Steve Hays mocks Genetically Modified Skeptic's newest video game:
The Triablogue villagers reply in kind, and I respond respectively:
Epistle of Dude11/03/2018 12:06 PMAlso:What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
It's better to say that you cannot intellectually obligate another person to give up their belief because you make unsupported comments about reality.
No, biology is the study of living things, period. Conclusions about how life arose from non-life are part of biology, called abiogenesis. Old earth creationists also believe God intended for animals to rip each other apart before sin (i.e., death before sin), which would mean he was characterizing this horrible carnivorous world as "very good" in Genesis 1:31. See Hugh Ross and Kent Hovind duke this out on the John Ankerberg show.Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.
Materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.
Yes, there might be Christian-hating atheists who are that prejudiced. But the opposite of materialism is an exercise in sophistry, since all attempts to use empirical evidence to "prove" the existence of non-material things, must fail. Frank Turek with his big bang spaceless timeless immaterial god is a fucking joke. For example, even creationist think-tanks such as ICR deny the scientific validity of the big bang and insist it is unbiblical. How can Turek seriously claim to intellectually obligate skeptics to his view, when other equally orthodox "born again" Christians, all of whom have a master's degree or greater in a scientific field find his position absurd.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
That's exactly right. You are an atheist with respect to every non-Christian religion's deities. The difference between you and me is one single god, YHWH.
he doesn't just kill king David's baby, he needlessly causes it to suffer a horrible sickness for 7 days before killing it...thus proving that this bible-god desires to torture babies:The God of the Bible is evil.
11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.God causes men to rape women in Isaiah 13:16, as I show in another post.
12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!" (2 Sam. 12:11-18 NAU)
In Deuteronomy 28, God pushes the following threats on those who would dare disobey him: He will cause their wives to be raped (v. 30), he will cause parental cannibalism (v. 53-57). Then god assures them that he will take just as much "delight" to inflict these sufferings on the disobedient, that he took when bestowing blessings upon the faithful (v. 63).
Yes, your god is evil...unless you disagree with Frank Turek's moral argument and suddenly discover that rape can be morally good in certain circumstances?
Epistle of Dude continues:
SLAVERYThe Bible promotes slavery, genocide, sexism.
In the biblical context, "slavery" was worse than the Antebellum South: God gave the Hebrews permission to acquire slaves from the surrounding pagan nations:
45 'Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession.And apparently Moses, the alleged author of Leviticus, understood this to mean that they could make war against whoever they thought their god wanted them to kill, then keep the surviving little girls as slaves:
46 'You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves. But in respect to your countrymen, the sons of Israel, you shall not rule with severity over one another. (Lev. 25:45-46 NAU)
14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.(of course, "for yourselves" wasn't limited to merely working, it also meant "marry and have sex with", as even inerrantist Christian scholars admit:
15 And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women?
16 "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD.
17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. (Num. 31:14-18 NAU)
Women who had known men sexually, whether Midianite or sinful Israelite men, were to be considered unclean, since they were the main instrument of Israel’s demise at Baal Peor. Only the young girls would be allowed to live so that they may be taken as wives or slaves by the Israelite men, according to the principles of holy war (Deut 20:13–14; 21:10–14).Forcing little girls into marriage or slavery soon after kidnapping them and killing their parents, is clear from:
10 "When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive,And don't even get me started on how this marriage rite necessarily ignores the desires of the female captive. And that this marriage rite was prescribing rape is clear from the Good News Translation of v. 14:
11 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself,
12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails.
13 "She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.
14 "It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled her. (Deut. 21:10-14 NAU)
14 Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her.GENOCIDE
As far as "genocide", the average person doesn't give two shits about the technical definition: what we mean is that the ancient Hebrews went around killing thousands of people, no different than what the pagan tribes of those days did. But for geeks who don't have a life and think the point of living is to act like a pretentious jailhouse lawyer, and pretend that technicalities are the only motive the brain has for continuing to function, "genocide" is legitimately defined as "the intentional killing of all of the people of a nation, religion, or racial group"
Genocide is a justifiable term where the point of killing was extermination of any group or nation. The precise motive (i.e., racism, etc) is irrelevant.
Therefore, when Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan argue that the "genocide" charge against the ancient Hebrews is technically false, they are wrong. Genocide does not require the victors to have any particular motive, only that they engage in large-scale massacre of certain people of any locality or identity.
So it is grammatically justified to characterize the divine command to the Hebrews for wholesale slaughter, to be a command to commit "genocide". The "fact" that the pagans victimized thereby were excessively corrupt (itself a false notion) is irrelevant:
16 "Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. (Deut. 20:16 NAU)Indeed, you should read the entire chapter 15 of 1st Samuel, the point of the story was that God removed Saul as king of Israel because Saul did not carry out the extermination order as fully as God had required.
2 "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was coming up from Egypt.
3 'Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'" (1 Sam. 15:2-3 NAU)
Copan's and Flannagan's attempts to get away from the obvious, show them to be struggling against reality in a quite vain and humiliating way. Christian apologist Dr. Lydia McGrew (wife of bible scholar Timothy McGrew) does not find Copan's excuses the least bit convincing.
How can Christian apologists expect spiritually dead people to recognize such arguments as successful when spiritually alive people often find such arguments fallacious? Can it be reasonable to suggest that because spiritually alive people cannot even agree on how disgusting god is, skeptics and atheists can be rational and reasonable to consider the biblical data fatally ambiguous and thus unworthy of seriously involved analysis?
SEXISM
As far as sexism, of course Paul was sexist, he thinks "worldly fables" are fit only for "old women":
7 But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; (1 Tim. 4:7 NAU)
Epistle of Dude continues:
I do not agree with the more radical atheists that this is so. The average church-goer is not abusing their child by simply going to church and instilling a belief in spirituality in their child. It only becomes "abusive" when the parent pushes that shit so much that Jesus ends up being every other word. It is the "fundamentalist" form of Christian faith that is psychologically abusive. There is nobody there to answer the child's prayers, but they are taught that silence only means god has chosen not to answer...sort of like the reason my coffee table didn't take away my desire to play the lottery when I prayed for this desire to depart, is because my coffee table doesn't wish to answer me at this time. FUCK YOU DREAMER.Teaching children religion is child abuse.
There are several problems with the apologists who pretend that failure to heal amputees isn't a problem:Epistle of Dude11/03/2018 12:14 PM☍Why doesn't God heal amputees?
a) the apologists are always citing to Craig Keener's two-volume work "Miracles" as a game changer in favor of Christian apologetics, and therein, Keener mentions the miraculous regrowth of limbs, which forbids the apologist from pretending smugly that we never see regrown limbs because God never promised such ability. The fools at Triablogue push Keener's amputee-healing stsories as if they are truth.
b) the bible does promise that future Christians will do even "greater" miracles than Jesus:
12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.See the atheist perspective here.
13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (Jn. 14:12-13 NAU)
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snip-----------Our being human is apparently sufficient to justify questioning God, it's what Moses did, and he apparently successfully knocked some sense into the divine head:Jesse11/04/2018 1:02 AM☍I think that the text of Psalm 103:8-14 (among others) debunks any notion of God in the Old Testament being cruel and hateful. Such a notion could not be further from the truth. Historical narratives are generally descriptive, not prescriptive, in nature. Context is key. All of the events that we may deem unpleasant in the Old Testament are ultimately a consequence of the Fall, and God has chosen to repair creation in the manner that He sees fit. Who are we to question Him? That would be my answer to Dawkins.
9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.God is such a liar...he gives a really strong impression of seriously intending to kill the Israelites. And since bible inerrancy is a false doctrine, no, I justifiably refuse to read this story through the lens of "God infallibly foreknows what we'll do".
10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)
Blah blah blah Jesus of Nazareth blah bling bloo rising from the dead blimp blorp god works evil in a way that keeps him immune from culpability for it, boppa footnote citing Will Craig blah.faith alchemist11/04/2018 1:39 AM☍Blah blah blah Apollonius of Tyana blah bling bloo Dying and Rising gods blimp blorp Ishtar boppa footnote citing Carrier blah.
As you can see, I am very frightened of Christianity, and can only feel better about my atheism by simply turning away from Christian arguments and hoping they'll just go away. Yeah right.
