DescentBB

Abraham would have.
This is the inherent problem with defining morality by "whatever the voices in my head tell me to do".

Why do we worship God?
Because he's the source of all morality.
But he just told you to kill your son.
(wait... is that moral? God said it, so i guess that makes it moral now, right? If God tells you to do an immoral thing, is it moral or immoral to refuse that order?)

Maybe it was a test. But think about that... what was it a test of? A test of moral fibre? So, did Abraham pass or fail in that regard? And what does that say about God.
God's followers apparently have to be absolutely morally bankrupt, and are willing to listen to authoritative voices in their head telling them to kill their own children.

Maybe... Abraham should have said no. "no... actually, i think i'll go find another God if it's all the same to you. You know, one who's moral. Cya forever!"

And are we even sure this was God? It sounds a lot like this Molek character. How did we even know it was God talking to Abraham.
It i was abraham, i think i'd be all like "noooo actually killing my Son sounds a lot like something one of the other Gods would ask me to do... haha that's you isn't it Satan. You guys need to quit messing around with me, the audio hullucinations in my head don't exactly have caller ID up here, i don't know who i'm listening to, all i hear is booming authorative voices. So quit with your pranks Satan damnit someone could get hurt."

It's the Euthyphro dilemma: is the good commanded by God because it is good, or is it good because it is commanded by God?

Most Christians choose the latter, but this is problematic, because it makes morality completely arbitrary, especially if you imagine God commanding something like murder or genocide, because that would be technically good by definition, despite it being radically at odds with our moral intuition. (The problem with instead choosing the former is that it places the source of goodness outside of God, which most Christians find theologically inelegant, and it philosophically postpones the problem of explaining the source of goodness.)

Caller ID.

I've been troubled by questions like that in the past. The question itself is the problem, for a number of reasons which I don't care to get into here. Basically Abraham had a relationship with God, in some capacity, not merely a voice in his head. When you have a relationship with someone you get to know them. The Bible itself warns not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits whether they are of God. If a voice told me to sacrifice my son, it would be on--war. Anyone who obeys a voice just because it's a voice, or accepts something just because it's supernatural (which by the way is where humanity fails and will fail when it comes to the supernatural), is on dangerous ground.

Lol, at this point, yes. In fact, you should study that a little more indepth. At that point God was still dealing with a select few face to face. An even deeper study will show that Abraham deceived Isaac, who was about 30 or so years old at that time, and strapped a huge load of wood on him. He was going to, but I think it's germaine to point out that the test wasn't if he would sacrifice his son, it was to see if he believed God. Considering that God several thousand years later did the same thing is also a great parallel and continuity of the story. I found that funny though . "Here boy, let me strap all this wood to your back." LOL.

I don't think you're looking for an in-depth exegesis of the passage, so I'll spare you.

Instead, let me pose a few thoughts/questions to you:

1. What do you do when you encounter apparent contradictions? (I.E. paradoxes)
2. Do you think that Abraham thought that he was going to both fully obey God and come back down off the mountain with his son alive, despite the apparent contradiction between the two?
3. In the end, did Abraham end of breaking God's moral law during the episode?

Here's what I'm getting at: Is it possible that Abraham's test was trusting God to provide a way for Abraham to obey God while still obeying God moral law and maintaining God's promise to raise up a nation through Isaac?

It's a bit of a difficult passage... but concluding that Abraham had to have been morally bankrupt is a fairly easy interpretation to discount. Now if you want to read it that way, I suppose it's your prerogative, but it'd be intellectually lazy & irresponsible to do so.

A lot of people dodging the question here. So, would you kill your son or not? Seems like a yes or no question. God doesn't go for "maybes."

I think God would and has only asked that of one person and he most certainly would.

snoopy wrote:1. What do you do when you encounter apparent contradictions? (I.E. paradoxes)

assume i'm witnessing a human-made error in the script (incl that the whole script is bogus), or a lack of understanding on my part.

snoopy wrote:2. Do you think that Abraham thought that he was going to both fully obey God and come back down off the mountain with his son alive, despite the apparent contradiction between the two?

iirc it's not mentioned in the scripture, so it's unknown. I think that Abraham trusted God to know what he was doing, that whatever happened it would have worked out in the end. The lesson is that Loyalty-to-God should take presedence over Morality, we should always trust that our wonderful God makes sure it all works out in the end.

If you walked into a Christian church, and the Pastor told you that God commands you to kill your son. Would you? No, you'd just assume something weird was going on, "Nope, this isn't the God i know", and you'd walk out. Because your sense of self-respect is intact enough to question authority if things seem fishy. Not Abraham though, he'll do whatever the voices tell him, ANYTHING.

...beware false prophets...
...by their fruits you will know them...
(unless they say to murder your son, then just go along with it, it'll probably be ok)

snoopy wrote:3. In the end, did Abraham end of breaking God's moral law during the episode?

If by "God's Moral Law" you mean "Do whatever God tells you to do" (is that what it means?), then no - he upheld the law. Since making your own perfectly reasonable moral desisions (like not murdering your son on command) is apparently breaking the law, it would make it less confusing to take the word "Moral" outof it, so it's left as the more accurate: "God's Law".

Sergeant Thorne wrote:Caller ID.

I've been troubled by questions like that in the past. The question itself is the problem, for a number of reasons which I don't care to get into here. Basically Abraham had a relationship with God, in some capacity, not merely a voice in his head. When you have a relationship with someone you get to know them. The Bible itself warns not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits whether they are of God. If a voice told me to sacrifice my son, it would be on--war. Anyone who obeys a voice just because it's a voice, or accepts something just because it's supernatural (which by the way is where humanity fails and will fail when it comes to the supernatural), is on dangerous ground.

Exactly, it'd be war. So how can you test these things? This sort of thing is a typical cryptography problem, it's easy to manipulate someone by impersonating someone they know. Abraham was just a lowly human, an easy target for any social engineering hack. This was someone telling Abraham to kill his son, we'd like to hope the prior relationship was healthy enough for a request for human sacrifice to be regarded as suspicously OUTOF CHARACTER.
Yet Abe just does it. And it's a lesson in how Loyalty is great?! Stranger Danger Stranger Danger

Something I have learned is that there are certain aspects of God that will not be impersonated simply because they are not in the impersonator's nature. In the New Testament Jesus claims that his sheep know his voice, and they will not listen to another. That's one of the biggest problems with questions like this--they create an artificial reality in which it is impossible to know. It's evidence of their source.

vision wrote:A lot of people dodging the question here. So, would you kill your son or not? Seems like a yes or no question. God doesn't go for "maybes."

You're twisting the OP. There is little to be gained by a simplistic answer.

Do you still beat your wife, vision? Yes or no, please.

no

I wonder if anyone here could tell the difference between God and Satan if they were standing togeather

Satan is about 2 inches taller and has a bit of a paunch.

actually the whole slithering on his Belly thing is a dead giveaway

Tell the difference between god and the devil?

this is God: Timo Tolkki

Checkmate, atheists...

edit: To answer the question, if God asked me to kill my son, I'd say, "★■◆● you". God created me, he can punish me, he plays awesome metal, be he can not think for me.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:

vision wrote:A lot of people dodging the question here. So, would you kill your son or not? Seems like a yes or no question. God doesn't go for "maybes."

You're twisting the OP. There is little to be gained by a simplistic answer.

Do you still beat your wife, vision? Yes or no, please.

No. But when she disobeys I make her go without dinner.

Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

vision wrote:

Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

and let us not forget the remainder of that verse

Ephesians 5:25

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

and a man that loves his wife will not treat her as a slave. someone has to be in charge in every relationship, be it personal or professional. it's easy to obey when told to do so. loving someone unconditionally isnt. husbands are called to sacrifice themselves for their wives.

That's cool. I can justify my wife's complete subservience to me with dozens of other misogynistic verses that don't require me to give her anything in return. The bible is cool that way. You can pick whatever you want to make any argument and they are all equally stupid.

vision wrote:That's cool. I can justify my wife's complete subservience to me with dozens of other misogynistic verses that don't require me to give her anything in return. The bible is cool that way. You can pick whatever you want to make any argument and they are all equally stupid.

ya that's cool. if that's what you took from that maybe your not as smart as you pretend to be.

I was thinking about this and I think Thorne was on the right track. It's an inane question. It presupposes the existence of God, and if that was the case of course you would. Who wouldn't? You sure work hard at nothing Roid.

CUDA wrote:

vision wrote:That's cool. I can justify my wife's complete subservience to me with dozens of other misogynistic verses that don't require me to give her anything in return. The bible is cool that way. You can pick whatever you want to make any argument and they are all equally stupid.

ya that's cool. if that's what you took from that maybe your not as smart as you pretend to be.

Quoting a twisted, demented work of fiction (the bible) as a basis of morality is imbecilic. I do it satirically. Also, I don't agree that "someone has to be in charge in every relationship." Healthy relationships exist for mutual benefit with neither side being subservient to the other.

Nice. I try to educate you and you go all third grade on me. your loss

CUDA wrote:actually the whole slithering on his Belly thing is a dead giveaway

I don't believe Satan is real. I believe man made him up just to marginalize their own inborn evils and as a convenient way to lay the blame for evil deeds that's far removed from themselves. So perfect. Man can blame Satan for the evil that man perpetrates, instead of taking responsibility for it.

I believe Stan is real.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Stan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And no wonder, for even Stan disguises himself as an angel of light. The God of peace will soon crush Stan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:...In the New Testament Jesus claims that his sheep know his voice, and they will not listen to another....

You could pull some "no true scottsman" logic on me, and tell me that if someone listens to the voice of God, and then it doesn't go well, then that alone is evidence enough that they weren't truly one of his sheep and it wasn't the true voice of God - Coz a true sheep would know.

And how exactly do they know? Oh uh... God probably did it. You know... some kinda magic. He "blesses" his sheep, like a magical boon, it doesn't show, they just get really moral, pious, preachy, whatever. (So when you see the cream of the crop of humanity, you may as well just assume it's God behind it.)
ie: in the end the explanation i'm supposed to accept is "those logical errors you point out don't exist because magic probably made them go away".
But if magic can do anything, then magic can even create your God like a puppet. You don't know that your God isn't just an elaborate magical act by some other supernatural being behind the scenes. You wouldn't know, you couldn't know, because you don't know the limits of the capabilities of supernatural beings. We're just lowly humans, how could we possibly be able to protect ourselves from such deception. And of course it wouldn't be hard at all to pull it all off, since a supernatural being would have immense intelligence and power compared to us.
When one is so ultimately and irretrievably powerless to know anything, the logical consequence is Solipsism. However we are not logical creatures, our meaty brains find it much less psychologically painful to revert into various other mental ailments instead.

All supernatural explanations (incl all Religion) has always ultimately been nothing but a way for our evolved psyches to protect themselves from a harsh unknowable world. To be able to psychologically deal with the fact that anything could happen at any time and we have no idea why, yet we also want to know why, because our mind's have evolved to be increasingly curious and smart. Being smart has it's curses. Wanting to know answers but not being able to find them, can cause all sorts of pain, it makes you desperate, we'll start seeing patterns everywhere, we'll cling to whatever explanation we can find. At any time you could have been killed by wild animals, flooding, starvation, and a whole host of strange horrible invisible reasons that could only have been described as magic (what we now call disease). Living like this really fucks you up, what we regard as serious trauma-caused psychological illnesses in our modern day would have been more like the norm in the harsh ancient world. "What caused all this stuff?" you'd be asking if you lived in that time period. "Why is there suddenly water everywhere? Why did my entire family just get suddenly swept away screaming with no warning? **time break to shake on the ground uncontrollably for 30mins in a state of emotional shock** Wait... maybe there was a warning... maybe... it's coz i picked that flower earlier and the flower is really powerful and can cause floods?".
Anyway, it really fucks you up.
These dumbass supernatural explanations were literally the only explanations we had, we didn't even know they were supernatural, we didn't know what was natural or not, we didn't know much of anything at all, because holy ★■◆● why did a rock just fall on my friend - i'm mourning and can't think straight. What we did know was the pain we felt when our friends and family died around us, and the extra pain of not knowing why. That extra "not knowing why" is just plain torture for an intelligent and curious species, we want closure.
Supernatural explanations are the normal response to the utter terror we faced when dealing with an unpredictable and terrifyingly powerful forces of NATURE. Nature was basically our God, we feared it, it gaveth, it taketh away. We didn't know why anything was happening.

But Science (the formalisation of collecting, discerning and testing knowledge about our world) changed that.
We now no longer irrationally fear nature, we understand it, we control it, we predict illnesses, we predict floods, we predict famines. We don't live our everyday lives in fear anymore, wondering if we're going to die tomorrow from some "unexplainable nature thing". We have explanations for everything, there is no longer room for our old dumb magical explanations. The harsh unknowable world is no longer unknowable, and thanks to the application of this knowledge (technology) it's also becoming decreasingly harsh.
Unfortunately it means that the Gods were not as powerful as we thought, and thus by gaining the God's favour we don't wield anywhere near the power we thought we once did. In the past a neighbouring village would have flooded because our tribe's priest summoned the flooding god to do his bidding. It's very tempting, psychologically, to continue to tell yourself that you have this power, it strokes the ego. The supposedly limitless power of the Gods, which we then killed, has left us feeling somewhat powerless and small in their vacuum.

I guess the point of this rant is that believing in magic is psychologically unhealthy, it's philosophical consequences inspire an unwarranted fear of unpredictable forces that don't actually exist. I hope i have illustrated both the (pre)historical source of this fear (once apon a time: everything was unpredictable to us), and how science (replacing Demons and lucky Gods, with statistics and solid theories which allow us to predict the world around us) has made the fear unwarranted.

I just believe in the perfect agreement and congruency of the Bible. It is a book like no other. I've issued this challenge repeatedly to find a contadiction in it. I find it nearly inpossible not to believe in it on that basis alone. Just taking this board as an example. Even believers here cannot get in perfect agreement, and we live in the same day and time and with the same testament. The people who wrote the Bible were separated by great amounts of time and didn't even have access to each others works, yet they remain in perfect agreement. That tells me they all had a common inspirer. So I judge every thought by that word and that keeps me in singleness of mind and in perfect agreement within myself. The fact that the bible breaks no scientific law just furthers my confidence in it.

The fossil, geological, genetic, ... ★■◆●ing EVERY natural record available to us contradicts the Genesis statement that birds and bats existed before other land creatures.
Birds came from dinosaurs, Bats and humans are both mammals. Hell even some creatures of the sea are mammals, i can assure you that science is of very little doubt that all mammalian ancestors were land animals.

Problems with the Bible are practically infinite, i barely know where to start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Bible
Every chapter has it's own article.

Here's an easy to read list of a few contradictions:
http://www.answering-christianity.com/1 ... ctions.htm

Biblical contradictions are a big topic, this thread may get split.

roid wrote: Hell even some creatures of the sea are mammals, i can assure you that science is of very little doubt that all mammalian ancestors were land animals.

Actually all Mammalian ancestors were aquatic.

Technically, everything living on land today owes its roots to some amphibian-like creatures that originally crawled out of the oceans a very long time ago. Aquatic mammals are kind of interesting in that their direct ancestors were land-dwelling mammals, which eventually developed into creatures that spent 100% of their time in the water. In a certain sense, they "went back" to the oceans.

I'm pretty sure the bible simply says that everything was "made after it's own kind."
Now take into account all the major extinctions and changes in the atmosphere at each event and the things that could adjust and adapt did, and the things that couldn't, died off. Evolution has not been gradual, it's been chaotic, each time everything coming back more developed and more complex. So, I see it as fitting in perfectly. "After it's own kind." There is not an ordering in the bible.

EDIT: I also find it interesting that you argue against taking Genesis literally and then turn right around arguing against Genesis literally.

Flip, I believe roid is referring to the "on the first day He created...", "on the second day He created..." ordering.

There's a definite order there, though many Christians I know will point to the parallel orders (sky -> water -> land & sky-creatures -> water-creatures -> land-creatures) as part of the artistry of a symbolic rather than literal narrative.

----

This really demonstrates part of the problem with attempts at either "proving" or "disproving" the Bible. Critics and apologists alike depend heavily on interpretation (and both typically lean either toward literalism or symbolism for various verses, depending on what supports their cause).

Sure, I'm not arguing for proof, just that the ordering is correct. I'm willing to stick my foot in my mouth here. Let's start with the first.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,

Now before re-ionization, light could not exist, correct?

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

At the re-ionization of these molecular clouds, light could then exist, correct?

So, so far the ordering is correct?

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.”

Now, the very easiest and simplest molecule to make is water.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.”

I will spend some time again reading over the formation ofthe Earth and get back to this. Yet so far we do know that it takes a Star to form first, and then molecules could form, more than likely an abundance of water.

EDIT: Your right Foil, it's useless to do this because it takes an immense amount of understanding and it would prove nothing. Let's just say I stuck my foot in my mouth and I'll continue eating of the goodness of the LORD and everyone else can rage against it.

flip wrote:I just believe in the perfect agreement and congruency of the Bible. It is a book like no other. I've issued this challenge repeatedly to find a contadiction in it.

OMG you can't be serious. Don't you remember this thread?

vision wrote:

flip wrote:Find one contradiction or prophecy, if you can , and we will go from there.

How about 439 contradictions?

Hi-Res PDF (1.6MB)

* head splodes *

No, your right. There is no God. The Bible is a lie.

Before the doubters get too keyed up and start hyper-ventilating, I found this near death experience to be of some interest:

"All the chief arguments against near-death experiences suggest that these experiences are the results of minimal, transient, or partial malfunctioning of the cortex. My near-death experience, however, took place not while my cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off. This is clear from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological examinations. According to current medical understanding of the brain and mind, there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... rlife.html

Makes for a interesting read. Comments appreciated.

Old news. It's been largely dismissed due to the fact there is no way to confirm his subjective experience was happening while his brain was inactive or if the experience happened as his brain was coming back "online." His NDE account is remarkably similar to those who take the drug DMT. So far there is nothing extraordinary about his NDE and no compelling insights that seem worthy of further scientific investigation. He is selling a book, and this is supposed to be interesting and credible because he is a neurosurgeon (though he hasn't taken a scientific approach to his own experience).

This neuroscientist has a blog entry about it.

Nothing to see here.

thanks for the counter point

woodchip wrote:

roid wrote: Hell even some creatures of the sea are mammals, i can assure you that science is of very little doubt that all mammalian ancestors were land animals.

Actually all Mammalian ancestors were aquatic.

Both statements are correct. I said i ate all the hot pockets, i meant i ate all of them on the plate, you thought i ment i ate all of them in the world.

I was referring to the time in the lineage when each individual flying or swimming mammalian species traced back to their own (non-shared) land-based mammalian ancestors. ie: a time when mammals as a group had already speciated a bunch within themselves and diverged from one another, but at the time all the individual subspecies were still solely land-based.
But yes if you go back far enough then all of these ancestors inturn eventually trace back to a single mammalian ancestor, and trace back way further again to the first tetrapods which were indeed aquatic.

flip wrote:I'm pretty sure the bible simply says that everything was "made after it's own kind."
Now take into account all the major extinctions and changes in the atmosphere at each event and the things that could adjust and adapt did, and the things that couldn't, died off. Evolution has not been gradual, it's been chaotic, each time everything coming back more developed and more complex. So, I see it as fitting in perfectly. "After it's own kind." There is not an ordering in the bible.

...
The very first chapter in the Bible, Genesis 1, God creates specific things on specific "days" - numbered and sequential.
(edit: oh this was already answered by someone else)

flip wrote:EDIT: I also find it interesting that you argue against taking Genesis literally and then turn right around arguing against Genesis literally.

Meh, either/or. Fundamentalism & Bible literalism is more dangerous (and the most obnoxiously loud), compared to the other more moderate Christian flavours who can interpret things as more metaphorical. I've never really had that opportunity in a formalised setting i guess, it could be interesting to visit those nice architectural churches, i sometimes yearn for that convenience of a communal place of spirituality and mysticism right around the corner. But many of the things that turned me off Fundamentalist Christianity in the first place still continue to be justified in the dogma of these moderate denominations. My continued interactions with Fundamentalist Christians has left me too radical thesedays to be able to tolerate much of any of it, the rooms are all full of elephants. Also, for me to concentrate on Christianity for nuggets of spirituality i can personally use, would feel like needlessly taking sides, and Christianity is the LAST side i'd ever want to be taking. It's not something i want to be associated with (quite the opposite), plenty of fish in the sea.

Roid, I'm pretty sure I know what turned you off of fundamental christianity. Hmm, you know, these are the things I believed since I was 6. I can't blame my parents because we used to have fundamental differences by the time I was 8. It has always made sense to me, and I'm at the point now I just don't care to argue about it anymore. I am looking for those in agreement at this point, I feel my energy is much better spent there. If you think the world we live in and everything in it is just chance, you should play the lottery, you are guarnteed to win I think.