Do You Believe in God?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
502

[quote]The verse says that Elisha “went up from thence unto Bethel.” Surely you noticed the phrasing? He went up from Jericho. Bethel is situated in the hills north of Jerusalem. Its elevation is higher than that of Jericho. In order to reach Bethel from Jericho, one must ascend. In other words, one must go up.

Most likely, the kiddies were simply telling him to keep right on going up that road, which would lead him away from their city, and taking a cheap shot at his hairless dome in the bargain.

For which they paid with their young little lives.[/quote]

Arguments by outrage are a common debate tactic by atheists, but they don’t prove anything. They can be used to sway an audience that is unaccustomed to debates.

You’re attempting to show the audience here that the Bible is false because the prophet had children killed for insulting him (tu-quoque).

Apart from a generally accepted Western consensus that murder is wrong, you have to first provide a concrete source of morality upon which to base such condemnations.

So what is it? Who’s morality are you using to condemn the truth claims and moral arguments found in the Bible?

503

[quote]new2training wrote:

Your breadth of knowledge always amazes, informs, and entertains me. [/quote]

Thanks. I’m glad someone besides me is enjoying what I write.

I teach and I write for a living. I know this “stuff” because I had it force-fed to me as a kid, then later on I turned around and decided I’d rather try to understand it rather than just believe it. Natural curiosity and stubbornness at work, I guess.

[quote]My stab in the dark is that you are retired military/cia turned professor in a strange and foreign land.

Am I close?[/quote]

Not bad for a stab in the dark. You even drew a little blood, but I’ll live. :wink:

[quote]Not trying to pry, just curious.

Carry on :slight_smile:

[/quote]

Cheers.

504

Thanks for the response V.

Now I’ll let you go. Seems like you might have a formidable debate on your hands here.

Enjoy. I will.

Oh another question. You write…Fiction or Non-Fiction. Care to share any of it?

505

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:

Arguments by outrage are a common debate tactic by atheists, but they don’t prove anything. They can be used to sway an audience that is unaccustomed to debates. [/quote]

I’m not an atheist. Some of my best friends are gods.

Outrage? Who’s outraged? I put that last line about “paying for it with their young little lives” as an afterthought, because I thought it would sound a bit more melodramatic.

Is that what I was attempting to do? That’s funny, I thought I was talking about two verses. Surely the veracity of the entire Judeo-Christian canon doesn’t hinge on the truth or falsehood of two verses in 2nd Kings.

If I ever decided to attempt to show that the entire Bible was false, trust me, I’d publish a dissertation, not post on T-Nation. And I wouldn’t, anyway. What a waste of time that would be, and would accomplish nothing. The believers would get angry, and the nonbelievers would nod smugly. Which is the situation now.

[quote]Apart from a generally accepted Western consensus that murder is wrong, you have to first provide a concrete source of morality upon which to base such condemnations.

So what is it? Who’s morality are you using to condemn the truth claims and moral arguments found in the Bible? [/quote]

You want to know the God’s honest truth of the matter? My only motivation for bringing up 2nd Kings 2:23 and 24 was to contradict Spry’s definition of God as a wholly benevolent being. I brought up an example which seemed to demonstrate that God has had his un-benevolent moments.

I condemn nobody, and nobody’s holy book. I snicker at them all from time to time, but I don’t mean nothin’ by it. Mostly.

506

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:

Arguments by outrage are a common debate tactic by atheists, but they don’t prove anything. They can be used to sway an audience that is unaccustomed to debates.

[/quote]

I’m curious, do you believe that the God you worship killed the children in retribution for mocking his prophet?

507

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
You’re attempting to show the audience here that the Bible is false because the prophet had children killed for insulting him (tu-quoque).

…

So what is it? Who’s morality are you using to condemn the truth claims and moral arguments found in the Bible? [/quote]

Can we get by with simple logic?

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define “wrong” as “an action that, if applied universally, gives ever worsening results” and “good” as “an action that can be applied universally without adverse effects.” We have to base our debased atheist morals on something, right?

Now, the verse in question describes children being killed as a response to mocking an adult.

If we assume that this is “right” (do I have to point out that “right” is a synonym for “good” here?) then it should be ok to apply the actions of the verse universally, to any kids mocking any adults.

The conclusion of applying that “right” action universally seems to imply that mankind goes extinct rather quickly, or at least sees his future guaranteed by comatose or paraplegic mute kids who cannot mock. And most likely cannot fuck. Exit mankind.

Now, unless you want to argue that the extinction of mankind is a worthwhile goal or that kids who go through life without ever mocking an adult are abundant, I think it’s rather easy to see how killing kids as a response to them mocking someone is “wrong” even for non-God-mandated definitions of “wrong.”

508

[quote]new2training wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:

Arguments by outrage are a common debate tactic by atheists, but they don’t prove anything. They can be used to sway an audience that is unaccustomed to debates.

I’m curious, do you believe that the God you worship killed the children in retribution for mocking his prophet?[/quote]

I believe that He did. Under the treaty at Mount Sinai, which the Israelites all agreed to, God dealt with Israel according to its keeping of the Law and its fidelity to it.

509

[quote]rugbyhit wrote:

First, your assumption that I must have found my explanation through plagiarism is false. You can disagree with my explanation, that’s fine, but I take exception with your insinuation that I copied my rebuttal from an existing force. The fact that you found relatively the same statement doesn’t surprise me. If I find “the sky is blue” everywhere on the internet and I repeat it in some form, does that make the statement wrong? [/quote]

Okay. sorry for the insinuation.

Let’s see. Could it be Rehoboam, Isaac and Joseph?

I promise I won’t accuse you of plagiarism again.

No, Zachary, father of John the Baptist, was stricken mute. The word you want is moot. :stuck_out_tongue:

Please provide the verses which support your claim that the prophets, let alone the young punks of Bethel, knew about Elijah’s ascension before Elisha arrived.

I understand that it was also a mocking reference to leprosy.

Would God have sent the bears, in your estimation, had Elisha remained mute throughout the mockery, or was it the actual utterance of the curse that triggered the wham-o? Would said wham-o have been as effective if Elisha had not in fact, been wearing Elijah’s magic cape?

Finally, if a Danish cartoonist had made a funny picture that mocked Elisha, do you think God would have sent a few female bears into Copenhagen for some mauling?[quote]

How come you’re picking on the mauling and not the other miracles that happened in these verses?[/quote]

See my response to PRCalDude. The only reason I went off on you is because you called the Ancient Greeks drunks and perverts.

510

[quote]pookie wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
You’re attempting to show the audience here that the Bible is false because the prophet had children killed for insulting him (tu-quoque).

…

So what is it? Who’s morality are you using to condemn the truth claims and moral arguments found in the Bible?

Can we get by with simple logic?

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define “wrong” as “an action that, if applied universally, gives ever worsening results” and “good” as “an action that can be applied universally without adverse effects.” We have to base our debased atheist morals on something, right?

Now, the verse in question describes children being killed as a response to mocking an adult.

If we assume that this is “right” (do I have to point out that “right” is a synonym for “good” here?) then it should be ok to apply the actions of the verse universally, to any kids mocking any adults.

The conclusion of applying that “right” action universally seems to imply that mankind goes extinct rather quickly, or at least sees his future guaranteed by comatose or paraplegic mute kids who cannot mock. And most likely cannot fuck. Exit mankind.

Now, unless you want to argue that the extinction of mankind is a worthwhile goal or that kids who go through life without ever mocking an adult are abundant, I think it’s rather easy to see how killing kids as a response to them mocking someone is “wrong” even for non-God-mandated definitions of “wrong.”
[/quote]

“Logic” refers to the employment of the laws of logic.

I never claimed you had debased morals. I did claim that atheists like to make appeals to a universal morality without demonstrating that such exists or is codified in a form that we can read somewhere.

We have no way of knowing a priori whether killing a lot of people is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of whether or not it will lead to improved outcomes for man in the future. If the people we’re killing are going to later go out and kill a bunch of people and start stacking skulls like the Khmer Rouge or stealing land or resources from another group, perhaps killing is a good thing. If killing a bunch of people would have deprived us of advances in scientific knowledge or economic growth, than it is a bad thing. But we have no way of knowing beforehand whether it is good or bad.

You describe killing as bad if it leads to ever worsening results. I guess this begs the question, “For whom?” Suppose I argued that killing all of the Arabs would be best for the West in general because then we could have all of the oil wealth. Who’s to say it wouldn’t be a good thing? “Well,” you argue, “It wouldn’t be good practice for humanity in general.” Well, “humanity” isn’t monolithic. Different groups of humans are continually at odds. There’s no evidence anywhere that man is able to behave himself, whether with religion telling him to or not.

What is needed is a universal set of laws that man can live by without a priori knowledge of future events that indicate whether or not his actions lead to a beneficial outcome.

Perhaps I could argue a different way. How do we know that the continued mocking of prophets in Old Testament Israel wouldn’t have led to the destabilization of the entire system of government in Israel, leading to anarchy and widespread bloodshed? Wouldn’t it have been better to set the example in the first place with these kids? In this case, at least, we know that we can’t extrapolate the killing of these kids for mocking a prophet to universally justifying the killing of children for mocking adults because the Old Testament laws applied to Old Testament Israel, and were laws that Israel agreed to upon the founding of their country.

511

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
rugbyhit wrote:

First, your assumption that I must have found my explanation through plagiarism is false. You can disagree with my explanation, that’s fine, but I take exception with your insinuation that I copied my rebuttal from an existing force. The fact that you found relatively the same statement doesn’t surprise me. If I find “the sky is blue” everywhere on the internet and I repeat it in some form, does that make the statement wrong?

Okay. sorry for the insinuation.

Now, your interpretation of the phrase ne’arim k’tanim. The phrase is used several times throughout when referring to :a 40 yr old man, a 28 yr old man and a 39 yr old man. I’ll let you figure out who they are since you’re the only one who is a “real student” of the bible.

Let’s see. Could it be Rehoboam, Isaac and Joseph?

[Very good…]

K’tanim also means insignificant and unimportant. Ne’arim is used to describe both new born children and young men. And before you accuse me of plagiarizing…I do use reference material to study, so if my obviously correct definition of ne’arim k’tanim is too close to what you might find in a concordance…it’s because I used one.

I promise I won’t accuse you of plagiarism again.

[thank you]

The prophets in Bethel knew that Elijah was to be raptured, as well as in Jericho. There is also no mention of time passage between the rapture and when the young men denied it. So you’re argument that news could not have reached Bethel is mute.

No, Zachary, father of John the Baptist, was stricken mute. The word you want is moot. :stuck_out_tongue:

[I always make this error…embarrassing]

Please provide the verses which support your claim that the prophets, let alone the young punks of Bethel, knew about Elijah’s ascension before Elisha arrived.

[I can’t, but by following the text, I believe it is the correct explanation, one that is more likely than your’s]

Even your bald head reference is a little off. In this culture, even men with hair were mocked with this phrase.

I understand that it was also a mocking reference to leprosy.

[never heard this, but I’ll take your word for it"]

And yes, Jericho is lower in elevation than Bethel. But the mocking phrase “go up” and the resulting mauling follows the the same pattern throughout the OT, mock a prophet of the Lord and wham-o. So I doubt very much that telling Elisha to take a hike was what caused the resulting maul.

Would God have sent the bears, in your estimation, had Elisha remained mute throughout the mockery, or was it the actual utterance of the curse that triggered the wham-o? Would said wham-o have been as effective if Elisha had not in fact, been wearing Elijah’s magic cape?

[the wham-o was simply God’s reaction to a bunch of mocking punks. I believe they would have been wham-o’d regardless if Elisha had spoken or not. Cape has no power…only symbolic. The cape in Harry Potter…that was real…]

Finally, if a Danish cartoonist had made a funny picture that mocked Elisha, do you think God would have sent a few female bears into Copenhagen for some mauling?

[He’s more benevolent than that!]

How come you’re picking on the mauling and not the other miracles that happened in these verses?

[I don’t know…I’m not entirely sure how I ended up in this debate…:0]

See my response to PRCalDude. The only reason I went off on you is because you called the Ancient Greeks drunks and perverts.[/quote]

LOL…understood about the Greeks. The Bacchanalian revelry must have been a site back in the day. And I apologize if I inadvertently lumped your kin in with such a broad sweeping accusation.

Your sense of humor is refreshing. You and I both know that this ends in a dead lock. Nobody is debated in to believing anything.

Edit:sorry for not highlighting my reply within the text above…not sure what happened.

double edit: i was able to put my reply in brackets

512

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
We have no way of knowing a priori whether killing a lot of people is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of whether or not it will lead to improved outcomes for man in the future.[/quote]

Allow me to restate my arguments in simpler terms:

  1. All children mock adults at some point in their lives.

  2. The “right” response to the mocking is to kill them. (We assume that in the verse, God does the “right” or “good” thing. We don’t know what right or good is at this point, we simply assume that if God does it, then “good/right” it is.)

  3. Applied universally (this means to everyone, not “just to Arabs”) this means that all kids will get killed at some point in their lives.

  4. No more kids? No more humans after the current generations of adults have died.

Ergo, the assumption that “killing kids for mocking” can be interpreted as “good” is wrong. Clearly then, God is doing “wrong” in the verse; or God sees the extinction of mankind as a worthwhile goal.

Clearer?

513

[quote]pookie wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
We have no way of knowing a priori whether killing a lot of people is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of whether or not it will lead to improved outcomes for man in the future.

Allow me to restate my arguments in simpler terms:

  1. All children mock adults at some point in their lives.

  2. The “right” response to the mocking is to kill them. (We assume that in the verse, God does the “right” or “good” thing. We don’t know what right or good is at this point, we simply assume that if God does it, then “good/right” it is.)

  3. Applied universally (this means to everyone, not “just to Arabs”) this means that all kids will get killed at some point in their lives.

  4. No more kids? No more humans after the current generations of adults have died.

Ergo, the assumption that “killing kids for mocking” can be interpreted as “good” is wrong. Clearly then, God is doing “wrong” in the verse; or God sees the extinction of mankind as a worthwhile goal.

Clearer?

[/quote]

Which is why I’m comfortable being part of a Christian faith that relies on Holy Tradition as much as scripture.

514

[quote]pookie wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
We have no way of knowing a priori whether killing a lot of people is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of whether or not it will lead to improved outcomes for man in the future.

Allow me to restate my arguments in simpler terms:

  1. All children mock adults at some point in their lives.

  2. The “right” response to the mocking is to kill them. (We assume that in the verse, God does the “right” or “good” thing. We don’t know what right or good is at this point, we simply assume that if God does it, then “good/right” it is.)

  3. Applied universally (this means to everyone, not “just to Arabs”) this means that all kids will get killed at some point in their lives.

  4. No more kids? No more humans after the current generations of adults have died.

Ergo, the assumption that “killing kids for mocking” can be interpreted as “good” is wrong. Clearly then, God is doing “wrong” in the verse; or God sees the extinction of mankind as a worthwhile goal.

Clearer?

[/quote]

You can’t extrapolate “execution of children for mocking adults” into a universal value from the text. It applied to Israel.

To say, “God did wrong,” by mandating this sort of thing first requires one to provide a universal morality demonstrating that the God of Christianity screwed up.

515

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
You can’t extrapolate “execution of children for mocking adults” into a universal value from the text. It applied to Israel.[/quote]

No, but I think that defining “good,” in this case, as “an action that can be universally applied and provide benefits” is defendable. It is much too simple a definition for the general case, but we’re talking about one single, very specific case here. We don’t need to define a moral framework that encompasses software piracy when we’re only interested in whether slaughtering mocking children is okay or not.

Again, we don’t need a universal framework of morality for this one.

We can concentrate on a single aspect of “good actions” (ie, that they should be universally applicable) to show that it doesn’t work here.

If you want it to apply only to Israel, you still end up with the same conclusion: Scaling up that action results in the wiping out of Israel once the current generations die out.

516

[quote]rugbyhit wrote:
The passage describes young men mocking a prophet of God and basically denying God.

The Greeks made their gods with human failings. They were a bunch of drunks and perverts. In this way, those that worshiped them could make the leap that the gods were as messed up as the people were. Sort of justified their bad behavior. As for making up the God of the bible, why make up a God that demands such reverence, holiness and perfection? It would be much easier to make up a god that has low expectations. That way a person would be free to be as much of a screw up as he/she wants to be. [/quote]

Drunks and perverts?
I’m very sceptical of priding oneself with heritage, “my father was this”, my nation did that" sort of thing.

But these “drunks and perverts” formed the very backbone of our civilization, not once but twice.

I’m proud of that.

Thanks to them, our western society emancipated itself cleanly from it’s middle eastern roots, where early civilization and your precious book came to be.

Without Homer, Zeus and Alexander, everything would be radically different and not in a good way.

“Sort of justified their bad behavior”?
You show clearly that in this discussion you stand naked and filthy among fashion designers, while griping about something you have no clue about.

517

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
you stand naked and filthy among fashion designers[/quote]

I think you may want to rephrase…

518

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
rugbyhit wrote:
The passage describes young men mocking a prophet of God and basically denying God.

The Greeks made their gods with human failings. They were a bunch of drunks and perverts. In this way, those that worshiped them could make the leap that the gods were as messed up as the people were. Sort of justified their bad behavior. As for making up the God of the bible, why make up a God that demands such reverence, holiness and perfection? It would be much easier to make up a god that has low expectations. That way a person would be free to be as much of a screw up as he/she wants to be.

Drunks and perverts?
I’m very sceptical of priding oneself with heritage, “my father was this”, my nation did that" sort of thing.

But these “drunks and perverts” formed the very backbone of our civilization, not once but twice.

I’m proud of that.

Thanks to them, our western society emancipated itself cleanly from it’s middle eastern roots, where early civilization and your precious book came to be.

Without Homer, Zeus and Alexander, everything would be radically different and not in a good way.

“Sort of justified their bad behavior”?
You show clearly that in this discussion you stand naked and filthy among fashion designers, while griping about something you have no clue about.[/quote]

Right…naked and filthy…among fashion designers…

The Greek and Roman cultures collapsed under it’s own weight, caused among other things, a corrupt culture that condoned a wide variety of perverted customs. Don’t act like you don’t understand this.

The discussion was about God…and I was juxtaposing man made gods and the God of the bible.

You must be a god yourself to know how the world would have been without Zeus et al

And you seem to think I’m disparaging Greek’s and their cultural contributions…I’m not. There are a lot of screwed up people and cultures that have contributed to the world. And no nation or person is guiltless.

Now go put on a toga…

519

[quote]rugbyhit wrote:
The discussion was about God…and I was juxtaposing man made gods and the God of the bible. [/quote]

Oh, the irony! Now I know the Bible doesn’t have a byline, but I’m pretty sure the author was just as mortal and human as the man who pulled the named ‘Zeus’ out of his ass.

And if you bother to look at a history book, or a newspaper for that matter, you’ll see that the “God of the Bible” has been used to justify plenty of debauchery and corruption.

520

The biblical god is as manmade as it gets.
Do some research, then come back.

And these assumptions you brought forth are simply outrageous and unsupportable.
Perverted customs? Drunks? Give us examples of these pious, diligent nations of that era that had such an impact on our life today.

We had a little talk about the mongols in this thread, who left a titanic footprint in the collective genepool, but not in our culture, where they were midgets.

The greeks managed to accomplish both.

521

[quote]nephorm wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
you stand naked and filthy among fashion designers

I think you may want to rephrase…[/quote]

I guess I just wanted to point out how vulgar and bare his arguments stand out in this very forum (greek culture all the way), reeking of hypocrisy and blind devotion, contrasting with the speech of so many prudent and understanding speakers (pookie, Varq etc.).

Obviously, I’m not among those big man who’d phrase their anger far more aptly and eloquently.