Is Christ cruel? (For member Schrafinator)

Overall you do a creditable job of presenting the Christian point of view, and yet for you it's just an intellectual exercise as you don't believe any of it? Interesting.

Thanks faith, I was hoping I was representing things properly, if someone like yourself had said otherwise, I would have bowed out of the argument and conceded to Percy's statement about not doing Christians a favour.Is it just an intellectual exercise? Not just, it has two other reasons. One, I don't like misrepresentations presented about any subject. Most of the time I wouldn't know, but I have a fair (but imperfect) grasp on Christian theology, so if I see a theological argument that doesn't make sense according to my understanding, I might say something. I suppose that is tied in with the intellectual side of it, but it has another edge to it. Doing the text justice, I believe.The second is a spriritual matter. Though I refer you to Matthew 6, and say no more.

These are the words of Moses after he returned to the Israelite encampment with the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments to find that they had created a golden calf. It begins at Exodus 32:27: This is the story of Ananias and his wife Sapphira from Acts 5:1: Summarizing, we have a God who:

1. Orders the murder of those who stray.
2. Kills those who fail to tithe fully.
3. Sentences those who choose not to worship him to eternal damnation.

But, say this God's supporters, if you just heed his Word you will reside eternally by his side, and this is an example of his love and mercy for mankind. And certainly one find examples of God's mercy and grace in the Bible, too. But the overall picture is of a tyrant who heaps wealth and privileges upon those who kowtow and destitution and death upon those who won't.Of course, that's only an interpretation arrived at by assuming that this God has some kind of reality. The truth is that this God, like all gods, is the product of human psychology and imagination. The attraction he holds for so many is expected. After all, we made him in our own image. He's us, with all our virtues, contradictions and imperfections.--Percy

Yeah, I was pretty sure my position was coming across. It's pretty straightforward. But... You left one thing off the list: God created and enforces the rules. Since he's God, there's nothing preventing him from ceasing this senseless condemning of countless innocent souls to hell.--Percy

One of the cruelest examples of God's barbaric nature can be found in Joshua 7.The Israelites had just 'conquered' Jericho and had then failed to destroy Ai. The reason for this failure at Ai was said to be that God had not fought with Israel because someone had stolen some of the booty from Jericho, the booty that God had said was to be dedicated to Him.Achan admitted to stealing a few trinkets, and then: 20 Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath."

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22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent, with the silver underneath. 23 They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before the LORD.

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24 Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. 25 Joshua said, "Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today."

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Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them Fair enough, Achan had stolen some treasure, but what had his family done to deserve being stoned to death and then burned?Brian.

Hi Mod, I don't think that this is a suitable analogy, for several reasons.Firstly, there are only two customers in the Paradise Club.Secondly, the two customers were unaware that they were doing anything wrong as they had no concept of right or wrong at the time.Thirdly, the club manager has no right to punish people who don't want to come into his club.Brian.

I do not agree that this is about tithing. The preceeding text talks about the followers agreeing on owning all property together. People would help eachother and you'd get based on your needs, but you'd have to honestly give up the greed of wanting to own things.Anaias and Sapfeira tried to take some of the money themselves and trick the others of the community.The 'moral' of the story would be that it's not the money, and what specific troubles could come with withholding money, but the act of decieving that is the real sin.Of course, I find it rather horrifying to actually kill (or at least use this as an illustration) people because of something like this. Surely that goes against the whole idea of Christ helping people out because they can't always act perfect.

I haven't heard the point made before in terms of our all being outside Paradise and I think it certainly gets across how ALL of us are under condemnation, but I'm not sure it gets across how we deserve the condemnation.Basically, there is no such thing as our "not doing anything wrong." God wants to save us FROM our wrongdoing, which is in fact characteristic of us. His entire will toward us is to save us from His wrath, but there is no doubt that we deserve His wrath.All the examples in scripture of what people consider to be God's "cruelty" are God's just judgment for sin, for being far from "not doing anything wrong" and God waits a LONG time before He brings such judgment on anybody --centuries in the case of nations. I just want to emphasize this because it is really the crux of the complaint about God's "cruelty" -- the idea that God should not punish sin, or that sin isn't really all that bad, or however we rationalize it.

Hi Mod,I had some spare time to make a fuller reply.While I agree that your summary of basic Christian belief is accurate, I do think that your extremely well worded post actually demonstrates just how flawed The Fall of Mankind concept is.If we think it through, everything does indeed point to God as being an extremely cruel entity.For example: The point about this idea is that God would know that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit, the outcome of His little temptation was already known to Him and thus He created sin and death as a punishment for the inevitable Fall. He knew that Adam and Eve would Fall, and His punishment was way over the top. More like the act of a spoiled child than an all-knowing, all-loving God. I disagree. We are all guilty before we are born. If we weren’t held accountable then the default would be that we get into Paradise and then we can only lose that privilege. We are getting punished for something that had nothing to do with us. It is like sending me to jail because my great great great great great great granddad murdered someone. It exists because God created it, He created it in the knowledge that Adam and Eve would Fall. It wasn’t as if God didn’t know that they would fall, and even with this knowledge God created this horrendous alternative. Who wants to worship a God capable of doing that? The real calamity is that they didn’t have a clue that they were doing anything wrong! A God who not only knows the outcome of a test and then creates a horrible punishment for it, He then loads the dice in His favour so that the guinea pigs are guaranteed to fall. But, he is only willing to forgive us if we accept certain conditions, and those conditions are equally cruel. We have to accept that His son rose from the dead so that if we believe in His sacrifice and believe in out hearts that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour we get back in to paradise. However, in order for Jesus to be our saviour he has to be beaten to a pulp and then crucified, God would accept nothing less than His son being treated cruelly. More evidence that God is indeed a barbarian. He could have made any salvic path He wanted to, but no, He again a goes for the nasty and cruel option. Yeah, brilliant He doesn’t have to do that, all He had to do was resist the temptation to be a nasty God. He could have put the Tree on Pluto where it would be safe. But, He decides to put it under the noses of Adam and Eve, He put it there AND He knew that they would eat the fruit. He knew it would happen and He did nothing to stop it. But, this is virtually what He did do! He placed the tree under their noses, and then he kept certain information from them, they didn’t have all the facts that would allow them to make an informed decision. They didn’t know what right and wrong was until AFTER they ate the fruit. Again, this makes God a nasty creature.
Also, the warning He gives them includes something that they had no concept of. He says that if they eat the fruit they will die. Yet, as we keep getting told, there was no death before the Fall, so how would they know what death was? Death could have meant anything to them. But the big problem with this mercy is the conditions attached to it. We are being asked to believe events that are completely illogical and the conditions are also given to us in a book that has a horrendous track record as a source for anything that can be tested.The Bible is full of scientific errors, full of historically inaccurate information, full of plagiarised myths from other nations, full of contradictory accounts, so why should we trust the supernatural information in it? If the Bible cannot report a simple historical event accurately, then why trust the report on the conditions of making up with God again? Thus God is again cruel because He allows the conditions of salvation to be included in a book that is essentially unreliable on everything that can be tested within its pages. I disagree again. How does it stand to reason that you are barred from a club because some distant relation to you lost their membership? What if you went to join the Masons and they said, sorry, you cannot get in, a relation of yours was kicked out in 1734. It is completely unreasonable to punish someone for something that they did not do. Okay, say we don’t want to get back into paradise, what conditions has the club owner made for us to live in? Yeah, he is nasty isn’t He? Yep, and all the condition were down to Him. He knew everything that would happen, and he sat back and rubbed His hands with glee as his bloodthirsty nature was satisfied. Which is fine, it is his choice, but God loads the dice again, He makes the opposite of Paradise so horrible that we should all really want into paradise. So, when we come down to it, it really isn’t a choice at all. Thus God is cruel again, as He is basically saying, you better believe all this mumbo-jumbo about my Son or I will torture you forever. Again, both conditions are created by God in the knowledge that many of His creation will indeed remain outside of paradise. If that isn’t cruel I don’t know what is. And if we don’t swallow the nonsense about the resurrection we will indeed feel His wrath. Maybe if He had made something about the Jesus story a little bit believable things would be different, or if He had made sure that the Bible at least reflected reality a little it wouldn’t be so bad. But, no, God has to load the dice again by including the salvic path in a book of fairytales. I take it the Christian God cannot be found n the Bible then?
I did enjoy your outline of Christianity, and I know you are playing devil’s advocate. But, I like it when people explain Christianity in simple terms as it really does show how inane it is.Cheers.Brian.This message has been edited by Brian, 06-04-2005 01:00 PM

This is how God judges IDOLATRY, which is revealed elsewhere to be the worship of demons. The point is to teach us the evil of idolatry, but all it teaches unrepentant sinners is to complain about God's cruelty. Murder is done against innocents, these are guilty. Guilty of idolatry in the first instance, guilty of lying to God in the second. No, they had every right to give whatever they desired to give, but they lied to make it appear they were giving all when they were only giving part. There was nothing wrong with giving part, they were free to choose the amount, but instead they tried to make it look like a greater sacrifice than it was. That is for sure. If you can't see that God is just to punish violators of the laws of His own creation, miscreants in His own universe, disloyal subjects of His kingdom, and more than righteous to offer such malefactors a reprieve from the sentence of doom they so richly deserve, I guess you'll have to learn it the hard way. Remarkable how a pure fiction like the above will be believed by someone who prides himself on his toughminded scientific thinking.You really think we're like God, all the wimps who think He's cruel to judge us for our sins?

So, it's impossible to commit murder, because every man is a sinner?

Clever point, but wrong. These were specific crimes committed. In general we judge innocence and guilt in relation to specific crimes, God judges the heart but we have no right to judge the heart.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-04-2005 01:29 PM

Isn't that exactly what you're doing, though? Don't you have to judge the hearts of those people, to know that God was right to destroy them?

I'm puzzled why you would attempt a rebuttal where it is only necessary to point out that you're justifying the murder of people for the crime of idolatry, and defending it is as uncruel. Same thing here. You can have it your way, that Ananias and Sapphira were murdered for lying rather than insufficient tithing, but once again you're attempting to justify the murder of people for an extremely minor offense and defending it as uncruel.I assume you also defend Brian's example of murdering the offender's family and servants along with the offender as justifiable and uncruel.Once again you present your beliefs as axioms to be accepted without question, the axiom in this case appearing to be, "Rule 1: My God is never cruel. Rule 2: If my God behaves cruelly, see Rule 1."You wouldn't defend a person who behaved this way as uncruel, why are you defending this God? The answer is, of course, obvious. It is because he is your (the plural your of Christianity) beloved creation. He might not be a nice guy, but he's your guy.--Percy

Surprise, surprise! ... She's a fundamentalist Christian. That is what the religion is about; accepting without question fanastical things. You get to deny this world and live in world that is 6000 years old, that was once totally immersed in water, and someday you will live forever.It makes her feel better and she can deny science and does. Why would she change her beliefs for the uncertainties and the boring tedious difficulties of trying to understand science?... and yet it might happen. And the Cubs might win the pennant, after all God moves in mysterious ways!lfen