Grade Me!

If you're bored, and if you like debates...

Have I lost you yet?  :-)

Good.  There's a short (so far) debate going on between me and aservantofJehovah in the comments of the Luke in Hell post on my other blog regarding Hell, and Mark's version of it in particular..

I am trying to be reasonably respectful, yet firm.  I don't mind throwing a jab or two as well, but I don't want to cross the line into being a jerk.  So feel free to check it out if you've got the time and the will to do so, and let me know here how you think I've handled it.

But, please, don't feel obligated to do so.  Debates aren't everyone's cup of tea, and I get that.  Believe me, I get that.  :-)

You Deserve to Die!

You.  Me.  Everyone.  All of us sin and fall short of the Glory of God, and the wages of sin is death.  The next time you go to a funeral, from a Biblical perspective, you could walk around telling people how the deceased deserved to die, but I wouldn't recommend it.  And when you read the Bible, and find the countless passages where God slays, destroys, and annihilates people, or directs others to do so in His name, you are to think:

"Thank you God!  Thank you for killing them.  They deserved it."

But don't we all deserve the same treatment, from that perspective?

My longtime friend and Christian sparring partner, Ollie Wallflower, and I were in a recent debate regarding whether or not God caused a worldwide famine to enslave the Jews in Egypt.  One of the collateral points I discussed was how, through this famine, God caused the suffering and death of an untold number of people worldwide, especially those who were without practical means to get to Egypt.  In defense, he said this of his perception of my viewpoint:

"In your view, people are, generally speaking, innocent and undeserving of punishment. *That* is an irreconcilable difference of opinion [between us], and one that will cause you to look unfavorable upon nearly chapter of the Bible. Which is, of course, what you've done on [The Wise Fool] blog."

I've run into Mr. Wallflower's thoughts here before from the mouths and the typing fingers of other Christians defending God's mass killings.  They assume, and perhaps sometimes correctly, that the doubter/objector presumes everyone is innocent, or mostly good, such that there could never be justification for God to paint His wrath in such broad strokes.  Such a position is not without merit, but it is not necessarily Biblically based, and, thus, folds like origami in the mind of the Christian.  Contrary to the thoughts of Mr. Wallflower, I try to avoid positions like that at all cost precisely because they are easily circumnavigated.

The Bible is my perspective.  To quote Shakespeare's Hamlet:

"For 'tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, an't shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon."

What the heck does that mean?  Well, my sport is to use God's Self-ascribed characteristics to prove the incongruous, non sequitur nature of the Bible.  That is what I've done on The Wise Fool blog, but apparently I haven't done that well enough, as Mr. Wallflower missed this perspective.  Let's see if I can do a little better, right here, for this issue of God-directed slaughter:

Given:

• God has perfect justice.
• God has perfect mercy.
• God has perfect love.
• Everyone sins.
• Sin is repaid by death.

Based on the Givens:

• The first time any person sins, or perhaps the first time a person sins after they reach the age of culpability, God is entitled to kill that person.
• It is a question of when they will sin, not if they will sin.
• Ergo, at any given time, God is entitled to kill nearly everybody on the face of the planet.
• If death is the payment for sin, then justice demands death.
• However, mercy and love promote betterment and preservation, which is contrary to the justice of death.
• There is no clear resolution to this conflict of mercy and justice, but love, spread to everyone, would suggest that the really bad people would be killed off early for the betterment and preservation of the others.
• If everyone deserves death at the moment they sin, then every moment they live beyond that point is a gift of mercy.
• With perfect justice and perfect mercy, there must be a perfection to the distribution of mercy, because otherwise it would be unjust.
• Ergo, all similar sinners should have a similar life expectancy.
• From the above conclusions, the worst sinners should always die young, while those who live relatively sin-free should expect to live relatively long.
• On the other hand, if mercy or justice, or both, were unequally distributed with regard to merit, then God would appear arbitrary and capricious, and therefore justice and mercy would be imperfect.
• Nobody can die before they sin, because otherwise justice is imperfect.

Reality Check:  I haven't even begun to speak about a disaster caused by God yet, and, already, the implications of perfections of justice, mercy, and love are proving to be problematic when you look what happens on earth.  People die with no sense of cause regarding sin.  Some wicked people live long.  Some good people die young.  Some kids die before they are old enough to even conceptualize sin.  This is already pretty good proof that the God of the Bible does not exist, at least not a God with the aforementioned attributes.  Arbitrary, capricious behavior is far from what we would consider perfect in any sense.  However, God does say in Exodus 33:19 "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," which pretty much tells you God is going to help out who He wants to help, not necessarily who deserves the help, and thus solidly refutes the principles of perfect justice and perfect mercy right there.

Enter Calamity:
Let's go with everyone's favorite God-cause disaster: The Flood of Noah.  The Flood is covered in Genesis 6-7, for reference.

Imagine, if you will, one thousand dice.  Just regular, six-sided dice.  The "one" represents the state (with regard to sin) in which you were born.  If you are a true Catholic, it sucks to be you, because you inherited sin, so God has license to kill you from the moment of birth.  For Protestants, or anyone else with better sense, "one" represents a sinless state.  The "two" represents when you commit your first sin.  Additional increments on the dice represent degrees of wickedness, so to speak.  So a "six" is someone who kicks puppies, makes burn sacrifices of his own children, and your children, defrauds your grandparents out of their life savings, and actively plots out and participates in genocide; you know, the scum of the earth.

Time to roll the dice...  Wow!  What a racket!

Now that the dice have settled down before you, you are gazing on one thousand souls, representing the much larger population of the earth at the time of the flood.  You've got innocent "ones" in the midst of sinners, including a fairly good distribution of the worst of the worst, and everything in between.  What a surprise!  And they will be surprised, too, when that wave of destruction of the Flood comes their way.

Take the dice and roll them again.  This time, the rolled numbers correspond to ages.  "Ones" are five years old and under.  "Twos" are six to ten years old.  Continue on in increments of five years to where "sixes" represent people above the age of twenty five, because, hey, this is several thousand years before Christ, and the life expectancy was not very high back then.

Undoubtedly, some of the "sixes" from the first roll remained "sixes" on the second roll.  These lucky bastards were as despicable as any one you'd never want to meet, and yet they lived long lives up until the Flood.  And some of the "ones" and "twos" from the first roll, well, surely they made it up to a relatively long lifespan on the second roll too.  However, others got a low roll again, being mere youths at the time when they got to experience what breathing water felt like.

Evaluation:  Just like in the Reality Check up above, based on age and status, what we see is a whole bunch arbitrary justice, only this time it is doled out on an epic scale.  God shed His mercy on some truly despicable people for a relatively long time, and, on the hand, stomped out thousands of budding lives before they had a chance to bloom.  God is also killing people who have never sinned, an act that He has no right to do so if constrained to justice.  You could also call it capricious, given that many prior generations existed, with all of their evils, which eventually gave birth to the people living at the time of the Flood.

These are the Bible-based issues I have with the Biblical, God-caused, epic exterminations of peoples.  It's not that I think everybody is innocent, or that nobody deserved punishment, although clearly a subset of those kind of people would be victims of God's wrath as well.  It's that these Acts of God make a mockery of justice and mercy, and love for that matter.

A Perfectly Good (Christian) God?

Can a perfectly good God insist that He alone be acknowledged as God, allow evil to exist, or have any sort of eternal Hell awaiting those who refuse to accept Him? These are some questions which commenter Ollie Wallflower challenged me to answer, so here we go.

There are so very many assumptions on a theological extrapolation like this that I think it is worthwhile to spend a moment discussing them. For instance, one of the most significant assumptions is revealed by Ollie Wallflower asking these questions from the perspective of the world which exists now. However, there is no inherent need for an 100% spiritual being (God) to create an entirely different kind of realm (physical) for His creations to live in; a realm where their interaction with spiritual beings is limited at best. The fact that we live in this physical world is, to a large degree, why these questions have any real significance.

Also tied into these questions are the assumptions of divine purpose, divine planning, and a divine defined timeline. It is easy to imagine a perfectly good God who has no explicit purpose for His creations, other than for His entertainment of sorts, objects for His affection and delight. It follows then that a perfectly good God has no inherent need of a multi-millinia plan, and no need of a timeline to say when the physical realm will come to an end, or be remade, or whatever your belief. To a lessor degree, these questions have significance based on the Christian presumptions of purpose, planning, and timeline.

So, let's acknowledge that we are working under the above noted, and probably many more, assumptions which are richly steeped in Christian theology, and move on from there.

The next hurdle is defining what is perfectly good, or omnibenevolent. “Good” has so many varied uses in our language that perhaps we would do better to define it as love in this case. What does a perfectly loving God look like? Well, because we are building this argument on Christian fundamentals, why not use a Christian definition of love? We'll look at one of my favorite, well written sections of verse, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, below for reference:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." NIV

Christian or secular, I think that's a good definition for love, period. So let's promote this as our concept of what an omnibenevolent, perfectly good, all-loving deity would be like. OK, now let's attack the questions:



Can an omnibenevolent God insist that He alone be acknowledged as God, or must He allow for the belief in other gods, or in atheism, as well?

Love is patient, ergo, God must be patient with people who believe in other gods or no gods.
Love is kind, ergo, together with patience, God should allow people to come to the truth about God on their own time.
Love does not envy, ergo, God has no cause to be jealous over people believing in other gods.
Love does not boast, ergo, God has no cause to insist that He alone be recognized as the only God.
Love is not proud, ergo, God has no cause to even bring up that He is the only God.
Love does not dishonor others, ergo, God has no justification to humiliate or punish those who do not believe in and accept Him.
Love is not self-seeking, ergo, God should not focus on His own displeasure in those who do not choose to follow Him.
Love is not easily angered, ergo, God should not be angered at humans with all of their varied circumstances, imperfect knowledge, and imperfect capacity for understanding that there are no gods but God.
Love keeps no records of wrongs, ergo, disbelief should not be an issue for God.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth, ergo, God should be simply happy when any human does come to accept the truth about Him.
Love always protects, ergo, God should protect even those who do not believe in and accept Him.
Love always trusts, ergo, God should trust that all people will come to believe in and accept Him.
Love always hopes, ergo, God should perpetually hope that all people will come to believe in and accept Him.
Love always perseveres, ergo, God should endure those who do not believe in and accept Him.


Can an omnibenevolent God allow evil--even if only for a time--and still be considered "good?"

The question only makes sense if God is assumed to be omnipotent, or at least powerful enough to prevent evil. It also draws into question what our assumptions are regarding evil. We know sin is an act which is against the will of God. Is evil the same as sin? I don't think so, at least not in our present-day vernacular. Evil appears to have a detrimental connotation, and is some subset of more-serious sins. We would not call someone who routinely breaks the speed limit “evil.” On the other hand, a serial killer is someone for whom the label “evil” seems appropriate. For lack of a better definition, evil involves acts which are in active, cognizant, and polar-opposition to love, and most often infringe upon the will of others.

Little in the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 definition of love is specifically defiant of such evil acts.
Love is kind, ergo, God should act to prevent evil in kindness.
Love always protects, ergo, God should protect people from evil actions.
[EDIT NOTE: The NIV "always protects" is not the best translation.  It should read "always endures all things" instead.  However, given that no one would be considered "good" if they did nothing to prevent an evil act or bad act which was in their power to prevent, protect is a relevant definition for love.]

A typical Christian objection to this is that such an act of protection or preservation by God would impede on free will; that somehow absolutely free freewill is necessary to result in the purest love. However, this again is based on assumption. Our free will is impeded from the moment of birth by nature of this physical existence. For example, I desire to see the spiritual world, and I desire to fly like Superman, and I desire to teleport because air travel is just too slow. However, I can't choose to do any of those options, as they are simply not available to me. They are restricted from my freewill. Even beyond these super-powers, my freewill is restricted by circumstances. If I was a thief, and my desire was to have everything I ever could want, I could not achieve that because being just one person with a limited lifespan limits the fulfillment of my freewill. So our perception of what freewill is inherently accepts that our “natural” boundaries are the assumed acceptable limits of freewill.

That said, is it possible for God to allow people to have freewill but not allow evil? I think so. Have you ever seen an invisible fence? An invisible fence is a product is designed to keep your dog in your yard. You equip the dog with a special collar which, by radio frequency, activates an unpleasant shock to the dog when it tries to go beyond an established barrier (set by a buried wire). The only thing which activates the collar is crossing that threshold. In other words, the dog is completely free to roam on its own will, dig up the flower beds, chase squirrels, “water” the trees, etc. As long as the dog does all that in the yard, it receives no shock.

What if God equipped us all with a type of invisible fence to prevent evil? We could still do (nearly) anything we wanted to do on our own freewill. However, let's say that I had become angry at my neighbor because he had parked in my grass, and I decided I wanted to kill him because of that. The moment I grabbed my gun with the intent to slay him, God's invisible fence kicks in and I start to vomit. (God could easily do this if He is truly omniscient and omnipotent.) The nausea subsides, I grab the gun with the intent to kill my neighbor again, and immediately I start vomiting again. After a few cycles of this, I give up on the gun and decide to strangle him. As I start to walk over to his house with this intent, I start to vomit. Sooner or later I am going to learn that I physically can't kill my neighbor. The same process could be instituted on any evil to nip it in the bud. If instituted universally and consistently, these limitations would then seem as natural as not being able to fly like Superman or to teleport.


Can an omnibenevolent God allow *any* sort of Hell--a place where those who refuse to accept him as Lord will dwell for eternity?

The concept of an eternal Hell only seems to be relevant assuming Christian eschatology is accurate. For if there is no ultimate end point to the world as we know it, and no rebirth into Heaven (or into a sinless physical world, depending on your belief), which will last from then to eternity in perfection, then there would be no need for a Hell to cast the rejects into it for all eternity. Yet even in that assumed construct, the concept itself goes against several tenants of love:

Love is patient, ergo, God should be patient with us, given our limited timeline, limited knowledge, and limited comprehension. On an infinite timely, anyone would be expected to arrive at the truth, but truncating that timeline and making the judgement binding forever means that God has limited patience.
Love is kind, ergo, God should allow conversions at any time, because to lock someone to a fate decided by their own imperfections is not kind at all.
Love keeps no records of wrongs, ergo, God would have no justification for making an eternal judgement of that nature. (It also means that Jesus didn't need to die for our sins! But that's another story...)
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth, ergo, God should be simply happy when any human chooses Him.
Love always trusts, ergo, God should trust that people will come to believe in and accept Him given an infinite timeline.
Love always hopes, ergo, God should perpetually hope that people will come to believe in and accept Him given an infinite timeline.
Love always perseveres, ergo, God should endure those who reject Him even up to the time of their conversion.

On a long enough timeline, love does conquer all, and truth prevails. :-)

David's Law

"Her priests do violence to My Law and profane My holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of My Sabbaths, so that I (God) am profaned among them."  Ezekiel 22:26 NIV

So, awhile back, I was having a little debate with a blog commenter by the name of David.  We ended up touching on God's Law, but never really resolved it the matter.

I encouraged him for more study on the matter, because I had a sense that his perspective may be incomplete or inaccurate.  He was kindly putting forth a viewpoint which I had heard many times before; the mantra of the Pauline view of the Law.

I hadn't studied Paul's writings in any real detail myself yet, so I reckoned that I should do just that.  I studied Romans, which David was pointing to in defense of  his position.

I also got some time to review what I had learned about the Law from the Old Testament (OT), and put that together in a post on the Law on my other blog.  In summary of that post:

"God gave the Promised Land to the Israelites for eternity, but they can only stay there, and kings can only rule there, while they obey the entirety of God's Law.  God established the Law forever, perfect, and unchanging, just like Him.  It is possible to obey the Law, and obedience does not need to be perfect in order to please God as long as you are truly repentant for your sins.  Such obedience will be rewarded with long life and abundant prosperity, which will in turn lead others around you to seek God."

The funny thing is that after reading Romans and reviewing the OT, you start to realize by just how Paul's theology misses the mark.  If you read the words for what they are and what they mean, you wonder just how Paul could have been successful with this rift from Scripture, but you stop wondering why the majority of Jews do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.  And that circles back to the comments which David had made.  David had said:

"Your issue is solely with Mosaic Law and the implication of Mosaic Law as it relates to God's character.  Is Mosaic Law a valid representation of God's character?  I think you have demonstrated it is not. I maintain it was not intended for that purpose (please re-read my comments)."

David concedes that God's Law in the Old Testament is not exactly morally perfect.  You can see I have proved that point well enough to him, but David gives God a pass because it was not the intent of the Law to show God's character.  However, that is more allowance than God permits Himself.  God made the Law to be followed eternally, completely, and "as is" without any changes.  If the temporary work of my mortal hands demonstrates my character, surely such a permanent creation by God demonstrates His character, just like the charge Paul makes in Romans 1 that all creation has revealed God.

Elsewhere, David asks some interesting questions from the Pauline perspective:

"The problem is you are trying to convict God based on the Law. If God exists, was He righteous before the law? Did the ideas of good and evil exist before the law? How did we understand the difference before the Law? What is its purpose?"

Was God righteous before the Law was given?  Events like the flood massacre (Genesis 5-10) and the worldwide famine (Genesis 41-47) make the case that God will make the innocent suffer along with the guilty, which certainly suggests that, no, God was not righteous before the Law.  (But I guess that depends on your definition of righteous.)

Did the ideas of good and evil exist before the Law?  Absolutely.  Try searching for "sin" on Bible Gateway and you will find multiple Genesis entries (a.k.a. before the Law) on the matter.  A great example is Genesis 39:9.

How did we understand the difference before the Law?  Contrary to Paul's logic in Romans, people seemed to understand the difference without the Law, as noted above.

What is [the Law's] purpose?  Why not go with the explicit purpose given in Deuteronomy 6:20-25?

The bottom line is that you can't take the words at face value and have everything be reconciled between Paul and God (OT).  So believers must twist the definitions of the words to fit the square peg into a round whole. 

Forever, eternal, and unchanging don't really mean forever, eternal, and unchanging, because the Law was just a shadow of what was to come or what was to be fulfilled (not obeying the Law) through Jesus.  Sure.  If believing that makes you feel better, go with it.

Inconceivable!

I had never fully read through the book of Romans.  There are certain sections which I have read multiple times; the popular ones for preachers and skeptics.  My recent debate with David prompted me to give the whole book a good read.  I've posted my summary of Romans on the Wise Fool site, which cuts down the 16 chapters to roughly four pages worth of text without (I think) sacrificing Paul's message.

Let me first say that there is some really good stuff in there.  Chapter 12, in particular, is my favorite.  (Naturally I would not agree about being zealous for God and other things like that, but the essence of the chapter is excellent.)  Some of the verses in the chapters after that are also good.

But Paul, poor Paul, is not quite right on everything.  Many people already know of the controversial commands to obey each and every authority figure, because they are placed there by God according to Chapter 13.  On the other hand, not many people seem to speak of some of the deeper issues with Paul's theology as presented in Romans.

This is not my blog to go deeply into Scriptural affairs, but let me whet your appetite for deeper study with some teasers.  Paul believed that:

• After Adam, everybody died despite the fact that nobody was held accountable for their sins until the Law had been given.
• God was making the Jews not believe in the grace through Jesus by making them stumble over the Law.
• God will eventually save all of the Jews living at a particular time, when they get jealous of the Salvation by faith of the Gentiles.  That will occur after all of the necessary Gentiles have become believers.
• Judgement Day was near.
  

Paul's use of quotes from the Bible tend to be ripped out of all context.  It is astounding!  Even the ones where he somewhat preserves the local context, the way in which he uses them tears it from the larger context of the Bible.  The foundation of half of this letter is such a case, where he quotes Genesis 15:6:

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” NIV

Yet Paul seemed to have missed Genesis 26:3-5, where God tells Isaac:

“Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham.  I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.” NIV

So yes Paul, Abraham's belief was credited as righteousness, but the Promise was given and was being kept by God because of Abraham's works!

And the arguments Paul gives in Chapters 3-7 about righteousness through faith instead of by the Law made me think of "The Princess Bride;" the scene where there is a battle of wits between Westley and Vizzini.  Westley pours poison into some wine, arranges two cups, tells Vizzini to choose a cup, then they will both drink, and one of them will die.  Vizzini starts going though a stream of ridiculous logic about which cup to choose, to which Westley sarcastically replies "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."

Well, Paul, truly, you have a dizzying intellect.  It is no wonder that in Romans he pleaded for believers to set aside differences of scriptural opinion, and also pleaded that they should stay away from anyone teaching anything contrary to what Paul had taught them.

Moving Mountains

Imagine that you had some genetic malfunction which resulted in you seeing the color blue in the same way everyone else sees the color pink, and visa versa.  Now imagine trying to debate the order of the colors in a rainbow.  ROYGBIV would be ROYGPIV to you, but how could you convince others of your perspective, or how could you arrive at the truth of the matter, figuring out that you have been wrong your entire life?

One of the most difficult things to do is debate effectively.  Trying to debate someone with a viewpoint equal and opposite of your own, someone who holds their belief just as strongly as you do, if not stronger, is like trying to move a mountain.  Because such a belief is a "world view," as the expression goes.  That world view, be it Biblical or other, colors the perspective of all data we receive.  People of faith obviously have this reality filter in place, but scientists are not immune to this bias either.  In our world where we are trending towards more faith in science than religion, that has its own hazards.  But I digress...

How do you debate someone with a different world view?  How do you convince someone that blue is pink, or the other way around?  I don't know, but I am trying to learn more effective ways to do so in the arena of faith.  It's just difficult and frustrating.  When you can look at the sky and say "See that blip of light?  That comes form a galaxy 300 million light years away," and yet people still think that the earth is less than 20,000 years old, you just want to throw your hands up and wave the white flag.  Just like watching a magic show, people of faith are willing to suspend their disbelief until God pulls a rabbit out of his Holy Hat, to reveal that He made the universe already fully matured.

So what approach do you take?  Any tips for this Fool?  I'm thinking of trying to limit conversations to a core set (yet to be completed) of arguments, like:

Why is it that we are even having a debate about God's existence instead of it being intuitively obvious?
Assuming that there is a God, how can you be certain that the revelation in your holy book is indeed from God?
Assuming that demons exist, how can you be certain that God actually cares and sent Jesus, as opposed to the whole story being concocted and enacted by demons as a way to entertain themselves by playing with the minds of mortals?

Dueling David 2c: Offensive Content

David said  “...advocates of [the Bible/Koran] are the best authority of what its followers should be practicing...”

To some extent, I think this is a completely valid viewpoint, and that you are right to push in that direction. You should be held accountable for what you really believe, only what is really being taught.

However, you must realize that there is often a departure between what is taught and believed about the Bible versus what is actually in the Bible. For example, several hundred years ago, Christianity presented a fairly uniform front that hell was a place of eternal punishment, a lake of fire where those who rejected God were tortured forever. Today, you still have people who believe that, but you also have others who believe that hell is just the absence of God, or that the unsaved are simply terminated. All of these views are from advocates of the faith, but they can't all be correct.

Similarly, you would not have asked General Custer if the United States policy of slaughter and forced relocation of the Native Americans was justified. His view would be biased, for sure, presenting the best possible picture of the situation from the U.S. perspective.

Therefore, I submit to you that consulting Lewis or Wright about what to believe is one level removed from the truth. Our battle ground should not be the opinions of others, but rather the very words of God written in the Bible, and what the implications are regarding those words.

To advocate is to encourage support for something. That's different than mandating something. Having laws which regulate something instead of having laws which forbid something is a tacit approval of that something. What you have to recognize is that, at one point in time, God had rules regulating slavery, not prohibiting slavery.

You bring up an interesting point about Hebrew slavery, which was more like indentured servitude than true slavery, because it had a term limit defined by the seventh-year Jubilee. However, this is not the only kind of slavery which existed. You've got to read all of the text, and pay attention to the details.

Leviticus 25 is one of the chapters covering Jubilee. Leviticus 25:39-43 talks about how a poor Hebrew may sell himself, but must be released on Jubilee. It also says that he is not to be treated as a slave. In contrast is Leviticus 25:44-46, God instructs the Israelites to buy their slaves from other nations, and that these types of slaves are property which can be willed and inherited, precisely like the slaves of the United States were treated. In that last verse, Leviticus 25:46, you can see the double standard God has established in the treatment of slaves versus the Hebrew servants. The rest of that chapter explicitly explains that it is only, only, the Hebrew servants which are to be freed during Jubilee.

So whether or not Christianity today advocates slavery, God, Himself, at one time did.

Furthermore, God defined a double-standard of justice for slaves, such as Exodus 21:26-27. Where God would have prescribed eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth justice for free citizens, instead a slave just gets freed if his master knocks out a tooth or blinds him while his master receives no punishment. In Exodus 21:28-32, you see that if a wild bull kills a free man, the bull's owner will get put to death. But if the wild bull kills a slave, then the bull's owner just has to pay the slave's owner a fine.

So God not only advocated slavery, bu also advocated the treatment of slaves as second-class citizens, not worthy of the same justice which is afforded free men. That's not really what I would expect to see from a loving God. How about you?

I've spilled enough virtual ink for one argument. Let's cover oppression and genocide after we get slavery resolved.

Dueling David 2b: Naturally Flawed Logic

Blogs aren't the best places for debate, but well try to make this work as best as possible.  This is an ongoing debate with David.  See "Dueling David" for the previous round if you'd like to join in, and don't forget to read the comments because that is where David replied.

Naturally Flawed Logic
I never claimed that anything which occurs in nature is OK. After all, there are some pretty horrific genetic mutations which happen in nature. If I had the power to control that, maybe like God, I would probably try to prevent that from happening. But I digress. ;-)

I missed the BBC series on chimps, but, yes, murder and cannibalism happen in nature. Yes, many, if not most or all, of us feel the occasional violent urge like we would want to kill others, even if that feeling is fleeting and not deeply serious. But that's entirely different than sexuality. Let's talk about why.

Sexuality affects us so much that researchers determined that one of the first things we recognize about anyone is their sex. Male or female? This is long before we could even form an opinion on whether or not we should kill them. ;-) Our sexuality is always there. Our urges to kill other people? Not so much, unless we are just insane.

In purely legalistic perspective, your friend's comment is correct. Until someone has homosexual sex, they are not homosexual. But that's not true in the brain and the internalized sexuality which we all think about on at least a subconscious level any time we meet other people. In fact, that's one reason why I know that male homosexuals are natural. Not because I have homosexual desires, but precisely the opposite. I think male homosexual sex is repulsive. If all men had the same sexuality as me, male homosexuality would not exist. Yet male homosexuals do exist, so not everybody has the same sexuality.

You know what else? I can often tell when another man is homosexual. You may have heard of a term “gaydar.” Not always. Not perfectly. But often enough that it's not just coincidence, I can tell. I picked up on it pretty readily with the three gay friends I have, and it's not because they were flamboyant about their homosexuality, or because they made passes at me (although one of them did eventually, I guess his gaydar wasn't working).

You may be of the opinion that men and women think differently. Quite often, the homosexual men I've met have thought differently as well. This is somewhat of a proven fact too. Do a little research, and you will find that our top military language translators are quite often homosexual. That's why policies which exclude gays from the military are actually somewhat detrimental to national security.

An unnatural love for languages and an inclination for interior design are stereotypes of homosexuals for a reason. It's not that all homosexuals possess these skills, but enough do to stand out. And that points to homosexuality as being more than simply a label of someone who preforms the act of homosexual intercourse.

Something else to consider: Roughly 1.7% of human births are intersex, where sexual organs are not clearly male or female, or actually have both sexual organs. About 0.018% of human births have chromosomes which are inconsistent with either male or female. If something as basic as male verses female organs can get mixed up, it must be inherently possible for “masculine” brains to end up in female bodies, or visa versa, or some hybrid of male and female brain.

OK, so all of this points back to homosexuality being completely natural, homosexuals being born with homosexual desires from birth, and God condemning them for those very same desires. Yes, I know, desires and actions are different. You can argue it's still a choice in the end (no pun intended). But if a homosexual man feels towards sex with a woman the way I feel towards homosexual sex with another man, well, quite frankly, that's no choice at all. It's not going to happen.

Deuling David 2a: The Morals of God

Blogs aren't the best places for debate, but well try to make this work as best as possible.  This is an ongoing debate with David.  See "Dueling David" for the previous round if you'd like to join in, and don't forget to read the comments because that is where David replied.

I've split up the major headings to different posts here. In the next round, maybe we should limit it to 300-500 word replies to encourage real dialog?  I don't know, though, as it can cut down on clarity.  But post whatever you need to David this time for your reply.


New business
In the “I'm an Insensitive Jerk” post, I mentioned that God condemns all wrongdoers, and that God is right in doing so, which David agreed with. David rejected the sentiment I gave that “a believer should feel justified in his or her condemnation of others.” He stated that this “does not logically follow, is contrary to scripture and I utterly disagree.”

I wrote this particular passage from a fictional fundamentalist point of view, more in line with expressing an emotion than a fact. So you are right to criticize it as not being factual, but that was not exactly my aim. However, it's not completely contrary to scripture either. Please read my study “Judging Pigs” for additional details regarding judging. But also consider that all Christians want to be like Christ, right? At least the good ones. Well, according to John 5:22, Jesus is the judge of everyone. So, in a very real sense, being judgemental of others is Christ-like. ;-)

The Morals of God
I must not have written “Holy Divorce” very well, or maybe you did not pay close attention when you read it, because you obviously missed the point. The main thrust of the message was that Jesus was making an illegitimate claim; passing the divorce law off as something Moses himself came up with. It was God, not Moses, who made the law, and the law itself was not even about permission to divorce. If I understand scripture better than Jesus, then we have a problem.

Here's something to puzzle over: What is God's will if not God's preference? If we transgress God's will for us, are we not sinning? Now why would God not write a law prohibiting the sin of divorce, if He considered it to be a sin? Or conversely, why would God's Law permit the sin of divorce? Last, but not least, if God really viewed divorce as a sin, why was no atonement offering required in connection to the divorce? You don't have to reply to these. I'd rather drop the subject of divorce for bigger fish.

You said your point was that “we can't even agree on what the rules should be for ourselves. If God is indeed on another level from mere mortals how then can we judge Him?” Well, that goes back to my plane example. Of the entire population of the world, nobody knows exactly how to fly a plane (or at least not a statistically large enough proportion to measure whole percentages), but just about everyone would agree you are not supposed to turn it into a lawn dart. Yes, we may bicker over the finer details, but larger moral anchors nearly everyone agrees on. Murder is bad. Stealing is bad. Rape is bad. Homicidal rage is bad. Lying is bad. Pedophilia is bad. Etc. (By the way, you will not find that last one anywhere in the Bible.) And the regions of the globe which do not share these same anchors as cultural norms are not exactly well functioning.

Maybe we do not have a good perspective to judge God about the finer details, like whether or not rabbits should be clean or unclean. However, when God starts disregarding the bigger moral anchors, then I think we can judge, indeed. That's what Moses did, such as in Exodus 32. God was about to kill all of the Israelites, but Moses had to remind God about how evil that would appear to the Egyptians (Exodus 32:12) and how killing the Israelites would turn God into a liar (Exodus 32:13).

To me, killing a parent for something their child did, or killing the child for something the parent did, is one of those major morality no-nos that everyone can agree on.  Even God agrees on it.  He just doesn't feel that He is obligated to follow that morality, no matter how righteous that law is.

Now what is so striking here is that God is displaying very human trait.  Nobody wants to be lied to (at least when our egos aren't on the line), but we can all justify to ourselves when we lie to other people.  God knows that He shouldn't kill a child for the sins of the father, but He goes right ahead and does it anyway.  I'm sure He's found a way to justify it to Himself too.

Dueling David

When we close our mouths, we close our minds... at least in the sense of debate. State your beliefs, but be careful to listen and consider alternate viewpoints, instead of simply and automatically rejecting those viewpoints. Examine the weaknesses and strengths of your beliefs to see what really holds up and what needs correction. This is the process of truth derivation through debate.

I received a few comments to some recent posts from someone going by the name of David. David has challenged the veracity of some of my statements, publicly. If we were cartoons, it would be like Bugs Bunny has taken off his white glove and slapped Daffy Duck across the face. Well, of course you know, this means war. ;-)

I thought I would throw this word skirmish up on its own post. That way you, the reader, can more easily join in if you'd like, and point out where I go wrong. Or you can just sit back and (hopefully) be entertained and enlightened. Enjoy!

For your ease, I have summarized arguments up to now. David, please correct me if I have misrepresented anything.

My replies will be indented.

The Morals of God
Spawning from the “I'm an Insensitive Jerk” post, David suggests that God is self-consistent in His morality, that He defines the rules, and that rules are a reflection for us to know His nature. In a sense, David sees morality as internal to God in all the ways that it is external to us humans.

I mentioned that in Deut. 24:16, according to God a man shall not be killed due to sins of his children, and visa versa. Yet God does this very thing in scripture, such as when God killed King David's baby which he had with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). This makes God seem inconsistent with His own rules.

David replied with a manifold answer: Children often suffer for the sins of their parents. This law was for us and our justice, not for God, similar to how God provided the divorce law for the hardness of our hearts. Why is it that we think a woman can decide to kill her unborn child, but God is not capable of making a similar decision? And finally, who are we to judge God?

David, I'm sure you realize that this law is not a description of the way the world works in general, but rather a law regarding legal justice. So children suffering for their parents mistakes, and vice versa, in the life-experience sense, is not technically applicable.

As for divorce, it's funny you mention that. Check out my exegesis post “Holy Divorce” for a rebuttal of that errant perspective. The underlying claim you make, though, is that there can be two sets of standards, one for man and one for God. That means that morals are relative; relative to the executor. Here's where it gets interesting: Let's allow God His own set of morals. Like any set of morals, God should be obligated to exercise those morals judgements consistently, especially if, as you suggest, God is self-consistent. That is not what we find in the Bible. For example, God kills Onan just for spilling his semen on the ground, but God lets Manasseh, the most evil king Judah ever had, reign for 55 years (2 Kings 21). So God appears to be inconsistent in His application of His morals, which is not very moral at all. You could claim that the reason for this inconsistency has to do with how this all fits into God's ultimate plan. That point is more difficult to refute, however it does paint morals as being relative to the situation as opposed to be absolute, which is so often proclaimed by believers. (You may be interested to review another exegesis post, “Sins of Their Fathers,” where I discuss some of the several times when God does kill children for the sins of their fathers.)

In regards to the half-joking comparison between abortion and God's decision, the appropriate rebuttal for you somewhat depends on your beliefs about the unborn. Yet perhaps what should be asked is whether or not that comparison is a valid one to make. That goes back to the law. I don't think anyone would say that a woman has a right to abort her pregnancy as a means of punishing the father. I'm guessing most people would find that idea morally repugnant, as I certainly do. However, this is what you have suggested that God is doing by your reply, whether or not you intended to suggest that.

Who are we to judge God? Job was awfully humble about it, that's true, suggesting none of us are worthy to question God. Yet that's not the only Biblical viewpoint. You may remember how Abraham questioned God about His planned destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps you remember how Moses questioned God on multiple occasions, including twice when Moses influenced God to change His mind in order not to completely annihilate the Israelites; once for the Golden Cow worshiping and once when they were afraid to enter the Promised Land. If it wasn't for Moses' moral judgement, imperfect as it was, there might now be a country called “Moses” instead of a country called “Israel.” I believe we have the right and the responsibility to question the morals of God. True, I am not omniscient, so my judgement may be wrong. On the other hand, I do not know how to fly a plane, but I am pretty sure I could tell if a pilot was about to turn the plane into a lawn dart. You do not have to know every single thing in order to be correct on a particular judgement.

Naturally Flawed Logic
In the “Exodus of Free Speech?” post, I had casually made the statement:
“That problem not being GLBT persons, but rather the antiquated Biblical and Koranic views of homosexuality, which has proven itself to be 100% natural at some frequency.”

David had mentioned that my logic in this statement was flawed, that such a statement could be made for human issues such as murder, rape, extortion, etc.

David, I do apologize, as I have taken some liberties with this blog verses the “The Wise Fool” blog, in that I am not always fully fleshing out and supporting statements. I'm doing this purposefully for better readability. I understand why you may not quite understand my intent here. So let me explain.

In the Bible, you find no expression for the fact that homosexuality is natural. All you see is that it is a abomination to God. Correspondingly, there is a subset of Christians out there who see homosexuality as a choice only, not a desire anyone is born with. The statement I made is directed at such people; people who ignore the scientific evidence which confirms that homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon within many parts of the animal kingdom, including us.

Furthermore, that statement is directed at the Bible and the Koran. For if God/Allah is making only certain people who have homosexual attraction and at the same time condemning homosexual behavior, that is indeed a perverse game such a Creator is playing.

Just to be extra clear here, I believe that there are some people who choose to perform homosexual acts despite their actual inherent sexual bias of the contrary, such as what you hear about in prisons. Yet there are people who are clearly born different, with an honest attraction for the same sex. It is the “natural homosexuals” which neither holy book acknowledges which proves that their religious belief structure is antiquated. So I am arguing a different point altogether, one that forces the believer's revelation that God must be involved in making someone homosexual, and God's inherent unjustified condemnation of such an individual.

I'll point out a flaw in logic of your argument, at least as it is provided. Murder, rape, extortion, etc. are crimes involving victims. Homosexuality in and of itself is a victimless act, an act which can promote love between the two people involved. So yes, they all happen naturally, but your grouping is clearly wrong and hurtful, while on the other hand, homosexuality can actually be as enriching a life experience as any non-child-bearing heterosexual union.

I'm Offended
I made another casual statement, saying this about the Bible and Koran:
“Talk about offensive material... slavery, oppression, and genocide, oh my!”

David stated that he didn't think I would have a problem with history books, which all contain that stuff. So he asked if I was inferring that the Bible and Koran advocate these things, because he doesn't “think that [such a] view is one commonly held by serious scholars of the subject.”

The natural question to ask back: Which serious scholars, or rather what type of serious scholars? Are these people of faith who have a vested interest to paint things in a positive light, and to ignore facts to the contrary? This is an important question to answer, because these Holy books do contain this content in a way which should not be ignored.

New-Testament-Only Christianity does not fundamentally advocate any of those. The funny thing about the New Testament, though, is that it is most often connected to the Old Testament as a package deal known as the Bible. In the Old Testament, God instructs the Israelites to take slave women as war spoils and commit genocide on multiple populations. Oppression is a little more slippery to deal with, because it depends on how you want to define it. I see a certain level of the oppression of the rights of women, some of which is echoed even in the New Testament. Now what you have to remember is the God of the Bible does not change. He tells us so, so it must be true. So the God of Christianity could be called an advocate of slavery, oppression, and genocide, even if Christianity proper does not actively promote any of those evils. If you need any specific verses to support my claims, just ask. ;-)

The Koran and Islam I am still learning about. Muslims have many flavors, just like Christians do, so any generalization falls short of the full truth. Shari'a law does indeed promote oppression of Christians and Jews living in Islamic states. There are many anti-Semitic passages in the Koran, several coupled with condemnation from Allah, which goes a long way towards promoting genocide. Similar to the Bible, slaves are part of the spoils of war according to Allah.

So, yes, that's what I was inferring. I believe there are grounds to do so. I just picked out three objectionable topics of slavery, oppression, and genocide, but there are others too, such as promoting discrimination and intolerance, and inciting extremists. I'm not sure I would classify myself as a “serious scholar” of the Bible, but I have studied it enough to know without doubt that there are concepts, Biblical, God-ordained concepts, which I would never want taught to children.