Of course, Conrad.

That's what benevolence means to a Christian.

Fry anyone who disagrees with you.

They see this as being normal acceptable behavior.

Having that core sense of "benevolence" is key to the religion.

If you've been taught that, all I can tell you is that you've been taught false information.

I know from actual experience that the God of this religion does not seek to have a relationship with me.

Therefore I know that the tenants of this religion are necessarily false.

It simply cannot be any other way.

The claims that the religion makes are simply false.

Period.

Obviously. He doesn't exist at all. So he truly can't do anything.

No different from Zeus.

If an all-powerful supreme being who can do anything he so desires is interested in having a relationship with me, he's more than free to contact me anytime he so desires.

And there is absolutely no excuse for him not to. After all, he's the all-powerful supreme being not me. He's the one who has the resources available to make such contact without fear of not hearing anything in return.

I've prayed the Christian God countless times throughout my life. I got no answer. Is he just being RUDE or what?

I wouldn't be so RUDE to him. I would at least acknowledge him if he contacted me. I might not be interested in what he has to offer, but I'd at least TALK with him about it. I would be so RUDE as to just ignore him completely.



Yes, such an all-powerful supreme being would indeed be mean and cruel for making it where people had to "go to him" whilst he plays eternal hide-and-seek and flatly REFUSES to acknowledge them when they do seek him out.

Yes, that is indeed cruel, mean, and RUDE.

I have never rejected the Biblical God in my entire life Cowboy.

On the contrary my door is WIDE OPEN to the creator of this universe. God is more then WELCOME to have a relationship with me anytime he/she/it so chooses. The WELCOME MAT is out, and has been out for my entire life.

This God would necessarily need to be 'rejecting' me. There is no way in heaven or hell that this God could claim that I was somehow rejecting him. He would have to LIE to make such a claim. But this God isn't supposed to be a liar Cowboy.

The very accusation that people who no longer believe in Christianity are "turning away from God" is the biggest LIE on Earth.

We have simply given up on the religion because it doesn't make any sense, and the God who is supposed to be so hard-up to have a relationship with us REFUSES to do so.

That in and of itself is just yet another oxymoron.

The God of Christianity would be a LIAR if he claimed that I rejected him. On the contrary, if there is any rejection going on in that relationship it would necessarily be the God rejecting me.

Period amen.

There is not two ways about that, Cowboy.

The WELCOME MAT is out and the DOOR IS WIDE open to this God Cowboy.

I'm not going to PRETEND to have a relationship with a God who doesn't participate in that relationship.

Yet this is apparently what you expect people to do. To PRETEND to have a relationship with a God when that God himself does not even exist at all.

No way Cowboy. If there were any truth to the God of Abraham, that God would have been rejecting me for decades. NOT the other way around.

So he can't be very interested in having a relationship with me.

A God who behaves so RUDELY toward people who had believed in him at one time, would have absolutely no right to complain that they "threw any offer for a relationship back in his face".

On the contrary, he would have been the one who rejected the offer to have a relationship.

Yes, absolutely, based on everything you claim about this God he most certainly would be totally cruel, mean, heartless, and basically nothing but a huge jerk.

Without a doubt.

If you think for one second that I never tried to have a relationship with this mythological God, you are grossly mistaken.

This religion is clearly FALSE.

It has to be. Because if there really did exist a God who was so focused on having relationships with people he would have jumped at the chance to have a relationship with me years ago.

The fact that this never happened is proof positive that there does not exist any God who has any desire to have a relationship with anyone.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

This God would have had to have flatly rejected the opportunity to have a relationship with me. So much for any God who is interested in relationships.

The proof is in the pudding.

Actions speak louder than fables.

If we need this God's help then we weren't given the necessary attributes to do it ourselves.

Therefore, we could not be held responsible for having this deficiency.

This is one of the greatest flaws in these fables.

You can't have a creator creating creatures who are incapable of doing as he requests and then acting like it's THEIR FAULT for not being capable of doing as he requests.

That's an oxymoron.

This would be like a God who creates deficient beings, and then holds out a carrot of what HE refused to give them in the first place (i.e. the strength required to be like he demands).

And then blaming them for not having this strength.

Such a creator would be an exceedingly mean, cruel and heartless being.

There's no getting around it Cowboy. The religion you continue to proselytize on these forums may make sense to you somehow, but other people see through it like a plate glass window.

They can see that this has to be a man-made brainwashing scheme, for the very simple reason that no divine being could possibly be so cruel as to behave in the way this religion demands that this God must behave.

You simply can't have a God who "judges" people to be "sinners" whilst simultaneously proclaiming that people cannot even resist "sin" without this God's given STRENGTH.

That is the KEY issue right there.

That whole scenario demands that this God created men without the necessarily STRENGTH that would be required to face the trials and tribulations that this God puts them through.

It would be a God who creates WEAK creatures and then holds out his STRENGTH as a carrot for them to reach out for. And if they fail to reach out for it he BLAMES them for being WEAK!

Can you not see the circular atrocity of this archaic religious scam?

As a man made scam it makes perfect sense.

As a divine picture of a righteous loving God it makes absolutely no sense at all.

Therefore, it must be the former and not the latter.

That's the conclusion that more and more people are awaking to.

This God would need to be a seriously mean and cruel God in order for this religion to even work. But that flies in the face of what this God is supposed to be (i.e. it's supposed to be righteous, just, and loving).

The tenants of the religion simply don't match up with the character traits that the God is supposed to have.

Something's drastically wrong.

The answer is simple.

It's not the divine word of any God. It's just a man made mythology. And this is why it makes no sense.

Problems solved.

I truly don't care what you thought things inferred Cowboy. That doesn't change the validity of the point I made.

A God who creates male and female species that are highly driven by a sexual to mate, has absolutely no business making it as sin to even think about this extremely strong natural desire.

That would be downright cruel.

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Besides, forget about the specifics. The religion holds that no man can resist 'sin' without God's help. The claim is that it's basically impossible for any mortal man to be sin free on his own.

Therefore, this God would have made it virtually impossible for mortal men to be sin free, yet he's going to blame them for being 'sinners'.

This is why we can know beyond any shadow of a doubt that this religion is a man-made brainwashing scheme to instill people with feelings of guilt and spiritual failure no matter who they are or what they are like.

It's impossible to be a sin-free human being according to this religion.

My post had absolutely nothing at all to do with homosexuality.

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What you have just stated here is absolutely false Cowboy. If you believe what you wrote here then you are just in denial, plain and simple.

The very strong male desire to become sexually intimate with a female is absolutely the "natural way" of humans. In fact, it's also a quite "natural drive" for all animals that procreate via sexual intercourse.

For you to be in denial of this blatant fact of life either suggests that you yourself have no clue, (which suggest that you are not a normal healthy average male), or you're just in total denial of this truth in an effort to obsessively support an archaic religion.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the latter. Although, if you truly believe what you write, I can't help but suspect the former as well.

I'm in total agreement with Kleisto. It makes absolutely no sense for a creator to create creatures with such a naturally strong sexual desire, and then to make it a "sin" for them to even THINK about it!

That, IMHO, is so utterly absurd that it blows the whole mythology clean out of the water right there without a prayer of salvation.

Such a mythology cannot be salvaged, IMHO.

As far as I can see, you are just in blatant denial of the primal FACTS OF LIFE.

What do you mean by, "But who's to say he ever would have if the woman would not it."

What's the difference?

Who's to say that Eve would have ever eaten the fruit if it hadn't have been for the serpent?

In fact, this is yet another objection I have to this whole fable.

If the whole idea is supposed to be that humanity fell from grace from their creator, they why would there even need to be an evil serpent in the story in the first place?

I often ask the question, "Would humans have ever actually chosen to disobey this God on their own?"

What's the point in even bringing a serpent into the fairytale if the humans are supposed to be choosing to disobey God on their own?

That's just yet another huge flaw in this whole fable.

The whole story is riddled with so many totally senseless things like this that I truly stand in absolute amazement that any modern person still clings to them.

The only thing that makes any sense to me is that a lot of people desperately need to have a myth to believe in, because without a myth they have nothing to cling to. They simply can't imagine a spiritual life, or anything grand and mystical unless they have a myth that makes them promises along those lines.

That's all I can figure.

I guess if a person see atheism as being the only alternative to mythologies then it makes sense that they will cling to myths with all their might.

On the other hand, people who have no need for myths can imagine mystical things without them.

This whole idea that Adam was an innocent by-stander who merely got sucked into an evil deed by Eve is nothing more than male-chauvinism unbridled.

Genesis 3:

[7] And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
[8] And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
[9] And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
[10] And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
[11] And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
[12] And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
[13] And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
[14] And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
[15] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
[16] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

I have no clue how you interpret this story Peter, but as far as I can see it's crystal clear that the God is delving out punishments, first to the Serpent, then to Eve.

The God in this story even refers to his own punishments toward the serpent as being a "curse".

He turns to the woman immediately afterward and curses her with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth. And also places her under the rule of her husband, (clearly as part of this punishment).

Anyone who doesn't recognize what's going on in this story form the context had certainly better never mention the word 'context' to me ever again.

Clearly this God is punishing Eve with greatly multiplied sorrow in conception and childbirth, and place her under the rule of her husband as part of this punishment.

And of course, this is taken to be a punishment that stands then for all human women. Eve is just being used to represent women in general in these fables.

And yes, I most certainly call them fables, because as far as I'm concerned that's precisely what they are.

I don't believe in a God who would behave in the way that these stories suggest.

Besides, if Adam ultimately went along with her and ate the apple too then why should the woman be placed under him as a punishment? He's just as guilty as she is.

It makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.

Well, sure, as a FABLE it does. But I mean in terms of expecting me to believe that some genuinely all-wise God would have behaved in the manner these stories suggest?

No way.

As far as I'm concerned these Hebrew fables have absolutely no more merit than any of the Greek fables. I see absolutely no reason to give these stories any merit at all.

A God cursed a serpent to crawl on its belly for the rest of its days? And that's why snakes crawl on their bellies?

Oh please. Gimmie a break.

The mythological nature of these stories is blatantly obvious IMHO.

We may as well be talking about Santa Claus and Rudolf with his nose so bright as far as I'm concerned.

What would be the point in reading an article that is addressing a question that has already been answered?

I could go read the article, but I'm quite sure that the article cannot change the things in the Bible that I consider to be immoral.

So what would be the point to it? Unless the article has already concluded that the Bible is not a reliable source of morality. In that case, I agree with that conclusion.

Oh that's right. It's Thanksgiving.

I better run over to town and buy a couple cans of cranberry sauce.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

You'd have to ask the people who use it to promote violence.

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I already posted earlier how the Bible can easily be used to justify the killing of heathens.

1. The Old Testament has God commanding people to seek out and kill heathens.

2. The New Testament has Jesus proclaiming that he did not come to change the laws and that not one jot nor one title shall pass from law until heaven and Earth pass.

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So there you go.

You and I may judge the killing of heathens to be an immoral act. But that doesn't mean that the Bible cannot be used to justify such an act.

Moreover, if we should judge the killing of heathens to be an immoral act then we are ultimately claiming that the God of the Old Testament was an immoral God.

So it's riddled with paradox and contradiction anyway.

If you're going to argue that the God of the Old Testament was a moral God then you'd have to argue that killing heathens is also a moral thing to do.

~~~~~

You keep pointing to Jesus because you personally judge the things that Jesus stood for to be moral.

You basically ignore the Old Testament God because you personally aren't interested in supporting those things because you feel that they are obviously immoral.

So clearly you're deciding for yourself what you would like to support as being 'moral' and what you would like to support as being 'immoral'.

How could the killing of heathens be immoral if the God of the Old Testament commanded men to do it?

And if it wasn't immoral back then, then how could it have suddenly become immoral later?

You'd have a God who changes his mind about what he considers to be moral.

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In fact, this very line of reasoning is precisely what someone could offer when they proclaim that Jesus himself supported that he did not come to change those original laws.

So their argument that Jesus did not change the law is profound.

They would (and have) argued that when Jesus was talking about turning the other cheek he was speaking to believers and how they should treat other believers. NOT how people should treat heathens.

That's a perfectly sound argument that you could not argue against.

I mean there you are pointing to the words of Jesus, and here these other guys are saying to you, "So what? Jesus was clearly speaking to believers about how believers should treat other believers, he wasn't referring to how we should treat heathens"

That leaves you standing there with a bunch of verses that are utterly useless to point to.

These other people just got done telling you that, as far as they are concerned, Jesus wasn't talking about heathens because God had clearly said that heathens should be killed.

~~~~~

I mean, seriously Cowboy, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on in an argument against someone who was claiming that they see the Bible as giving a green light for killing heathens.

Your arguments simply don't hold water in the face of their objections.

It's all suddenly reduced to personal opinions again, and the book itself is utterly worthless in terms of settling these kinds of arguments.

Your arguments simply don't hold up in the face of their interpretations. They would just claim that Jesus never meant for anyone to turn the other cheek to a heathen. They claim that Jesus was speaking about how believers should treat other believers. God clearly had already commanded us to kill heathens, and Jesus himself said that not one jot nor one title shall not pass from law.

So they'd just push you aside as being the one who doesn't understand the Bible. Their interpretations are right and yours are wrong. Period.

That would be their stance.

Point to those verses all you want. They don't care. You just have the wrong understanding of them is all, as far as they are concerned.

You may not care less but other people do.

If there exist people who are holding the bible up to support their violence, then clearly they must be convinced that the Bible can indeed support their views, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense for them to hold the bible up as supporting their views.

So the proof is in the pudding Cowboy.

There exist people who are inspired by the Bible to do immoral things.

Therefore the bible cannot be depended upon to be a reliable source of morals since not all humans see it as such.

It's not reliable if it inspires anyone into violent acts.

And that was the crux of the question.

Is the bible a reliable source of moral values.

The answer to that is necessarily, "No it is not", and the proof is carved in the history of humanity in quite many instances. In fact, it's continuing to be carved into history to this very day.

So, in other words, your stance is simply as follows:

The Bible is the word of God. Therefore it must be moral.

Period amen.

You're pushing specific verses in an effort to push your own personal moral interpretations.

The question isn't about your personal interpretations. The question is whether or not the Bible is reliable in terms of teaching humanity as a whole good moral values.

History has already proven that it is not.

I'm a reliable source of moral values for me.

Why push my high morals onto the Bible just in an attempt to proclaim that is' a reliable source for me.

~~~~~

Here's a question for you:

If you, yourself have no clue what is moral, then how could you possibly be in a position to judge the moral values of the Bible?

On the other hand, if you feel that you are a good enough judge of moral values to see that the Bible is a reliable source of moral values, then from whence are those moral values truly emanating from?

The Bible?

Or you own sense of what's moral?

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In short, does it even make any sense for a person to say, "I have no clue what constitutes a moral value, but I think the bible is a reliable source of moral values"

That's the whole problem right there.

If a person needs to be able to recognize what's moral and what's immoral before they read the Bible, then what would even be the point of having such a book in the first place?

~~~~~

I a very real sense the whole question is a paradoxical question.

If a person needs to assess the morality of the Bible in order to answer the question, then clearly they must have had their own idea of what it even means to be moral in the first place.

And that very notion right there shows that the Bible itself would be a totally useless thing.

People who already have good moral values wouldn't need it.

People who don't already have a good sense of morality would come away with immoral interpretations anyway.

Leaving the book to be virtually useless as a reliable "guide" for moral values.

It most certainly does when individual interpretations run rampant as in the case of the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum.

It may be your personal interpretation that the bible could not support such actions. But clearly the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum would vehemently have disagreed with you.

Moreover, the entire Christian community and churches went along with this. They didn't proclaim that the Bible could not support such things. So it runs far deeper than just the views of the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum. This sort of thing was actually supported by churches and Christian individuals for hundreds of years.

So again, the question of whether the Bible is a reliable source or moral values has historically been proven to be untrue.

Perhaps a different question may yield a different answer?

"Could the Bible be a reliable source for moral values is Cowboy was appointed Pope and everyone turned to Cowboy to interpret the Bible for them?"

Maybe so. We don't have any historical evidence concerning that hypothetical situation to draw from.

All we have is the reality that humans in the past have indeed been inspired by the Biblical text do do horrible things.

Therefore I see no other possible conclusion but to acknowledge that the book has already been historically proven to be an undependable source of good moral values.

Apparently, at best, the moral values that a reader of the Bible ultimate obtains, are the moral values that the reader him or herself puts onto the Bible via their own personal interpretations.

Hitler also used the Bible as an excuse to kill heathens. After all, the Old Testament God commanded men to kill heathens, and the New Testament proclaims Jesus to be saying that he did not come to change the laws, and not one jot nor one title shall pass from law till heaven and Earth pass.

Even I can see where someone could easily argue that we should still be killing heathens today, if they wanted to argue that.

Most Christians would not support such arguments simply because they would prefer to push their own higher moral standards onto the Bible and proclaim that such an interpretation itself appears to be "immoral" to them.

Yet, left up to the book alone, the interpretations is WIDE OPEN.

So where do the moral values truly come from?

The book?

Or the people who are determined to push their moral standards onto the book?

Personally I would prefer religious doctrines that simply don't allow for such wild interpretations.

Even "An ye harm none, do as thou wilt", leaves less room for harming other people than does the entire Biblical cannon.

Funny how one small sentence can trump an entire cannon of stories in its clarity of moral values.

How is that weak?

If the bible has inspired anyone into performing violent acts then how can it be said to be a reliable source of moral values?

If this book had convinced people to believe that people had sold their souls to a demon, and their ensuing fear had them burning innocent women alive on stakes, then how could the book be said to be a reliable source of moral values?

What's reliable about a book that causes people to become hideously violent and petrified with superstitions and fears in the name of "God", and in the name of a "Demon"?

For me, the key term in that question is indeed the word "reliable".

As some others have suggested, if the Old Testament is included (which is must necessarily be), then my answer would be no, it is not a reliable moral guild.

I personally feel that the very notion of a God who solved his problems using via punishing people with suffering and sorrow (such as in the case of cursing women with sorrowful childbirth for having disobeyed him), is an extremely poor moral message. For me that teaches us that violence and punishment are divine solutions to problems.

I also feel that placing women (as part of Eve's punishment) to be ruled over by their husbands, is also a poor moral standard, IMHO.

I could continue with other objections. But I think I've made sufficient points thus far concerning the God of the Old Testament.

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Concerning the specific teachings of Jesus, I don't see anything immoral there, but the teachings of Jesus most certainly do not equate to the teachings of the entire Bible, so that's moot point.

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Finally, I'd like to rephrase the question of the thread slightly differently just to make a point.

Is the Bible a reliable moral guide more so than other religious or spiritual texts?

As soon as the question is phrased this way my answer would be that there are many other religious and spiritual texts that I personally feel are more reliable in terms of teaching high moral values. Some of the texts associated with various Eastern mystical religions such as Buddhism, and Taoism come to mind.

I would even venture to say that something like the Wicca Rede is a more reliable source of moral values. It may be brief, but the point is to not harm others, including the environment. Well, if that simple ideal was followed that would already represent the highest moral values possible IMHO.

So what would be the point in having a God model and condone violent punishments for disobedience, and endorsing inequality in marriage, if the only true morality that is required is to simply love another and not harm each other or our planet?

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The best morals possible are quite simple, and simply do not require a large historical cannon of stories to convey.

That's my view on that.