From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The Bible As A Rorschach
Date: 30 Dec 1992 16:46:05 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

In article <1992Dec30.015338.23357@arden.linet.org> joeb@arden.linet.org (Joe Beiter) writes:
>>>
>>>Justice, when it is Just, is OK.  You appear to assume God has your sense
>>>of what is acceptable and what is not.
>>
>>This is an example of one of my biggest objections to christianity:
>>the abuse of language.  A typical dialogue with a christian begins
>>with such bland pleasantries like "God loves you" and "Believe and
>>gain eternal life".  Only later, after much discussion and study,
>>does one learn that the meaning of such words as "love", "life",
>>and "justice" actually contain a different meaning than they do
>>in normal discourse.
>
>abuse of language?  How does one abuse language?

READ the above paragraph again.  It explains exactly what I
mean by 'abusing' language in this context:  using ordinary
words in idiosyncratic ways.

>I'm not out to 'trick'
>you or confuse you.  If the gospel is that confusing to you then I'd say
>you did very little "study".

I am not confused by the gospels.  They contain a few good 
statements of moral values, a few horrible ones, a few clever
parables, and a lot of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.  There are only
two essentially unique messages in the NT which are not in
the OT:  (1)  Jesus is some sort of prophet/messiah, probably
divine (whatever that means), and (2)  the world will be
coming to an end within a few years after Jesus' death.
The first message is untestable, and the second message
is wrong.

>Try finding out *why* they are telling you
>'God loves you' instead of taking the face value..... that is if they 
>know.  Several people have pointed out that many if not most Christians don't
>even know whats really in the Bible.  As a Christian I've observed this to
>be true.....sadly.

One of the more laughable (if not so tragic) attitudes of many
christians, and nearly all christians who post in alt.atheist,
is that other christians have somehow missed what is "really"
in the bible, whereas the poster has somehow magically 
discovered the truth.

Try to see how this looks to non-believers:  a gaggle of interpretations,
all based on certain parts of the bible, most containing
some degree of textual validity, most convinced that their
interpretation is the correct one, most convinced that
the wrong interpretation could/will lead to eternal torment.
Bah!

>>>Did you actually know the people God
>>>killed?  How do you know they didn't deserve death in the eyes of God?
>>
>>The only reason that YOU believe that these people deserved death
>>is your willingness to abandon independent judgement in favor
>>of trust in an arbitrarily selected religious tradition.
>
>Naw I grappled with it.
>God created man for a specific reason.  Fellowship. He is, by his own 
>definition, Holy and will not tolorate sin.  If HIS creation does not
>work the way he intended it to, does he not have the right to scrap it?

Sure.  But this would hardly be the action of a loving person,
or even a benevolent one.  Besides, if God is as wise as
is claimed in the bible, he has known for all eternity 
how his experiment in humanity would turn out.

>Oddly enough, I'm still trying to figure out why the animals had to be
>killed if they were doing what they were supposed to.

Beware!  Adam & Eve were punished for seeking such 
knowledge!  :)

>>>For your assumption of contradiction to hold water you would have to know
>>>both God and the people that were killed intimately.
>>
>>Wrong.  When I hear a story of a child being killed, I don't
>>really have to know the child or the killer to conclude
>>that a breech of justice has occured.  But then, I'm just
>>a plain ol' human who thinks that human life has an inherent
>>value;  maybe if I achieved your level of God-consciousness
>>I would be able to know which humans "deserve" death.
>
>Our differences lie in blame.  You blame God for doing what he said he 
>would do.  I blame those that were responsible for incurring his wrath.

Shelters are full of victims (mainly women and children) who incurred
the wrath of spouses and parents.  There are clinical terms applied to
people whose actions are totally out of proportion to the
situation, but in normal language they are referred to
as "psychotics".  It is healthy to avoid these people,
not worship them.

-- 
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       A Lie is still a Lie, even if you believe it.
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