I have a hard time seeing God as — doing unto others as he would want done to himself — in the clip above. I cannot see God wanting someone to do what he did to the women who owned those wombs to him. He is therefore certainly not walking his talk or fallowing his own good advice.
It seems that people are more responsible than God as we are trying to get everyone on board the Golden Rule that God ignores.
Hello greatest
Inevitably the moral person, who happens to read the Bible, eventually reaches this dilemma of trying to reconcile the the moral beauty of the Golden Rule with the bestial monstrosity that is found elsewhere in the Bible, such as the concept of eternal damnation.
I can only speak for myself in that this became an existential choice. Existence precedes essence or, in other words, the nature of the Bible is decided by you and you alone.
So I ask: Where do you see God? Believe that. All the rest? The extravagant additions of the human mind that projects its own interests as those of Existence Itself.
Of course God follows the Golden rule. He gave us the gift of life that leads to death; he gave us free will, and he gave us a sometimes hostile natural world. That’s God being kind and giving, not breaking any golden rule.
I see that as a plus. It is our instincts pushing us to be the fittest of our species. I see it as the sourcse of what Freud called the Father Complex.
Similar to the nature of man: at times full of beauty and other times simply barbaric. Some of our great men and women live on beyond their time and inspire millions because they condense for prosperity ideas that resonate within the human soul. They touch the pulse of the species. The Bible, at its best, does the same, but it is a mixed work, and edited version of human experience of Divine reality. I believe that an open ended conversation rather than a revelation would have served as a better paradigm for the I-Thou relationship.
Well, if you do see God in everything and everywhere, how is God not the miracle worker? But miracles were never claimed as an exclusive power by Jesus. It is not the tell-sign of God. Jesus was in a vertical position in relation to us but promoted a horizontal position.
I don’t think it is a defect or a virtue. It is what we are capable of. The same instincts that push us to “fitness” push us to commit acts of beauty and compassion as well of acts of brutality. We have the capacity to love everyone…as long as there are enough people left to hate.
I sense a troubling tension in this. And a broader concern that you’re ultimately trying to reconcile the biblical extremes (which I agree we must), not by finding a way to affirm them (which I believe we must), but by rejecting them simply because they make your stomach turn… The result is a ‘luke-warm’ biblical theism that can never do justice to the God of the bible. (It’s a case of what atheist’s often charge biblical theists with: they take the good and leave the bad, which is simply unacceptable (a point I am in agreement with the atheists on).
That’s basically my concern. The tension I sense is this:
Hmm. So on the one hand, the nature of the bible is decided by you and you alone. Okay. But on the other hand, there are a number of “extravagant additions of the human mind” resulting from such a perspective / approach…
In other words, you prescribe “extravagant” self-interpretation, but then you say hey, look, there’s a lot of stuff in there resulting from extravagant self-interpretation, so be mindful!
Do you see the tension? It’s not an incoherent view, I don’t think. Just an approach that self-propels the obfuscation and eradication of any meaning or essence that may have been there in the first place…
I think the issue, here, is in your application of existentialism itself…
If we go to Sartre’s ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’ essay (which I haven’t read in years, so forgive me if I go astray), and apply what he says about creation there to the bible, there is a huge difference. His basic argument there is that creation was not the result of some architect’s (i.e., God’s) execution of a design… A design representing an essence that precedes existence…
Because there is no such architect / God, and therefore design, the opposite must be true. Existence must precede essence, and it is up to us to determine the meaning of things.
The problem is: the bible is the result of a design. It is completely artificial, in the sense of human-made. Thus, “existence precedes essence” does not apply, and you would be wrong to apply it to such things as the bible as you do here…
Again, to my concern, it is on us, if our stomach churns because of the extremes, to dig deeper until we truly reconcile them with our understanding, and can fully affirm the biblical God and all God’s actions depicted in the bible.
If we can’t, then either we haven’t grasped the essence preceding the bible’s existence, or else the bible itself is incoherent, and no such essence exists (in which case, it does become a matter of plucking out what we like to back up our own “extravagant” ideas, which I’m not yet ready to do).
May I invite you to do a little stomach churning and ask if it is moral for God to torture a baby for 6 days before finally killing/murdering it because of his anger with the father. I speak of King David’s baby here.
Hmm. Haven’t studied this one. Sensing some huge parallels with Jesus though… Or premonitions of the Jesus story… (In other words, if we can understand the crucifixion, and still affirm God with that understanding, we should be able to do the same here…)
The rape of Bathsheba is a critical event in the life of David (note: strong arguments have been made that Jesus was the product of rape as well - see theologian Phyllis Trible, who I believe wrote a book on this but can’t recall the name or if it was actually her or someone else…). The rape of Bathsheba is essentially David’s fall; a “do this and you will surely die” moment in his life, where he chooses the path of sin and death…
So basically what we have here is the introduction of sin into the world and, with sin, death. And here’s the crucial thing: it is not God who executes hardship and death as a punishment for sin, but rather that hardship and death are a consequence, or come about in and through, sin itself…
It is less God killing the baby and more God saying, through Nathan, “look, because of what you did, this is what you can now expect.” And it is not that David should expect it for himself, but rather he should expect it for his entire line (i.e., his son, just as God tells Adam his line will suffer after him, and just as Jesus suffers within this world of sin…).
Something else to note: The text in its received, translated / interpreted form makes it sound a lot like God is doing the execution. But we need to be real careful of this… I’m not a Hebrew master but I’m pretty sure that this reveals a bias in the translator, that they view hardship and death as a divine retaliation for sin, and so construe it that way. The original language is less clear, and does not necessitate the activity on God’s part, e.g., that God is the one who will do the smiting, versus it coming, as God says, “from David’s own house,” which is in line with what I’m saying here…
I am not about to try to second guess the church and it’s bible. Fact is that the modern church is leaving in the fact that God directly tortured and murdered the baby. If it is good enough for the church it should be good enough for all.
As to the Original Sin you elude too. The passing down of woes, I do not have the quotes but in various places in scriptures, we are told that all are responsible for their own sins and a child is not responsible nor should he suffer for the sins of his parents.
Original Sin, if it is as used by believers, is a sin and if God imposes it, he is a sinner.
Theism, in my opinion, should never be equated with the Bible. Christianity is an evolving form. The Bible did not come from the sky, but was mended, curated, edited by men, and the effects are there for anyone with eyes to see. One thing that was lost is the prophetic element which was over and above written element. When you read the OT you see corrections within it, contradictions, or better yet, “tension”. It is not a rejection of what makes my stomach turn but a rejection of that which is human all too human. The Bible is clear that much is written by men that is passed as if it was by God. The prophets bear this out clearly, and even Jesus places that suspicion for those who can see by stating that many will say “Lord, lord”, and he will respond “I never knew you”. So, to take the Bible as intended by Clerical Authorities above what the Spirit might speak within you is to substitute a living thing for a dead thing.
I am no authority. I simply offered what I believe to be the case. It does not mean that I know. That opinion, however, is valued by me as superior to other opinions and beliefs.
Interpretation is impossible to avoid, in my opinion. A conversation with you does not mean that I KNOW, or can be certain as to what YOU think. But given this assumption, I choose the finest interpretation of what is God-like and the rest, from my perspective, becomes the editorials made by men.
Now, I know that this does not sit well with many orthodox Christians, but I am not concerned with being a “good” Christian, any more than Paul was concerned with being a “good” Jew.
I agree with you that there is a danger here. I am fine with that. I believe that searching for safety people imposed a certain order where none might have been. The Bible itself (Galatians, Acts) bears this out. Honesty should be valued more than safety. I choose to look without the prejudice of Divine inspiration.
As I remember it, the book was fixated with the almost omnipotent weight of responsibility, and how it was entirely on man. I think that the existentialist position is found in certain passages of the Bible. For example when the blind man was cured by Jesus, he was asked first what he wanted Jesus to do for him. He responded that he wanted to see. Jesus then tells him to go, his faith had healed him. The power and the responsibility lie within the person.
That is how you see it. Read Bart Ehrmann on the subject. The process that created the Bible was not designed, either by man or by God. There were controversies and interpretations of Biblical books that were deemed heretical. No bigger evidence for a lack of a design is the wars of the Reformation and the number of sects that exists within the Christian world. The lost of the “Catholic” Church supremacy was also the loss of objectivity, of essence, for Christians.
And this is what you have achieved? I commend you if that is so. However I cannot. Intellectual integrity aside, I find no pressing need except in the haste to remain within the fold of “Christianity”.
I believe that there is a God, just as I believe that there is a “you”, whomever you happen to be. But I do not retain the idea that man is a passive medium through which a Divine message passes undisturbed. What gives us this idea? The Bible itself points to instances when Priests, Pharisees, even prophets (false prophets) present a false message. Think of Jeremiah, Amos and the rest. What were they going up against? What were Jesus’ own foes if not men who were the messengers and curators of God’s message?
There are also passages to the effect that up to the nth generation will be impacted… But I do agree that children shouldn’t suffer for the sins of the parent, and that they are not responsible. However none of this is to say that they won’t suffer… My point is more that in a fallen world, or a world where sin has been introduced, and is now part of the fabric of that world, everyone suffers.
Hmm. What church? What bible? There are significantly different traditions and translations out there. Some might agree that God is not the one who punishes sin, but that sin begets sin and is itself what punishes. (As for the bible, as the story you refer to explicitly says, the punishment comes from David’s own family, or from the fallen world that David is the progenitor of through his rape of Bathsheba… i.e., it is not from God. So it’s not second guessing the bible to say what I’m saying. In fact, it’s respecting it, and reading it real closely, and recognizing that if we want to be as accurate as possible with it, we need to go to the original Hebrew / Greek / etc, and not second hand translations if we can.)
And no, good enough for the church should not mean good enough for all. The church, after all, is an artifice. It can be the living word of God, like the bible, but it can also be the voice of death, and like Jesus says of the temple, need to come down.
(As I say this, you could liken the church to the bible, which is also an artifice, and go back to one of the original points I made: that we can’t just pick and choose what we want from it. I think that’s true of the bible but not of the church. Although I would want to treat the church as an extension of the bible, and in many ways it is, I feel that, by its nature, it gets caught in a socio-political-historical web and scandal, and has to take, or has taken, harder lines and stances, as well as statements or views that are not necessarily in line with the ultimate source of its wisdom. The bible, as a book (or set of books), can stay out of this fray, and maintain a certain purity. There are other differences as well I think that gives the bible greater purity, and makes it more trustworthy than the church…
I would tend to side with the protestants on this: we all need to go to the source, and read it for ourselves, and uncover the essence of it (not determine the essence of it but uncover). We should not trust the priests and what the priests tell us of it.)
The Jewish tradition says that Rabbis can overrule what is written and as a Gnostic Christian who recognizes that scriptures are written to help us seek God but never find him. To find God means becoming an idol worshiper. You seek God but I suggest you not give any scripture particular authority because it is likely that you, and I, are reading it and only getting a small piece of what the author wanted to give. We have lost the context of the text over time.
Please have a listen to this scholar at about the 16 min. mark to see how we are to use these scriptures.
We all want original text and those would have to be seen through Jewish eyes and they were not monotheistic when scriptures were written and most have been shown to be pure myth as David and Solomon just for 2 examples did not exist as shown and are fictional.
If we cannot bring their theology to modern times, and we cannot, we should modernize our thinking and let the dead bury the dead.
I was careful to call it “biblical theism” vs theism, to indicate a particular strand of focus, since the OP was concerned with the biblical God and biblical actions that were distasteful. Also totally agree with the bible not coming from the sky.
I also ultimately agree with your final sentences here. The bible is an artifact, and while it can reveal the word of God it can also be used to shut it out, and has been used as such by clerical authorities among others. We can’t and shouldn’t deny our own wisdom because of what we think, or have been told, the bible is saying… I do believe, however, that if approached in the proper way, the bible is one of the purest revelations of God and wisdom that we have… And that the history of ‘editing’, ‘redacting’, etc, is less a fault of the bible and more the very crucible of its refinement… Biblical stories as we have them today are the result of multiple iterations, which, I believe, have done more good than harm. (I agree we do need to be careful though, because there are clerical errors in transcribing, and other sources of error, that need to be recognized… I don’t think these, however, deny a preceding essence. Ultimately each book, even when reshaped, is done according to a design…) Case and point: just look at something like the book of Job. Original Babylonian version (A Man and His God) vs what we have today, and how that history of refinement produced something so much more extraordinary than what was there before, and so artfully constructed in its final form… It is absolutely not without design, even though modified throughout time…
I agree with that as well. I mentioned the book of Job, and I think it poses this question to us through the status of the Elihu character. (God judges Job and the friends as true and false respectively, but says nothing of Elihu, leaving it for us to decide the truth of his position…) To summarize, I think the friends turn to tradition and try to solace Job with that. I think Elihu turns to God and sets himself up as what you say here: “a passive medium through which a Divine message passes undisturbed.” (Less a voice of a tradition and more the medium of the living word to console God.) I think Job, on the other hand, is not this passive medium but, in fact, his own voice standing up and against the voice of God itself (and tradition…).
I also think that this is precisely what God wants. For us all to be our own voice, and to stand up against anything when we believe we are in the right (God too, when it is God who we think is wrong).
This is basically what God encourages Job to do: “Gird your loins and face me like a man!”…
This is what the bible is saying to us as well when it presents us with challenging verses / stories… It wants us to rise up against it. It wants us to wrestle with it. And come to the truth with it through our struggle. And that’s just it: I believe that if we do so, and take up the challenge and really immerse ourselves in the text, what we’ll ultimately find is that God is on the side of wisdom, even though at first blush we are disturbed. (Book of Job again: God’s words to Job in the end are usually construed as a put down of Job, or as suppressing his voice and putting him in his place for daring to speak against God. This is what they seem to be at first blush and it is disturbing that God would do that to someone like Job. But if we read God’s speeches really closely, we’ll see as I said above, that God is in fact encouraging Job to stand his ground, and to not be so despondent about being a human being (i.e., dust and ashes), and that he is in fact a worthy partner / combatant of God. That is his consolation.
One of the archetypal Jesus’ taught the same thing when saying that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. I see that as him saying the same thing for religion and God.
God has no need of men but men created God because we needed him and we still do.
With your thinking Theo, you could be a decent Gnostic Christian who would likely do a better job of selling that theology than I am.
When you can name your God, I am, and mean yourself, you will begin to know the only God you will ever find. Becoming a God is to become more fully human and a brethren to Jesus.
Oh my. I never indicated I believed in the Bible. If I did it was certainly not on purpose.
Let me be clear that I think all religions and holy books are showing myths and not reality even though as some reality can be seen within the myths. Many myths are based on so kind of truth or reality.
Even Gnostic Christian scriptures are all myths to us Gnostic Christians.
We are perpetual seekers after God like one of the archetypal Jesus’ was. Look and ye shall find is one of his lines.
To recognize any God who is not a living and glorified man is to become an idol worshiper liker Christians and Muslims are.
Look at their morality and see how damaging it is to become an idol worshiper.
Or at least, not with everything…