Again you pretend that you have no idea what I am talking about;
Turning your back on the religion of your birth doesn't make you an anti-semite. Could you be a little bit more precise - perhaps supplying some text to back up your position?
quote:
When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. I am innocent of this man’s blood, he said. It is your responsibility!
All the people answered, His blood is on us and on our children!
Matthew 27:24-25
Regardless of the Christian defences against the clear anti-Semitism in this passage (and others), it is ludicrous for you to act as though you cannot conceive why Jews would be dismissive of Christianity. The Blood Libel is perfectly sufficient reason for Jews to abominate the NT.
In the sense that God didn't create us to operate independently from him I'd have to agree with you (that we are "enslaved"). However, the argument is that we are 'we' because he breathed himself into us. Made in his image and all that. If it weren't for that there would be no "we" to speak of. We'd be down all that makes us people.
Could you deal with that omission?
God supposedly gave this gift with no conditions. We cannot be said to have agreed to any conditions or stipulations at the time of our birth. He then imposes conditions upon us after the fact. Further, he seems to have made sure that his one true route to heaven is indistinguishable from myths, campfire tales and lies.
This is not a true gift. This is not a fair contract. It is merely slavery.
I'd be careful what I wish for if I were you. If desiring his wrath being expressed at the moment it is deserved then Poof! - there goes Granny Magda (and iano).
Would you still like God to act at the moment of evildoing?
Judge yourself Iano, not me. I would have no fear of standing before any just tribunal, since I do not believe that I practice evil.
I would not place myself before judgement by your god though, because he has roved himself a moral imbecile and a cruel, vindictive monster.
Oh and by the way, how pathetic that you bring up my alleged "sins" in comparison with the fucking Holocaust! Yes, I would wish to be judged and extirpated before I went so far as to
commit genocide. As it goes, I don't have any genocidal ambitions right now, but should I ever become a genocidal maniac, then yes, I would hope that God would stop me.
You're discussing with a Christian.
And you were criticising a film. If the film does not contain your preferred theology, that's just tough.
You would agree that suffering and strife focus' attention in a way that nothing else can do? It's certainly the way of this world - we desist from a desirable path when it pains us too much to continue on it. And only then.
No, that's not true. Some people are capable of desisting from a course of action because it simply isn't right. Not everyone shares the primitive and selfish attitude that you describe. Certainly I would hope that God would be above that sort of pettiness.
Suggestions? It would help if you could frame the problem first.
Pretty simple really; everyone gets what they want. The murderers and paedophiles can simply be killed, in order to protect others. Instead of hell and suffering though, they are given heaven, their own heaven. They would be unable to hurt others, but God would not need to stoop to the base practice of punitive measures.
Or, if you insist on punishment, God could make Hell a temporary sentence. He could then practice a little of what he preaches; forgiveness, a concept that seems to have been absent from previous Christian imaginings of the afterlife.
If his purposes are better served by permitting suffering then what's the issue.
He is an omnipotent, or at least awesomely powerful, deity. The fact that he apparently cannot be bothered to thin up a better way is utterly damning. The Bible exhorts his power and capabilities at great length, but he can't think of a better solution than eternal punishment for failure to adhere to a set of arbitrary and obscure rules? That simply makes no sense.
No end could justify the suffering visited upon the victims of the Holocaust. in arguing that such a thing could serve a greater good, you are lowering yourself to a state of moral debasement.
It can't be helped, such is the depth of the desire for independence from God.
You are projecting. I do not desire independence from your imaginary friends. I am already independent from that which has no sign of existing.
This boils down to a question of degree. As love > infinity so will hate (and the reaction to that which insults love). Similarily, depending on how one see's the crime, so to will one's sense of punishment be informed. There is no reason to suppose all should stop at your weighing up of things.
Again, this is no ore than an attempt to suggest that the suffering of Holocaust victims could have some higher purpose. That is a sick and despicable effort.
But then, you seem to have no problem with worshipping an evil god, whose only conception of morality is that might makes right.
GM writes:
Show me how the victims of the Holocaust receive their justice.
iano writes:
Let's not lose our context: God in the OT judging. And men finding that judgment unjust.
No, having seen the film, which you have not, I consider that the manifest lack of justice that left the inmates of concentration camps to die, is very much the context.
The men in the film are facing death at the hands of a merciless enemy. They know that God will do nothing to help them. This is the central issue. God's justice amounted to absolutely nothing. If he was real at all, he had abandoned them.
Doesn't this depend on a particular view of innocence?
If your version of innocence does not apply to those innocent children who died in the holocaust, I assure you, it's not one worth having.
The worth of my fellow human beings is best represented in the sacrifice undertaken by this self-same God on their behalf.
Another vile notion. Human beings have a worth and dignity beyond the morbid and pointless blood ritual your god feels he must go through before he can forgive us for his mistakes. Mature and genuine forgiveness is not something that comes with conditions. Christianity preaches forgiveness, but its central tenet shows that Christianity provides only a mockery of forgiveness.
Neither you nor that snippet of film (insofar as it is commandeered to condemn the biblical God) make any mention of that.
God, how dense are you? That's because the film
is about Jews. To criticise it for not offering Christian theology is moronic. If the film did that, and the characters found Jesus, it would be horrifically offensive.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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