excreationist

That Tektonics site is pretty well-respected by some people - like Answers In Genesis. (They have many links to it in their Q&A section)

About killing witches, etc....

Here's some Bible verses:

Exodus 22:18 (NKJV) - "You shall not permit a sorceress to live." (The KJV says "witch")

If other commandments in Exodus are relevant to morality then so should that previous one - i.e. it would be a sin to allow a witch to live.

This next passage is a set of commandments that is like an inquisition (or genocide):

Deuteronomy 13:1-17a
On the other hand, Jesus stopped people from stoning the adulteress - which used to be a commandment from God... so maybe heretics no longer deserve the death penalty... this would imply that no-one else deserves the death penalty either (such as murderers, etc).

Per

Nay, I say: Poke him with the soft cushions!!!

happyboy

look, the inquisitors WERE faithful christians, no matter what the churches of today say. the old testament (which jesus says is just as important as the new testamanet) is chock full of advice on how to kill blasphemers, heathens, and idolators. so, if the "Good Book" is truely the inspired work of God, then a whole bunch of inquisitors, monsters by most peoples' standards, are enjoying the wonders and bounties of heaven.

a disgusted happyboy

Jack the Bodiless

This is a problem I keep encountering with fundies: the psychopath problem. Turkel/Holding, like so many others of his ilk, is a psychopath.

Trying to explain "goodness" and "morality" to a psychopath is rather like explaining color to a man blind from birth. There is a fundamental lack of comprehension, a gulf that cannot be bridged.

Goodness requires certain standards that God clearly does not possess: tolerance, forgiveness, mercy, empathy. A very "good" person will NOT inflict a greater torture on minor transgressors than a less "good" person would. For a "good" person, punishment is a regrettable necessity to discourage antisocial behavior.

Of course, Turkel is using "holy" rather than "good" here. But what does "holy" mean in this context? What is a "holy" stance on moral issues?

The answer is obvious. "Holiness" means "in accordance with Mr. Turkel's prejudices". You won't get a more coherent definition out of him, or any other fundy.

They created their God in their own image.

Stephen T-B

Thankfully, very little of the OT is historical, and probably extremely little of it which is recorded as having happened before 722BC.
In his introduction to the book It Ain't Necessarily So by Matthew Sturgis, the Beirut hostage John McCarthy who researched a TV series of the same name states that at around 640BC Assyrian power was waning. The new Judaen king, Josiah: “saw the opportunity to restore his nation’s fortunes and began a period of political and religious reforms. What better, or more likely a time for all the national stories to be brought together and edited into a new, rounded whole? Picking up where Hezekiah (his predecessor) had left off, Josiah banned all foreign cults and had their alters destroyed. As the temple in Jerusalem was restored, an ancient scroll, supposedly Moses’ book of Deuteronomy, was discovered which endorsed his reforms. So the Bible began to appear - a distillation of a whole range of folk tales, myths and oral traditions imbued with the social and theological;l beliefs of Josiah and his clique.”

So, defenses of the ferocious god of the OT which fundamentalist Christians feel obliged to mount are defenses of “the social and theological beliefs of Josiah and his clique.” No wonder they tie themselves up in knots in their ludicrous attempts to equate this god with the god of love which evolved at around the time of Christ and which his teachings crystallised.
They are trapped in the hopeless task of attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable.
So what stops them saying: “OK, the god of the OT Jews was just exactly the sort of psychopathic deity you’d expect to find being worship by a backwater Bronze Age people?”
I think it is because this cruel, vicious, unstable, psychopathic deity is attractive to them, and that being the case, is it surprising that they empathise with those who conducted the iniquities of the Inquisition?
To defend them by asserting that we must judge them in the context of a brutal time is to miss the point: The history of Christianity is a history of manners unmodified by the teachings of Christ.
That is what's so shameful.
Christians never hesitate to tell other people how they should behave, but their own behaviour down the centuries provides us with a catalogue of crimes against humanity.

MrKrinkles

Here is a *justification* that this apologist gives for the immorality of God:

<a href="http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_MCK09.html" target="_blank">http://www.tektonics.org/JPH_MCK09.html</a>

So might makes right? "Owning" a person justifies any outrage done against that person? Note, if you will, the phrase "He (God) does it justly, even if we think otherwise." Translation: I'm right about the justness of the biblical god's actions regardless of what anyone else ever thinks or says. Argument by assertion at its finest! An interesting question to pose to Turkel and others like him is this: Hypothetically, is there any atrocity God could commit that you would describe as evil? Yes or no?


Brooks

lpetrich

"Miraculous overshadowing"

=

The Christian God did not have sexual relations with that woman, Mary.

MrKrinkles

"Mr. God, what was the....nature...of your relationship with that young woman Mary?"

God: "That depends on what the meaning of is is."


Brooks


"miraculous overshadowing"? Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?