Straightforward, hard-to-answer-questions about the Bible/Christianity

Well, I have various difficulties.First of all, close your eyes and imagine a universe that was framed by love, that was fathered by justice, that was conceived by mercy, that was builded by righteousness ... and now open your eyes. See? We're obviously not living in that universe. It looks like we're living in a universe ruled by natural laws that don't give a tuppenny damn about us, and that the only justice and mercy we get is what we make ourselves.Let me give you an example. I saw some Christian on the Internet saying that after the Haitian earthquake, her very first thought was to wonder what god the Haitians worship. (It turns out they're 97% Christian.) Whereas my first thought, after "Damn", was to wonder what tectonic fault they lived next to. And I was right. To the true believer, it's a constant mystery why their god sends earthquakes to people living next to tectonic faults, sends floods to low-lying coastal regions, and sends droughts to places that are hot and dry. To me, these questions are trivial, because I don't have to work a beneficient deity into my answer.And second, and related to that, there's no evidence for a God, is there? It's not just that the evidence is ambiguous or difficult or capable of more than one interpretation ... there's nothing. Zilch. Bupkis. Nada. The people who ask me to believe in God are implicitly asking me to believe that there should be no discernible difference between the biggest and most important thing in the Universe ... and nothing at all. I don't buy it.(I guess that this is why so many religious people cling to creationism. Yes, it may be completely stupid, but at least it gives them a reason to believe in some sort of supernatural being, albeit a hideously unpleasant one.)Third, there's the question of the Bible-god in particular. Is there any need for me to go into details? Open the Old Testament at any page ... In order to believe that that is worthy of worship, I have to suspend not just my critical judgment, but also my moral judgment; because if that is good, then plainly I have no idea as to what is good and what is evil. Or, if it comes to that, any idea as to what is omniscient wisdom and what is asinine stupidity.And, following on from that, shouldn't the real God be special? Should he not be clearly distinguishable from imaginary deities? But the Bible-god is just like every other tinpot tribal deity. He likes blood and animal sacrifice and blood and genital mutilation and blood and the nationalistic wars of the tribe that invented him and blood and inexplicable dietary taboos and blood and genocide and blood and human sacrifice and blood and blood and blood. And more blood. There's nothing about him that makes me want to say: "Ah, yes, Tezcatlipoca is clearly a primitive superstition, but Yahweh, now he's obviously the real deal". All these tribal deities are the same. Wouldn't the real God be different in some way from the gods we've made up?Jesus I like. He is different. That's the one really compelling thing about the Christian mythos. But if Jesus really was the Old Testament god incarnate, then we ought to celebrate every Good Friday with cake and balloons and party squeakers. However, it's hard to believe that Jesus was the Old Testament god, because Jesus was nice, and never committed genocide at all, not even a little bit. The idea that they're the same person seems absurd on the face of it.

A perfect man chose to disobey God?

Fine. I accept. Sign me up for not going to Hell.Is there anyone who wants eternal torment? Well, they're welcome to it. But for me, if God exists then he can pardon me all he likes, I have absolutely no objection.

Not if you think that perfection isn't a subjective concept. You might as well say --- "Well, if God doesn't exist, then I don't have to explain or defend his actions". But you think that God does exist and is perfect; and it is your own beliefs for which you are required to provide apologetics, not a carefully selected mixture of your own opinions and those of atheists.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

No, that's just piggicide.

C. S. Lewis would disagree. Have you read The Great Divorce?

From the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on Hell:

If I leave a small child alone with a gun and a psychopath who likes to encourage children to play with guns, and that child subsequently shoots himself, then I am indeed guilty of reckless homicide, and it would be no defense to say that I told the child not to play with the gun before leaving him alone with the gun and the psychopath. This would especially be the case if I was secretly observing the events in the room and could intervene at any time I chose.Now, why should your imaginary friend be held to a lower moral standard than everyone else?

Perhaps you could explain why instead of just saying so. Why is this relevant? That's why my analogy included the proposition that I am in fact watching what's going on in the room and could intervene at any time. Children who know that their parents love them do not in fact invariably take their parents' advice. No. You can tell I'm not suggesting that by the way that I didn't suggest it. But without knowing good from evil, right?

May I take it that that was a demonstration of Christian humility? And yet apparently Adam was perfect and did not take his Father's advice.

No. Could you translate that into Sane, I don't speak Loony. Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic

Well, whether or not the snake was Satan, presumably we can conclude that whatever it was, it was perfect, just like Adam. (Of course, it defied God, but then so did Adam, and he was perfect, as we've established.)

And, according to your theological beliefs, he already knew the results of this test, yes? Kind of like leaving a child alone with a loaded gun when you are absolutely certain that he'll use it to shoot himself? I'm not following you. Couldn't he just have not eaten the fruit anyway?I've never stood on one leg while singing The Star-Spangled Banner. I have the choice not to do that, even though God has never explicitly forbidden me to do it. But without knowing the difference between good and evil, right? God did not say that, nor could Adam have understood him as meaning that. After all, that's just your metaphorical interpretation of the Bible --- but how did Adam know that God's word should not be taken literally? How was he meant to know which bits of the book of Genesis were meant to be taken as literal truth and which bits as fanciful allegory? He, after all, did not have a stalwart Biblical literalist such as yourself on hand to explain to him that some of it doesn't actually mean what it looks like it means.If only you had been there to explain to him that you can't take the word of God at face value, then maybe you'd have averted the Fall. As it was, that role was left up to the Serpent, and I'm sure that he didn't do nearly such a good job of it as you'd have done. This seems evident to those of us who know the difference between good and evil.---Your use of "good and bad" rather than "good and evil" introduces a certain ambiguity. Are you suggesting that Adam's sin lay in doing what was disadvantageous --- in doing something that was not good for him? You seem to be equivocating between the terms.If so, I should like again to ask, what price Adam the perfect man? Do perfect men do things that are simultaneously stupid and contrary to the will of God?If so, I must have met a lot of perfect people ...

But your interpretation of the Bible is not simple. If I tell you: "If you eat cyanide, you will surely die", who in their right mind would interpret this as meaning: "If you eat cyanide you will survive but I will no longer be friends with you"? That depends on whether I interpret it as a command or advice. If you say "You should fly to London by British Airways, because they're cheaper", and someone else says "No, Virgin Atlantic are cheaper, fly with them", then I wouldn't suppose that the second person was your enemy or that following their advice would make you angry. OK. So is a high-cholesterol diet. We wouldn't find someone morally culpable for eating a hamburger.But, fair enough, that's what you mean by "bad". Which leads me back to the original question, slightly modified. If Adam was "perfect", why didn't he avoid doing something which, according to you, he knew was bad for him?

Well, you could refine your explanation. The meat of it seems to be this passage from Message 60: Now, let's grant that Adam has free will. (Doesn't God also have free will?) Adam therefore had the ability to choose to defy God's commands in a way that, according to you, he knew would have bad consequences for him personally: he had the ability to choose a course both wicked and stupid. But would a perfect man so choose?If so, then, as I said, I must have met a whole lot of perfect people.But Christian theology also encompasses people with a better kind of perfection, which is an oxymoron. Jesus, for example, or the saved in heaven, apparently do not choose options which are wicked and stupid, despite possessing free will. If Adam was "perfect", wouldn't we have to say that they are "better than perfect"? --- which makes no sense.Edited by AdminPD, : Added Msg link