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Because non-Christians don't have the light of God's wisdom to guide them through the Bible, they often take its various stories out of context to make them seem bizarre and barbaric. This video illucidates:
And what are your thoughts? Has Satan so deluded unbelievers that they are unable to collect the real and true messages from God's holy word? Do they, in fact, take, for instance, our loving Heavenly Father's instructions on how to beat one's slave to death out of it's merciful and benevolent context to suit their own rebellion against the Lord? Do they forget, for yet another instance, that it is actually okay to kill infant children, so long as the killing has been ordained by God? I mean, how hard is it to understand that God had to kill, enslave, forceably marry, pillage, alienate and terrorize the rival inhabitants of Bronze-Age Palestine? Personally, it is my experience that non-believers simply refuse to see these stories in their correct context, which is why I find this video so refreshing.
The Bible doesn't make any sense because the Bible doesn't make any sense. No Satan needed.
Edit: now I realize that this was an atheist parody. Thank you for driving home just how illogical and disgusting that compilation of ancient writings really is. Good on you, rep points coming your way.
The video is funny, for a little bit. It shows how Christians are apt to pick and choose when to apply contextuality. Just don't let it give the impression that every reference to proper contextuality is biased, or that Atheists don't practice the same sort of thing when it benefits them, as well.
Even then - proper contextuality is still not often applied, by either side. Modern political correctness, evolving philosophies, and thousands of years of interpretational readings have placed a large barrier between us and the original authors, and the time in which they lived.
The video is funny, for a little bit. It shows how Christians are apt to pick and choose when to apply contextuality. Just don't let it give the impression that every reference to proper contextuality is biased, or that Atheists don't practice the same sort of thing when it benefits them, as well.
Even then - proper contextuality is still not often applied, by either side. Modern political correctness, evolving philosophies, and thousands of years of interpretational readings have placed a large barrier between us and the original authors, and the time in which they lived.
Very TRUE, however, it's the idea that [some] Christians believe this was written by a "good" and "merciful" god that allows these passages to be filtered through that idea which amounts to sheer contradiction.
Personally, I don't believe ANY deity ordered, commanded or orchestrated anything in the bible so I don't blame any such thing. But for argument sake, I believe some unbelievers work with the Christian idea that one exists (the one in the bible) and then tries to show that it would be absolutely ludicrous that such a being could possibly exist as an ALL-wise, sentient, caring, loving, merciful deity.
Very TRUE, however, it's the idea that [some] Christians believe this was written by a "good" and "merciful" god that allows these passages to be filtered through that idea which amounts to sheer contradiction.
Personally, I don't believe ANY deity ordered, commanded or orchestrated anything in the bible so I don't blame any such thing. But for argument sake, I believe some unbelievers work with the Christian idea that one exists (the one in the bible) and then tries to show that it would be absolutely ludicrous that such a being could possibly exist as an ALL-wise, sentient, caring, loving, merciful deity.
Good points, indeed.
Yes - there have been many people (even believers) who have claimed that it is impossible for their idea of God to have been involved in the writing of the Bible - and I'm not just referring to what most people call "The Bible". This was evident even during the 1st Century AD when some rejected the books of the Hebrew Bible as barbaric and wrong, or some of the teachings of the Hebrew Bible - most notably among these were the famous Paul (of the NT), Marcion (who rejected the OT God completely) and numerous others. There's a reason the Hebrew Bible became known as the "Old" Testament (or Covenant, more accurately) - and the various 1st-2nd Century writings became known as the "New" Testament: many of the early church fathers believed that the God of the Tanakh was barbaric, his laws too old and complicated, and Jesus arrived to take care of this interpretational problem. From here, many different ideas of belief spawned and spread out - Christianity being the major outcome of this school of thought. So - the very criticisms that are leveled at Christians, are the very reasons why Christianity became so popular: they both seem to agree on certain points, but have different approaches.
The big problem - as shown in the video - is that everything might have been just fine and dandy if the Christians had just made a clean break from Judaism, and completely separated themselves. Then they could now claim that "yes, we agree - the OT God is a big ol' meany". But this break didn't entirely happen, because they kept using the Tanakh - the Old Testament, as they called it. Some scholars suggest that this continued usage of the OT was in order to give themselves validity in the eyes of their critics - the Romans. The Romans were extremely tolerant of other religious systems (contrary to popular belief) and even made special exceptions for those who praticed Judaism. The reason they made special exceptions was because of the supposed antiquity of the jew's beliefs and scripture - and this impressed the Romans. Contrary to how we view things today, the ancients respected antique things, older things; they believed this gave the ideas validity and time-tested proofs. So Judaism was respected and tolerated because of it's age, - while the new, fresh sect of Judaism that was becoming Christianity was under extreme suspicion by the Romans. I won't go into the reasons here (they are easily available from one of the more popular writers, like Ehrman), except to point out that the Romans distrusted new cults.
So how do take care of this problem? Well - the original intention (it could be argued) of the new Christian sect was to completely break from the writings of the "Old" Testament, the written law code that went with it, the oral teachings that some of the jewish teachers were promulgating to help mitigate the harshness of the written law, and the 'harsh' God of the Tanakh (it's a bit simplistic to speak of the "Old" Testament or the Tanakh at this point, however - since the canonization hadn't taken place and it was still in a fluid state of transmission). We can see the Christians desire to rid themselves of their Judaic heritage in many writings. But - in order to gain at least a slight semblance of respectability and validity with the Romans, some of them decided they needed to keep the Old Testament (and it's 'validity'); some of them decided to soften the impact of the laws by just getting rid of them, save for a few - this made Gentilic acceptance easier. Thus, Judaism becomes this new, fresh religion that has rejected the old God's harshness - but retained just enough to give them validity: they could now claim, to the Romans, that they were just as old as the jews, and were - 'in fact' - the correct jews, the jews that were actually continuing the old tradition! Unfortunately for the religion that spawned them (Judaism), this eventually meant that it was to be rejected and persecuted. It's one of the most bizarre historical events to ever happen, in my opinion.
So - the idea of a harsh God was already known, and dealt with in a strange way. This left the Christians with the Old Testament, however - and the same harsh god that they started with. Whoops.
This - however - is just a view of the Christian reaction to the harsh Yahweh. And again - it's a later view than the one shared by the original authors. The Israelite notion of deity didn't start out that different from other peoples (as you have seen in another thread on Abram's gods) and only later did it coalesce into a monotheistic god of the Universe. The ancient peoples of a nation or tribe would have had no problem with seeing their god as an avenging or protecting deity, willing to slay their enemies or being utter ruin on them. We find this, not only in the Bible, but in every other single nation's religious documents from the Ancient Near East - we just don't have rabid anti-Mardukists, or anti-Inannaists running around condemning these writings. We must remember that our world is different from their world.
With that said - when the Israelite notion of deity eventually changed into a strict monotheism, and a god of Universal power - the biblical writers had to repeatedly struggle with the harsh problems this brought about: the entire question of Theodicy. I don't think I need to explain that one - everyone should be familiar with Theodicy by now. The biblical authors approached this, wrestled with it, struggled with it. The struggles evolved - and we finally find ourselves, possibly, at the doorstep of Christianity and the issues they wrestled with. More struggling, and we end up here - in modern times. Still struggling.
I guess - and I keep saying this whenever I get the chance - not every believer is a fundamentalist who believes that God himself wrote "the Bible". This idea isn't even technically "funadmentalist" - for nowhere is it to be found anywhere in the Bible: Hebrew or Christian.
The video is funny, a little drawn-out, but you're right: the main problem that is being addressed is that some people believe God wrote the Bible. But, this is child's play - surely, the value of "The Bible" is not to be found in it's authorship, and neither is it's importance to be destroyed by pointing out the foibles of a few hard-core orthodox believers, or in it's "barbaric" teachings?
Anyways - I didn't mean to go off topic, in case this has happened. Carry on!
Good points, indeed.
Yes - there have been many people (even believers) who have claimed that it is impossible for their idea of God to have been involved in the writing of the Bible - and I'm not just referring to what most people call "The Bible". This was evident even during the 1st Century AD when some rejected the books of the Hebrew Bible as barbaric and wrong, or some of the teachings of the Hebrew Bible - most notably among these were the famous Paul (of the NT), Marcion (who rejected the OT God completely) and numerous others. There's a reason the Hebrew Bible became known as the "Old" Testament (or Covenant, more accurately) - and the various 1st-2nd Century writings became known as the "New" Testament: many of the early church fathers believed that the God of the Tanakh was barbaric, his laws too old and complicated, and Jesus arrived to take care of this interpretational problem. From here, many different ideas of belief spawned and spread out - Christianity being the major outcome of this school of thought. So - the very criticisms that are leveled at Christians, are the very reasons why Christianity became so popular: they both seem to agree on certain points, but have different approaches.
The big problem - as shown in the video - is that everything might have been just fine and dandy if the Christians had just made a clean break from Judaism, and completely separated themselves. Then they could now claim that "yes, we agree - the OT God is a big ol' meany". But this break didn't entirely happen, because they kept using the Tanakh - the Old Testament, as they called it. Some scholars suggest that this continued usage of the OT was in order to give themselves validity in the eyes of their critics - the Romans. The Romans were extremely tolerant of other religious systems (contrary to popular belief) and even made special exceptions for those who praticed Judaism. The reason they made special exceptions was because of the supposed antiquity of the jew's beliefs and scripture - and this impressed the Romans. Contrary to how we view things today, the ancients respected antique things, older things; they believed this gave the ideas validity and time-tested proofs. So Judaism was respected and tolerated because of it's age, - while the new, fresh sect of Judaism that was becoming Christianity was under extreme suspicion by the Romans. I won't go into the reasons here (they are easily available from one of the more popular writers, like Ehrman), except to point out that the Romans distrusted new cults.
So how do take care of this problem? Well - the original intention (it could be argued) of the new Christian sect was to completely break from the writings of the "Old" Testament, the written law code that went with it, the oral teachings that some of the jewish teachers were promulgating to help mitigate the harshness of the written law, and the 'harsh' God of the Tanakh (it's a bit simplistic to speak of the "Old" Testament or the Tanakh at this point, however - since the canonization hadn't taken place and it was still in a fluid state of transmission). We can see the Christians desire to rid themselves of their Judaic heritage in many writings. But - in order to gain at least a slight semblance of respectability and validity with the Romans, some of them decided they needed to keep the Old Testament (and it's 'validity'); some of them decided to soften the impact of the laws by just getting rid of them, save for a few - this made Gentilic acceptance easier. Thus, Judaism becomes this new, fresh religion that has rejected the old God's harshness - but retained just enough to give them validity: they could now claim, to the Romans, that they were just as old as the jews, and were - 'in fact' - the correct jews, the jews that were actually continuing the old tradition! Unfortunately for the religion that spawned them (Judaism), this eventually meant that it was to be rejected and persecuted. It's one of the most bizarre historical events to ever happen, in my opinion.
So - the idea of a harsh God was already known, and dealt with in a strange way. This left the Christians with the Old Testament, however - and the same harsh god that they started with. Whoops.
This - however - is just a view of the Christian reaction to the harsh Yahweh. And again - it's a later view than the one shared by the original authors. The Israelite notion of deity didn't start out that different from other peoples (as you have seen in another thread on Abram's gods) and only later did it coalesce into a monotheistic god of the Universe. The ancient peoples of a nation or tribe would have had no problem with seeing their god as an avenging or protecting deity, willing to slay their enemies or being utter ruin on them. We find this, not only in the Bible, but in every other single nation's religious documents from the Ancient Near East - we just don't have rabid anti-Mardukists, or anti-Inannaists running around condemning these writings. We must remember that our world is different from their world.
With that said - when the Israelite notion of deity eventually changed into a strict monotheism, and a god of Universal power - the biblical writers had to repeatedly struggle with the harsh problems this brought about: the entire question of Theodicy. I don't think I need to explain that one - everyone should be familiar with Theodicy by now. The biblical authors approached this, wrestled with it, struggled with it. The struggles evolved - and we finally find ourselves, possibly, at the doorstep of Christianity and the issues they wrestled with. More struggling, and we end up here - in modern times. Still struggling.
I guess - and I keep saying this whenever I get the chance - not every believer is a fundamentalist who believes that God himself wrote "the Bible". This idea isn't even technically "funadmentalist" - for nowhere is it to be found anywhere in the Bible: Hebrew or Christian.
The video is funny, a little drawn-out, but you're right: the main problem that is being addressed is that some people believe God wrote the Bible. But, this is child's play - surely, the value of "The Bible" is not to be found in it's authorship, and neither is it's importance to be destroyed by pointing out the foibles of a few hard-core orthodox believers, or in it's "barbaric" teachings?
Anyways - I didn't mean to go off topic, in case this has happened. Carry on!
Not at all. I actually enjoyed reading this as I knew this already but you stated it far better than I ever could. I've said time and time again that [some] Christians are unaware of the two-edged sword they reach for when it comes to the bible. On one hand, they find great need for the Old Testament in trying to establish their Jesus as the PROMISED messiah everyone NEEDS to accept as their savior. They also point to so-called fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (predicted and fulfilled in the bible itself which is VERY unimpressive) as confirmation that the bible MUST be the "word of god." On the other hand, they are forced to come up with creative explanations to explain away the conflict between the rather benign, loving, merciful god of the New Testament with the bloodthirsty god of the Old Testament who they claim is one in the same. It's a case of trying to have their cake and eat it to and having a difficult time doing so.
Not at all. I actually enjoyed reading this as I knew this already but you stated it far better than I ever could. I've said time and time again that [some] Christians are unaware of the two-edged sword they reach for when it comes to the bible. On one hand, they find great need for the Old Testament in trying to establish their Jesus as the PROMISED messiah everyone NEEDS to accept as their savior. They also point to so-called fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (predicted and fulfilled in the bible itself which is VERY unimpressive) as confirmation that the bible MUST be the "word of god." On the other hand, they are forced to come up with creative explanations to explain away the conflict between the rather benign, loving, merciful god of the New Testament with the bloodthirsty god of the Old Testament who they claim is one in the same. It's a case of trying to have their cake and eat it to and having a difficult time doing so.
ha ha - yes, indeed! Very good post.
Maybe this is a good way of puting it:
When it's helpful - it's the Hebrew Bible.
When it's hurtful - it's the Old Testament.
Unfortunately - I think it's Christianity that has given Yahweh his bloodthirsty visage. Taken as a god of the times, he was fairly representative of the people (if one posits that a god is a reflection of those who create him/her) - and not much bloodier than any other god. He was actually a lot milder than some. At least you knew what would make him angry and get you killed - unlike some of those other gods and their unpredictable actions lol!
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