Is it moral for God to punish us?

Originally posted by juggerman
They weren't stupid. They just didn't know evil.

If God created us, why would he want us giving credit to something else? I'm sure you wouldn't want your kids calling random people mom/dad right?

It wasn't about not knowing evil. Or doesn't it disturb you it's called evil? They were ignorant of things.

Also, if God created us and we are supposed to have free will and this piece of shit has unconditional love for us? I should be able to worship a friggin piece of poop if I want to. I should be free to worship that turd character from South Park if I choose. It shouldn't be a sin or anything.

This person/thing/abomination is most concerned about his own ego.

Old Testament Rules ≠ New Testament Guidelines

Do some research.

Originally posted by Scribble
Old Testament Rules ≠ New Testament Guidelines

Do some research.

Nobody said otherwise, but okay. Obviously by the time of the New Testament God had been put on anti-depressants.

I'm just kidding, fictional beings can't take medication.

Originally posted by Surtur
Nobody said otherwise, but okay. Obviously by the time of the New Testament God had been put on anti-depressants.

Then again, this is mostly due to actual Christians misinterpreting Christianity's overarching messages and spreading a weird and twisted form of it for so long, so I can't blame you for getting it wrong.

Yeah except nope, we're not playing that bullshit game. There is some utterly horrible shit in the OT. We aren't passing that all off as "Scare 'em straight!" type of deals.

The thing you quoted me saying wasn't talking about being smited, it was talking about the fact we are told it's a sin not to worship him.

If you're going to misunderstand something, at least strive to be a little less pompous while doing so.

Originally posted by Surtur
Yeah except nope, we're not playing that bullshit game. There is some utterly horrible shit in the OT. We aren't passing that all off as "Scare 'em straight!" type of deals.

The thing you quoted me saying wasn't talking about being smited, it was talking about the fact we are told it's a sin not to worship him.

If you're going to misunderstand something, at least strive to be a little less pompous while doing so.

And again, the idea of "sin" is removed after Christ. Do you know what "He died for our sins" means? Hint: it's in the title.

We just literally talked about you and misunderstanding things, but I guess we will again: you are not telling me complex things. I understood what you were saying, what I was doing was disagreeing with you on the nature of these things(under the basis of course that it was the true word of God).

In other words, you think if this is the word of God..that he made himself sound a lot more horrible than he is to get people to do the right thing, correct?

I'm fully aware of what being scared straight means.

To go one step further, I agree, there is a whole lot of "scare them straight" mentality going on, I'm not denying it isn't there. I'm just saying you can't put all the horribleness of that book under that sole category.

Originally posted by Surtur
We just literally talked about you and misunderstanding things, but I guess we will again: you are not telling me complex things. I understood what you were saying, what I was doing was disagreeing with you on the nature of these things(under the basis of course that it was the true word of God).

In other words, you think if this is the word of God..that he made himself sound a lot more horrible than he is to get people to do the right thing, correct?

I'm fully aware of what being scared straight means.

Originally posted by Surtur
To go one step further, I agree, there is a whole lot of "scare them straight" mentality going on, I'm not denying it isn't there. I'm just saying you can't put all the horribleness of that book under that sole category.

Anti-Christian arguments are usually based on questions that are actually pretty easily answered. If God loves us, why did he do X, Y, or Z? If God made the Earth in seven days, where do dinosaurs come into the equation? The answer is that these things probably didn't literally happen.

If you want to take some of the stories as true, fine; the Earth was overrun by sinners, aside from Noah, so God wiped the slate clean. I don't really see anything wrong with that. It's not that God made a mistake and created flawed creatures either, which is another anti-Christian argument: he simply gave humans free will, and with this freedom, humans abused it.

I just find most of the anti-Christian arguments very short-sighted and severely lacking, personally.

Originally posted by Scribble
It was clear from your last post that you thought I meant that God was scaring them straight by actually killing people, otherwise I don't see why you'd be so up-in-arms about the stuff in the OT if you didn't think it literally happened. But can we not have an aside debate about how we address each other? It's pointless.

I wasn't that up in arms, but yeah I did understand what you were saying.

I read the OT as almost entirely allegorical, though. There's very little fact to back most of it, so if you're taking a Theist point of view and still want to remain a rational human being, you have to accept that God didn't make the Earth a couple of thousand years ago (something a whole lot of 'Christians' find hard to comprehend).

Anti-Christian arguments are usually based on questions that are actually pretty easily answered. If God loves us, why did he do X, Y, or Z? If God made the Earth in seven days, where do dinosaurs come into the equation? The answer is that these things probably didn't literally happen.

If you want to take some of the stories as true, fine; the Earth was overrun by sinners, aside from Noah, so God wiped the slate clean. I don't really see anything wrong with that. It's not that God made a mistake and created flawed creatures either, which is another anti-Christian argument: he simply gave humans free will, and with this freedom, humans abused it.

I just find most of the anti-Christian arguments very short-sighted and severely lacking, personally.

But I do not take these stories to be true. I am talking about people who do.

Yes, some use the bible just for parables and shit. Some people literally believe this stuff though.

I'm not anti-christian, I'm more anti-God.

Originally posted by Surtur
I wasn't that up in arms, but yeah I did understand what you were saying.

Originally posted by Surtur
But I do not take these stories to be true. I am talking about people who do.

Yes, some use the bible just for parables and shit. Some people literally believe this stuff though.

I'm not anti-christian, I'm more anti-God.

If one actually reads and studies the New Testament, things get a lot more clear, I think. It's generally a pretty inclusive and nice text, and the deity is one of the more understanding and lenient gods out there.

What I am saying is that the God from the OT is not a good person. He's pretty damn horrible. He is not horrible in the way Christians are no, he is horrible in the way a super villain is.

Christians aren't super villains, they aren't pro genocide or any of that shit.

If I'm calling God a bastard, I'm specifically talking about the OT God. This doesn't mean I have a good opinion of Christians(I don't) but I don't think they are horrid horrid people. Otherwise it would mean 99% of the people I know are horrible.

It might be different with other people, but for me I can separate talking shit about God from talking shit about the specific religion and the people who practice it.

Like I say, if the OT is the word of God, then the God in the OT hasn't done the shit it says that he did, and instead he made a bunch of it up to keep his young children in line. A lot of children see their parents as evil as villainous, so it makes sense that he comes across that way, because that was the intention at the time.

Originally posted by Scribble
Like I say, if the OT is the word of God, then the God in the OT hasn't done the shit it says that he did, and instead he made a bunch of it up to keep his young children in line. A lot of children see their parents as evil as villainous, so it makes sense that he comes across that way, because that was the intention at the time.

I fully recognize that this is one way you could interpret it.

It's the way I like to interpret it, sadly it doesn't seem to be a very popular opinion. I guess it just makes the most rational sense to me.

Originally posted by Scribble
It's the way I like to interpret it, sadly it doesn't seem to be a very popular opinion. I guess it just makes the most rational sense to me.

You know I just find when I try to be rational about religion I just come to the conclusion that it's all bogus lol.

Well, I can't commit to religion because I find every religion to have its faults, as well as the idea of tying myself down to one school of thought is one I can't get down with (I have the same issue with politics). Plus, I was raised in a very secularist environment, so the idea of God being a tangible thing is something that I naturally find hard to relate to. But I like a lot of the New Testament stuff, I can see a lot of my own beliefs in it, so I feel some kind of kinship towards that kind of Christianity. Whether God exists or not isn't important to me, I just want to be a good person.

Well sure a lot of the NT stuff is good as long as you pretty much ignore the OT.

Though can you explain how it being pro slavery and anti-homosexuals was some kind of cautionary tale? Was the anti gay thing just God trying to protect us from aids or some shit? Was the slavery thing for good work ethic?

Like for instance that story where, I believe, a dude sicks some motherf*cking bears on some kids. That could sort of be a tale of "respect your elders". I can't figure out the whole slavery thing and gay thing though. Was this sort of a reverse psychology thing?

I read most of the anti-gay stuff as a way of making sure that people focused on procreating, which makes sense in the times before overpopulation. I don't know much about the slavery though, I'm not that hot on the OT generally because I see it as a lesser document to the NT in terms of Christian beliefs. The whole idea of the NT is just not to be a dick to people and not to judge people, so from the NT onwards slavery and homophobia generally seem like no-nos. There are still some vague references that could be interpreted as to homosexuality not being a good thing, but Jesus himself never mentioned it.