Simple question about god-human relations

[Kyriakos]

Also, there is a very stark difference between ancient jewish and ancient greek thinking - though in ancient Israel it seems you only would present stuff if it was religious in the first place. In greek texts - even mythological ones - you don't get any ladder leading to the dark abyss of self-reproach and fear of being doomed. Even those destined to face the most horrible fate - eg Oedipous - don't try to rationalize it as caused by their own ethical failures, but attribute it formally to the gods (Zeus, in the case of Oedipous). Ethics is only between humans, in greek thought.
Compare that to something like the story of Job, where it is all a sick game of the jewish god, where Job's entire family is killed along with many more, until god has enough and reveals it was a test.
There aren't divine tests in ancient greek mythology - not from god to man, anyway. Some humans try to test gods to see if they are omnipotent (the case of Lycaon is very characteristic there), and often it is revealed they are not. It all ends in blood, naturally ^_^

Nietzsche did refer to this comparison, though he had to also mention nordic religion

 

[El_Machinae]

Tbh, god mostly hates you in the OT ^_^

Well, combining the two, He's pretty wrathful in the NT as well. Unfortunately, the NT is built off of the OT, so has to be responsible for continuing the libel against God.

 

[Birdjaguar]

One of Christianity's problems is its ties to the OT.

 

[Kyriakos]

It couldn't be severed, given Jesus himself refers to the OT from time to time. May not matter for the individual believer, but for the system there has to be the illusion that this is a scholarly subject and theology is something serious.

 

[Narz]

One of Christianity's problems is its ties to the OT.

But Jews only have the OT and they're not significantly crazier than Christians.

 

[Moriarte]

That's kinda patheitic. If I were God I'd want my creations to share in my power & glory.

You’d make a lousy christian god, rendering half of the clergy unemployed with all that sharing going on.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

...

That's kinda patheitic. If I were God I'd want my creations to share in my power & glory.

Yes! That is exactly what He wants. He just doesn't want you to overthrow him because, well, would you want one of your creations to overthrow you and take your place?

 

[El_Machinae]

It couldn't be severed, given Jesus himself refers to the OT from time to time.

This is one of the best pieces of evidence against the divinity of Christ, and the only defense to that evidence is that the anonymous authors of the books describing Jesus made incorrect statements, embellishing or modifying things, in order to convince people that their version of Jesus more closely fit their conception of God. The authors thought that Yahweh was God, and then reimagined Jesus as being from Yahweh instead of being actually divine.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But Jews only have the OT and they're not significantly crazier than Christians.

Once they diverged, the story arcs of the two religions followed very different paths.

 

[onejayhawk]

This is a Civ site, so it makes sense to ask yourself why monotheism is soon in the tech tree.

Nietzsche had written that, when he was a child, he imagined god as an evil demon, responsible for every hideous activity in the world. I'd like to focus on some aspect of the dynamic between a hypothetical god and a human, though: Assuming a god exists, what is the point of salvation being gained by humans depending on some action, ethic, work or other part or even the whole of their life?

If you are asking what God gets out of it, you are on the right track. Ask yourself what about a human life that has value in eternity. If the universe is a garden and we are the seeds, what is the flower?

If god is omnipotent and omniscient, it would already be aware of who will be saved and who will not.

While this is a common question, it leads in circles. It is necessary to account that God is also constrained.

At times I've heard the argument, from clergy, that the point is to have people realize that they are responsible for what will happen to them, and therefore if they aren't saved it is due to their decisions. If so, god would still be aware they would act in this way, rendering the decision-making decorative at best, and at worst a pretext to have god mock those destined to fall anyway.

It is certainly true that actions have consequences. No diety is necessary for that to be true. Decisions are different from actions in that they exist in the abstract and may never have physical reality. Also, decisions are not in a vacuum but in the tension of opposing forces.

If one is organizing a trip, and wants specific, athletic people to join, but doesn't wish to be very outspoken about it, he might not say no outright to an obese person who wishes to come along. But after the trip starts, the obese person will be unable to continue, due to the difficult hiking or other strenuous activities. Maybe then the obese individual will recognize that he never was destined to come along, and accept that he has to leave. But if god is the one organizing the afterlife trip, he already knows who will be too fat to come along, and yet not only has them follow the team for decades of life here, but actually creates them so as to be discarded as he already knows they will as he creates them.

If you watch fitness competitions, the results are made in comparison to the starting point. There are a number of parables to the effect that more is expected of those who begin with more.

Other religious people try to argue that those discarded only fail because some antagonistic deity, a devil, intervened. But in the christian religion there is no duopoly of power; satan isn't as powerful, so ultimately any discarded human was such because god allowed it to be so.

Christianity is exactly about such a duopoly. Satan is so powerful that he has snatched all humanity from God's hands. In the Bible, this occurs immediately after the creation story. God is intervening to save a portion of humanity. The theme repeats--a family is saved from the flood, a nation is saved from the famine, a tribe is rescued from slavery, etc. In New Testiment times, Jesus talks of bringing in bums from the street before the door is closed.

Maybe there is some other dynamic here? Asking people who believe in religion.

It is important to understand that faith itself is evidence. It is literally universal in human experience.

J

 

[Birdjaguar]

...It is important to understand that faith itself is evidence. It is literally universal in human experience.

J

Yes, but typically, experience comes first which leads to faith. Faith is part two and it does appear to be widespread across humanity and through time. It is evidence of a sort, but just not clear cut like most scientific evidence. So for many "modern" folks it is not real evidence. Oh well. With that broad historical and cultural base, though, it is not clear which faith is closer to "true". Should the earliest be best? The one with the most faithful? The most recent? Our personal biases muddy the water considerably. In many multiple choices tests the ones with: (e) All/none of the above are the trickiest.

 

[Narz]

Yes! That is exactly what He wants. He just doesn't want you to overthrow him because, well, would you want one of your creations to overthrow you and take your place?

We were gonna overthrow him because we built some tall mud tower? Is that why he had the WTC's destroyed?

It is important to understand that faith itself is evidence. It is literally universal in human experience.

No. Atheists/agonistics are the larger growing "religion" in the US and probably in Europe & much of the rest of the world too.

Faith may have had it's place in group cohesion for a time but it's overstayed it's welcome.

 

[onejayhawk]

Yes, but typically, experience comes first which leads to faith. Faith is part two and it does appear to be widespread across humanity and through time. It is evidence of a sort, but just not clear cut like most scientific evidence. So for many "modern" folks it is not real evidence. Oh well. With that broad historical and cultural base, though, it is not clear which faith is closer to "true". Should the earliest be best? The one with the most faithful? The most recent? Our personal biases muddy the water considerably. In many multiple choices tests the ones with: (e) All/none of the above are the trickiest.

Yes and no. Faith is inherently subjective and non-repeatable. On an individual scale it is not scientific evidence. On the scale of human history, it is as hard as evidence gets in social sciences.

No. Atheists/agonistics are the larger growing "religion" in the US and probably in Europe & much of the rest of the world too. Faith may have had it's place in group cohesion for a time but it's overstayed it's welcome.

All you have done is make atheism a religion. As much as they claim it's not so, they act like a religion.

J

 

[El_Machinae]

Is that why he had the WTC's destroyed?

It's why He dangled carbon-nanotube technology in front of us for a generation and then made the Space Elevator physically impossible


And woah befall us for trying to make translation software. We flirted for generations with teaching our kids multiple languages and now we're risking the totality of Divine Wrath for escalating mocking of Babel with universal translators.

 

[cav scout]

This is one of the best pieces of evidence against the divinity of Christ, and the only defense to that evidence is that the anonymous authors of the books describing Jesus made incorrect statements, embellishing or modifying things, in order to convince people that their version of Jesus more closely fit their conception of God. The authors thought that Yahweh was God, and then reimagined Jesus as being from Yahweh instead of being actually divine.

What exactly is this best piece of evidence against the divinity of Christ?

 

[El_Machinae]

What exactly is this best piece of evidence against the divinity of Christ?

That he told people to love the Old Testament god.

The Old Testament god is a fictional entity, and if there's a real God, He's innocent of the libel of the Old Testament. The OT god should not be loved because (a) that god doesn't exist and (b) that god does not deserve to be loved.

It would be like telling people that they should vote for Biden and then showing clips from Death Wish claiming that the old due is Biden cleaning up crime when he's younger.
You just wouldn't believe that I was actually politically aware. And that character is not admirable either.

So, two reasons to discount my opinion on who to vote for. Even if anonymous authors alter wrote books about how great a political thinker I was, you'd know it wasn't true.

 

[cav scout]

That he told people to love the Old Testament god.

The Old Testament god is a fictional entity, and if there's a real God, He's innocent of the libel of the Old Testament. The OT god should not be loved because (a) that god doesn't exist and (b) that god does not deserve to be loved.

Thank you for clarifying. We disagree completely on the God of the Old Testament. But I think we both agree that you can't honestly separate Jesus from the Old Testament.

 

[El_Machinae]

We disagree completely on the God of the Old Testament.

Do you really think that God created land plants before there was life in the ocean?

Do you think that God really destroyed all animals in the world, except for some people a boat and two of every living thing?

Do you really think that God put pox on a peasantry in order to convince their King that holding the Hebrews was a 'bad idea'?

Do you really think that God ordered the Israelites to kill gay people?

Do you really think that God helped those same Hebrews genocide the people of Canaan?

Jesus did. And then he told people to love that god.

Look, I'm as happy as anyone to read in metaphor - there is a lot of Christianity that I defend, but there's no evidence that Jesus knew that the OT was lying about God. And there is zero evidence that Jesus preferred a God was innocent of the libel. If Jesus had provided parables about "Moses being a myth" and "Noah being a myth", then I'd not have this very evidence I am presenting. But he's just spinning the OT, just like every other 'prophet' telling you to worship something that both doesn't exist and is unworthy of love.

 

[Birdjaguar]

What exactly is this best piece of evidence against the divinity of Christ?

One thing to keep in mind is that there were 40 to 60 years between Jesus' death and the writing of gospels. The oral tradition evolved into a written one over time. No one knows what might have changed in the telling from 30AD to 80AD if anything.

 

[cav scout]

Do you really think that God created land plants before there was life in the ocean?

Do you think that God really destroyed all animals in the world, except for some people a boat and two of every living thing?

Do you really think that God put pox on a peasantry in order to convince their King that holding the Hebrews was a 'bad idea'?

Do you really think that God ordered the Israelites to kill gay people?

Do you really think that God helped those same Hebrews genocide the people of Canaan?

Jesus did. And then he told people to love that god.

I agree with Jesus, the Old Testament is true.

Look, I'm as happy as anyone to read in metaphor, but there's no evidence that Jesus did. And there is zero evidence that Jesus knew that God was innocent of the libel. If Jesus had provided parables about "Moses being a myth" and "Noah being a myth", then I'd not have this very evidence I am presenting. But he's just spinning the OT, just like every other 'prophet' telling you to worship something that both doesn't exist and is unworthy of love.

I think you are anticipating an argument that I am not making. So would you agree with C.S. Lewis?

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

----------------

One thing to keep in mind is that there were 40 to 60 years between Jesus' death and the writing of gospels. The oral tradition evolved into a written one over time. No one knows what might have changed in the telling from 30AD to 80AD if anything.

Synoptic gospels were around 60 AD, so more like 25-30 years.