Do poly atheists know the Bible?

[Kidlicious]

Also look at Job 32. Elihu rebukes Job for "justifying himself instead of justifying God."

[Ben Kenobi]

Elihu rebukes Job for "justifying himself instead of justifying God."

Elihu is teaching error.

Job 34:11-12

Far be it from God to do evil,
from the Almighty to do wrong.
He repays everyone for what they have done;
he brings on them what their conduct deserves.

And again:

Job 35:8-9

If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
or what does he receive from your hand?
Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,
and your righteousness only other people.

Job 36:8-9

But if people are bound in chains,
held fast by cords of affliction,
he tells them what they have done—
that they have sinned arrogantly.

And again:


Job 36:17

But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked;
judgment and justice have taken hold of you.

Elihu assumes that God only punishes the wicked. Therefore, if someone is in misfortune, that they are wicked and have sinned and angered God. This is not so. We know that God can divide the righteous from the wicked and that there is a difference between the two. We know that suffering can happen to the righteous, for God is not the source of the suffering.

Thus, Elihu assumes that Job is wicked because he suffers. God has mercy for the poor, for the imprisoned, for those who are suffering. Their lowly station is insufficient to judge them.

Elihu also assumes that obedience towards God's laws has no effect on him. That God does not truly love us, and that because he does not kill us, we should obey him. He denies that we can have a relationship with God and that sin afflicts our relationship with him first and foremost.

Finally, God is a loving God - he does not repay us as we are due.

[Aeson]

Because you enjoy sitting on your high horse and judging previous generations for not being so morally advanced? In that case, you should just get it over with and call yourself a bigoted immoral monster, because you great, great grandkids sure will because of some position you hold that will become morally repugnant a few decades from now (it may be eating animals, who knows?).

Which means if I write a poem about why people should "do X without question", future generations probably shouldn't base their morality on that poem.

[Kidlicious]

Elihu is teaching error.

Job 34:11-12



And again:

Job 35:8-9



Job 36:8-9



And again:


Job 36:17



Elihu assumes that God only punishes the wicked. Therefore, if someone is in misfortune, that they are wicked and have sinned and angered God. This is not so. We know that God can divide the righteous from the wicked and that there is a difference between the two. We know that suffering can happen to the righteous, for God is not the source of the suffering.

Thus, Elihu assumes that Job is wicked because he suffers. God has mercy for the poor, for the imprisoned, for those who are suffering. Their lowly station is insufficient to judge them.

Elihu also assumes that obedience towards God's laws has no effect on him. That God does not truly love us, and that because he does not kill us, we should obey him. He denies that we can have a relationship with God and that sin afflicts our relationship with him first and foremost.

Finally, God is a loving God - he does not repay us as we are due.

Doesn't change the fact that he is right that Job justifies himself instead of God.

[Kidlicious]

Why even teach your kids and grandkids about morality. They should teach you.

[Aeson]

Once again, I'm going to chalk this up as missing the forest for the trees. The complete disregard for anyone but Job in the story is a narrative feature of the parable ...

You're the one missing all the trees for one single tree. (An ethereal tree that cannot be seen, touched, and which the source says shouldn't be questioned.)

I can see all the trees. There's the tree of trusting God. There's the tree of God doesn't punish people simply for being bad. There's the tree of God making a wager with Satan. There's the tree of Job's suffering. There's the tree of Job's family suffering and dying. There's the tree of Job getting back 10 fold what he lost.

That's the forest, all the trees taken together. And the proper response to the forest is to point out that it's claiming a moral authority about something that cannot be empirically tested (and indeed, the claim is shouldn't be questioned at all) while displaying moral failings. For me the obvious conclusion is to say that Job is a story from an obviously flawed source with no evidence to back it up, and has no real moral authority.

Anything of value that can be derived from the story of Job is valuable in and of itself, rather than because of it's inclusion in the story. (eg. Bad things happen to good people sometimes. Which still has some applicability these days, usually in an economic sense.) The rest of the story rather detracts from the message, rather than supports it.

[Aeson]

Why even teach your kids and grandkids about morality. They should teach you.

That's like saying that because we can expect future generations to have technology even more advanced than we have now, that we should put them in loincloths out in the forest and let them try to survive without any modern inputs. It misses the obvious point that for future generations to build off of what we have now, we have to pass on what we have now for their "starting point" to build on.

[Ben Kenobi]

Doesn't change the fact that he is right that Job justifies himself instead of God.

There are other examples where the downtrodden have pleaded to God for their deliverance. One of the parables is the persistant widow who obtains justice through knocking at the door of the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat grants justice because the widow is persistant in demanding justice. Job is not wrong to question why he is being punished when he is a righteous man.

We are told, by Christ, to "ask, seek and to knock", and to take active steps towards doing what we can to obtain justice not merely sit around and complain. Prayer is petition and God will hear the cries of the poor and the downtrodden.

[Kidlicious]

That's like saying that because we can expect future generations to have technology even more advanced than we have now, that we should put them in loincloths out in the forest and let them try to survive without any modern inputs. It misses the obvious point that for future generations to build off of what we have now, we have to pass on what we have now for their "starting point" to build on.

But if you dismiss something as a moral authority becsuse it's not written from feminist/modern perspective then you are going to dismiss all traditional morals which is what I see happening. You grew up in church but more and more the younger generation doesn't. They won't have any starting point. They are going adrift.

[Kidlicious]

There are other examples where the downtrodden have pleaded to God for their deliverance. One of the parables is the persistant widow who obtains justice through knocking at the door of the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat grants justice because the widow is persistant in demanding justice. Job is not wrong to question why he is being punished when he is a righteous man.

We are told, by Christ, to "ask, seek and to knock", and to take active steps towards doing what we can to obtain justice not merely sit around and complain. Prayer is petition and God will hear the cries of the poor and the downtrodden.

God rebukes him. I'm not going to argue with you about it.

[Ben Kenobi]

God rebukes him. I'm not going to argue with you about it.

God actually credits him, as I posted earlier. I'm sorry the bible doesn't square up with your faith.

[Ben Kenobi]

it's claiming a moral authority about something that cannot be empirically tested

Is there a moral authority that can be empirically verified?

[Imran Siddiqui]

You're the one missing all the trees for one single tree. (An ethereal tree that cannot be seen, touched, and which the source says shouldn't be questioned.)

I can see all the trees. There's the tree of trusting God. There's the tree of God doesn't punish people simply for being bad. There's the tree of God making a wager with Satan. There's the tree of Job's suffering. There's the tree of Job's family suffering and dying. There's the tree of Job getting back 10 fold what he lost.

And the problems is that you not only don't see the forest, you mistake the forest for a tree. The story's point is the value of faith in God even in the midst of the sufferings we endure - that ain't a tree, that's the forest in the story and the rest of the details are the trees that make up that story.

The rest of the story rather detracts from the message, rather than supports it.

The framing story most evidently does not detract from the message - as it is to deflect the common belief that sufferings are due to lacking God's favor due to something that has been done to you. What can be the most blameless way someone in the Jewish community can suffer tragedy? God refuses to get involved when the Accuser attacks due to a test - tests have been used in much of Scripture as well (just jump over to Abraham and Issac). The protestations of Job's friends, which was common Jewish thought at the time - was shown to be wrong due the inability to actually know God's plan.

Even today people seem to fall into the trap of thinking if you fail it is due to you not praying hard enough or working hard enough. The Book of Job is a message to that mode of thinking - suffering happens to the righteous as well as the unrighteous and it isn't due to the unfavor of God - the reaction should be to continue in faith and trust).

[Aeson]

And the problems is that you not only don't see the forest, you mistake the forest for a tree. The story's point is the value of faith in God even in the midst of the sufferings we endure - that ain't a tree, that's the forest in the story and the rest of the details are the trees that make up that story.

No, it's just a tree you pick and claim is the forest while ignoring all the other trees. (There are probably plenty of other trees in the story too, I just named a few off the top of my head without going back and reading through Job again.)

The forest is the sum of all the trees.

The framing story most evidently does not detract from the message - as it is to deflect the common belief that sufferings are due to lacking God's favor due to something that has been done to you. What can be the most blameless way someone in the Jewish community can suffer tragedy? God refuses to get involved when the Accuser attacks due to a test - tests have been used in much of Scripture as well (just jump over to Abraham and Issac). The protestations of Job's friends, which was common Jewish thought at the time - was shown to be wrong due the inability to actually know God's plan.

Even today people seem to fall into the trap of thinking if you fail it is due to you not praying hard enough or working hard enough. The Book of Job is a message to that mode of thinking - suffering happens to the righteous as well as the unrighteous and it isn't due to the unfavor of God - the reaction should be to continue in faith and trust).

You're myopically focusing on one aspect of the tale to brush off arguments about other aspects of the tail. There are many messages in Job, not just one.

[Aeson]

But if you dismiss something as a moral authority becsuse it's not written from feminist/modern perspective then you are going to dismiss all traditional morals which is what I see happening. You grew up in church but more and more the younger generation doesn't. They won't have any starting point. They are going adrift.

There is a difference between dismissing a moral (on it's own merits) and dismissing a source's authority on the subject of morality.