GOD AS THE SINNER!
Substance Of A Fresh Argument
- Before the Creation, there was only God.
- There was no sin, sorrow or suffering — neither temporal nor eternal.
- God created the world and gave man the ‘loving gift of free will’.
- By his omniscience God knew that most of those wrenched into existence without their consent would be unable or unwilling in their human fallibility, to follow his rules.
- God did not use his omnipotence to leave those ‘many’ uncreated. Nor, did he repair their defects and create them so they would use their ‘free’ will as the ‘few’ saved would do.
- Nearly all sentient animals lived in fear and struggle for food and water; and then, for countless millions, awful suffering and death. We can be thankful that Hell is not in the Divine Plan for them.
- (Still. can you imagine loving, gentle Jesus watching unaffected as Bambi is being eaten alive?)
- For all those civilized who value love, justice and mercy, forgiveness for infinite cruelty which was foreknown and easily prevented, is simply impossible.
- ‘Thank God’ there are a ton of solid reasons for knowing it is all just a nightmare of man’s invention!
*****
Christians must give an unqualified yes to 1 – 6, must they not? They can only contort about 7 and fulminate against 8.
But, is this not a far easier ground to argue to the average person, and assuredly to the young who are already more dubious, than trying a conversion on the basis of arguments long met and honed with contrived and practiced obfuscations?
Aren’t the young more likely to see this God, claimed as a “loving, just and merciful father”, as a cruel mockery of the meanings of those words?
At the very least, is it not a welcome new line of argument, simple, with self-evident aspects and maybe even interesting? I invite non-believers to improve it while keeping it simple — and then to evangelize it!
I hope Dr. Ehrman will help it along too.
While you have an interesting way of composing your arguments, this blog is about Christianity in the first four hundred years or so of its development. Dr. Erhman has stated many times that his interest is in presenting the historical view of documents in the context of their time. He does not promote or denigrate theological interpretations of this material. Commenters here are of many persuasions from atheist to “true” believers in Christianity to believers or non- believers of other religions or philosophies. As an atheist myself, I find it interesting to find out as best can be determined, how the Chrstian religions came about. I find your comment above quite off-putting and strident. you have obviously put a lot of thought into your arguments, but please be respectful of those whose agenda is scholarship, not evangelism.
magpie said
this blog is about Christianity in the first four hundred years or so of its development. He does not promote or denigrate theological interpretations of this material. .
Quite right, but I share our new member’s frustration. I would like to have a serious and respectful conversation with fundamentalist/evangelical believers regarding their theology, and I do not know a good place to do it. If any evangelical member of the forum would be willing to answer a question every now and then, I would greatly appreciate you sending me a private message.
magpie said
While you have an interesting way of composing your arguments,
Since the blunder was already committed why “denigrate” the argument as simply “an interesting way”? If your impartiality is so refined you cannot take a position, it would have been better to omit it.
this blog is about Christianity in the first four hundred years or so of its development. Dr. Erhman has stated many times that his interest is in presenting the historical view of documents in the context of their time.
I really did not know that.
He does not promote or denigrate theological interpretations of this material. Commenters here are of many persuasions from atheist to “true” believers in Christianity to believers or non- believers of other religions or philosophies. As an atheist myself, I find it interesting to find out as best can be determined, how the Christian religions came about.
Me too.
I find your comment above quite off-putting and strident.
It is strident — a reaction to a man-made concoction which sails under the false colors of “love, justice and mercy” while murdering innocents for centuries when in power and now, just promising eternal suffering for those who don’t “respect” their view enough to believe it.
you have obviously put a lot of thought into your arguments, but please be respectful of those whose agenda is scholarship, not evangelism.
I will post no more. Pitiful!
Lawyerskeptic, I share the same frustrations and truly do find fellow feather’s input interesting and did not mean to discourage his contributing to the forum. As one of the least knowledgable here, I don’t have much to contribute from a scholarly standpoint, but I do appreciate those who do. Do you think that there would be interest in a new topic within the present forum for discussion of ideas such as you suggest, a topic in which the focus is less on history but on present day implications of the blog information?
Fellowfeather, I do hope you will continue to comment here. I was not kidding about finding you ideas intriguing, particularly your comment about the gospels being built on sand. On my initial reading of that comment I think that you have distilled much of what Dr. Erhman is planning for his next book into your post. I happen to agree with you, but many here might not. I apologize if I insulted you, it was not my intent.
magpie said
Lawyerskeptic, I share the same frustrations and truly do find fellow feather’s input interesting and did not mean to discourage his contributing to the forum. As one of the least knowledgable here, I don’t have much to contribute from a scholarly standpoint, but I do appreciate those who do. Do you think that there would be interest in a new topic within the present forum for discussion of ideas such as you suggest, a topic in which the focus is less on history but on present day implications of the blog information?
We have had topics dealing with current events. A while back someone started a topic on Texas textbooks, and no one objected. I have a particular interest in evangelical apologetics, and have asked questions about it before. Nonetheless, I don’t believe that I or anyone else should go off-topic too often. The focus in general should be, as the title of the blog indicates, Christianity in antiquity.
This is my feeling as well and the only reason I responded earlier. I come here to engage in talk about the early history of Christianity, not philosophical discussions of a generalized nature. To be honest I hardly read any of fellowfeather’s posts because they weren’t “on topic” for me. At least it isn’t like having to read some of the posts by our conspiracy theorist members.
MAGPIE:
Thanks for your second piece.
I am afraid the readers of this site are too delicate for my sort of logic.
They can accept Dr. Ehrman’s high-minded rejection of God because of suffering
but
gag when I point out that it is even worse since it was
FULLY KNOWN IN ADVANCE AND WHOLLY and PREVENTABLE!
Thank you for your reply. I think that if you had the time to read more of Dr. Erhman’s posts and the comments on them as well as the member forum comments you would have a better understanding of the give and take here. There is no attempt by Dr Erhman to bring others to his point of view as an agnostic/atheist based upon the existence of suffering. He merely presents what he has learned through many years of study on the documents available from the earliest years of what has become Christianity. His own journey from fundamentalist evangelical to more liberal Christian to agnostic/atheist is a personal story of interest to many but separate from his scholarly work. Some agree with him, some do not. His purpose is to present information based upon study of documents in their original languages and in the context of the times in which they were written so that readers can have the best information available upon which to base their own beliefs one way or another. This is a blog about scholarship, not theology, although they obviously overlap for many participants.
If I have made any errors in the above explanation I trust that someone will kindly correct me.
fellowfeather said
MAGPIE:Thanks for your second piece.
I am afraid the readers of this site are too delicate for my sort of logic.
They can accept Dr. Ehrman’s high-minded rejection of God because of suffering
but
gag when I point out that it is even worse since it was
FULLY KNOWN IN ADVANCE AND WHOLLY and PREVENTABLE!
Thanks for the condescension. That was appreciated. Your bullet points are philosophical. I have little interest in philosophy (although I hear they make more than welders!). Bart Ehrman is not a philosopher. He’s a debater, but not philosopher. You come here looking for a debate, but there is none to be found so you say we’re “too delicate”. I’m not delicate. I am completely disinterested in anything you’ve said in any of your posts. That’s not delicate or dismissive it’s just indifference. There are plenty of websites and Facebook groups that you will find a more willing audience.
MAGPIE:
This is only to respond to your last.
I spent about 1 1/2 hours watching Dr. Ehrman in a debate with Kyle Butt (it is on YouTube) in which the good doctor made the case that suffering made it impossible for him to believe in God;
I made the case that God’s premeditated sins against man and animals made it impossible for me to believe in God.
I don’t see a great deal of difference.
FF
Yes, that is what Dr. Erhman says finally led him to become an agnostic/atheist. There are many paths to atheism as there are many paths to belief in the supernatural. There are many types of atheists as there are many types of Christians. If logic ruled consistently over emotion the world would be a different place! Presenting your arguments in a confrontational manner will inevitably raise defensive mechanisms in those who do not already agree with you and you will most likely be dismissed out of hand. It is as though you said “I’ve told you what my idea is and if you don’t agree with me immediately you must be an idiot.” Perhaps just changing your presentation to something along the lines of “This is the way I see the issue of divinity and why I am an atheist, can you explain why you come to a different conclusion,” might elicit an actual dialogue.
MAGPIE:
The logic of what I wrote assumes as true what Christians claim. That is how “a non-existent being” could sin.
The sub-title of my post was “The substance of a new argument”, leaving room for anyone who sees it as such to decorate the points and add to them as they see fit to make the argument stronger and less strident.
Do not imagine that I think this would dent the average Christian who was never reasoned into his faith in the first place.
But there is a huge audience that might be vulnerable:
- LGBT: — the disaffected millions and their loved ones who are told by their religions that they are courting hell for simply being who they are.
- Divorcees, contraceptive users, unmarried partners.
- Those already on the weak end of the faith curve: — but too busy to spend a lot of time looking into the endless scholarly works for reasons to support their doubts.
- Those on the weak end of the skepticism curve — who need reinforcement in their thinking.
- Freethinkers — who will see new, short and irrefutable reasons why they are right.
- And above all, the young who are already falling in big numbers.
I have read and heard long and learned arguments — and watched hours of debates — about the existence of God where exactly no progress is made by either side. Usually because the parties cannot agree on anything. My approach is to accept that God is omniscient, omnipotent, unchanging, all-just, merciful and forgiving and then confront them with points 1-6, which they cannot dispute. Can they? It then becomes a matter of defining love, justice and mercy.
I thought on this website I could make these points unvarnished. Had I been posting to a Christian website I might have been more diplomatic.
Anyway, I was not looking for a debate. I thought it was possible that someone would recognize these points as completely valid — even lethal — and might want to include them in there own statement of the case. Or, better, that someone could show I was wrong in some respect.
You and your fellows have convinced me to stop posting here — but I do reserve the right to respond.
Fellowfeather. Your strident tone also alienated me, but then I happen to reread Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain. If you have never read the book, I recommend it, especially Letters IX and X. Twain was strident, but he was also brilliant. I believe one reason most of us are not interested in anti-Christian diatribes is that other people like Twain have already done it better than you or I can ever hope to achieve.
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