Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: In Job, Lucifer was proved right!
From: rhuss+@EDRC.CMU.EDU (Robert Huss)
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:19:26 GMT
Distribution: world,public
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

In article <1hspfdINNl1o@im4u.cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
|> -*----
|> parsons@cis.ksu.edu (Scott S Parish) writes:
|> > Satan was the one coming before God accusing Job of only serving God
|> > for the cash, land, camels, sheep, etc.  So, to prove Satan wrong He
|> > allowed Satan to rake Job over the coals.  It wasn't so much to punish
|> > or torture (as you put it) Job, as to put Satan in his place. ...
|> 
|> Job is a much more subtle and interesting story than most
|> Christians realize.  Because the plot does not well serve 
|> simplistic morals, many Christians tend to forget how the story
|> goes (assuming they had ever read it in the first place).
|> 
|> In the story, after his last tribulation, when Job is suffering
|> disease, loss of loved ones, and poverty, he curses and rebukes
|> Yahweh.  Yahweh gets pissed off at Lucifer -- because Lucifer had
|> fooled him or because Lucifer was correct about Job? -- and
|> restores Job to health, familial love, and wealth.  Only then
|> does Job once again sing his god's praise. 
|> 
|> Oh, the morals that can be drawn from this story!  Lucifer was
|> proved right about Job and Yahweh wrong.  Does this mean that we
|> should take Yahweh's attitudes about how people are and what they
|> can be with a grain of salt?  Does the story show that Yahweh
|> does not know as much about the people he created as he thinks he
|> does?  
|> 
|> It is also curious that Yahweh gets pissed off at Lucifer rather
|> than Job after Job curses him.  Does this mean that Yahweh
|> realized he had been unfair to Job?  (What does this say about
|> some of the other ways the Old Testament records Yahweh treating
|> people?  Perhaps Yahweh's followers should not accept his
|> treatment so blindly.) Job is restored to good graces despite his
|> ultimate disloyalty.  Perhaps the moral is that one should only
|> take so much shit from one's god before complaining. 
|> 
|> Any of these conclusions are consistent with the tale.  But the
|> story does *not* support the typically Christian conclusions:
|> that Lucifer was wrong (in the story, he was right), that Yahweh
|> knows what will happen (in the story, he didn't), and that one
|> should always be loyal to Yahweh (in the story, Job wasn't).  
|> 
|> Russell

	Hmm... I think you better read the end of Job again.  I have read
it, and in the version I read ( I suppose different editions of the Bible 
have slightly different versions), Job did not Curse God when he reached
his limit.  He stayed faithful to God throughout stepwise losses:  Children,
animals, home, wife, and finally his own health.  When he did break down,
it wasn't to curse God, as his wife had suggested to him.  It was to ask
God Why?  This is when God got forceful with Job.  He rebuked Job for
asking God to explain himself, since God did not need to explain himself
to man. 
	The people I knew who actually believed this was a True tale,
did not exactly think of it as an ideal example of the Christian God.  Most
Christians distance themselves from the God of the Old Testament.  
	It is certainly possible to look at this story and think that God
is a bit nasty, but it doesn't suggest that he was Wrong.  Any God willing
to place waggers at the expense of his worshipers losses 5 points in my
book.  But that isn't really the point of Job.  I think what most Christians
get out of it is that they should not base their faith on how good life
is going for them.  God's plan is inscrutable, and many will suffer, even
as part of his plan.  I think that's the moral Christians manage to pull out
of Job.

Bob "Satan gave me all of Job's stuff" Huss
 
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