From: I3150101@DBSTU1.RZ.TU-BS.DE (Benedikt Rosenau)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The Bible As A Rorschach
Date: 29 Dec 92 22:11:46 GMT
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Joe Beiter types:

>>Fundis appear to work on the following premises: God is Good and the OT (plus
>>the NT for christians) is the word of god. However, when one actually reads th
>>OT (instead of thinking one knows the content), one finds a lot of disturbing
>>stories of genocide, mass murder, killing of almost every living being,
>>slavery, and mutilation ordered or directly done by god. Looks like the
>>premises given above contradict, doesn't it?
>>Interestingly, a Fundi came up with an excuse like: Genocide, when ordered by
>>god, is ok.

>Justice, when it is Just, is OK.  You appear to assume God has your sense
>of what is acceptable and what is not.  Did you actually know the people God
>killed?  How do you know they didn't deserve death in the eyes of God?
>For your assumption of contradiction to hold water you would have to know
>both God and the people that were killed intimately.

So you are another of the 'Genocide, when ordered by God, is ok' camp?

As far as my assumption of contradiction is concerned, we have the following
premises:
God is good and man knows good and evil (a consequence of having eaten from
the tree of knowledge). In order to keep your god just you have to assume
that the people who have been killed did deserve it.

So how exactly do children deserve to be drowned in the flood?
Have you got an explanation that holds water? Is it a Good thing to do?
What information is to be derived from the statement 'god is good', when
one gets such counterintuitive statements?

And, back to my assumptions, I think that gods have been invented
in order to rationalize/justify things like genocide.
People who refer to commands of god in order to bypass human rights
are potentially dangerous. The history of religions is full of people
who could simply claim that they were on a mission from the various gods,
and do the worst atrocities unchallenged.


>>>Actually not, because his biographers - or inventors - could have easily
>>>adjusted the biography to fit the prophecies.

>and then proceed to be crucified, boiled in oil, stoned, sawn in half etc...
>knowing full well the lie they were dying for.  The fact is, they either
>witnessed the fullfilling of these prophecies and deemed it worth dying for
>or they fudged and knew the real truth.

This is wrong. Most of the Christian martyrs cannot have seen Jesus, if he
has ever existed. And there are only few and dubious pointers to that the
evangelists (our sources) have been persecuted. You base your claim on
the wrong group of persons.

>hint: Start claiming all the apostles really didn't get martyred and IT was
>      all a lie too!

Exactly. The source for the persecution of the apostles are examples of
partisan writing. The simple assumption that they were ordinary people
who have been fooled by a charlatan/madman and whose pride did not allow
them to admit that they have been fooled explains everything. Especially
when one takes the possibility that they were mad themselves into account.

Religious zealots exist in many cultures. You will find similar stories all
over the world. This alone refutes the claim that persecution is evidence.
And god who relies on 'see me suffer' is a sick god. Apply this to the
believers as well.

>>Further, the authors of the NT could not adjust the biography because the
>>prophecies about a messiah are too, er, well defined. Jesus postponed them,
>>but even when one buys into Christianity, to say that he *has fulfilled them*
>>is counterfactual.

>in what way?

He has not fulfilled them. Jesaia 9:6-9 is one example, if memory serves.

>>And, assuming that the bible is a Rorschach, then I maintain the claim that th
>>god who inspired it is a lousy communicator.

>I wasn't aware that givers of the Rorschach were supposed to communicate what
>the viewer was to see.

Those who take the Bible as a Rorschach, interprete the parts of what we are
supposed to see symbolically, too.
   Benedikt

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