Ronin

I did no such thing.

...and if you a referring to the absurd notion that two clay humans and all, without knowledge of good and evil, could be held responsible for the simple act of eating a fruit from a magic tree that your God planted right next to them, then I have no hope of getting past your fairy tale fantasy.


Why does an omnipotent entity have a 'want' at all, Magus55?

Is this creature of yours so sad and lonely that he could only come up with this silly game of suffering?

Besides ~ the threat of eternal torture does not seem to include much of a free will to choose.

The Christian God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That is not free will.

It would be the same as a man telling a woman to do what she wants to do, but if she chooses to leave him or not love him, he will track her down and beat her bloody.

When a man says this, society is shocked and calls for his imprisonment for assault by threat and stalking...and encourages mental health counseling.

When your Christian God says the same you call him "loving" and build churches in his honor that you send your children to attend.

Sheer disjointed lunacy.

long winded fool

Omnipotence is not the power to do anything that one can think of. There are alot of things that we can concieve of that an omnipotent and omniscient being couldn't do. The classic "big rock paradox," which is actually no paradox at all, is the most common. The simplest one is to ask if God can make a mistake. God can't make a mistake. Does this actually limit His power? No. The preceding points merely serve to illustrate a flaw in logical human communication. Asking if an all-powerful God can make a rock so big that even He can't lift it is the logical equivalent of asking if an all-powerful God can do something that He can't do, which is the further equivalent to asking if anything can exist outside of an all-powerful God's power. Nothing can do anything that it can't do. God is no exception. There's nothing He can't do, meaning that nothing can exist outside of His power, meaning that He can't make a mistake or make a rock too big to lift, or make love exist without free will or make free will exist without pain. It is true that He is incapable of these things if He is omnipotent. It is equally true that by definition these things cannot exist where there is omnipotence. There are no divine mistakes, no cosmically heavy rocks, no free will without choice, no choice without desire, no desire without knowledge of both pain and pleasure, and no love without free will.

The inability of God to create these things proves His omnipotence. (Which is merely a misleading way of saying that the inability of things to exist outside of an omnipotent being's power proves the being's omnipotence.) If He's truly omnipotent, nothing can exist outside of His power. All of the above mentioned things would be outside of His power. To put it another way: Love couldn't exist without free will, free will couldn't exist without the ability to choose, the ability to choose couldn't exist without desire, desire couldn't exist without dislike, dislike couldn't exist without the potential for pain, the potential for pain couldn't exist without some recognition of death, the recognition of death couldn't exist without evolution... etc. etc. etc... all the way back to God, the first cause. Eliminate any one of these things and the existence of all things above them becomes impossible. Therefore, an omnipotent God can't eliminate any of these things any more than He can make a mistake. God is Love. Pain is necessary for love, even if we dislike this fact. Love without the existence of pain cannot be love. Love needs all of these things mentioned in order to be defined.

Interesting... The above dependence scenario eventually terminates in a "Love is necessary for God and God is necessary for Love" loop. Since God is Love according to the Bible, God is 'the first and the last' on the list. Both the A and the Z of the universe.

Ronin

I'm aware of paradox, lwf, however your very own Christian doctrine and fable shows God creating an existence that has love free from suffering in the concepts of Heaven and Eden.

This is not a paradox nor is it beyond omnipotence, apparently, despite your slight of hand attempt.

Again, I simply point to the Eden/Heaven claim...it is the Christian story, after all.

Not according to the Eden/Heaven claim, try again.

More of the same lengthy assertion in conflict with the stated Eden/Heaven position.

Love is love, lwf...and the universe is perpetual...no firsts and no lasts.

Interdependent cause and effect is observable, no deities required.

BioBeing

Sorry for the delay A busy weekend.

You cigarette analogy doesn’t quite work. As an ex-smoker myself, when I see a friend trying to quit, I have empathy for their feelings. I know how hard it is to quit, and what the cravings can be like. That is empathy: understanding the feeling. It has nothing to do with giving the friend a cigarette. How is that selfish?
If my son (nearly 4) hurts himself, I then feel bad because he is in pain. That is empathy. How is that selfish? “The personal fear of negative feelings”? True, I do not like to hurt myself, but to avoid doing so I have learnt to not jump on the bed. I am in no danger of hurting myself at present, so why should I fear?

What a loving God, who would have us kill our own friends and family for the “greater good”! And how does he communicate his wishes for us to do so – ahhh, yes – the voices in our heads

PS How many Xians do you know who have sacrificed all their wealth for their religion? How many have taken a vow of poverty?

Sounds selfish to me. How about just doing it because it is the right thing to do?

Now, doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible, “I am the LORD, so FEAR me?” Isn’t God described as awe (i.e. fear) inspiring? Doesn’t God punish those who do not obey him? Doesn’t God command people to sacrifice their children to him just to show they do love him? If that is True Love™, I’ll take the flawed kind we have going down here!

long winded fool

Ah, then you agree that empathy that leads you to give your friend a cigarette would be misplaced empathy? (or at least, empathy without understanding. Without actually putting yourself in her shoes.) As an ex-smoker, you are capable of allowing your friend's current suffering (while still being empathetic) as a means of ensuring that the current suffering is only temporary. If she endures the craving, the craving will eventually go away. You CAN end her suffering as soon as she asks you for a cigarette, but you don't because if you do she will prolong her own suffering in the future and you will be partly to blame. If it has to happen sometime, better she suffer now and conquer it than continue to flee from it in vain forever. Times this by a hundred and you have the situation of the God of the Bible.

What a loving friend who would refuse to alleviate her friend's suffering for the "greater good!" It is analogous because I am in the position of the ignorant outside friend who doesn't understand the situation when I ask this. It is absolutely true that you have the power to make your friend feel better right now and are refusing to do so. I am welcome to my judgment of you, however it is objectively wrong. Is it logical for me to assume sinister or uncaring motives if I don't fully understand the situation?

PS The existence of imperfect Christians can't disprove Christianity any more than the existence of Nazi eugenics can disprove the theory of evolution.

Sounds selfish to me. How about just doing it because it is the right thing to do?

Isn't that what I said?

Now, doesn’t it say somewhere in the Bible, “I am the LORD, so FEAR me?” Isn’t God described as awe (i.e. fear) inspiring? Doesn’t God punish those who do not obey him? Doesn’t God command people to sacrifice their children to him just to show they do love him? If that is True Love™, I’ll take the flawed kind we have going down here!

Is awe and fear equivalent? Can you be in awe of something without being afraid of it? Is granting the free will to reject selfless love and embrace selfish instinct equivalent to divine punishment? Is allegorical Old Testament symbolism of Jesus and the crucifixion meant to be taken at face value?

Which brings me to Ronin's point. Is the Bible meant to be read as a literal record of History? If a poem uses personification, is the author a liar? Do creators of abstract art have a problem interpreting reality? Can a two dimensional piece of art literally be a physically imperfect portrayal of reality but still perfectly describe reality in a figurative sense? Doesn't this describe all art?

Science has shown us that the story of creation in Genesis is almost certainly literally false. There was no actual first human being who called himself Adam. Adam simply means 'man,' therefore right there I'd assume that the story of Genesis is allegorical and not strictly literal. If the literal interpretation of any art results in ludicrous contradictions, it is wise to contemplate the possibility symbolism behind what the literal things represent before tossing the entire painting away in disgust because the perspective is imperfect and the color is too bright. If art were about literal physical accuracy, painting would have died with the invention of photography. Meaning in art comes from the careful and skilful manipulation of reality, not from simply copying reality itself. Even 'literal' art has some intended figurative interpretation. What it means is always more important than what it is, however what it is is necessary to figure out what it means.

The difficult symbolism of books like Genesis and Revelation are a common target of atheists. The relevant question is: "Why should we take it literally?" The reason is almost always: "Because then it is false." No other art is interpreted in this way. It is an interesting fact of their psyche that the Bible would be the exception for many atheists. Objectivity aside, a good rule of thumb for how literally one ought to take a Biblical story is the presence of repeated numbers like 7 and 40 and 3 and multiples of each. This was a common way of bringing together symbols and referencing them indirectly in different books. Whether the literal story actually happened or not is as irrelevant as whether the situations in Jesus' parables actually happened or not. I don't know how historically and literally accurate the Bible is, however historical inaccuracy does not apply to the value of art.

BioBeing

Down here on planet Earth, people have conversations. I can explain why I will not give her a fag. I could give here a piece of nicorette gum instead (worked for me ). Now – I’ve kind of lost track of the analogy here:
Was it :
(1) There is pain on Earth (withdrawal symptoms), but God doesn’t do anything about it (give us cigarettes), because it is for the greater good. [Off topic]
In which case, where is the explanation? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do infants die horrible painful deaths from cancer? If all we can say is “God moves in mysterious ways, praise be” every time a child dies, what good does it do? Is God testing us? Which one of us? Why? Did we pass or fail? How do we know?
or
(2) In heaven there is no suffering? [back on topic]
Using the argument you have put out, one (in heaven) can be empathetic of anothers suffering (i.e. being in hell), but know that it is for the greater good. Thus, according to you, one is not at all upset by this suffering. BUT, being aware of WHY one is suffering does not stop one being aware of the suffering. How can one love another and not feel something for them? I feel for another ex-smoker (not because I am afraid I’m going back there – its been seven years now) but I know they will get over the cravings. How is someone going to get over being in Hell? That is kind of my point. To be aware of suffering (even when one knows it is for the greater good) and yet to not feel the pain of it, to not want the other person to stop suffering, does not seem very loving to me. In fact, I would call it callous and uncaring.

So, this bring me back to the idea that heaven and hell cannot both exist as described.

PS – you did not address my son’s pain. That is MY understanding of empathy.

Again – in a situation here on Earth, one can ask WHY. “Why will you not give me a cigarette?” We can be made to understand the situation. Maybe it’s all clear when (if ) we get to heaven, but that seems like a big if.

Now – if someone just took my cigs off of me when I wasn’t looking, and gave me no information, then, yes, I would assume something sinister was going on. If someone sat me down and explained why they were bad for me, and helped me throught the process, then I would not think them uncaring. I place God in the former. Its like in one place, he condems cigarettes, then in another, you see him smoking.

Not quite equivalent. But, according to the dictionary, awe usually includes fear or dread.


Here is how your God expects to be loved. Not quite free will, is it?

Exodus 14:31
And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.

Leviticus 19:14
Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD.

Deuteronomy 4:10
Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.

Deuteronomy 6:13
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.

Joshua 4:24
That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever.

1 Samuel 12:14
If ye will fear the LORD, and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the LORD your God:

Psalm 2:11
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Acts 19:17
And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.

Revelation 15:4
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

Colossians 3:22
Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God;

1 Peter 2:17
Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

By OT symbollism, do you mean the “prophesies”? Or did you mean NT? I’d say all the stuff about Jesus and the ressurection was just story, and not to be taken at face value (but, then I say that about all of the bible).

No other “art” is presented as such absolute truth. If I read a historical novel, I expect a certain amount of the history to be at least realistic. The bible seems to fall short on that case, as you seem to admit. If I read a self-help book, I can be expected to say “this is baloney – this won’t work for me” and I can go get another book off the shelf without fear of persecution. If I read philosophy, I can counter the authors points without fear of being sent to hell. If I read a novel, I can expect it to be made up. If I read Greek mythology, I can expect to read a story made up by ancient people to try and explain their world. The bible makes the claim (by ‘christians’ in general) of being the word of God. Of being true. If you (and I mean Xians in general) want it to be true, it has to be verifiable. It has to be able to stand up to scrutiny. The allegory and the literal need to be obvious to everyone. This obviously is not the case.

So what is the Bible? You are obviously a “cherry picker”, and you seem to have your own rationale for that – even if we need decoder rings to interpret it the way you do . [PS the Koran has a similar “numberology” to it also (19 is the magic number, IIRC) – does that make it true?]. You obviously believe in heaven and hell as portrayed in the bible, and you can put up a good argument for their interpretation, but why? Why should heaven and hell not be allegorical, while the flood is? You say the flood is not literal because it has been disproven scientifically. I say souls are not real because they have *not* been proven scientifically. And without souls, why heaven and hell?

The bible is obviously open to interpretation. 34,000 different denominations, according to religioustolerance.org. That’s an awful lot of “careful and skillful manipulation of reality” if you ask me.

long winded fool

Both are good points. The first point assumes that death is the prime evil. Once you get past this notion, the problem goes away. Why did the child die? Because he or she was a human being. Human beings die. They don't like to die, but they do it anyway. It's how things work. If we didn't die, there wouldn't be an afterlife. Dying young is not any more terrible than dying old for a true Christian. Our empathy for other's physical well being stems from our instincts to protect our physical lives and to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. This is the exact same instinct that leads to greed and selfishness. It is only human to worry about other people's feelings. It is also only human to worry more about our own feelings and sacrifice the feelings of others to make ourselves feel good. Once you accept the afterlife, grief becomes a selfish emotion. Feeling sorry for those who die is pointless. Helping people feel better is good. You can't help another person feel better unless they don't already feel their best. Again, to ask God to make everyone feel their best all the time is asking God to take away your free will, and thus asking Him to make you love Him.

The second point can be addressed with the simple quote: "Not what I want, what you want." People in Hell have rejected God's love. While it is a human emotion to feel sorry for, (or even be angry at,) people who reject our love, the truly selfless and loving thing is to have the attitude "They've chosen their own path. It is pointless to be angry with them or to feel sorry for them. They've found what they were looking for and I'm happy for them." You can't make someone love you. It is selfish and arrogant to feel sorry for someone who doesn't love you solely because they are missing out on your love, even if the love they've chosen is less than the love you would have given.

Free will is the key factor in both points. The fundamental motive behind all types of arguments such as "If God is omnibenevolent, why doesn't He..." can be traced back to the human fear of the consequences of our own choices. We don't like to be responsible, therefore we ask God to take away our responsibility. When He doesn't, we accuse Him of being a poor Father, not realizing the irony of the very accusation.

If your son is out living on his own, then it is analogous. You can't make your son choose a life without pain. If your son is under your responsibility, then it is not analogous because he doesn't have "free will" in the same sense that humans do compared to God. You can force your son to do whatever you want him to do for his own good. God does not force humans to do what they don't want to do. If He did, we wouldn't have free will. Even Jesus had the choice of whether or not to be crucified. God tells us what He wants us to do and then allows us to do whatever we want. Those that happen to want the same things God wants are walking into God's Kingdom. Those who want different things than what God wants are not. You can't make someone want something and expect them to be acting freely.

You want your son to stop hurting. This is empathy. This is good. You want to personally shield your son from pain. This is good up to a certain point as long as the pain threatens His well-being. If you continually act on this desire however, he will never learn to shield himself from pain, which is the only loving thing for a mortal mother to teach her child. Allowing him to experience pain so that he will learn to avoid dangerous things is loving, don't you agree? And don't come back with a ridiculous example of a life threatening injury, just look at the sentence itself. It is loving to allow your son to experience pain so that he may learn from his mistakes. If you understand this sentence you can understand why, on a much bigger scale with a much more valuable thing at stake, God can love a human being and allow him to be tortured and killed without intervention. The torture and death of the body are analogous to the minor pain you allow your son to experience to teach him a lesson. "Don't fear those that can destroy the body, fear the One who controls the fate of the soul."


It's pretty clear to me.

If you place God in the former I suggest you read the book where we get the idea of "God" from.


The context of "fear the Lord" is meant to be taken as 'revere,' (since this doesn't present a contradiction.) One ought to obviously fear doing things that are not good, if not-good things result in bad consequences. Does this mean that we "fear goodness?" Or do we "fear" not doing good things? And are we really "afraid" of not being good? (some of us may be, but must we actually experience fear to be good people?) Similarly, we don't "fear the Lord" in the sense that you take it, we "fear" not doing what the Lord wants us to do for the same reasons and in the same way that we "fear" not being good people. It's not about the instinct of fear. It's ALL about loving other people. We "fear" not being loving simply because we revere Love. Not only that, even if we fail to be loving, we are forgiven. What is there to fear?

Here is how your God expects to be loved. Not quite free will, is it? ...

Try looking up the word "afraid" in a concordance. Count how many times God admonishes people to "be not afraid, for I am with you." If you're going to quote mine, at least pick a difficult topic to refute. God does not expect His children to fear Him. Those who believe this have not read the Bible, or if they have, have not seen the forest for the trees. Finding little excerpts that contradict other little excerpts is easy. Actually finding contradictions that pan out when taken into context is very, very hard.

By OT symbollism, do you mean the “prophesies”? Or did you mean NT? I’d say all the stuff about Jesus and the ressurection was just story, and not to be taken at face value (but, then I say that about all of the bible).

I thought by your reference to divinely ordained child sacrifice that you were referring to Abraham and Isaac. You probably didn't recognize this as a prophecy, but it was. Abraham was about to sacrifice son. Instead, God saved Isaac and provided His own sacrifice of a ram, (caught in thorns, no less.) This is what the "crown of thorns" on Jesus' head symbolized. God provided Himself as a sacrifice to save His children. The entire OT is symbolism and reference to the Gospels. Since it was written hundreds of years before the NT, it is considered prophecy.

Irrelevant. Whether someone thinks a piece of artwork is brilliant or rubbish has no bearing on the fact that it is ludicrous to examine the literal in detail and ignore the figurative statement the author is trying to make. If this were the case, Picasso would be one of the worst artists who ever lived. His art didn't look anything like real life. The point is, literal accuracy is not relevant. Atheists who argue about literal accuracy to disprove the Bible look like fools. Atheists who argue about literal accuracy to disprove strictly literal interpretation of the Bible do not. You can argue against "fundies" with literal contradiction, but to apply this to the Bible itself shows a severe lack of insight and critical thinking on the part of the atheist.

Why am I a 'cherry picker?' I am just as much of a cherry picker about the Bible as any scientist is about science. (And just as much as you are, though I'd call you more of a "crab-apple picker." ) I eliminate contradictions without eliminating the actual words and I see where it takes me. You seek out contradiction in order to reinforce your assumption that the Bible is bunk. By doing this you are no different than the poetry critic who purposely ignores the allegorical and embraces the literal just to give a bad review. The scientific and historic accuracy of the literal can be sacrificed in order to see what is meant by the symbolic. Not taking the literal at face value obviously takes me into symbolism, but this is to be expected since the Bible itself was written to be symbolic. I'm not telling you you should read the Bible or believe my interpretations. I'm correcting you in your label of contradictions. If my interpretation has no contradictions and yours does, which do you think is the most rational interpretation? What does the scientific method and Ockham's razor tell you? Do these two things constitute a magic decoder ring? If so, scientists also need a magic decoder ring to understand the universe. The only magic is human brainpower, but I'm not implying that the ability to think critically is not magic.

BioBeing

Humans die, I agree. If we did not, there could be no evolution, for there would be no chance for common descent. Our empathy stems from our need to protect our genes for the next generation. I do not accept an afterlife – I believe it is up to all humans to be the best that they can be in this life. That includes being good and doing selfless deeds. Christians do not have the patent on being good.

I do not agree that it has to be selfish.

Atheism forces one to be responsible, because there is no God to turn to. In fact, I’d say the concept of gods traces back, in part, to the human desire to not be responsible as well as to have an explanation for things that cannot easily be explained, and to have solace in the face of death.

My son is 4. His boo-boos arise as a result of him (for example) exerting his free will to jump on the bed after I have asked him not to. I have not removed his free will (sometimes I wish I could ). My empathy is just because he then hurts himself, and I want the pain to go away for him. I would say it is purely selfless. I know I cannot shield him. I believe (to a certain extent) in tough love – not overly protecting him from life.

But as a non-interventionist God, he is not around to correct peoples mistakes. As an interventionist God, where is he? This is what I had meant by “having a conversation”. When my son jumps on the bed, I tell him not too, he will hurt himself. He’ll stop, but then do it again. I’ll remind him again, maybe give him a time out. I do not see a God doing that. He kinda put it down in a book, then left.

We could fear being eaten by a whale if we don’t go where he wants us to go. We could fear being turned into salt. We could fear having a plague set on us. Or maybe we could just fear his wrath
But if it means “revere” instead of fear, why doesn’t it say revere?

My quotes had been from the KJV. Here is another:

Hebrews 12:28
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear (KJV)

I will admit that I am no biblical scholar, and I have not even seen a Greek or Hebrew MS from the bible, so I do not know what the actual words for “fear” and “reverence” are. But, given the above passage, I would assume they are different. True, I have now looked at other bibles and seen that the word “fear” is sometimes replaced with “reverence”.

Yes, sometimes it says that we should not fear, God will look after us. In that context, what is the original greek/hebrew word used? Is it the same as the word for “fear” as in (for example) Deuteronomy 6:13? If the words are the same, then maybe it is a contradiction?

So was the NT written (hundreds of years after the events it supposedly portrays, if I believe most of the apparent scholars in the BCA forum here) with a view of fulfilling the prophesies? Were all of the prophecies fulfilled? (The name Immanuel/Jesus is the first one that leaps to mind)?

Not irrelevant, and I think you missed my point somewhat. I never claimed that Picasso was a bad artist – I can appreciate his work. I can enjoy poetry for the underlying message that I get from it. I know it is allegorical. My point was it should be clear which is real and which is made up. In another thread Biff the unclean said (and I agree – this is the point I am trying to make):
So, if I cannot see it as allegorical, then is it my fault or that of the authors?

Maybe I mis-labeled you as a cherry picker. Sorry!

When I have read it in the past (as a child, and a teenager) to try and find the same truth in it you have found, all I found were the crab-apples. Now, I read the bible critically. It is in my nature to do so. Maybe that is evidence that God doesn’t want me to understand it .

I see contradictions in the bible when I read it. Was man made before or after the beasts? Or is the whole story of Genesis symbolic? If the Genesis is symbolic, then is the flood symbolic? The resurrection of Jesus symbolic? God symbolic? Where does the symbolism end and the literal begin? My reading is that all of it is symbolic. Thus, none of the (apparent) contradictions matter, because it is just a story. BUT – the bible is not presented as being purely 100% symbolic! People go to their graves defending the veracity of the words in it (or at least come to my doorstep and try and convert me). It is presented as being (in general) the word of God. Not as some nice poem. But a moral guide to everyday living, complete with rewards if you do good and punishment if you do not. If it were presented as Aesops fables, or Clifford the Big Red Dog, or the story of Santa, then I would not have a problem with it. But it isn’t, is it? We are repeatedly told that it is Gods Word, The Good Book, The Truth etc etc…

I read science critically. It is in fact part of my job to do so. I look at how much supporting evidence a hypothesis has. I try to see if I or the author of a paper has missed an explanation for the data. I am always open to the fact that even if I accept a given hypothesis, another experiment may prove it wrong, and force a rethink. That is the nature of science. It is wrong to try and liken science to religion. Science is not presented as the Truth. It is our best approximation of the truth, given the available data. Its all subject to change (within the framework of also explaining existing data. Usually this means revisions to generally accepted theories, not complete paradigm shifts (although these may happen too)).

You bring up the scientific method and Ockhams razor again. Ockham (a theologian of some sort, IIRC) devised his razor analogy at a time when there was no other explanation for the universe. Science could not explain lightning, let alone cosmology, abiogenesis and evolution. True – we cannot fully explain all of these things now, but we have reasonable theories for them. Ones that do not require a God or a supernatural being. You have used the razor to explain the (apparent) contradictions in the bible, and I understand what you are trying to do there. I would grant that your approach is a whole lot more rational than one who should go nameless here. But just how well does the bible itself stand up in the presence of the scientific method and occams razor? Is the simplest explanation “God exists and created the universe” or “the universe exists”? Is it simpler to state “pain and suffering exist on earth and are the result of Gods great master plan” or “pain and suffering exist on earth”. Do we have an eternal soul that lives forever in the absence of our bodies or do we just die?

Finally [phew!] brain power is not magic. No need for Godidit. We just evolved this way.

long winded fool

Very true. Atheism isn't objectively wrong by my argument. I'm mainly trying to describe Christianity in a way that doesn't present logical contradictions and still corresponds to the Bible. Why bother? Mainly because the "Christianity" and the theism in general so often demolished on these boards doesn't represent the best argument for Christianity. Too often, atheists get so used to debating fundamentalists and literalists that they begin to assume that the arguments they're refuting are represented by the Bible. They remember the silly fairy tales they were forced to learn in Sunday School, all the while knowing how irrational they were, and they get really good at explaining exactly how and why they are irrational. This is a good thing. The mistake they make is assuming that their parents or grandparents or priests or pastors or Sunday School teachers had the correct interpretation, so they refute it and therefore assume they've refuted the Bible. Each of these preachers also took someone else's word as to what the Bible meant even before they first read it. Cultural understanding of what the Bible says changes with history and is extremely contradictory and rarely takes any of the common stories in context with the others. These types of things are where the crusades and the inquisitions have come from. The simple moral finger shaking that is commonly assumed to be the crux of the Bible is a very different interpretation than what a Jew or Greek from the time actually read in their own street language.

I admire those honest enough to correct flawed arguments based on the Bible, but it's important not to judge the actual content based on anything other than the most logical interpretation. If something that you used to think was contradictory can be resolved without violating the text, you ought to abandon the assumption that it is contradictory until you can prove that the contradiction cannot be resolved. The fact that heaven and hell might not be contradictory in the text given the context should be good enough to not assume the contradiction as an axiom in future arguments. Some otherwise honest and rational atheists don't do this.

Atheism forces one to be responsible, because there is no God to turn to. In fact, I’d say the concept of gods traces back, in part, to the human desire to not be responsible as well as to have an explanation for things that cannot easily be explained, and to have solace in the face of death.

This makes sense, however as a famous theologian once pointed out, Christianity is the only religion where you don't really have to do anything to be saved. This seems to go against human nature in a created religion IMO, but then that is another topic. I agree that the common conception of God fits your above description. I disagree that the God in the Bible fits the common conception of God. I went to a Catholic school as a child and attended Mass and Sunday school every week until I was 16, learning the common conception of God in order to fit in with my peers. When I was a reasoning adult and considered myself above all the superstitious nonsense of religion and above the desire to change who I was in order to fit in, I decided to read the most contemporary translation of the Bible I could find from an objective point of view as a piece of literature only. I was surprised at how familiar I was with the verses, yet how different they were when taken into context. The message turned out to be a lot different than what I thought it was. Many of the things that I was told in Sunday school were wrong. My teachers and priests all had the words right but they got the meanings mixed up. (For some reason, they didn't seem to do too well with Elizabethan English. Imagine that! ) The main reason though, I believe is because they already knew what the Bible said. Since the Bible was inerrent, they had little room for speculation and therefore put no time into honest and critical analysis of what the text meant. Questioning what I believed allowed me to see the text from a critical angle, not ignoring and hiding from conflicting things and not embracing them as vindication for my disbelief. I don't know what the Bible is, but I know it is not what most people know it is and doesn't mean what most people know it means.

Not irrelevant, and I think you missed my point somewhat. I never claimed that Picasso was a bad artist – I can appreciate his work. I can enjoy poetry for the underlying message that I get from it. I know it is allegorical. My point was it should be clear which is real and which is made up. In another thread Biff the unclean said (and I agree – this is the point I am trying to make):

So, if I cannot see it as allegorical, then is it my fault or that of the authors?

I don't believe that you can't see that it is allegorical, I think you don't want to put the effort into contemplating the issues and the concepts that the Bible presents from a detatched point of view. And I don't blame you. It takes patience even to contemplate relatively simple poetry, much less poetry containing layers upon layers of symbolism. There is very little time nowadays to reflect on poetry. In this respect, I think it is your fault, but not entirely your fault. I can hardly blame you for not wanting to waste your time with something you already know is nonsense. I think it is religious culture in general that beats people over the head with faulty logic and frightened finger-shaking. Someone who didn't understand told you exactly what was what. Not only did you recognize the inherent problems associated with what they told you, you recognized that they didn't understand what they were saying either. This was my problem anyway. Once I recognized it, I was able to start over and treat the Bible as I would any other piece of art. Since I enjoy contemplating symbolism and allegory in poetry, I lost my predjudice and the Bible no longer became someone else's book with someone else's feelings attached to it, it became my book and I began to read it with an open mind. Long story short, I found it's a lot more philosophically profound than most people think, theist and atheist alike. It actually makes a lot more sense than one would think if you take the time to understand the implications of each individual book on the story itself. The authors and compilers of the Bible had to be either God inspired or genius artists to make a story spanning hundreds of years fit together so remarkably and flawlessly. (And I doubt they'd have seen any difference between the two.)

Reading a contemporary language version helps too. Try "The Message" by Eugene Peterson. It captures in modern day American English the essence of the original text as it was read in the original languages.

You bring up the scientific method and Ockhams razor again. Ockham (a theologian of some sort, IIRC) devised his razor analogy at a time when there was no other explanation for the universe. Science could not explain lightning, let alone cosmology, abiogenesis and evolution. True – we cannot fully explain all of these things now, but we have reasonable theories for them. Ones that do not require a God or a supernatural being. You have used the razor to explain the (apparent) contradictions in the bible, and I understand what you are trying to do there. I would grant that your approach is a whole lot more rational than one who should go nameless here. But just how well does the bible itself stand up in the presence of the scientific method and occams razor? Is the simplest explanation “God exists and created the universe” or “the universe exists”? Is it simpler to state “pain and suffering exist on earth and are the result of Gods great master plan” or “pain and suffering exist on earth”. Do we have an eternal soul that lives forever in the absence of our bodies or do we just die?

Finally [phew!] brain power is not magic. No need for Godidit. We just evolved this way.

I don't dispute this. Ockham's razor (or Occam's razor, the second is the common usage but I think the first is historically correct? William of Ockham?) may indeed eliminate the concept of a creator God. But strictly in the context of the Bible, occam's razor eliminates interpretations that result in contradictions. Since the Bible was temporarily assumed in the op for the sake of argument, I think it is logical and fair to defend against accusations of contradiction with the interpretation of the Bible that has the least ammount of inherent contradictions. It doesn't make the Bible right, it just shows that the argument hasn't proved that it is wrong. Whether or not the Bible stands up to scientific scrutiny is another matter. I really don't know. It's possible, but I don't know that it is likely. Perhaps a postiting a creator God is just pushing the first cause back unnecessarily? It does stand up to the contradiction presented in this thread, however.

BioBeing

Long winded fool,

I have certainly enjoyed our conversation, but I think that from the point of the OP we are at an impasse. While I am not entirely convinced, you have made a good job of explaining how heaven and hell may co-exist.

Your interpretation of the bible is not quite what I am used to, but I can certainly see where you are coming from. I will bear it in mind in future discussions. [However, I think I'll be sticking to my view that the whole thing is symbolism. ]

Cheers