From: I3150101@DBSTU1.RZ.TU-BS.DE (Benedikt Rosenau)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: The Bible As A Rorschach
Date: 5 Jan 93 02:36:06 GMT
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Joe Beiter types:

(Deletions)
>>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?

>my only explaination comes from the Bible (ie: word of God).
>Psalm 58 (from a song David wrote).
>        "Do you rulers indeed speak justly?  Do you judge uprightly among
>men? No, in your heart you devise injustice, and you hands mete out violence
>on the earth.
>         Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are way-
>ward and speak lies."

I rate this at counterfactual. Almost everything implies that children from
the womb do not have the ability to speak lies. Even when one reduces the
'literality' of this assertion, young children do not meet the cognitive
requirements. Another case where the bible makes measurably wrong statements.

>----Psalm 51 (after David screwed up with Bathsheba).
>       4."Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in
>your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak.
>    and justified when you judge.
>          Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother
>conceived me."

This indicates that David is a lickshit.
However, sinful implies that he has sinned. In case an embryo can sin, a stone
can sin as well, so everything is sinful.


>>And, back to my assumptions, I think that gods have been invented
>>in order to rationalize/justify things like genocide.

>I'd bet you're right to.  Maybe not for that reason alone but I'd say they
>came in handy for an excuse.

Do you notice that I mean the Christian god as well?


Anyway, let me repeat the premises. According to the bible, humans know
what is good and what is evil. I say the deeds of the god in the bible
are evil. Thus, the god of the bible can not be all good, despite the
claims of its believers.
Further, I say that someone who is supposed to be omnipotent could have
done better than to create this world, and that it is evil for someone who
might change it for better to let it carry on the way it is. Every moment
counts as every moment sentient beings suffer.

You appear to say that we can understand the terms, but we do not generally
what things are good and evil, or else we would be able to judge your god.
Together with the assumption that your god is just, this forces you to define
any action of your god as just for him.
Don't you want to grow up? Or is the lack of responsibility your payoff from
beieving?

I note that you have dodged the question if a genocide, ordered by your god,
is ok.



>>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.

>I've not seen that in Christianity (I don't count the European Mid-Age
>political power as Christian).

True Christians against wrong Christians again. Those people in the middle
ages deemed themselves good Christians, and, in the absence of a better
measure, I will call them Christians and the mass of them Christianity.
That you think to be more of a Christian than they were seems to be an
important feature of Christianity (and other religions) but is of little
interest for the outsider.

Anyway, read Paul. You will probably consider him to be Christian. His regard
for the human rights of others is not high.

>>>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.

>Well I'm not talking about "Most" martyrs.  I'm talking about the dozen or
>so eyewitnesses that would have had the ablity to 'fudge' "The Bible".
>Specifically the apostles (excluding John who was not martyred).

Repeat: the evangelists were not persecuted, nor is persecution any proof, nor
are stories about persecution any proof that the people have died for or even
believed in the thing you say.

Eye witness: the point is, for many claims, that those who have written it
down are not the ones who could have seen it. Where is your evidence that
the actual witnesses and those who have written it down have been persecuted.
It is rather evidence that the bible has been fudged.

As far as the suppression of differing views goes, the NT canon does not
contain all texts about a Jesus from about that time. And especially the
Gnostic texts tell a different story. Including that Jesus did not die.
And the Gnostics have been suppressed, too, including being suppressed by
other Christians.

>>>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.

>except were talking about 17 or so that are mentioned in the New Testament.
>All that were either so stupid as to all get fooled (not one of them that
>all hung out with each other for several years saying "pssst. I really don't
>think he was God because ......").  To the extent of DEATH and all the crap
>they went through.  Remember they were bucking their country and the Romans.

The NT says that there were far more than 17 pupils during the life time of
Jesus, the numbers drop drastically with his crucifixion. Nor are there any
reliable sources about that more than few of the Apostles (if at all) kept
on.

I have no trouble to imagine that one madmen attracts 17 others.
Hitler could get millions of others in order to fight for the supposed
supremacy of the Nordic race. Although neither he nor many of those who
fought for it did meet the phenotypical requirements. And to extend the
analogy, more than 17 kept on believing despite losing the war refuted
the claim.

And Christians were simply one more sect. Didn't Shimon bar Kochba claim
that he was the Messias, too? And he got a bigger following of people who
died for it in his time than Jesus. I bet people kept believing that after
his death, though they were faced with death from the hands of the Romans.
Repeat no 2: most religions have similar stories to tell. Many can even
give better evidence for the persecution.

>There is no motive *I* can imagine for pre-meditated deception.

Lying for personal benefit? Being a big guru and being called a friend
of god when he walked the earth? The NT implies that the apostles who
carried on were the big chiefs of their community.

>I've not heard of the book of "Jesaia".  Is that the Hebrew name or Greek
>or just a really bad typo? :-)

Hmpphh, no. It is the German version of the name. I mean the guy who is
generally abridged Jes. Jes 9:6-9, says that peace will be ever increasing
after the coming of the Messiah. Every oh so temporal increase in war in the
last two thousand years refutes the claim that Jesus is the Messiah as
prophesied in the bible.
   Benedikt