the book of job, and an unjust god

dpardo obfuscates:

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You are viewing/reading/interpreting the Bible through the bias of all that Satan has accomplished in you.

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No I'm not, I'm reading the damn book! 1 Sam 15:3: The book says that God ordered the slaughter of men and women, infant and suckling, does it not? In my opinion when suckling infants are slaughtered they feel pain. From your conversation with Dan I gather that you take a different view, but nonetheless I feel that ordering the slaughter of innocent babies is unacceptable behavior for any god. If this is the way the Christian god acts I want no part of him.What disturbs me is that people like you find this sort of maniacally stupid revenge action to be not only permissable of your god but in fact worthy of worship and praise. No "holy spirit" is going to lead me to the place where you are, thank you.

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dpardo writes:

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Can it be that the children of the wicked Amalekites (and of the wicked people that were destroyed in the flood) were not innocent?

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No it can't. Suckling infants are always innocent. Let's just say I take this on faith.

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God clearly said in Exodus 20:5 that the iniquity of the fathers would be visited upon the children.

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Indeed, which just goes to show that this god is not just. I don't want to be punished for the sins of my father or grandfather and it would be stupid for god or anyone else to punish me thus. And to think you people want our legal code to be more god-like!

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Because of the treachery of the Amalekite forefathers, God had declared that he would wipe them off the face of the earth. At that time, the Amalekites knew God's sentence. If they then continued in their wickedness and did not repent, and then proceeded to continue to have babies, THEY (the Amalekites themselves) knowingly sentenced their babies to death.

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Doesn't matter. The babies are still babies. They're innocent. Do you think that the children of rapists and murderers should be slaughtered?

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If you know all of your family and descendents are going to die because of something you did and you then proceed to procreate, aren't you knowingly sentencing even more people to death?

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No, but I'd be an absolute fool to believe that a just god worthy of worship and praise would ever kill my child because of something I did. Why can't God take his revenge on guilty parties? Why does it have to be the innocent who pay? Is God a pervert?

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The fact of the matter is the Amalekites didn't believe God and they didn't care.

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Meaning what? That anyone who doesn't believe in your god should be slaughtered mercilessly? My, how uplifting! Makes me want to break into a chorus of Onward Christian Soldiers.

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Then, is it reasonable that you be punished for your own sins?

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No, it isn't. If I've break a law I know the chance I'm taking and if I get caught I know I might be punished. For "sin", no. Your god is NOT my god and he has no right to punish me for anything.My sins are not the topic of this thread, though. Time for you to go back and adress the other points I made.

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dpardo writes:

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The Amalekites were wicked...

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So you say. But you still haven't explained why their wickedness made their suckling infant children fair game for God's vengeful "justice". You're avoiding that issue.

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dpardo writes Dan:

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I love how you dodge all the other points and focus on the children.

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It's God's treatment of the children that is at issue with Dan and I; haven't you figured that out yet? We're talking about an unjust god per the thread title and you are the one who keeps avoiding the issue.

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dpardo writes:

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How long did it take you to figure out that the children of the parents you slayed would someday avenge themselves of you?

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But you said the parents were guilty of all sorts of wickedness. The children weren't. There are all sorts of accomodations that God could make for the children but instead he chooses to order them mercilessly slaughtered. Why couldn't God just "miracle" the little kids minds to not remember Amalek? Why was it necessary to slaughter them? They were innocent. There is no justification for killing innocents. Period.

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dpardo writes Coragyps:

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Remember all of these people are descendents of Noah.

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Irrelevant. Any religion can invent a flood story to make it seem that all of mankind is desended from its own Noah character.

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Wouldn't the mere mention of brainwashing and then continually hiding the truth from these children be yet another can of worms for other atheists to hack at?

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Perhaps, but it wouldn't be as bad as slaughtering innocents. Besides, I'm talking about one quick miracle to erase the memory of Amalek. No brainwashing required, just a quick little miracle.

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dpardo asks:

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In the middle of a debate of a Biblical account, in which you have been participating, you are going to question the veracity of the Bible?

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Yes, I always question the veracity of the bible but that's beside the point. We are discussing whether God, as he is presented to us in the bible, is just. This question lies outside the question of the bible's veracity. It is also outside the question of what other religions believe, something you were commenting on and to which I responded.

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Phatboy responds to me:

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Biblical inerrency is a dicey topic.

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Maybe for you, but for me there's no question; the bible is NOT inerrant.

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I believe the Bible to be more than a book, in that it contains lessons, situations of moral ethics, and is mean't to be taken in a literal context of the time it is read...

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Whoa! I'm with you on the "more than a book" part since I should think that any Christian, liberal or conservatibe, would consider the bible to have some sort of quality not to be found in other books. But when I get to "is meant to be taken in a literal context of the time it is read" I wonder what the word 'literal' is doing there. Your wording suggests that you take the bible not literally but in the context of the time at which it was written. Is that true?

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The book of Job has some real and deep meanings for everyday life for those who seek to include a personal relationship with God as part of their life.

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But I don't see it that way. The story of Job is very unsettling to me. You focus on the behavior of Job, no doubt, but I focus on the behavior of God, and His behavior is reprehensible.The OT is replete with examples of God's wrath and contempt for mankind. It might have been impressive to the barbarians it was intended to strike fear into, but it is only impressive for all the wrong reasons to me. If all this stuff is true then why the hell is God worthy of worship?If you want to make the case that God is a good guy to me, then you'll have to be willing to drop the OT entirely along with most of the NT. Only the direct teachings of Jesus (and even then only, shall we say, after a fashion) are worthy of any sort of praise. The rest of the bible is valuable (and indeed priceless) as a historical record and as literature, but not as a moral guide.Perhaps this should be a topic of its own, but it seems to me that 90% of all fundamentalist Chrstians are far more interested in imposing their own interpretation of Mosaic nonsense and Paul's intolerant rants onto other people than they are in following Jesus themselves. How many of them ever read Matthew 6 or 7, or Luke 6 (to name only a few of the good teachings of Jesus) and seriously try to live by those words? How many of them really want marriage to be as Jesus defines it in Mark 10 or Matthew 19?

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