Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jarhyn · 06-26-2011, 10:12 AM

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Originally Posted by simon kole

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Originally Posted by Jarhyn

And it is just as much anyone's right to make note that contradictions within the text mean NOTHING in the face of contradictions with the universe itself*.

Saying "I am a millionaire" is consistent within itself; The problem is that it is also a LIE, and what MAKES it a lie is that it is inconsistent with reality. As there are parts of the bible that are inconsistent with reality, those parts are lies. Because those parts are lies, they are inconsistent with other parts of the text (namely those that say the text contains no lies). This means that any given part of the bible must be judged on it's merits, and a discussion of any part absolutely must be accompanied by a discussion of those merits to be acceptable in intellectual conversation. How many times am I going to have to spell this out for you?

You seem to have difficulty understanding freedom.

I am free to determine what "absolutely must be" in my posts.
If I choose to limit them to matters which provide correct information for the purpose of being informed rather than misinformed on those matters, that is my Constitutional right.

<edit>

And you seem to be misreading everything I write, and misrepresenting it<edit>. What I have been saying is that <edit> in the pursuit of confirming or denying the logical inconsistency of the bible, because such an inconsistency has two elements, and you only ever address one, while at the same time REPEATEDLY saying that the bible cannot be disproved conclusively (despite the fact I've done exactly that) and that the one element of inconsistency is all that is important.

The thread title is not "the internal inconsistency of the bible". it is "the logical inconsistency of the bible". <edit>

As it is, a text that has been as misinterpreted, re-translated, and edited as often as the bible is going to have people who can perform enough double-think to square any amount of dissonance. The same thing can be (and is) done with MODERN fiction to support theories about authors, their intent, and social themes that the authors didn't actually put there.

You are free to do whatever you want, but what you have been DOING is not "participating and contributing in intellectual conversation", it is "spouting intellectual noise, while SAYING you are participating in intellectual conversation".

Imnotspecial · 06-26-2011, 10:38 AM

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Originally Posted by Davka

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Originally Posted by Deus Ex

And for those that believe that the wages of sin is eternal conscious torment, the funny thing is that the sin "debt" is never fully paid. For every eon that you serve of your sentence in hell, you still have an infinite amount of eons to go--Yahweh never gets fully repaid for your transgressions.

Well, that's the thing about debtor's prison. If you're in prison, you have no way of earning money to pay off your debt; and if you can't pay off your debt, you won't be released. You need someone on the outside to pay your debt for you - and if you have nobody on the outside, you're screwed. In Christian Hell, there's nobody on the outside who will pay your debt.

The Catholics got around this obvious injustice via the doctrines of Purgatory and Indulgences. Suffering loved ones could be released from Purgatory (Hell's holding area?) by the purchasing of Indulgences to pay their debt.

Not quite a holding area. Catholics believe that those Catholics who have died in the state of grace, i.e. went to confess their sins to a priest, got absolution and sometimes received the last rites, now called the anointing of the sick, will go to heaven immediately if there remains no debt, i.e. if you have not satisfied justice. You will need to be in purgatory for who knows how long. Obviously a very vague concept to the modern mind since time on the other side has no meaning. It basically means a way of making up for all the shit you have done after baptism. You are starting with a clean slate after baptism and if you have fulfilled your religious obligations, been a good guy, done penance you will go straight to heaven. Very few are thought to be able to accomplish that.
The concept is on the surface much more justice oriented than the protestant understanding. Nevertheless it is also full of holes on closer examination.

dockeen · 06-26-2011, 10:47 AM

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The concept is on the surface much more justice oriented than the protestant understanding

I tend to agree.

Various new-age type philosophies pick up on this idea, and some take
it further to indicate that who we are, and what we do here is part of a plan where we
are playing our assigned role, and the idea of harsh judement after life is not there.

simon kole · 06-26-2011, 06:10 PM

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Originally Posted by schriverja

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Originally Posted by simon kole

This one's for you, Wedge. (See http://www.freeratio.org/showpost.php?p=6828390, my last response there)

Basic Logical Inconsistency of the Bible

The Biblical doctrine of the absolute sovereignty of God appears to be incompatible (illogical) in regard to five areas of the Biblical doctrine on the moral responsiblity of mankind:

1) free will of mankind,
2) compromised free will of mankind,
3) justice of compromised mankind's moral responsibility for sin,
4) justice of mankind's moral responsbility for Adam's sin, and
5) justice of mankind's moral responsibility for acting as God determines him to act

In understanding the sovereignty of God in relation to the responsibility of man, the first consideration is the free will of man, for that is where the misunderstanding begins.

The Bible teaches the sovereignty of God (Da 4:35), and the Bible teaches the moral responsibility of mankind (1 Pe 4:5). It does not teach the free will of mankind. Free will is a philosphical notion (Aristotle, Cicero) asserted by Pelagius, a British monk around 400 AD, on the assumption that the moral responsiblity of mankind requires the free will of mankind. Biblically, this is not so, and this is where to begin.

The NT teaches that mankind is a slave to sin (Jn 8:34; Ro 3:19; Gal 3:22), that it is only those whom the Son makes free that are free (Jn 8:36, cf Jn 8:32; Ro 6:18, 22, 8:12; Gal 5:1). Free will (complete moral self-power) means the moral freedom (power) to always do the "good;" i.e., obey God (Mk 12:29-31).

As has been pointed out by myself and most others on this thread, the ability to "obey God" is predicated upon the notion that the Bible, as opposed to the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Bhagavad Gita, accurately dictates how to obey God. Until one can demonstrate the justification for choosing the Bible, the rest of this is built on sand, not rock.

My post reports only on the God of the Bible.

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Since I, and others here, have examined many claims of the Bible for internal consistency (regarding suffering, faith versus law, etc), as well as external consistency (such as the creation account not reconciling with testable reality, the conclusions that there was no literal Adam to fall to begin with, etc), and found the Bible to not hold up, its authority has to be established.

I simply report what it says on the issue presented to me regarding it.

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Free will (complete moral self-power) was lost in the Fall when man's nature became corrupted, enslaving him to sin so that he cannot always do the "good" (Ro 7:18-19, 8:7). He no longer has that complete moral self-power (Jn 15:5; Ro 5:6, 7:18), which is what is meant by the "depravity of man."

But mankind does have a compromised free will, which is what the philosphers call "free agency," which is the moral freedom to do what he wishes or desires, the moral freedom to act voluntarily according to his disposition. And there's the hitch. With his corrupted nature, his disposition is toward self in preference to God, which is natural dispositional sin against the first and greatest commandment (Mk 12:29-30; Ro 1:21, 3:10-12, 23).

So, the first thing to understand is that there is no incompatibility in Scripture between the absolute sovereignty of God** and the free will of mankind because the Bible does not teach that mankind has free will (Ro 3:9-12, 23, 6:6, 17-22, 7:14, 24-25, 8:7). Mankind has compromised free will, which is the moral power to choose voluntarily according to his disposition, which is corrupt (Ge 6:5, 8:21; Jer 17:9; Mt 7:11, Jn 1:5, 3:19). God exercises his sovereignty over mankind, not by compelling their acts or wills contrary to their preferences or dispositions (which would be an overriding of their "free agency"), but by operating through their dispositions*** to which their wills freely respond. So that means there is no incompatibility in Scripture between the sovereignty of God and the compromised free will of mankind, because mankind acts voluntarily according to his wishes and desires, he still voluntarily chooses to do what he prefers, which is the meaning of "free agency," or compromised free will (and what many think is the meaning of "free will").

Now to move on to the justice of mankind's moral responsibility for sin (Ro 3:19b, 14:12), even though his compromised will is "enslaved" (Jn 8:34) to dispositional sin (preference of self before God) and not able to obey (Ro 8:7) the greatest commandment (Mk 12:29-31). It's time for an analogy (which I've used before).

Suppose an invalid borrowed money from you on the promise that he would repay you from his inheritance at his father's death.

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I have already stated why I think these debt analogies fail.

Your objections are irrelevant to the principle of debt.

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This one in particular fails because the "debt" (I think the idea of debt as an analogue to sin is stupid, but I'll go with it) isn't voluntarily accepted. The invalid doesn't seek out the debt. He's born with it. It is forced upon him.

It's not unlike natural birth. You had nothing to do with it, nor the circumstances, nor the conditions with which you were born.

If you are born with dwarism, in a rebel camp, there is nothing you can do about the dwarfism, just as there is nothing you can do about the fallen nature with which you are also born.

However, being a rebel can be a temporary condition until you are grown, when you may be able to leave the rebel camp and go to the other side, just as, going from being born as an object of God's wrath (Eph 2:3) to becoming an object of his favor.

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The invalid has contracted a just debt, which he is responsible to pay.

As I have stated before, it isn't a just debt. It is as thought the invalid is born with a IOU to some rich guy for a trillion dollar debt. One he cannot possibly pay in any reasonable lifetime. The benefactor would be unjust to expect the invalid to be able to pay it...

Not so. It's the same as being born where there is a reverse death tax; i.e, where yearly premiums to the government are required of each individual to pay for public benefits received, but parents do not have to pay a premium for their children because at age 21 the children will be liable for those past premiums, which will be added over a 10-year period to their current premiums. They call it a birth tax. If you're born there, you owe the tax from birth.

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But suppose when the invalid comes into his inheritance, he is conned out of the whole thing before his debt is paid. The invalid is still responsible for his debt, even though he is unable to pay it. We have here the principle of our justice system that responsibility for a debt is not based in ability to pay, but in what is justly owed. The same is true in the divine justice system. Responsibility to obey God is not based on mankind's ability to obey, but on what mankind justly owes God. God is the center of the universe, not man (Rev 4:11) [see post #66 @ http://www.freeratio.org/showpost.php?p=6837622]. God is the potter who owns everything he has created (Ex 19:5; Dt 10:14, Job 41:11; Ps 24:1, 50:12; Eze 18:4), including mankind (Is 45:9; Jer 18:6). He has a right to obedience from mankind (Lk 17:10) and, therefore, obedience is justly owed to him. Mankind's inability does not release him from that debt, because mankind's responsibility does not issue from his ability to pay, but from what he justly owes God.

Note that while justice requires the invalid to pay his debt to you, justice will not be satisfied in your case, because of his inability to pay. However, with God justice is always satisfied.

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God's justice isn't always satisfied.

God is the only one who decides when his justice is satisfied. You have no say in the matter.

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Even presuming that annihilation was the just penalty for being born imperfect, Jesus didn't pay it. He had a bad day and a half or so, then was restored to normal working order. He didn't suffer eternal suffering or separation. His punishment didn't actually meet what Paul states the punishment was. Ironically the resurrection, one of the most important ideas of Christianity, actually prevents Jesus from serving the penalty of annihilation (or eternal suffering, I can't quite get a clear heading from the text as to which is the real penalty).

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If we do not pay our debt (by his Son), we will be thrown into debtors' prison even though we are unable to pay (because he has provided payment). Justice will be exacted of us to the last penny (Mt 5:26, 18:34) by God who is our adversary until our debt is paid (Ro 5:10), and with whom we are warned to settle our accounts before they come into his court of (final) judgment (Mt 5:25). So, in justice, mankind is morally responsible (Mt 12:36) to obey the greatest commandment (Mk 12:29-31) even though he is dispositionally unable to do so (Ro 8:7). And that leaves no injustice in Scripture between the moral inability of mankind and the moral responsibility of mankind.

And there's more. Mankind is not only responsible for his own sin, mankind is responsible for Adam's sin. That responsibility is established in Ro 5:12-21.

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Anyone other than Paul state this in the Bible?

How many have to state it before it is true?

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But that raises objection to the justice of mankind's moral responsibility for Adam's sin, which brings us to the law of Jesus (Mt 5:28) as he applies it to the present generation of Jewish leaders in his day (Lk 11:38-41). Jesus holds them responsible for the sin of their forebears all the way back to the beginning of the world. The divine justice of that is explained in another post (@ http://www.freeratio.org/showpost.php?p=6835410, my responses within the post). And that then leaves no injustice in mankind's moral responsibilty for Adam's sin.

NB: It's about at this point when we need to remember three things:
1) Adam had complete moral power of his will to obey God. He was not deceived into disobeying him (1Tim 2:14). He chose, with full knowledge and full consent, to disobey (which in his case, with no impediment in his will to obedience, was rebellion against) God's command, because of Eve.

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According to the fable, Adam didn't know right from wrong yet.

That's not what the account says. That is your eisegesis of it.

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Its a bit like me expecting my three year old to have a perfect moral compass with no life experience to guide her. How could Adam choose anything without any kind of moral compass or foreknowledge of the consequences? God's warning, "on the day you eat of the tree you will die" turns out not to be true anyway. Nowhere does God warn Adam that eating of the tree will produce a fallen world for generations to come.

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2) The gravity of Adam's rebellion is seen in the gravity of its conseqences; i.e., fallen mankind, who now has a compromised will and a corrupted disposition.

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The warning against eating of the tree was that Adam would die, that day, not that he was instigating the rebellion of a whole race. Indeed Gen 3:17-19 seems to be the sum total of the penalty for Adam's disobedience, not all of the stuff added much later that evolved with Jewish thought throughout the Bible.

simon kole · 06-26-2011, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schriverja

Simon, if the wages of sin is death, in your view, does any death do? In other words, you and I are going to die one day. Since at that point the penalty for sin has been paid (death), do you think God could Justly just resurrect me as `paid in full'? I would have paid the debt, would I not, just by dying?

You're leaping from "wages" to "penalty."

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Also, do you think the Bible (especially the Hebrew Scriptures) is consistent regarding the idea of an afterlife? In other words, do you agree with the Sadduccees (who didn't believe in an afterlife*) or the Pharisees, who did?

I believe what the NT writers report that Jesus said about it, and what they say about it; i.e., there is an "afterlife" in the new heavens and new earth, the home of righteousness.

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*what is meant by an afterlife is unclear, at least to me. I could mean some sort of disembodied soul idea as modern Christians seem to take it. But Paul and others that wrote about it seem to think that it was a re-animation of a person's existing body.

The NT is pretty clear that it will be in a resurrected physical body with properties both similar to the body we have now and also radically different from the bodies we have now. Not enough has been revealed about the afterlife to have a complete picture of it.

simon kole · 06-26-2011, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarhyn

Quote:

Originally Posted by simon kole

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarhyn

And it is just as much anyone's right to make note that contradictions within the text mean NOTHING in the face of contradictions with the universe itself*.

Saying "I am a millionaire" is consistent within itself; The problem is that it is also a LIE, and what MAKES it a lie is that it is inconsistent with reality. As there are parts of the bible that are inconsistent with reality, those parts are lies. Because those parts are lies, they are inconsistent with other parts of the text (namely those that say the text contains no lies). This means that any given part of the bible must be judged on it's merits, and a discussion of any part absolutely must be accompanied by a discussion of those merits to be acceptable in intellectual conversation. How many times am I going to have to spell this out for you?

You seem to have difficulty understanding freedom.

I am free to determine what "absolutely must be" in my posts.
If I choose to limit them to matters which provide correct information for the purpose of being informed rather than misinformed on those matters, that is my Constitutional right.

<edit>

And you seem to be misreading everything I write, and misrepresenting it<edit>. What I have been saying is that <edit> in the pursuit of confirming or denying the logical inconsistency of the bible, because such an inconsistency has two elements, and you only ever address one, while at the same time REPEATEDLY saying that the bible cannot be disproved conclusively (despite the fact I've done exactly that) and that the one element of inconsistency is all that is important.

The thread title is not "the internal inconsistency of the bible". it is "the logical inconsistency of the bible". <edit>

As it is, a text that has been as misinterpreted, re-translated, and edited as often as the bible is going to have people who can perform enough double-think to square any amount of dissonance. The same thing can be (and is) done with MODERN fiction to support theories about authors, their intent, and social themes that the authors didn't actually put there.

You are free to do whatever you want, but what you have been DOING is not "participating and contributing in intellectual conversation", it is "spouting intellectual noise, while SAYING you are participating in intellectual conversation".

Perhaps you could show where I say that.

I think you are confusing two different subjects here:

1) My responses on internal contradictions in the Bible are in reference to my numerous posts on the thread,
Why is the Bible so contradictory?

2) Review the beginning of the thread, Logical Inconsistency of the Bible to see the why and the what for which it was started. The two threads have different focuses. My responses on Biblical contradictions are not in reference to this thread.

simon kole · 06-26-2011, 06:39 PM

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Originally Posted by Davka

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Originally Posted by simon kole

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Originally Posted by dockeen

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Originally Posted by Davka

Well, Simon, you've done a wonderful job of describing who the Bible claims that God is, and why the world is so totally fucked up. Your explanation is quite accurate, actually. The God of the Bible is a sociopathic sadistic monster, and if we don't worship him he will fry us for eternity. He made us, so we better just shut up and obey.

Thank you. We see quite clearly who it is that you worship. Good thing he doesn't exist, or I'd be burned forever - because I am damned sure not going to kiss up to the Author of the Holocaust, the Plague, Sin, Hell, Torment, Child Prostitution, and every other horrific thing you care to name.

Here's the humorous part of this. I bet you dollars to navy beans that he thinks he is being really effective as Christ's representative here.

You demonstrate in your posts a particular ability to ascribe discrediting motives to those with whom you disagree.

Do I detect a hint of resentment here?

Do I detect a peculiar ability to ascribe motive to dockeen's post?

Uh huh. . .that's the point.

schriverja · 06-26-2011, 06:50 PM

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Originally Posted by schriverja

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According to the fable, Adam didn't know right from wrong yet.

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Originally Posted by simon

That's not what the account says. That is your eisegesis of it.

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Originally Posted by Genesis 3:22

22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

[emphasis mine]

Are you sure my eisegesis is incorrect?

schriverja · 06-26-2011, 06:53 PM

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Originally Posted by simon kole

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Originally Posted by schriverja

Simon, if the wages of sin is death, in your view, does any death do? In other words, you and I are going to die one day. Since at that point the penalty for sin has been paid (death), do you think God could Justly just resurrect me as `paid in full'? I would have paid the debt, would I not, just by dying?

You're leaping from "wages" to "penalty."

What is the difference in the context of Christian doctrine?

<snipped afterlife stuff>

simon kole · 06-27-2011, 06:31 AM

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Originally Posted by schriverja

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Originally Posted by simon kole

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Originally Posted by schriverja

Simon, if the wages of sin is death, in your view, does any death do? In other words, you and I are going to die one day. Since at that point the penalty for sin has been paid (death), do you think God could Justly just resurrect me as `paid in full'? I would have paid the debt, would I not, just by dying?

You're leaping from "wages" to "penalty."

What is the difference in the context of Christian doctrine?

<snipped afterlife stuff>

Ro 6:23 - "For the wages of (Adam's) sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. . ."

1) One kind of employment brings death as its wages, the other results in eternal life.

2) If you saturated the soil with brine around a rare species of tree protected by the law, there would be two outcomes.

a) death of the tree - inherent consequences of your action (wages)
b) penalty of the law - penal consequences of your action (penalty)

The inherent consequences (wages) of Adam's sin is spiritual and physical (first) death for the human race.

The penal consequences of one's sin is the second death (lake of fire).

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