The "Horrific God" Charge

Originally posted by vistesd
I want to make a few “sideboard” comments:

First, Bennett’s reductio applies to a god who fits the two Os. Any theist can drop either O and escape the reductio. Many are unwilling to do so. But it is only that god who cannot exist as a conclusion of the reductio; as a nondualist, I find plenty of other reasons to reject the notion of the god of em through. When I get to the end, I’ll order the next volume.

Be well, all my friends!

—I do not mean that as a criticism. I once presented a long (for on here, even for me) and detailed exegesis of Second Isaiah from a Jewish perspective to show that Jewish options for identifying the “suffering servant” as somebody (in the main, klal Ysrael itself) other than Jesus can be well-supported by the text. I recall saying that I would not respond to comments from people who had not read the whole thing, because of the carefully layered and argument with mutually reinforcing textual references, etc. Jaywill patiently did, and offered what I thought was a valid counter—based on his acceptance of the New Testament as the proper hermeneutical lens to understand the Hebrew Scriptures. That put us at impasse, but it was a perfectly valid position for him—or any Christian—to take; I couldn’t reasonably expect otherwise, or, reasonably, be frustrated.

Thanks. I tried I think.

The teachers who have enfluenced me would readily admit that Isaiah has the "Suffering Servant" motif in alternate reference to:

Cyrus
Isaiah himself
Israel
A future Messiah.

We can see that. I think the principle that govenrs our enthusiasm to point out the Messiah (Christ) as central is in understanding "whatever the promises of God there are, in Him is the Yes ..."

Something greater than Solomon is here, says Jesus.
Something greater than the temple is here.
Something greater than Jonah is here in Jesus.
Christ is the anti-type of all the types.
See (Matthew 12:3,4,41,42)

Christ would be the real restorer of the house of God to whom Cyrus the pagan ruler ultimately points.

Christ would be the real Prophet to encourage to whom Isaiah the prophet points.

But I would warn any believer not to resist too strongly an exegesis pointing out that the immediate context of some of Isaiah probably refers to Cyrus or the prophet Isaiah himself, or to Israel in a collective sense the servant of God.

Originally posted by vistesd
I want to make a few “sideboard” comments:

First, Bennett’s reductio applies to a god who fits the two Os. Any theist can drop either O and escape the reductio. Many are unwilling to do so. But it is only that god who cannot exist as a conclusion of the reductio; as a nondualist, I find plenty of other reasons to reject the notion of the god of em through. When I get to the end, I’ll order the next volume.

Be well, all my friends!

I do not understand all of your concept about non-dualism and details of the history are not really important. I think this is much "de-myth-ing" and theologically liberal approach to the text.

“Then YHVH said to Moses, "Write this as a reminder in a record [document, book] and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

For what it is worth to any more "literal" Bible readers -

The Amalekites were really nasty to Israel. They snuck around behind the exodus and killed all the strangling and weak travelers in the rear (Deut. 25:17-19)

They were one set of enemies hell bent on Israel's annihliation. God tells Saul to "utterly destroy" [harem] and "not spare" the Amalekites - including "both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

No use to deny it. This is really harsh. The Amalekites were a nomadic people who were strong enemies of Israel from the moment they crossed the Red Sea (Exodus 17).

If you take the Bible text seriously, then it means that KNOWING the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, presumably by the power of God the Creator, the Amalekites were all the more hell bent on Israel's destruction.

I think I recall that God said something like Amalek is "a hand against the throne" . Check me. I believe the word picture of the word Amalek is one whose violent hand is fighting against the very authority of God's throne.

In the Bible there are sins against God's holiness and sins against God's authority. Some interpreters say that a sin against God's authroity is more serious than a sin against God's holiness. They say rebellion against the authority of God is more problematic than a sin against God's spiritual pureness, His holiness.

Any way the "Hand Against the Throne" Amalekites attacked a weary and unprepared to fight crowd of Jews, at their most vulnerable position, in the rear of the crowd where the lame, tired, and weak were.

The Amalikites were a relentless enemy to Israel for generations (Judges 3:13; 6:3-5, 33; 7:12; 10:12, etc.)

Now take note that CLEAR OBLITERATION is instructed to the prophet Samuel. So that must mean that there were absolutely no Amalekites left. Right ? Well, no.

Maybe here is where vistesd has some point about how literal should the text be taken. Amalekites remained in the Old Testament as referenced latter in First Samuel and other books. In First Samuel 27:8 - "David and his men went up and raided -

the Geshurites,
the Girzites,
and the Amalekites ..."

The "utterly destroy[ed]" Amalekites were still there. Can we deduce from this that some men, women, and children Amalekites were not killed by king Saul ? I think we have to understand it that way.

When David captured the booty of the Amalekites 400 of them escaped (1 Sam. 30:17):

"And David struck them from twilight until the evening of the next day; and not a man of them escaped except for four hundred young men, who rod upon camels, and fled." (v.17)

But if you go back to chapter 15 king Agag seems to have been the ONLY Amalekite left alive after Saul utterly destroyed them.

Two points in this post:

1.) The Amalekites were really evil to the nation of Israel.

2.) God did not commit utter genocide because the Amalakites continue to appear in the Old Testament.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I've said that the creator gets to do what the creator wants.
I've said that unlike man God isn't trying to figure out anything and wondering
what will happen next if things go abc or xyz. So seeing the beginning from the
end gives God a perspective that is beyond that of mortal man.

I told you the greatest two laws brought down by God to man both rev ...[text shortened]...
towards something must better, and those that want no part of it get their
way too.
Kelly

"I've said that the creator gets to do what the creator wants."

Yes, but that means nothing other than might makes right and has no moral value whatsoever.

"I've said that unlike man God isn't trying to figure out anything and wondering
what will happen next if things go abc or xyz. So seeing the beginning from the
end gives God a perspective that is beyond that of mortal man."

And you base this on your complete lack of evidence whatsoever allowing you to make up gods
attributes by pulling them from your posterior.
The god as recorded in the bible is evil and horrific by any sane or reasonable estimate and thus
the bible god can't be perfectly moral.
If your getting your god concept from elsewhere then fine but you don't worship the god of the bible
any more.

"I told you the greatest two laws brought down by God to man both revolved
around love, not might makes right."

And I don't care, we don't need good and evil defined to us by some all powerful deity we can, (and have),
work them out for ourselves. What god is purported to do according to the bible is evil.

"So love as it isn't worked out but instead
human selfishness is has a spoiled quality to it. God is working out our failures
towards something must better, and those that want no part of it get their
way too."

This is actual gibberish.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No, it's what WE call good. WE being the society in question.

Watch the lecture I posted the links to for the explanation of what I mean.

Also which part of using "evidence and reason" did you not understand?

This negates your because I say so rejoinder.

Incidentally if I can't call you an idiot I see no reason to allow you to do so to me.
Somebody report him to the mods please.

No, it's what WE call good. WE being the society in question.
Really? What is the critical mass for 'WE,' exactly? Two? Twenty? Two hundred? Do you think it's even remotely possible that we could find two million people who consider the same heinous activities an acceptable means of expressing themselves? Your appeal to numbers loses traction before the engine begins to start pulling the weight.

Incidentally if I can't call you an idiot I see no reason to allow you to do so to me.
Somebody report him to the mods please.
So if I have this straight, you're able to call the creator of the universe a blithering idiot, but God forbid the insult change direction. Right? The point of the pointed salvo was to highlight the poor construction of your thinking. You can't hardly remove God from His creating/labeling capacity without replacing Him with another agent carrying on the duties. Any rejection of His performance ensures eventual rejection of anyone else put in His place. No other insult was intended.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]If God called murderous treachery leading to sadomasochistic cannibalism good, guess how we'd all be spending our afternoons?

You should take this as some sort of reductio against the idea that whatever it may be that God calls good, is thereby good.[/b]

That's an easily solved dilemma. Very little since the recreation of the Earth has been called 'good' by God. Can you think of anything which could be construed as 'good' in His eyes which, in the normative sense of the word, would be bad?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
That's an easily solved dilemma. Very little since the recreation of the Earth has been called 'good' by God. Can you think of anything which could be construed as 'good' in His eyes which, in the normative sense of the word, would be bad?

No, you argued that god could claim that "murderous treachery leading to sadomasochistic cannibalism"
was good and that if he did so we would all be doing it.

This implicitly states that god can define morality anyway he sees fit simply by virtue of being god.
Might makes right and all that jazz.

LJ's point was that this is a pretty clear argument that whatever god calls good is not by definition good,
simply because god says so.

Your response does nothing to rebut or refute this and misses the point entirely.

Try again.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]No, it's what WE call good. WE being the society in question.
Really? What is the critical mass for 'WE,' exactly? Two? Twenty? Two hundred? Do you think it's even remotely possible that we could find two million people who consider the same heinous activities an acceptable means of expressing themselves? Your appeal to numbers loses traction ...[text shortened]... nsures eventual rejection of anyone else put in His place. No other insult was intended.[/b]

WE being the society in question, however many people that is, collectively deciding what their morals should be
for their own benefit and well-being.

Again watch this ... http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html
for a full explanation of what I mean.


And yes I can call god whatever I like because A, god doesn't exist, and B isn't posting on these forums.
However in this instance I didn't call god anything,
I said and I quote...
"If god parted the sky tomorrow and in a booming voice decreed that "sadomasochistic cannibalism was
a good thing" we would respond "no it bloody isn't, go back to your cloud you blithering idiot.""

Note the if.

The point of your 'pointed salvo' was that you have no arguments and resorted to childish name calling.
All insults clearly intended and taken.

There is no need for any god, creator or otherwise, nor any reason to suppose that one exists.
I don't need to replace god with anything, god has no purpose that needs fulfilling.

Originally posted by googlefudge
No, you argued that god could claim that "murderous treachery leading to sadomasochistic cannibalism"
was good and that if he did so we would all be doing it.

This implicitly states that god can define morality anyway he sees fit simply by virtue of being god.
Might makes right and all that jazz.

LJ's point was that this is a pretty clear argume ...[text shortened]... ur response does nothing to rebut or refute this and misses the point entirely.

Try again.

Two different tacks, actually, both aimed at showing the weakness of the charge. Because of the emotional investment you've made in declaring your values as of higher standards than God's, you are committed to pointing out the supposed lapses or deficiencies in His values. The second tack addresses this by reminding the reader that precious little has been called good by God since before man was banished from the Garden.

The first tack is a lesson in obviousness. While you are again blinded by emotional fervor and an hyper-active righteous indignation, by simply removing the irksome concept, new light may infuse your renderings. Forget 'good' for the time being and focus your gaze on 'blue.' If God calls something 'blue,' by what standard does anyone other than God change the definition and/or description?

Originally posted by googlefudge
WE being the society in question, however many people that is, collectively deciding what their morals should be
for their own benefit and well-being.

Again watch this ... http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/10/matts-superiority-of-secular-morality.html
for a full explanation of what I mean.


And yes I can call god whatever I like becau ...[text shortened]... don't need to replace god with anything, god has no purpose that needs fulfilling.

WE being the society in question, however many people that is, collectively deciding what their morals should be for their own benefit and well-being.
Again, the collective group of like-minded [fill in the blanks] stand as a testament against your argument. And, if they weren't enough, appealing to numbers is the same as appealing to strength.

Note the if.
Ah, I see how you're playing the game. Well, since I said "once you remove God," and you clearly are not capable of doing so, my sentence is only an insult toward you if you're successful in removing Him. That was fun! Let's do another one, can we?

There is no need for any god, creator or otherwise, nor any reason to suppose that one exists.
I don't need to replace god with anything, god has no purpose that needs fulfilling.
Says the guy spending inordinate amounts of time in the spirituality forum...

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Two different tacks, actually, both aimed at showing the weakness of the charge. Because of the emotional investment you've made in declaring your values as of higher standards than God's, you are committed to pointing out the supposed lapses or deficiencies in His values. The second tack addresses this by reminding the reader that precious little has be ...[text shortened]... ,' by what standard does anyone other than God change the definition and/or description?

No, I am not going to go round and round arguing things of no relevance to the original argument.

Answer the original argument (you have not yet done so) or go away.

The question is, can god declare anything to be moral simply because he says so?

You have argued that if god declared something we know to be bad good we would all think it to be so.

We have disagreed (refuting this point) and argued that your claim that this is so leads inexorably to the
conclusion that what god thinks on the subject of morality is irrelevant, as we have our own sense of
morality that we will apply to any pronouncement or action he might make.

You have not responded in any relevant or coherent way to this point, and until you do I am not going to
divert into any other meaningless diversion you create to divert from the fact that you can't answer this point.


Try again.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]WE being the society in question, however many people that is, collectively deciding what their morals should be for their own benefit and well-being.
Again, the collective group of like-minded [fill in the blanks] stand as a testament against your argument. And, if they weren't enough, appealing to numbers is the same as appealing to strength.
...[text shortened]... lling.[/b]
Says the guy spending inordinate amounts of time in the spirituality forum...[/b]

Their are inordinate numbers of theists who think gods exist.

Also theism isn't the only game in spirituality town.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Their are inordinate numbers of theists who think gods exist.

Also theism isn't the only game in spirituality town.

Gosh, if I didn't know better, I'd say that pretty much all of theists consider God's existence as real. Maybe my understanding of theism is a bit hazy.

Also theism isn't the only game in spirituality town.
Here's where the word 'inordinate' might better come into play.

Even though theism isn't the only game in spirituality town, googlefudge spends an inordinate amount of time attempting to debunk it.

There. Much better.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Gosh, if I didn't know better, I'd say that pretty much all of theists consider God's existence as real. Maybe my understanding of theism is a bit hazy.

[b]Also theism isn't the only game in spirituality town.
Here's where the word 'inordinate' might better come into play.

Even though theism isn't the only game in spirituality town, ...[text shortened]... b]inordinate[/b] amount of time attempting to debunk it.

There. Much better.[/b]

Actually I spend very little time on it, and I spend zero time on it outside of these forums.

Theism is effectively non-existent in my real life (going with convention for non internet life here)

There are however a host of real issues which are important and I care about (that I don't
however meet on a day to day basis) that get claimed by theists as 'their' territory and that
they feel should be considered in a 'spiritual' or 'theistic' light that matter to everyone, theist
or not. And I don't feel like conceding that territory to theists, not to say their opinion doesn't
matter, just that others opinions also matter and they don't get to run the game entirely.

Also theists considering god to be real is entirely consistent with me saying that they think god
exists. Your understanding of English appears to be rather hazy.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Actually I spend very little time on it, and I spend zero time on it outside of these forums.

Theism is effectively non-existent in my real life (going with convention for non internet life here)

There are however a host of real issues which are important and I care about (that I don't
however meet on a day to day basis) that get claimed by theis ...[text shortened]... that they think god
exists. Your understanding of English appears to be rather hazy.

Palm slap to head.

Actually I spend very little time on it...
Excepting the inordinate time you are here.

and I spend zero time on it outside of these forums.
That must be hard to manage.

Also theists considering god to be real is entirely consistent with me saying that they think god exists.
You think? That must be why I made light of your absurd statement in the first place.

Your understanding of English appears to be rather hazy.
Well, at least my understanding of your English appears to be rather hazy.

Originally posted by bbarr
Before I begin my defense of premise (2), I'd like everybody to think carefully about what (2) claims. All (2) is claiming that there has occurred, at least once, an instance of suffering that was not logically necessary for the greater good.

Recall that by 'greater good' here, I'm not adopting any particular ethical theory. I am presuming that moral nihil from previous steps; they do not depend on the contents of the comments.

COG (Callousness of God): Given two possible states of affairs, A and B, if A involves more suffering than B, and A and B are equivalent in regards to the goodness they instantiate and/or bring about, God does not take the extra suffering involved in A to weigh in favor of B.

B involves some suffering.

A involves considerable more suffering. (its reverse here be careful)

But both A and B instantiate the same goodness.

So if God does not take the way of less suffering, B He is callous. He is permitting unnecessary suffering, and seems to do so for no good reason.

That's the argument here ? Anyone?

I take it that most theists will think COG runs contrary to God's general beneficence, so I will not pursue this much further. In any case, the endorsement of COG entails that if God exists, he is both morally perfect (by definition) and unmoved by unnecessary suffering.

What if the amount of goodness can be tuned by God as the ages roll to a greater and greater degree ?

Let's take two suffers.

The widowed woman in Luke 21:1-4:

"And He looked up and saw the rich casting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a certain impoverished widow casting there two lepta. And He said, Truly I ttell you that this poor widow has cast in more than all of them. For all these out of their surplus have cast in something into the gifts, but she out of her lack has cast in all the living that she had."

Let this widow who suffered poverty be Suffer A.

We need another sufferer. Let's take Zacchaeus of Luke 19:1-10.

"And Zacheus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, the half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four times as much." (Luke 19:8)


Let this tax collector turned disciple be Sufferer B.

Let us say that by being led to relinquish material wealth BOTH suffered.
The widow suffered because her last little amount of money she gave up in faith. The tax collector suffered the pubic shame of having to admit he had cheated people not to mention the large amounts of wealth he had to restore leaving him with considerably less or perhaps even nothing.

God accomplished some GOOD because each of these two sufferers. If I understand the argument this God must be CALLOUS. Let's assume that the widow, Sufferer A Luke 21, really suffered more. So if God could accomplish what He wanted through the tax collector Zaccheus (Luke 19) then He is CALLOUS that He chose not to eliminate the experience of the widow of Luke 21.

The problem with this criticism is that because God is eternal He can continue to multiply and multiply the amount of good done by the one who suffered more, throughout sucessive ages.

Let us say that within the first 100 years of the writing of the gospels 20 people were so inpired by the Zaccheus story that they sacrificed to restore $ 100,000 of money gotten by shady means.

Let us say that in the same 100 years the story of the widow of Luke 19 enfluenced various poor people to give a total of $10,000,000.

Let us, for the sake of argument, not contest that these monies given served good causes which we could all agree were worthwhile.

As the centries pass on God could use one account to touch the consciences of people to sacrifice in faith that God will take care of them, and give. It is up to the Holy Spirit how many people He wishes to convict, touch, move and inspired by these two testimonies.

It is possible that the last pennies that the widow put in at the end of history accumalted in TRILLIONS of dollars from the inspired by the story of Luke 21. It is possible that the restored wealth gotten through ill gain God accomplished MILLIONS of wealth given from conviction by Luke 19.

We are not transcendent over time and cannot really judge how much good God can continue to work because of the person who suffered more.

God who inhabits eternity and say, knows all that will happen throughout eternity, knows. And in time it may appear that He is CALLOUS because we do not know the wider outcome of His choices.

But it is overwhelmingly plausible (if not strictly analytic) that if it is in one's power to effortlessly prevent suffering that is absolutely unnecessary, then one has a moral obligation to prevent such suffering.

I think I could also say that God has a moral obligation to prepare an event, the potential of which, is sufficient to do needed amount of good. And that amount may exceed what we presently judge as enough.

God, having the eternal perspective, could position the greater sufferer A to be enough to cover for unknown amounts of good which we do not even anticipate. Therefore to us, if we did not have faith, we might view Him as CALLOUS for permitting unnecessary suffering.

To fail to do so would be callous by definition, and callousness is ordinarily understood to be incompatible with moral perfection.

What we judge as "failure" from out standpoint in TIME may not be at all.

Moses came back to Israel as an expected savior. He seemed to have FAILED as soon as he told Pharoah that God said "Let My people go" .

God had promised Pharoah would do so.
Moses expected it.
The Hebrews expected it.

God took time to outwork His goodness. Ten plagues latter Pharoah is sufficiently operated on to let them go. But immediately the first impression was that God was mistaken. Pharoah upon first request, had no intention at all to allow them to leave. God seemed as callous as Pharoah was perhaps.

We ordinary think that if one is callous one is thereby morally defective. Hence, the theist who rejects COG will have to maintain that God is morally perfect in a sense of 'moral' wholly dissimilar to any ordinary sense of 'moral', and this leads one to wonder just what the theist who rejects COG means by the claim that God is morally perfect. Of course, the theist may respond that since the content of morality is determined by what God wills, God cannot fail to be morally perfect.

This theists responds by saying "Wait, I say wait on the Lord." (Psalm 27)

NO, I DO NOT KNOW how God will work things out in every instance. But I do have a reasonable track record spanning a few thousand years, a resume, a history of His dealings with man from the time of Genesis to the end of the age. The track record inspires that divine callousness is only the appearance seen by unbelief too many times.

But when I was a very very young Christian, I began to read the book of Psalms. And it did strike me the number of times some Psalm writer was asking God WHY He would not act sooner. It surprised me that book claiming to be the word of God would reveal potentially embarressing or questionable delays in God's response to cries to illeviate some suffering.

I think while man is waiting on God, God is transforming that man by dispensing some divine element into his being. Either that or God is turning someone to Himself.

Now a question for the COG people:

Do you think that PROSPERITY and COMFORTABLENESS could also be a misfortune ? Could the absence of suffering work ill in a person's life or to the lives of others ? Ie. A SPOILED person, an UNTHANKFUL person, A blessed person who takes everything for granted or in foolish self sufficiency, a arrogant person who thinks he needs no others, a unappreciative person who cannot empathize with others in misfortunate circumstances. Can a totally HAPPY unsuffering person be afflicted with an inability to even understand that others may be suffering ?