. He seems uncreative in his solutions.

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I'm surprised no one has mentioned the omniscent morality liscence theory. Since God knows the consequences of actions, his killing of women and children might actually cause more good than harm. Supposedly, the children who were killed would have grown up to cause more destruction and death than killing them did. If this is the case, then why doesn't God himself use this excuse and not just his apologists. God rarely if ever uses the excuses that apologists use.

 

Heh, this is best paraphrased by the philosopher's query "would it have been moral to kill Hitler's mother before he was born?"

 

Again, all this makes sense if morality is defined in terms of God.  But I'd repeat my observation that we don't see God's morality reflected in our own human conscience.  It all seems very arbitrary to me.  At some level, it really does boil down to believing in something written in a book over your own common sense.

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Heh, this is best paraphrased by the philosopher's query "would it have been moral to kill Hitler's mother before he was born?"

 

 

Or, "would it have been moral to persuade the Vienna Academy of Art to just let Hitler study there?"

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My sister teaches the bible at a seminary and we've had many theological arguments over the years (both before my de-conversion and after).  She is an ardent Calvinist, and while I think interpreting the bible through the lens of the "sovereignty of god" is the most logical way to piecemeal everything together into a quasi-workable theology, it is also the most soulless.  The Calvinist god is really a monster...

 

But for her, blinding herself to the immorality of it all, what holds her faith together is the EMOTIONAL aspect of believing that god is sovereign and that god is in control.  When we get down to brass tacks, it's not about logic at all (for a highly intelligent and educated woman).  It's about her not being able to face the concept that there is not a god in control of everything.  Her faith in humanity's inability to do ANYTHING good, and her brainwashing about how worthless she is  (apart from Christ) really makes the concept of a world without god utterly horrifying.

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