My friend Matt Kilmer and I have been having a discussion on facebook for the last month and a half or so about God and since we've reached a natural stopping point, we're planning on releasing the text for public consumption.
With plans to release it in full soon either via email to those interested or by posting it on here, here are some highlights.
First message from Matt
"I have a few questions about your favorite little booky-wooky (The Bible) that have been weighing on my mind lately. I just wanted to see what kind of answers you would give."
Matt
"Tell me, John! Why does YHWH approve of slavery?"
Matt Kilmer January 19 at 12:27am Report
Balls nasty. You just want me to call in the hopes that I'll ask you out on a date.
John M. Stegeman January 19 at 7:47am
So what if I do? You're a beautiful man with curly locks.
Matt Kilmer January 27 at 1:35am Report
Sidestepping the typical argument of omniscience equaling predestination, let's examine how the Judaic-Christian God allows for our free will to be denied to us. Since we've determined that God is not anti-slavery, and since hereditary slavery is ok in his book, it should logically follow that God has no qualms with people being born denied of the freedom to choose their own path.
John M. Stegeman January 27 at 7:47am
First, God's omnipotence allows him to have prevented anything bad from ever happening. He could have created a humanity that wouldn't fall from grace but in his wisdom he created us instead. I cannot answer why.
Matt Kilmer January 28 at 3:01am Report
Being born a slave is a far more egregious offense than being born in the slums of Detroit.
John M. Stegeman January 28 at 7:59am
First to start with the end of your post. I didn't say it was a test, you did. I said the goal is salvation. I believe that those that die before the age of reason and are baptized go to heaven. As for the unbaptized I trust in hope of God's mercy that they do as well but I don't know.
God didn't create a fair world, he created this one. Unless the three O God doesn't exist, then we must assume this is the best of all possible worlds.
Matt Kilmer February 4 at 4:27am Report
Any god who fails to follow his own commandment has free reign to do as he pleases. God tells his people not to murder and yet personally undertakes the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, killing untold thousands. God also kills innocent children. I'm sure I needn't remind you of the tenth plague of Egypt?
John M. Stegeman February 7 at 1:00pm
I mean that you seem to have wanted God to hand us everything we need to know, remove the need for discernment at all and write the bible as a technical manual.
John M. Stegeman February 11 at 8:03am
I don't think it's a might makes right situation. I think it's God's omnibenevolence that makes right. God's goodness defines goodness.
Matt Kilmer February 18 at 3:07am Report
I am truly frightened. I am both disturbed and frightened.
This is just a tiny tiny glimpse of the ultra large 5,000+ word conversation that is to come.
Get ready for some in depth stuff.
Uhh...some of these will make more sense when placed into their proper context.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah I forgot to say these are horribly out of context and not really even chronological.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read all of the conversation but I bet I can sum it up.
ReplyDelete1) Matt cites numerous instances of horrible shit over the span of history which God apparently either sanctioned, ordered or chose ignore.
2) John denies that God sanctions evil, he is only capable of good, and the existence of evil is only a result of man's sin.
3) Matt points out the obvious conflict between the existence of evil of any sort and an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being.
4) John admits that he has no answer, but that's because he's an imperfect sinner who isn't in full possession of the facts.
STALEMATE
How close was I?
I haven't seen Michael Jackson's penis, but I bet I could describe it.
ReplyDelete1) A head
2) A shaft
3) Some balls
4) Hair. Maybe pressed, permed hair, with glitter sprinkles in it.
How close was I?
The point I want to make here is that you guys aren't talking about religion, but about the Bible. Yes, of course Christianity pulls its tenets from the Bible, but that is a different argument. I think everyone will do well to remember that the Bible was written by humans, not Jesus. The first books of the bible were written between 60 and 70 years after Jesus was crucified, the last ones finished almost 200 years after His death. I don't know about you, but I may forget or accidentally alter some details about my life 60 years down the road.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Bible has passages that contradict each other. The most common one that people point out is Genesis. http://www.bibletruths.net/archives/btar133.htm
Obviously, there are others and not to mention the fact that God changes throughout the Bible as well. In the first part, he is pretty much all fire and brimstone and annihilates the world regularly to purge it of the bad people. After Noah's Arc, he sounds indifferent and chooses to let people go on with their own lives (free will) until pretty much the end of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, God is downright happy and benevolent until the apocalpyse.
All I'm saying is that if you want to argue about religion, you will always have flawed sources, whether it be the Bible or the Pope or whomever. Religion is based in faith. Either you believe it or you don't.
I'm aware of that, but people (like John) who tend to the orthodoxy of an organized religion are required to accept the general rightness of the bible (perhaps not word-for-word infallibility, but something close to it). When you tether yourself to the bible in that way, then you need to own up to that. You can't point to it to prove a point one minute, then disown it as flawed when it's inconvenient.
ReplyDeleteI take exception to the commonly accepted notion that the new testament is all love until Revelation. I can dig up a few Jesus quotes encouraging violence if you like.
I don't think there is any reason to believe in Christianty if we have that view of the bible. Christian faith calls for believing that God hand a hand in the bibles origin.
ReplyDeleteAlso it's that type of thinking that has bastardized itself into piecemeal Christianity.
With that logic u can say I believe this part but not that. That's inventing a religion, not following one.
"With that logic u can say I believe this part but not that. That's inventing a religion, not following one."
ReplyDeleteJohn, you support a non-literal interpretation of the Bible. For better or for worse you are saying that the Bible is up for interpretation. With logic like YOURS you can say I believe this part but not that. You should not be surprised when other Christian sects pop up with logic like that.
Uh... What?
ReplyDeleteDo you listen to yourself speak, or do you just enjoy the sensation of your lips forming vowels and consonants in no particular order???
Here's what the catechism has to say about the matter:
105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."
"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."
106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."
107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."
Now, there's another bit in the catechism that acts like a clause against pointing the finger at the pope over contradictions in the bible about how you need to read it "in the spirit in which it was written" bearing in mind the tradition of the church, yada yada. In other words "Please don't use the bible against us, if you do, it's not in the intended spirit.."
ReplyDeleteBut even after considering that, the Church seems to support the inerrency of scripture in VERY STRONG LANGUAGE. That can't be CASUALLY dismissed by saying "well, all you have to believe is that God had a hand in the bible" like he's some assistant editor hanging out by the water cooler, eating danish and throwing the occassional suggestion to the mortal scribblers, hard at work....
I'm too drunk to taste this chicken
ReplyDeleteThey'll find the hole AND build the box!
ReplyDelete