1. Comment #304265 by Aley on December 20, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Perhaps I am just being lazy but I can't even get past the second page (of ten!). The first, where the author sets out the opposition (i.e. atheist) argument, is clear and direct - (paraphrasing) "here are some of the terrible acts that god performs in the OT, how can he be moral?". As soon as the author attempts an answer the article becomes unreadably turgid. Perhaps it is in fact a 100% watertight response (of course I don't believe that), but even if that were so, why would 'god' make it necessary to go to such mind-mangling lengths simply to correctly understand and interpret his instructions to mankind?

Well he wouldn't, would he. God, critiquing such articles is simultaneously child's play and an exercise in complete futility.

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2. Comment #304266 by Metch on December 20, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Infuriating! It's the same old defense mechanism. "The Old Testament is despicable, however Jesus comes along and saves the day!" The apologists miss the point completely. It's not that the bible doesn't have (some)good moral insights to offer, it's the fact that it is so obviously contradicting and clearly not written by the creator of the universe.

So for 1,500 years, God supports slavery, killing people for imaginary crimes, genocide, etc. etc. and then sends his son down to earth who, some would say, fulfills the OT prophecy, hence, does away with Old Testament Law? Directly defying his fathers sense of morality? I think not!

It is SO OBVIOUS that the bible was not written by God that it's sickens me to my core. Pick and choose, interpret & misinterpret, Cherry pick and ignore, rationalize with "faith", but the facts remain. An omniscient God would know that humans would not believe in talking snakes somewhere down the road, because they would eventually discover the scientific method. He would know that the bible would not hold up to scrutiny forever, and that eventually, "faith" would lead to the fall of mankind. He would not value irrational belief without evidence, over rational beliefs based on mountains of solid evidence!

God is an immoral moron. Jesus condemns people to eternal torture because they don't believe that he could walk on water! Couldn't he have left some evidence? Other than a self-contradicting, immoral book written by people who never met him?

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3. Comment #304276 by robotaholic on December 20, 2008 at 4:11 pm

You know the author of this 'piece' tries to rebutt the sound arguments of the 'new atheists' and in doing so he kind of blindly omits the fact that none of us even beleive there is a god in the first place-

this part is great:

Their defiance is especially clear at the golden calf incident (Exod. 32). Israel, whom Yahweh embraces as his covenant bride, cheats on him while still on the honeymoon! Dennett's charge of "jealousy" is misguided. God responds out of hurt and anger-a reaction we should rightly expect when such betrayal takes place.

so...god had human feelings and acted out of hurt and anger...hmmmm sounds pretty stupid to me...

The creator of the entire universe...all 100 billion galaxies wouldn't display anger or jealousy or hurt - Anyone so immersed into their scriptures is surely to miss out on the big picture...that alot of people don't beleive it exists in the first place

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4. Comment #304296 by dloubet on December 20, 2008 at 4:52 pm

It's like trying to explain that Darth Vader isn't supposed to be the hero.

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5. Comment #304297 by Brian English on December 20, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Not that Jesus changed all that excuse? Jesus is God according to christians, so Jesus did all that shitty stuff in the OT.

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6. Comment #304300 by Fizzle on December 20, 2008 at 5:03 pm

I'm sorry, I barely finished the first page. But how the devil do you defend slavery, stoning and mass genocide?

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7. Comment #304301 by blueollie on December 20, 2008 at 5:03 pm

What a load of nonsense.

But this proves Dawkins' point: human beings use reason to rationalize or explain away what they don't like in the Bible.

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8. Comment #304304 by prolibertas on December 20, 2008 at 5:07 pm

The author claims you need to be patient and be more nuanced when looking at OT 'ethics'. But isn't that also exactly what you would have to do if you were trying to show that Hitler was actually a good guy? Ignore what he did on the face of it, and push his actions under layers upon layers of 'interpretation' until they seem 'good'?

As Sam Harris said: Even if it was true that the laws of the Old Testament were 'appropriate to their times' (but no longer are) this merely renders them irrelevant- not morally wise.

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9. Comment #304305 by divalent on December 20, 2008 at 5:08 pm

"The new atheists are certainly rhetorically effective, but I would contend that they have not handled the biblical texts with proper care ..."

Courtiers Reply? (Click here)

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10. Comment #304308 by sonnygll on December 20, 2008 at 5:14 pm

I just signed up so I could point out the methods of bullshitery used.

red herring (ie throw you of the subject with useless unrelated nonsense).

truth by verbosity (hence the 10 pages).

I think he does that because there is no denying the fact that god was alleged to have done the most horrible acts I have ever heard of.



Besides if god was both real, and good, he would of course sue the writers of the bible for libel.


I guess I should introduce myself. I'm a big fan of Dawkins. In particular I really love the God Delusion and the Root Of All Evil documentaries. You might say I'm an atheist, but more accurately I'm just someone who requires some sort of evidence.

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11. Comment #304311 by Eshto on December 20, 2008 at 5:26 pm

@sonnygll:

Hi.

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12. Comment #304312 by Border Collie on December 20, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Made it through the first page before I collapsed in agony ...
Old Yahweh might not be so bad a guy if they'd just admit that He's nothing but a projection of the minds of ignorant, bronze age, frustrated, warlike, oversexed sheep herders ...

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13. Comment #304313 by root2squared on December 20, 2008 at 5:32 pm

No. He's an immoral monster. Shrek is a moral monster.

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14. Comment #304319 by Sarmatae1 on December 20, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Unfortunately I read the entire thing. You were precisely right metch when you said

Pick and choose, interpret & misinterpret, Cherry pick and ignore, rationalize with "faith"

Good call metch.
This is all the author has done. Really I would have been more impressed if the author had written the first page, then shuffled his feet, said presto and pulled a coin from behind my ear. At least it may have been entertaining.

This is the problem with the acrobatics people have to do to get anything useful from a "holy text". By the time they are done translating it to fit the present day zeitgeist it is practically meaningless.

3. Comment #304276 by robotaholic on December 20, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Their defiance is especially clear at the golden calf incident (Exod. 32). Israel, whom Yahweh embraces as his covenant bride, cheats on him while still on the honeymoon! Dennett's charge of "jealousy" is misguided. God responds out of hurt and anger-a reaction we should rightly expect when such betrayal takes place.

Quite right there robotaholic. It is strange that you used the paragraph that I was scratching my head over. I still don't think I see the authors point here completely. He says that dennets charge of "jealousy" is misguided. Then he says that god acted out of "hurt and anger". But isnt that jealousy? The entire article is filled with things of this sort. I am not the end all of reading comprehension so maybe I am missing something.

The author accused the four horsemen's rational arguments as mere rhetoric. Then filled nine pages with... Well... rhetoric. Perhaps this is the "I'm rubber and you're glue" tactic of rational argument. One of my great grandchildren who is 6, just recently discovered this useful technique. I really hadnt expected to see it in use outside of that age group, but there it is.

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15. Comment #304321 by Sarmatae1 on December 20, 2008 at 5:50 pm

8. Comment #304304 by prolibertas on December 20, 2008 at 5:07 pm

You mean hitler wasn't a prick? I'll have to reinterprete mein kampf yet again!! Damn.

His maid said he was charming.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1270454/adolph_hitlers_maid_says_he_was_a_good.html?cat=37

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16. Comment #304322 by amuck on December 20, 2008 at 5:52 pm

As soon as they used the word "nuanced" I was out of there.

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17. Comment #304323 by Fizzle on December 20, 2008 at 5:52 pm

That maid was probably in the same position as the naive christian that reads the bible, actually reads it, for the first time.

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18. Comment #304324 by Wosret on December 20, 2008 at 5:54 pm

No, he is a amoral fictional character.

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19. Comment #304328 by Vadjong on December 20, 2008 at 6:09 pm

No, he is an IMmoral mythological bogeyman.

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20. Comment #304332 by NewEnglandBob on December 20, 2008 at 6:14 pm

The author of this poor article refuted nothing at all. He uses all the tired old lies, tricks, deceptions, obfuscations, red herrings, changes the subject and says all the bad parts of the OT are only examples of what is wrong.

I liked the phrase in #10. Comment #304308 by sonnygll:

... the methods of bullshitery used

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21. Comment #304334 by Tzsak on December 20, 2008 at 6:20 pm

I'm concerned that faced with complex theology and philosophy of religion our community's response is to shout 'THAT'S RUBBISH, THAT'S NONSENSE etc'. It's not going to be very convincing for the more scholarly among the religious : p

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22. Comment #304338 by Vadjong on December 20, 2008 at 6:29 pm

Bulshytt: (1) In Fluccish of the late Praxic Age and early Reconstitution, a derogatory term for false speech in general, esp. knowing and deliberate falsehood of obfuscation. (2) In Orth, a more technical and clinical term denoting speech (typically but not necessarily commercial or political) that employs euphemism, convenient vagueness, numbing repetition, and other such rhetorical subterfuges to create the impression that something has been said. (3) [...]

from: "Anathem", Neal Stephenson

We can always hope that articles like this open some of their reader's minds.

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23. Comment #304339 by Cluebot on December 20, 2008 at 6:35 pm

It's nice to see apologetics is still making an embarrassment of itself. Long may it continue...

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24. Comment #304341 by MaxD on December 20, 2008 at 6:38 pm

Sweet evil Jesus. What tired tripe.

From the article,

John Barton warns that there can be no "simple route" to dealing with OT ethics.[17] Bruce Birch considers OT ethics as something of a "patchwork quilt."[18] Thus, it calls for a more subtle and cautious approach than the new atheists take.

Isn't this precisely what we wouldn't expect from the perfect creator of the universe? Couldn't a perfect lawgiver God have gotten ethics and morals correctly out of the gate as it were? OT this should be as straigt forward back then as they would be today. No hem hawing around about slavery, selling your child into slavery etc, simple timeless rules are what I contend a perfect creator ought to have been dolling out.

More flowery language to disguise the essential ugliness of the Old Testament, that is all that is being offered here. Ugh.

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25. Comment #304342 by Karlsson on December 20, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Morals is something relative. You can't judge someone else by what you think is right or wrong, you have to judge them with their own concept of morality.

There is no universal good or bad. Morality is a contract between people, if you break it you're immoral or "evil", if you're very good in following it you're "good".

Even the bible understands this. God writes contracts with Abraham, Moses and others. In the bible there is no absolute right and wrong. That's why they have a contract, a convenent. That's why you have the ten commandments.

Peace is a luxury, not something that's normal. In this modern relatively peaceful world, we have wrongfully got the impression that good and evil is universal concepts.

The norm is that people kill people, the strongest survive. Genocide and murder is a norm. We have to understand that we live in an extraordinary time and place where we have it so well that we can look down on other people in other places in other times and mock how they have to live their lives.

I have said it before and I say it again. Stop trying to convert people to atheism by playing the "God is evil"-card. It's just plain stupid. Dawkins and friends should know better.

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26. Comment #304346 by tybowen on December 20, 2008 at 6:52 pm

I'm sickened at people pointing out Abraham as a moral role model because he offered up his son. Being a new father myself I can say without hesitation that he is one of the most despicable and cowardly men ever written about. If "God" came down and told me to hurt my son (let alone kill him) I would look him square in the eye and say "F@#$ you". I remember being taught over and over again how moral Abraham was for "just following orders". I can't imagine what my sunday school teachers with children were thinking.

Oh and Karlsson: If morality is a contract between people and god is not a person then he can't impose morality. And if it is a contract that implies a willingness on both sides to participate, there fore I can be just as "moral" by your definition by killing simply because I haven't made a contract with god. And it would be inherently immoral for god to demand I act a certain way because that would no longer be a willing contract. And if you are from a religion that says we are born into a contract because of what your father or grandfather did or because you agreed before you were born/existed, that is just nonsense that no court would hold up. The norm is not for people to kill people. If it were then humanity wouldn't have evolved. The norm is to care for those around you (family/tribe) that humanity first evolved with. Humans are social animals. Just like dogs. You are trying to say that it is unnatural for dogs to form packs. Of course their is infighting, but a common set of principles have evolved to settle these disputes. Whether by nature or by written laws. By saying its stupid to say "God is evil" it is just as stupid to say that "Hitler is evil". After all he gained power in Germany by a fairly legitimate process (might have been totally, I'm not a history major) and therefore the people formed a "contract" with him.

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27. Comment #304349 by Vadjong on December 20, 2008 at 7:02 pm

Stop trying to convert people to atheism by playing the "God is evil"-card. It's just plain stupid.

Indeed, you are perfectly right.
Our "God does not exist, and the people who wrote the old and new testaments had parochial political motives"-card should do the trick.

(edit) Cue Roland_F :

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28. Comment #304350 by Roland_F on December 20, 2008 at 7:07 pm

Another typical Apologist drivel : inaccurate, verbose, wrong pre-assumptions etc. . . I just cross-read over this verbose drivel and found enough crap.
Just to get things into picture: that’s what modern archeology and scholarship knows now about the alleged OT period (2000 – 1000 BC):
The OT was mainly invented in the 7th century BC for political reasons, patriarch Abraham never existed, his adventure stories contradict history (kingdoms which existed in the 7th century BC but not millennia before), the kidnapping of Jacob to Egypt using a camel caravan 1 millennia before domestication of camels, Moses who have not existed a regurgitated story of royal children in a basket, no traces of 600.000 men (plus woman and children = approx 2 million people !! ) walking for 40 years in Sinai, no traces of the conquering of the holy land (Jericho & Co), king David at best a Robin Hood style renegade with 400 man under weapons later a ‘king’ of a couple of villages and a population of 5000 gout herders described as a big royal dynasty in 7th century BC. All these stories invented for political reasons of integrating the ‘northern tribes of Israel’ after the fall of the northern kingdom after many refugees had to be integrated into Judah.
Until the 9th century BC Yahweh was still only the fertility god of Judah (with wife !) member of a pantheon of other gods and was only later promoted to a monotheistic god, e.g. much later than all the OT stories allegedly had happened. And this monotheistic god has to incorporate the northern God of ’El’ ( El’ohim or Baal) to ensure better integration of Israelite refuges into Judah.
The author of this apology is ignoring all history and just taking the invented OT stories at face value, compares them with the Zeitgeist of 2000 BC to construct his farfetched apologies.

The New Testament should be all good and peaceful!?! What about eternal damnation in hell for all nonbelievers, much longer than the 3-4 generations punishment from the jealous Yahweh?! No answers why the omnipotent, omnipresent creator of the entire universe have to be jealous at a few gout herders in the desert – well we read just more apologies that Yahweh is entitled to be jealous but dear atheist do not call this jealous! And of course God have the almighty jealous right to slaughter 3000 men plus a plague for the remaining survivors as betrayed groom of the chosen people dancing around a golden calf.
Slavery: another apologist triad ignoring that the prevention of slavery was only meant for INGROUP members not for the “disposable lowlifes” of the OUTGROUP. And also the NT approved slavery as Jesus is sending back a runaway slave to his owner to follow the law. Ok this is also ignored from the apologist, who instead tries to water down the nowadays inacceptable immorality of the Bible by smooth-talking slavery as not to bad as ‘ownership’ it is limited only to 7 years (in-group).

Very pathetic this apologist drivel !

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29. Comment #304352 by Laurie Fraser on December 20, 2008 at 7:18 pm

Comment #304346 by tybowen

Abraham's was the classic Nuremburg defence, ty.

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30. Comment #304353 by Roland_F on December 20, 2008 at 7:22 pm

25. Comment #304342 by Karlsson : There is no universal good or bad

This is not what the usual theist is stating. David A. Robertson for example was ‘lecturing’ for weeks here about “absolute morality” residing in God, and scorned the atheist understanding of morality as evolved behavior and not as an God given absolute.

we have it so well that we can look down on other people in other places in other times and mock how they have to live their lives.

Atheist (or at least myself) are not looking down to ancient societies with other Zeitgeist or moralities, but we are fighting against theist who claim power of absolute truth, knowledge, morality and the like based on the Bible as God’s original inerrant word, and try to force their interpretation and cherry picking of their scripture on the rest of society.

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31. Comment #304354 by Laurie Fraser on December 20, 2008 at 7:26 pm

Comment #304353 by Roland_F

Exactly, Roland. Atheists take the quite reasonable approach that, as humanity has developed in so many other areas of both personal and public knowledge, culture, technology, etc., why on earth should we feel chained to a neo-paleolithic ethical consciousness?

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32. Comment #304366 by Indian Joe on December 20, 2008 at 8:51 pm

"God is incrementally "humanizing" ANE structures within Israel to diminish cruelty and elevate the status of, say, slaves and women - even if such customs are not fully eliminated. So when Joshua kills five Canaanite kings and hangs their corpses on trees all day (Josh. 10:22-7), we do not have to explain away or justify such a practice."

The author makes an excellent case for divine gradualism, which should be comforting to everyone, except maybe the slaves, the women and the five Canaanite kings. Martin Luther King, no stranger to the bible himself, gave an inspired response to this sort of christian apologetics in his letter (1963) to the Birmingham clergymen who preached to King the virtue of patience.

King wrote, "For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never."

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, ... and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; [...] when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience."

Vicious mobs lynching your mothers and fathers at will and drowning your sisters and brothers at whim summarizes much of the old testament. King's words, all 6918 words, should be branded in full across the buttocks of all christian apologists who, when confronted with the god of the OT, tend to shuffle their feet and babble nervously about cultural -- and ethical -- relativism.

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33. Comment #304373 by Sarmatae1 on December 20, 2008 at 9:24 pm

32. Comment #304366 by Indian Joe on December 20, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap...

Well said Indian joe. Thank you for that.

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34. Comment #304379 by sublunary on December 20, 2008 at 9:40 pm

25. Comment #304342 by Karlsson

You can't judge someone else by what you think is right or wrong, you have to judge them with their own concept of morality.

Really? Perhaps you could explain your judgement, based on that approach, of Nazism.

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35. Comment #304398 by J.Robert on December 20, 2008 at 11:03 pm

To me, Yahweh, J.C., and the Bible as a whole comes down to one bible verse. When Paul goes to preach the "good news" (whatever that means) he comes across some philosophers in Athens, who say: "What does this babbler want to say?" Acts 17:18, NRSV. But, I find the "New English Bible" more to the point: "What can this charlatan be trying to say?" Acts 17:18.

Philosophers even then were dubious. What I often tell my religious friends is that they are presupposing that the men who wrote the bible were of completely sound mind.It's very reasonable to assume that there were people inflicted with mental disorders back then who were, however, able to write.

Would we make sacred the journal writings of a modern-day sanitarium patient or asylum inmate? My guess is no.

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36. Comment #304404 by Bonzai on December 20, 2008 at 11:11 pm

If someone insists that Greek mythologies are more than just a collection of good stories, but they are somehow divine and supernatural in origin, most people would think that this person is insane and should be laughed at. Yet people who take Biblical stories seriously somehow deserve respect.

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37. Comment #304412 by Brian English on December 20, 2008 at 11:46 pm

J. Robert:

Philosophers even then were dubious.

Are you Bonzai's sock puppet (Bonzai thinks philosophers are dubious), or did you mean that philosophers back then were dubious of the early christians? If so, that would be understating it, they lived in a time when almost everything was explained by the actions of spirits or gods. It was just was the peasants did. To them, Paul would've been just another ignorant twat.

By the way, Hi Bonzai, how goes it?

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38. Comment #304413 by Brian English on December 20, 2008 at 11:48 pm

P.S. Das Wort charlatan ist verboten. Man kannst es nicht sagen!

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39. Comment #304417 by Roland_F on December 20, 2008 at 11:55 pm

P.S. Das Wort charlatan ist verboten. Man kannst es nicht sagen!

Und warum nicht ?
Ehre wem Ehre gebűhrt - der wer den (Dach)Schaden hat spottet jeder Beschreibung und wird nicht fűr voll genommen.

P.S. (free) translation into English: Saul/Paul who had a heat stroke or a hysterical breakdown with blindness for 3 days to "hear and feel the Christ" can't be taken serious.

And your German is ok.

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40. Comment #304418 by J.Robert on December 20, 2008 at 11:55 pm

Re: 37. Comment #304412 by Brian English

Yes Brian, what I meant to say was that philosophers were and are dubious about anything that seems too fantastical. Surely, like scientists, philosophers want some kind of evidence.

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41. Comment #304419 by Titania on December 20, 2008 at 11:56 pm

Thank you, Brian, for being ever vigilant on my behalf. :)

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42. Comment #304420 by Brian English on December 21, 2008 at 12:01 am

J.Robert, forgive my pedantry, I just wanted to rib Bonzai a little. He doesn't have a high opinion of philosophy.

Roland_F, I can't translate all that without my Woerterbuch. As to why not? There are some things that are verboten. For example, we work with some basic assumptions, like the material world not being an illusion, you can ask if it is an illusion, but you can't live like it is an illusion. So asking why not is pointless. If this answer isn't sufficient, Dianelos will explain in more verbose terms. :)

P.S. did those phrases in German even make sense and work grammatically?

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43. Comment #304424 by jabber on December 21, 2008 at 12:35 am

QUESTION:

IS GOD A GOOD CHRISTIAN? DISCUSS.

IF GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING - THEN HE MUST KNOW WHAT WE WILL DO WITH OUR LIVES IN ADVANCE, AND HOW THE UNIVERSE WILL END, AND THE EXACT DATE OF THE RAPTURE. GIVEN THIS VIEW - WOULD ONE SAY THIS WAS THE ACT OF A CARING GOD; MAKING US SUFFER AND TOIL TO AVOID COMMITTING SINS HE ALREADY KNOWS WE WILL COMMIT, AND THEN PUNISHING US FOR IT!

WHAT KIND OF CARING 'FATHER' SETS HIS CHILDREN UP TO FAIL BEFORE THEY'RE EVEN BORN?

WHAT A CROCK - AS THE AMERICANS SAY.

OR QUELLE BLAGUE!

O, and as for god being 'hurt' and 'upset' about Israel's infidelity - how is it that we mere humans (his creations) are able to be so much more emotionally stable and mature in our reactions on realising that we do not have the control over others trhat we thought we had when we were children?

God seems to be cursed with the worst excesses of human weaknesses (because he is in our image, peut-etre). He is so old, of course, that he may be in his second childhood, and we , his children, now need to decide what's best for him before he begins dribbling and embarrasing himself in public.

So, we need to regard and be sensitive to the 'nuances' in the Bible? - this is right in my field of study, now...

When a woman is being abused by her spouse/partner, when a parent is ashamed of a criminal and violent child, they too apply the 'nuanced' argument; "it's just that no one undertsands him/her like i do".

An abused partner will defend her abuser by suggesting that "he's not really like that, underneath - he's always really upset about it afterwards; it's partly my fault -i should know how he's likely to behave when i do (x).'

People who defend, say, the Kray twins, trot out the ususal crap of "at least you knew where you stood with them; they only tortured their own kind; they loved their Mum - and they gave money to charity (even if it was other people's money), so they couldn't have been all bad, could they. You can't judge them if you weren't there becasue you don't know what it was like to live in the East End at that time...things were different then...." There are, even to this day, stupid actresses who insist that the Kray brother she went out with for a time was 'always a gentlemen' to her, and constantly expresses how, in spite of all his 'faults', was a lovely man....if you didn't get on the wrong side of him!!!!

(For those not au fait with the Kray twins - they were vicious gangsters who ran the East End of London in the 1960s; freinds of simpering 'low-end' Variety types who, for the main part, shared a common background and education. A somewhat second-rate but illuminating film was made about them in the 80s. One of the twins died a few years ago, prompting a raft of superannuated 'Mockneys' to give various admiring eulogies):

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/kray/curtain_17.html

I make an issue of this last point, and provide the link, because this is a perfect examaple of our propensity to worship that which threatens to kill us - the fear driven self-delusion required for survival. The correlation/correspondence of this phenomenon to the religious phenomenon is interesting - but of course, if you ignore the nuances which the Kray clique are clearly more 'sensitive' to, and just look at what they actually DID - they were just common, ill educated, mentally unstable,emotionally stunted, narcissitc thugs..h'mm sounds like they'd have got on just fine with Dog.

I, for one, am not preapred to be God's Barbara Windsor.

And of course, under Hitler...the buses ran on time..so some good came of it!

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44. Comment #304434 by Bonzai on December 21, 2008 at 1:15 am

Brian

I actually have considerable respect for ancient philosophers such as the Greeks. They were original and they tried their best to understand the world with only a few tools they had. Moreover, there were no strict seperation of science and philosophy back then. I save my contempt mainly for modern, academic philosophers who do sort of a fake "science"(like metaphysics, ontology, that sorts of things). I have no problem, however, with philosophers whose main interests are in what can be roughly called "the human condition", for example, moral philosophers.

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45. Comment #304435 by alovrin on December 21, 2008 at 1:21 am

I made it to the end but it has changed me forever... No it didnt!

Comment #304366 by Indian Joe
The author makes an excellent case for divine gradualism

Yes but thats not the least of it.
The subtext here is this drip feed continues to this day from god fucking almighty thru the fucking divinely fucking inspired meanderings from fucking knuckle heads like this twat.
Then filters down to the rest of us.
Who have our fingers in our ears and are chanting la fucking la, apparently.
Anyway that seems to be the drift in the first 5 fucking pages.

He disappears up the Mosaic Laws arse for a while then emerges, taking a swipe at what he thinks is an atheist canon.

Let me add a few more thoughts about warfare here. First, Israel would not have been justified to attack the Canaanites without Yahweh's explicit command. Yahweh issued his command in light of a morally-sufficient reason-the incorrigible wickedness of Canaanite culture.

Great justification there Paul, Oh thats right gradualism, gradualism.
Hey Paul, why dont you pose a question then answer it....

Fourth, the crux of the issue this: if God exists, does he have any prerogatives over human life? The new atheists seem to think that if God existed, he should have a status no higher than any human being.
Given the moral depravity of the Canaanites, the women were far from innocent. (Compare seduction of Israelite males by Midianite women in Numbers 25.)

Bloody moral depravity, the bane of god and his followers life.
See thats better, do it again go on, you know you want to...

What then of the children? Death would be a mercy, as they would be ushered into the presence of God and spared the corrupting influences of a morally decadent culture.

You're right death would be a mercy at this point.
Anyway those lucky children, must still be kicking around today.... ?up there in heaven.
I wonder if god does gradualism in heaven.
I'll leave theists to posit answers for that.

Furthermore, the infants and children who were killed by the Israelites would, in the afterlife, come to recognize God's just purposes, despite the horrors and terrors of war. They would side with God in the rightness of his purposes-even if it had meant temporary terror.

But of course dont read anything into this because..temporary error... of course.

These are an example of how Israel at different stages of development faces various challenges that require distinct responses

Fucking fabulous, developmental challenges. I'll remember that one ...for when Im at the fucking psychiatrists office next time.
So this is about page fucking 7 or 8 or something.
OOO Is that a straw person I see..

The new atheists tend to view OT ethical considerations in a static manner-a one-size-fits-all legislation for all nations. They fail to note the unfolding "redemptive-movement" of God's self-revelation to his people even within the OT

Yep Whoosh

So, to obey Deuteronomy "necessarily meant no longer complying with Exodus." This point serves to illustrate the "living, historical and contextual nature of the growth of Scripture. Reflecting upon the wider canonical framework reminds us that we should not focus on one single text alone.

And now for my next trick. I, Paul the Magnificent shall, while reflecting on the wider canonical framework, will magic up god.... whoosh alliakaazaamm

Indeed, Genesis 1-2 remind us of God's creational ideals that were clouded and distorted by human fallenness.

Look see how I did that, see look. See, thank you thank you....
But I say humbly

the Law of Moses contains seeds for moral growth and glimmers of light illuminating a clearer moral path. Yes, God prohibits the worship of other gods and the fashioning of graven images, but the ultimate desire is that Yahweh's people love him wholeheartedly. Love cannot be reduced to the restraining influence of laws, and enjoying God's presence is not identical to simply avoiding idols

Cause that god boy oh boy he's...

Like Narnia's Aslan, Yahweh, though gracious and compassionate (Exod. 34:6), is not to be trifled with. The new atheists seem to resist the notion of Yahweh's rightful prerogatives over humans precisely because they seem uncomfortable with the idea of judgment in any form

Judgement ooooooo judgement I'm shaking in me boots Paulyboy.

Thus when Dawkins accuses God of breaking into a "monumental rage whenever his chosen people flirted with a rival god"-as "nothing so much as sexual jealousy of the worst kind"-he seems to show utter disregard for the significance of the marriage covenant-and, in particular, this unique bond between God and his people.

Fucking disregard..... of a fucking MARRIAGE COVENANT...fucking particularly, a fucking unique fucking bond fucking between fucking god and his fucking what!

I fucking shagged after that I'll just rest on these straw people..

Furthermore, Sam Harris's attempt to "demolish the intellectual and moral pretensions of Christianity" is quite ironic for a several reasons. First, contrary to assertions by the new atheists, who view biblical theism as the enemy, it has historically served as a moral compass for Western civilization, despite a number of notable deviations from Jesus' teaching across the centuries (for example, the Crusades, Inquisition). In fact, a number of recent works have made a strong case that biblical theism has served as a foundation for the West's moral development

Second, despite the new atheists' appeals to science, they ignore the profound influence of the Jewish-Christian worldview on the West's scientific enterprise

OOO look a Paul Davies quote here

Third, the new atheists somehow gloss over the destructive atheistic ideologies

And a Dinesh D'souza quote here

Ah, the finish. A bit of special pleading, paint themselves as some kind of fucking underdog, but are indispensable as well 'cause else where did we get our fucking morality from.

But the atheist is still left without a proper metaphysical context for affirming such moral dignity and responsibility. And despite Harris's claims, naturalism seems to be morally pretentious in claiming the moral high ground, though without any metaphysical basis for doing so. No, biblical theism, with its emphasis on God's creating humans in his image, is our best hope for grounding objective moral values and human dignity and worth

And Paulyboy uses this phrase with special reference to the mighty fucking one

redemptive spirit and creational ideals.

Oh look a straw person to sit on. Time for drinks methinks..

The new atheists repeatedly attack the biblical witness for what it does not endorse.

Yeah yeah

Other Comments by alovrin

46. Comment #304436 by MRA on December 21, 2008 at 1:22 am

@jabber - enjoyed your last post.

At least the new atheists are on the first page, maybe the theists won't even bother to get through the whole article!

Other Comments by MRA

47. Comment #304440 by beanson on December 21, 2008 at 1:37 am

Though certain OT texts present challenges and difficulties, navigating these waters is achievable with patient, nuanced attention given to the relevant OT texts, the ancient Near East (ANE) context, and the broader biblical canon.

yeah- sorry God- don't have the time mate

Other Comments by beanson

48. Comment #304441 by jabber on December 21, 2008 at 1:42 am

special pleading...h'mmm

would that be the kind of special pleading that violent abusers allude to? You know, the kind where they beat the crap out of you and then claim that they are merely 'victim's to your provocation? They control you ruthlessly, then, when they're 'seen' and their behaviour is challenged, they suddenly become the underdog. The abuser always blames his victim for making the abuse necessary, inevitable and 'a natural consequence'...as if the victim has taken the choice to refrain from abuser.

We are all sinners (by our very God given nature), therefore, whatever is done to us in God's name is a natural consequence of our inborn wickedness, making it totally impossible for our omnipotent God to control his abusive impulses - and always in our own best interests (I bet it hurts him more than it hurts us!lol). Sorry everyone - flashbacks to my schooldays (CofE, of course).

Other Comments by jabber

49. Comment #304456 by jabber on December 21, 2008 at 3:02 am

25. Comment #304342 by Karlsson on December 20, 2008 at 6:40 pm

"I have said it before and I say it again. Stop trying to convert people to atheism by playing the "God is evil"-card. It's just plain stupid. Dawkins and friends should know better."

Yes - but repetition, however sincerely felt, does not make a thing true. God is neither evil or good because he simply doesn't exist - that's not trying to 'convert' anyone, it's just showing the ridiculousness of an untenable position. Telling someone that apples obey the laws of gravity is not trying to convert someone; rather, it is the perception of those with a fragile faith who accuse athiests of doing what they themselves never tire of doing.

A faithless husband is always absolutely convinced his wife is having the affair.

And Dawkins and freinds do know better - it's the theists who live in delusional denial and have to distort reality to even begin to make sense of non-sense. I suppose they make a decent fist of it, though.

Other Comments by jabber

50. Comment #304471 by gyokusai on December 21, 2008 at 4:12 am

The new atheists are certainly rhetorically effective, but I would contend that they have not handled the biblical texts with proper care

Huh, must have slipped into the wrong article while I wasn't paying attention...

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/12/the_courtiers_reply.php

^_^J.

Edit: divalent Oh, so you did too? The strangest thing.

Other Comments by gyokusai