Violence in the Bible; how is it justified?

[Subduction Zone]

Different theist would have different explanations, depending on the religion, but theists can explain evil.

I have never seen a proper explanation of evil by a theist. I see some really bad arguments. Perhaps you know of a good one.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The Bible is the source of your information on slavery in the Bible and the Bible is also a source for information on God and gods and what happened back in those days in relation to them and the Jews.

Partially correct. The Bible is a source of information on how the Hebrews claimed that God told them to treat slaves. Not very well if you read it and understand it. But it really is not a source on God or gods. You would need much stronger evidence than has been given to accept that. One thing that most theists do not realize is that different claims have different burdens of proof. "I bought a puppy today" does not have anywhere near the burden of proof that "I have a magic dragon in my garage" carries. And the God claim would take even more than that if one was reasonable.

 

[Brian2]

Much of that is late writings.

No it isn't, that is the story that many want us to believe but the truth is completely different.

Your assessment of scholarship is a total strawman. You must have literally never even seen an actual paper on any Biblical fields. Scripture IS a large part of what is known about Israelites. The early Israelite beliefs are only known from finding early camps. Ashera figurines were common in most homes.

Many scholars ignore what the Bible says and make up their own stories of why Ashera figurines were common in most homes.

 

[Brian2]

Well I don't know how you are going to show a bunch of stories written by people are words from a God of the nation? But the things in the story Yahweh says did not all come to pass.

1. Jeremiah prophesies that all nations of the earth will embrace Judaism. This has not happened. 3:17

1. God promises Abram and his descendants all of the land of Canaan. But both history and the bible (Acts 7:5 and Hebrews 11:13) show that God's promise to Abram was not fulfilled. 13:15, 15:18, 17:8, 28:13-14
2. God promises to make Isaac's descendents as numerous as "the stars of heaven", which, of course, never happened. The Jews have always been, and will always be, a small minority. 22:17-18, 26:4
3. God promises to cast out many nations including the Canaanites and the Jebusites. But he was unable to keep his promise. 33:2
4. God says that the Israelites will destroy all of the peoples they encounter. But he was unable to keep his promise. 7:1, 7:23-24, 31:3
5. Isaiah
   
   
6. 1. Dragons will live in Babylonian palaces and satyrs will dance there. 13:21-22
   2. This verse prophesies that Damascus will be completely destroyed and no longer be inhabited. Yet Damascus has never been completely destroyed and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. 17:1
   3. God will ride in on a cloud and scare the hell out of the Egyptians. 19:1
   4. The river of Egypt (identified as the Nile in RSV) shall dry up. This has never occurred. 19:5
   5. "The land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt." Judah never invaded Egypt and was never a military threat to Egypt. 19:17
   6. This verse predicts that there shall be five cities in Egypt that speak the Canaanite language. But that language was never spoken in Egypt, and it is extinct now. 19:18
   7. These verses predict that the Egyptians will worship the Lord (Yahweh) with sacrifices and offerings. But Judaism has never been an important religion in Egypt. 19:18-21
   8. These verses predict that there will be an alliance between Egypt, Israel, and Assyria. But there has never been any such alliance, and it's unlikely that it ever will since Assyria no longer exists. 19:23-24
   9. 1. Nations that do not serve Israel will perish. 60:12

You certainly interpret prophecies differently than I would.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You certainly interpret prophecies differently than I would.

Yes, he interprets them properly.

 

[Sheldon]

Different theist would have different explanations, depending on the religion, but theists can explain evil.

Actually theologians have struggled with theodicy for millennia? It'll be news to the Pope and the RCC you've found an explanation I imagine.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You might be referring to indentured servitude, which is a voluntary financial arrangement. There was also chattel slavery, which features taking people captive against their wills often as prisoners of war, stealing their freedom, dignity, and labor, and maintaining the right to beat and sell slaves or their children.

Better than being killed I guess, and better for the development of Israel.

That may be, but it is irrelevant to the matter of the moral status of chattel slavery and the Bible's condoning of it in the voice of its deity issuing instructions on the proper way to own and beat people. Those not constrained by the assumption that everything attributed to the god of the Christian Bible is good by definition are free to judge this matter according to their own consciences and their own understanding of right and wrong.

It requires critical thinking with the faith that God is good. Critical thinking using that as fact changes where one ends up.

That's a violation of the principles of critical thought, and yes, inserting that idea into one's analysis changes its conclusions. Critical thinking requires the avoidance of logical fallacy. Assuming that a god exists and is good without compelling supporting evidence is an act of faith, and it derails the logical process as soon as it is assumed and used as part of an argument.

Your sort of critical thinking assumes that you have all the evidence and my sort assumes I have not all the evidence and end up giving the benefit of the doubt to the good God.

I do have all the evidence I need to make a moral judgment, and I have judged chattel slavery and all who condone it immoral. In order to leave that position, I would need to abandon the Golden Rule. My conscience doesn't allow that. I simply cannot accept that kidnapping people, stealing their freedom, dignity, and labor, selling their children, and beating them to death or close to it at will can be moral whatever else might be true.

Look at how your faith in a good God has taken you in a very different direction from me. You're trying to find ways to see slavery as good. This is why our two modes of thinking cannot both be valid if they take us to opposite and mutually exclusive conclusions. If one of us is thinking critically, then the other is not.

Here's a comment I left on another thread in response to a comment that the critical thinker has a problem id he cannot accept the supernatural because of it:

"That's not a problem with critical thinking. That's a feature. We want to keep ideas like that off of our mental maps because they lack sufficient evidentiary support for a critical thinker to believe. These things can only be believed by faith, and we strive to keep such ideas out of the collection of ideas believed to be true. Faith is not be a path to truth. Every wrong idea can be believed by faith. If one considers it important to keep wrong ideas out, he learns the methods of critical thinking, which include the laws of reason and a list of logical fallacies to avoid, ideas that take one off of the path to sound conclusions."

That helps preserve my faith when other evidence points to the guilt of God and is being humble before my God.

Yes, it does. That's what a faith-based confirmation bias does: it protects a faith-based belief from contradictory evidence. That is exactly the same thing as closing one's mind. That's what closed refers to here - filtering out such evidence. Here are some examples of that from prominent theists:

The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, “What would change your minds?” Scientist Bill Nye answered, “Evidence.” Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, “Nothing. I'm a Christian.” Elsewhere, Ham stated, 'By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." Ham is telling you that faith has closed his mind to evidence.

So is William Lane Craig: "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right"

You are doing what they are doing, which is what the critical thinker like Nye is trained to not do. All of you will always conclude that God is good because you all began with that premise. If one's faith-based belief is wrong and there is convincing evidence that an open mind would consider impartially and be corrected by, the one wearing the confirmation bias has locked himself into his error without any means to correct it.

And what you call being humble before God is what I would call allowing others to supplant their ideas for what would have been yours. The believer is taught that this is a virtue, and that any assertion of his own thoughts and will in contradiction to those ideas is rebellion, or weak faith, or Satan trying to steal his soul, or trying to make oneself God. The secular humanist does not consider such thinking virtuous or even desirable. What you call humility is what I would call an abdication of one's own responsibility to self to apply the faculties of reason and conscience to his means of deciding what is good and what is true.

 

[MikeF]

IMO

That may be, but it is irrelevant to the matter of the moral status of chattel slavery and the Bible's condoning of it in the voice of its deity issuing instructions on the proper way to own and beat people. Those not constrained by the assumption that everything attributed to the god of the Christian Bible is good by definition are free to judge this matter according to their own consciences and their own understanding of right and wrong.



That's a violation of the principles of critical thought, and yes, inserting that idea into one's analysis changes its conclusions. Critical thinking requires the avoidance of logical fallacy. Assuming that a god exists and is good without compelling supporting evidence is an act of faith, and it derails the logical process as soon as it is assumed and used as part of an argument.



I do have all the evidence I need to make a moral judgment, and I have judged chattel slavery and all who condone it immoral. In order to leave that position, I would need to abandon the Golden Rule. My conscience doesn't allow that. I simply cannot accept that kidnapping people, stealing their freedom, dignity, and labor, selling their children, and beating them to death or close to it at will can be moral whatever else might be true.

Look at how your faith in a good God has taken you in a very different direction from me. You're trying to find ways to see slavery as good. This is why our two modes of thinking cannot both be valid if they take us to opposite and mutually exclusive conclusions. If one of us is thinking critically, then the other is not.

Here's a comment I left on another thread in response to a comment that the critical thinker has a problem id he cannot accept the supernatural because of it:

"That's not a problem with critical thinking. That's a feature. We want to keep ideas like that off of our mental maps because they lack sufficient evidentiary support for a critical thinker to believe. These things can only be believed by faith, and we strive to keep such ideas out of the collection of ideas believed to be true. Faith is not be a path to truth. Every wrong idea can be believed by faith. If one considers it important to keep wrong ideas out, he learns the methods of critical thinking, which include the laws of reason and a list of logical fallacies to avoid, ideas that take one off of the path to sound conclusions."



Yes, it does. That's what a faith-based confirmation bias does: it protects a faith-based belief from contradictory evidence. That is exactly the same thing as closing one's mind. That's what closed refers to here - filtering out such evidence. Here are some examples of that from prominent theists:

The moderator in the debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on whether creationism is a viable scientific field of study asked, “What would change your minds?” Scientist Bill Nye answered, “Evidence.” Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham answered, “Nothing. I'm a Christian.” Elsewhere, Ham stated, 'By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record." Ham is telling you that faith has closed his mind to evidence.

So is William Lane Craig: "The way in which I know Christianity is true is first and foremost on the basis of the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. And this gives me a self-authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence. And therefore, even if in some historically contingent circumstances the evidence that I have available to me should turn against Christianity, I do not think that this controverts the witness of the Holy Spirit. In such a situation, I should regard that as simply a result of the contingent circumstances that I'm in, and that if I were to pursue this with due diligence and with time, I would discover that the evidence, if in fact I could get the correct picture, would support exactly what the witness of the Holy Spirit tells me. So I think that's very important to get the relationship between faith and reason right"

You are doing what they are doing, which is what the critical thinker like Nye is trained to not do. All of you will always conclude that God is good because you all began with that premise. If one's faith-based belief is wrong and there is convincing evidence that an open mind would consider impartially and be corrected by, the one wearing the confirmation bias has locked himself into his error without any means to correct it.

And what you call being humble before God is what I would call allowing others to supplant their ideas for what would have been yours. The believer is taught that this is a virtue, and that any assertion of his own thoughts and will in contradiction to those ideas is rebellion, or weak faith, or Satan trying to steal his soul, or trying to make oneself God. The secular humanist does not consider such thinking virtuous or even desirable. What you call humility is what I would call an abdication of one's own responsibility to self to apply the faculties of reason and conscience to his means of deciding what is good and what is true.

Very well said.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

God has the right to judge whole nations because of the evil of part of the nation.
That is not the final judgement when each person is to be judged separately.
The whole earth is being judged by God even now but that does not mean everyone is as guilty as everyone else, but we all suffer.

Thank God my God is not that incompetent and immoral.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

One thing that means is that God can judge us.

And we are in His image. And we can judge Him by His own standards.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Atheists can explain the existence of evil. It is theists that cannot explain this problem

Well, theists who claim monotheistic omnimax deity.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

ok im officially confused (although thats not hard for me lol)

You can’t break a nonexistent law. Laws against murder or just even a conversation about its definition didn’t happen. Cain is being yelled at for no reason.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Well, theists who claim monotheistic omnimax deity.

Yes, thank you. My own Christian upbringing kicking in there.

 

[Sheldon]

You certainly interpret prophecies differently than I would.

Without your subjective selection bias you mean?

 

[Sheldon]

It requires critical thinking with the faith that God is good. Critical thinking using that as fact changes where one ends up.

That's not critical thinking, that is simply selection bias.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's not critical thinking, that is simply selection bias.

No, you don't understand. The prophecies are all true if you believe that they are and ignore the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

Seriously if someone can deny that the Tyre prophecy is the worlds worst failed prophecy then there is no hope of having a rational conversation with that person. Even the author acknowledged that it was a failed prophecy. So of course you know what a prophet does when he is down. He immediately made another prophecy that failed as well. Classic.

 

[joelr]

No it isn't, that is the story that many want us to believe but the truth is completely different.

Regardless of what anyone wants to believe the current scholarship is the Bible was canonized in the 2nd Temple Period, 500B.C is the start. This is also when Yahweh -centric worship became more common.

Many scholars ignore what the Bible says and make up their own stories of why Ashera figurines were common in most homes.

No, I told you they use the Bible as well. You have strange ideas about scholars?

"
One of the astonishing things is your discovery of Yahweh's connection to Asherah. Tell us about that.
In 1968, I discovered an inscription in a cemetery west of Hebron, in the hill country, at the site of Khirbet el-Qôm, a Hebrew inscription of the 8th century B.C.E. It gives the name of the deceased, and it says "blessed may he be by Yahweh"—that's good biblical Hebrew—but it says "by Yahweh and his Asherah."

Asherah is the name of the old Canaanite Mother Goddess, the consort of El, the principal deity of the Canaanite pantheon. So why is a Hebrew inscription mentioning Yahweh in connection with the Canaanite Mother Goddess? Well, in popular religion they were a pair.
The Israelite prophets and reformers denounce the Mother Goddess and all the other gods and goddesses of Canaan. But I think Asherah was widely venerated in ancient Israel. If you look at Second Kings 23, which describes the reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century, he talks about purging the Temple of all the cult paraphernalia of Asherah. So the so-called folk religion even penetrated the Temple in Jerusalem.

Is there other evidence linking Asherah to Yahweh?
In the 1970s, Israeli archeologists digging in Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai found a little desert fort of the same period, and lo and behold, we have "Yahweh and Asherah" all over the place in the Hebrew inscriptions.

Are there any images of Asherah?
For a hundred years now we have known of little terracotta female figurines. They show a nude female; the sexual organs are not represented but the breasts are. They are found in tombs, they are found in households, they are found everywhere. There are thousands of them. They date all the way from the 10th century to the early 6th century.

They have long been connected with one goddess or another, but many scholars are still hesitant to come to a conclusion. I think they are representations of Asherah, so I call them Asherah figurines.

 

[joelr]

You certainly interpret prophecies differently than I would.

How do you interpret them? Take the first, all nations have not embraced Judaism?

1. Jeremiah prophesies that all nations of the earth will embrace Judaism. This has not happened. 3:17

1. God promises Abram and his descendants all of the land of Canaan. But both history and the bible (Acts 7:5 and Hebrews 11:13) show that God's promise to Abram was not fulfilled. 13:15, 15:18, 17:8, 28:13-14
2. God promises to make Isaac's descendents as numerous as "the stars of heaven", which, of course, never happened. The Jews have always been, and will always be, a small minority. 22:17-18, 26:4
3. God promises to cast out many nations including the Canaanites and the Jebusites. But he was unable to keep his promise. 33:2
4. God says that the Israelites will destroy all of the peoples they encounter. But he was unable to keep his promise. 7:1, 7:23-24, 31:3
5. Isaiah
   
   
6. 1. Dragons will live in Babylonian palaces and satyrs will dance there. 13:21-22
   2. This verse prophesies that Damascus will be completely destroyed and no longer be inhabited. Yet Damascus has never been completely destroyed and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. 17:1
   3. God will ride in on a cloud and scare the hell out of the Egyptians. 19:1
   4. The river of Egypt (identified as the Nile in RSV) shall dry up. This has never occurred. 19:5
   5. "The land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt." Judah never invaded Egypt and was never a military threat to Egypt. 19:17
   6. This verse predicts that there shall be five cities in Egypt that speak the Canaanite language. But that language was never spoken in Egypt, and it is extinct now. 19:18
   7. These verses predict that the Egyptians will worship the Lord (Yahweh) with sacrifices and offerings. But Judaism has never been an important religion in Egypt. 19:18-21
   8. These verses predict that there will be an alliance between Egypt, Israel, and Assyria. But there has never been any such alliance, and it's unlikely that it ever will since Assyria no longer exists. 19:23-24
   9. 1. Nations that do not serve Israel will perish. 60:12

 

[Bree]

You can’t break a nonexistent law. Laws against murder or just even a conversation about its definition didn’t happen. Cain is being yelled at for no reason.

the laws existed within mankinds own conscience and its perfectly logically to believe that a spiritual being would implant laws in such a way.

Mankind was created 'in Gods image'
That 'image' was not physical, but rather it was spiritual. Our ability to think and reason in the way that God does is what it means to be created in his image. Our conscience dictates to us right from wrong, it speaks to us before we act and after we act it may condemn us so that we now feel the burden of guilt.

And evidence that mankind had the law in his mind was in the fact that Cain did not murder him in view of his parents and siblings. He took his brother into a field where they were alone. And later he denied knowing where his brother was, hence the cover up of his crime. Why would he try to cover it if he did not know it was wrong?

 

[Subduction Zone]

the laws existed within mankinds own conscience and its perfectly logically to believe that a spiritual being would implant laws in such a way.

Mankind was created 'in Gods image'
That 'image' was not physical, but rather it was spiritual. Our ability to think and reason in the way that God does is what it means to be created in his image. Our conscience dictates to us right from wrong, it speaks to us before we act and after we act it may condemn us so that we now feel the burden of guilt.

And evidence that mankind had the law in his mind was in the fact that Cain did not murder him in view of his parents and siblings. He took his brother into a field where they were alone. And later he denied knowing where his brother was, hence the cover up of his crime. Why would he try to cover it if he did not know it was wrong?

How is that "logical" at all? And the evidence tells us that man was not created, man is the product of evolution.

Sure, if one creates a false world in one's head all sorts of things can be logical. We need to deal with the world that we live in.