A few questions for fellow atheists

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Frogman


The only answer must be that he doesn't want us to know for sure. But if you don't believe it, your a$$ is toast. I work hard to be a Christian, but this concept just beyond my understanding. God's either sick and twisted or we have something wrong here.

No, there are two possible answers: the one you presented or that he simply doesn't exist. As I said earlier, I'm pretty much agnostic, so I'm not going to debate whether or not there is a God. As far as I'm concerned, one is much better off taking the approach of saying "I don't know how to explain it" than fumbling about trying to offer up explanations that can so easily be shot down.

[Frogman]

Kontiki, we agree. I said, we have something wrong here, the possibility of no God is implied. I'm a God leaning agnostic, I battle both ends of the spectrum.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well, I ignored the thread, expecting a quiet little atheist gathering to compare various brands of atheism and agnosticism.

Instead what do I get? SO many questions about the Christian God.

I'm only up to the third page, and I have enough material for a few posts.

So here goes:

neomega:

ME: Do you know what I John 4:8 says?
GIRL: I don't know, you tell me.
ME: You are out here preaching and you don't know your Bible?

In context: 1 John 4:7-11

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.


First question, what should 'love' be rendered as? English is a very poor language, the greek here uses the word agape or self-sacrificial love.

How do we know that God is love?
The most obvious expression of God's love for us is in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God. In order to use 1 John 4:8 you have to acknowledge several things.

1. Christ is the Son of God.
2. Christ's death on a cross
3. Inherent sinfulness of Man
4. The hope of eternal life.

Now where is the evidence for all four of these points?

1. We see in the line above, that

"He sent his one and only Son into the world"

This Son is Christ as we can see from just a little further in the passage, verse 15.

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God."

2. Christ's death on a cross.

"sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for[3] our sins."

Once we know that Christ is the Son of God, it becomes clear that this passage refers to Christ's death on the cross.

3. For the inherent sinfulness,
"This is love: not that we loved God,"

This presupposes that our love is somehow deficient to what love should be. God loved us not because we are worthy of his love, but because he loved us first. Christ needed to be crucified because no other sacrifice would be sufficient to save us from our sins.

4. "that we might live through him."
What does this mean? To live through someone alludes to the eternal life promised to all who believe in Christ. Christ will sustain a believer not only in this life, but until the next life as well.

[Ben Kenobi]

Master Zen:

One of my best friends is a die-hard Christian. He argues that people who don't embrace Jesus are never "saved". I argue that what if some African or Southamerican native tribe never hears of jesus in their life they are not saved? It's not their fault that "information" never reached them. He argued that missionaries would find them. I said he had no proof that that would happen. He said that if not then it is said in the Bible that jesus would make his word heard to them someway or another.

This is one way to answer this age-old question Master Zen. Here's another explanation, from a post to Berzerker:

If God can come to Abraham, why can he not come to others as well? In this sense, many who have not heard the Gospels can still know God and to do His will.

"Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ, of His Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience."

Salvation outside the Church

F. A. Sullivan.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79733

[Ben Kenobi]

Jack the bodiless:

Except that Christianity doesn't actually provide any guidance on abortion. The only condemnation of abortion is in the Didache, which didn't make it into the Bible. The Old Testament, on the other hand, apparently recommends the administration of an abortifacient if you suspect your wife of infidelity:

You neglect one passage,
Exodus 21:22-25

"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [5] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

The most important point in this passage is that the clause, no serious injury applies to both the mother and the child. The same for the application of Lex Talionis, applied to both the child and the mother. If the mother miscarries because of the actions of the men, the men are to pay with their lives.

How different is this from abortion? The point is that the bible treats this child as the moral equivalent of the mother, that injuries to one are no different to injuries to the other. If this is so, how can one justify abortion?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Jack the bodiless:



You neglect one passage,
Exodus 21:22-25

"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [5] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

The most important point in this passage is that the clause, no serious injury applies to both the mother and the child. The same for the application of Lex Talionis, applied to both the child and the mother. If the mother miscarries because of the actions of the men, the men are to pay with their lives.

How different is this from abortion? The point is that the bible treats this child as the moral equivalent of the mother, that injuries to one are no different to injuries to the other. If this is so, how can one justify abortion?

You're relying on a blatant mistranslation.

The original King James version is thus:

If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

And the Revised standard King James:

22 "When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

The passage is very much saying that if the mother miscarries (the child dies), the man is not liable for a death, just a fine for harming the mother. The wording of "premature birth" is a rather cynical deliberate mistranslation!

If a man only gets fined for an act that causes the death of the baby, but doesn't cause the death of the mother, how can you say a doctor who legally aborts with the consent of the mother is doing something akin to murder? This passage contradicts that idea.

[Frogman]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Well, I ignored the thread, expecting a quiet little atheist gathering to compare various brands of atheism and agnosticism.

I'm a newbie here and I knew better than that

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm a newbie here and I knew better than that.

Frogman:

Hope springs eternal.

Boris:

Read carefully. This is an important point that the NIV clarifies with 'premature birth.'

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child,so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow:"

What does 'fruit depart from her' mean? Premature birth seems like an accurate translation, as the fruit departs from her womb. The men are fined if the child is merely injured in accordance with the Mosaic Law. If the child dies, then Lex Talionis applies. No mistranslation in the NIV but rather a clarification.

[Master Zen]

Since some people have answered many of these points, I'll only add things that haven't been said:

Originally posted by Elok

SWEATSHOPS: An agrarian life involves less labor for better sustenance, and doesn't ruin the health of the worker. It's also more steady employment-sweatshops USE PEOPLE UP to meet bigger quotas for less cost. You cannot work 18-hour shifts every day without it destroying you in the long run. Ignorant sweatshop workers are strung along by the hopes of saving money for their families. The conditions they live in deaden them, body and soul. Try working like that for a couple of weeks. See if you're capable of making a rational decision at the end of it. Honest employment my ass. The wages are pathetic, the benefits nonexistent, the toll horrible. Even farming would be better.

Correction: a nice FIRST WORLD agrarian life. Pay a little visit to see the misery of agrarian life in the third world, just a few miles south of your border, and trust me, sweatshop life at least guarantees you'll eat. No such luck for those in the fields.

I actually spend very little time worrying. I just refuse to accept flaws as bound to happen. I don't call them human nature because we all have moments of clarity, at some point in our lives, when truth becomes apparent for an instant. As I have told others on this board before, I am autistic. I have spent most of my life in inward contemplation. Stupid or cruel ideas are, in my experience, NOT a product of the human imagination.

Then neither are brilliant and humane ideas either.

Altruism: I suppose we can agree that a greater capacity for good and a greater capacity for evil are related, but like I said, there are many animals that help their friends selflessly and do nothing spiteful. Gorillas. Geese, as I mentioned. Hyenas. Animals that will go out of their way to help for no personal benefit, but will not harm without a chance of benefit. If they don't do heroic acts of altruism, that may very well be due to the fact that some animals don't have the intellectual capacity or the ability to overcome instinct, not to any quality of character. Actually, thinking about it, the fall ostensibly had effects on nature too, so I suppose comparisons are moot. The only answers come from inward contemplation.

Neither do they have the intellectual capacity for our type of evil by nature. Can a gorilla organize the extermination of 6 million people by itself no. How could the fall have efects on nature too!!!! that is just wrong... No animal understands the concept of god. It's a man-made idea and it will die with us.

If your happiness depends on argument, you're the one with the problem. I debate for intellectual stimulation. The squabbling and unpleasantness I could do without.
Lastly...

Do you mind if I take a look at the time machine you used to prove that? Not that I don't trust you.

I debate for the same reasons. BTW, do you mind if I take a look at the time machine you used to prove that life was so great before the so-called "fall"?

[Jack the Bodiless]

Read carefully. This is an important point that the NIV clarifies with 'premature birth.'

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child,so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow:"

What does 'fruit depart from her' mean? Premature birth seems like an accurate translation, as the fruit departs from her womb. The men are fined if the child is merely injured in accordance with the Mosaic Law. If the child dies, then Lex Talionis applies. No mistranslation in the NIV but rather a clarification.

It is ambiguous at best, as it's not clear who must suffer the "mischief": it could be the mother. But, even in societies where abortion is legal, the killing of a fetus without the mother's consent is considered to be a serious crime. The existence of such a law cannot be taken as proof that abortion is illegal.

Besides, Exodus and Numbers are both in the pentateuch. It's reasonable to assume that the legal system was the same in both: a system in which abortion is OK (even without the mother's consent) if infidelity is suspected.

...And I think the use of an abortifacient is pretty clear there. Elok's argument is that the Bible doesn't specify toxic ingredients: so what? I expect the true ingredients were secret, the priest wouldn't want it to be generally known that he was administering poison! (...and it also gives him the discretion to rig the result either way). But even if we take it at face value, and harmless ingredients are miraculously made toxic: what effect would a mixture which causes "her belly to swell and her uterus to rot" have on any fetus she might be carrying? The answer is obvious.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [5] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Is the emphasised part in the original text, or simply something the translators added?

[Elok]

After I answer this latest round of questions, I'm gonna call it quits for this discussion, for me, at least for a while. We're obviously not finding any common ground and I'm getting tired of going in circles. Hopefully this will not lower your opinions of me, but I'll leave it in Obi-Wan's hands.

Kontiki:
Taking over our minds and forcing us to believe is a blatant invasion of privacy by anyone's standards. Why don't you ask the government to eliminate crime by replacing our brains with computers? Think, man.
In my experience, the nature of the atheist mind, or any fanatical mind, is such that, when determined not to believe, he simply will not believe. There is no miracle that cannot be refuted with some sort of half-assed argument. Just look at what Master Zen said: a violation of the laws of physics demonstrates an inadequacy in our current laws of physics. Five thousand columns of water are an anomaly of the earth's magnetic field, which also caused a peculiar sonic vibration similar to the way lightning causes thunder. That's incredibly stupid, but make your miracle and watch someone say that or something even better. I realize that this argument cuts both ways, and that atheists say the same thing about Christians, but the difference is that Christians will take something on faith. If you tell a skeptic of any kind that a truck is about to hit him from behind, he will insist you prove it by holding up a mirror for fear that you will pick his pocket while his head is turned to look. It will never occur to him to take your word for it and jump out of the way. That, at least, I will call "human nature," after a fashion.

Master Zen:
Like I told him, I take the fall on faith. Actually, I take most things on faith, combined with a gut feeling. It's irrational, but it's true. I'm just saying that if you do all according to reason you should demonstrate why you tell truth rather than bias. Sorry to disappoint you, but I intend to take full advantage of my position as a man of faith, even if it seems pathetic.
On all other grounds except sweatshops(I'll reluctantly concede that point), we're getting into matters of pure opinion. Can we agree to disagree? Like I said, our discussion feels like it's outlived its usefullness.

Jack:
Conspiracy theories are, in my opinion, just plain sad. Anyway, assuming an innocent concoction, through Christian eyes the evil of abortion is that it takes human life by human hands. Divine judgment is respected. From a legal standpoint, I feel abortion should be outlawed because it is the duty of a government to protect ALL of its constituents. I don't think you've accused me of the usual "imposing your personal moral beliefs on innocent people first amendment blah blah blah" crap, but I wanted to say that just in case.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Elok
Kontiki:
Taking over our minds and forcing us to believe is a blatant invasion of privacy by anyone's standards. Why don't you ask the government to eliminate crime by replacing our brains with computers? Think, man.
In my experience, the nature of the atheist mind, or any fanatical mind, is such that, when determined not to believe, he simply will not believe. There is no miracle that cannot be refuted with some sort of half-assed argument. Just look at what Master Zen said: a violation of the laws of physics demonstrates an inadequacy in our current laws of physics. Five thousand columns of water are an anomaly of the earth's magnetic field, which also caused a peculiar sonic vibration similar to the way lightning causes thunder. That's incredibly stupid, but make your miracle and watch someone say that or something even better. I realize that this argument cuts both ways, and that atheists say the same thing about Christians, but the difference is that Christians will take something on faith. If you tell a skeptic of any kind that a truck is about to hit him from behind, he will insist you prove it by holding up a mirror for fear that you will pick his pocket while his head is turned to look. It will never occur to him to take your word for it and jump out of the way. That, at least, I will call "human nature," after a fashion.

Why do you keep digging this hole for yourself? Again, you're using some part of western law to put limits on what God can and can't do. You originally were addressing why God doesn't reveal himself to us, and your counterargument to my suggestion is that it would be an invasion of privacy? Please. Or are you suggesting that US law is directly handed down from God or that God is beholden to US law? If he is all-knowing and all-powerful and wants to reveal himself, why wouldn't he just put the notions in our minds and make us unable to think differently? There is no comparison between what God can and can't do and what the government can or can't do.

As for any other "miracle", like the water columns I suggested, do you not think that it would be a little harder to dismiss something that so obviously flies in the face of every scientific principle than appearing in a burrito in Mexico? You're right, some would seek alternate answers, but remember that this is one suggestion. Try another, and remember, like I said, go to the limits of your imagination and start multiplying from there. There are degrees to which it is easier to dismiss events, and tiny, isolated "miracles" hardly seem to be the best way to get your point across.

Another thing that springs to mind is this:
If God created all of us in him image and so dearly loves and cares for all of us, then why does he seem so unconcerned that at no point in human history (unless you take the Bible literally) did anywhere close the majority of humanity ever even conceive of the Christian God, let alone worship him?

[Ben Kenobi]

Jack:

It is ambiguous at best, as it's not clear who must suffer the "mischief": it could be the mother.

Ambigious in the English, not in the Hebrew. The hebrew tense for mischief has plural objects, the mother and the child. I'll see if I can't find the article making this argument.

UR:

Is the emphasised part in the original text, or simply something the translators added?

AFAIK this is part of the original, it's just a way of describing Lex Talionis.

[Ben Kenobi]

If God created all of us in him image and so dearly loves and cares for all of us, then why does he seem so unconcerned that at no point in human history (unless you take the Bible literally) did anywhere close the majority of humanity ever even conceive of the Christian God, let alone worship him?

Kontiki:

What about the account of the flood? If God were not concerned about the preservation of the godly people, then why did he intervene to destroy most of the people on the Earth?

Secondly, regarding your earlier point:

You originally were addressing why God doesn't reveal himself to us, and your counterargument to my suggestion is that it would be an invasion of privacy?

A better argument is this:

Look at Christ's temptation, Matthew 4:5-7

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:

" 'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' "

Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' "

This quotation is from Deuteronomy 6:16

"16 Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah. "

How did the Israelites test God?

From Exodus 7:17

"because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, 'Is the LORD among us or not?' "

The people called on God to deliver a miracle to prove his existence. This is the same as having God appear before you. The reason we should not test God is because the very act of testing shows our lack of faith.

In this one instance God chose to reveal himself through Moses. Since God has provided ample evidence for his existence, it stands to reason that further testing demostrates your lack of faith in his earlier appearances.