True, but irrelevant, to the “facts” of the story, which is that god put an evil, talking sepent into the garden with his two innocents. The entirely foreseeable result (omniscient prescience not required) occurs. God then blames the innocents for the set up he created. And then punishes not just them but the entire world. The God of the bible is a raging sociopath of the highest order, which is why the “Bible: tl;dr edition” featuring the refrain, “guys,” just doesn’t capture the essence of the text even as humor - neither Classic Wrathful God nor God Lite - Son of God are goody two shoes.
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Should have been “guys (facepalm).”
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Probably a rent control thing - needed an excuse to kick them out to jack up the rent.
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I’m doing the things right now.
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Reminds me of this, for some reason…
Captain Hammer: This is so nice, I just might sleep with the same girl twice!
They say it’s better the second time,
They say you get to do the weird stuff.
3 Groupies: We do the weird stuff!
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I’m thankful that there are people like you out there to explain this shit to us. You would think that in 6000+ years of human history someone would have brought this question up. BUT! you, sir, are the first person in recorded history to bring this quandary to question , and I want to thank you for figuring all this shit out for us idiots.
You are truly a hero to the uninformed, and you didn’t let a lack of intelligence or education stand in your way, Congratulations.
Satan: Hey God, wanna go to the alley out back and shoot some dice?
God: You’re on! Just let me go find my Job-shaped money clip.
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SMBC has a decent Abraham scene
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oh poor job, the story of job is so painful to read, and a good reminder of this:
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Yeah. If I weren’t on a phone I’d do a better “Job”
BA-DUM CSSSSHHH
I'll see myself out
In all seriousness, I can say with a high level of confidence that the book of Job is the reason I’ll always taunt the very idea of the Abrahamic god being the arbiter of perfect morality. Even if he were proven to exist, I’d still tell that sociopathic mass murderer god to kiss my ass and then go immaculately fuck a woodchipper.
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Wow. Just wow. Do you teach a class in passive-aggressive condescension at your local Institute of higher learning? Because if not, you definitely should. As you’ve managed to insult the parent commentor without even the pretence of edifying us as to your point.
We could infer that you were trying to say the issue raised by the parent has already been settled by history’s greatest thinkers, but that would be entirely overstepping your main theme of attempting to call the parent an ignoramus.
Protip: discussions and debates work much better when your retort makes a reasoned and evidenced point, instead of being purely ad-hominem attacks.
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So much sarcasm and so little rebuttal (well, none, actually). How surprising.
Please, tell us specifically on what basis, other than blustery sarcasm, you disagree with what I wrote.
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NO…congratulations to you sir. You seem upset but I can’t tell if you are ranting because you feel what @Skeptic said is too obvious or you disagree? you never seem to get to a conclusion one way or the other. lol. maybe this was supposed to be a joke? was the 6000yr remark a failed attempt at humor?
you are correct about one thing though, pretty much every free thinker has arrived at similar conclusions since these stories were concocted, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need saying even to this day. look what a negative influence Abrahamic religions are still having on various governments and the world, we are still fighting wars rooted in those specific flavors of religious based ignorance.
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“I have thoughts, and that can really fuck up the faith thing” - Louis Black
#The Old Testiment
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Don’t look for logic within the stories. Instead, ask what questions the stories are meant to answer. In this case, I would say the questions were: “Why do we die? Why do we suffer? And where did we come from?”
Perfectly good questions, which different cultures and peoples have answered in different ways at different times. At the time this story was told, a naive couple, a snake and a “big man” seemed to be salient. No stranger than others I’ve heard…
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I guess I am guilty of wanting my answers to be based on logic and reality, so as a free thinker when someone gives an answer I don’t just accept it, I analyze that answer to determine if it has any truth or merit to it and weigh it based on what i know, and contemplate the ramifications of such answers and their impact and validity. that is a good thing. the more people that do that the better a place the world would be.
This is why I prefer a “we don’t know” to just making something misleading up. not knowing is a valid answer, pretending to know and concocting false answers is more harmful than an unanswered question. unanswered questions can be just as beneficial as answered ones. bogus answers are misleading and detrimental to actual understanding.
I do understand that pretending to have the answers to certain profound questions even when you don’t does give one power and control over their fellow man, but i’d also argue that is the direct cause of more harm then good. It sure has gotten man into one hell of a mess.
It is true that now that we have science and a better understanding of the universe we can give much better answers to these questions and disprove many previous false answers, but made up answers weren’t better answers when they originated just because we had less information, they were still just made up by someone. If you make something up, it is made up from day one, it doesn’t get less true over time, it is always 100% concocted.
Those are my thoughts anyway…cheers!
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In many ways, I find the ‘Old Testament’ more interesting from the perspective of a former Christian (actually, there are elements of both that I appreciate - I like being able to get some benefit from texts or people without agreeing with everything they say). The Old Testament (particularly the wisdom literature) is often quite daring in its willingness to express unresolved doubt in and dissatisfaction with God. There are many cases in which a naive belief that good things will happen to good people and bad to bad people comes up against reality. The NT often doesn’t seem to have that depth - doubt seems to be much more of a negative thing and I can’t imagine anyone but Jesus quoting Psalm 88. In the end I don’t agree with the conclusions (for example, I think the end of Job isn’t worthy of the questions it seeks to address or of Job’s continued rejection of simplistic faith or surrender to external pressure), but there are a number of fascinating insights into the way people dealt with these questions.
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So, what I’m hearing from you is: “The bible is interesting for its anthropological value.”
While I wouldn’t disagree with the idea, I also know, as you should, that our current bible (KJV and later) is pretty much based on the ideas of a council of pre-enlightenment social engineers who mostly couldn’t understand the languages of the original texts, and those who could were more concerned with the impact the translations would have on the rubes who believed it than the accurate meanings of any given translation. Therefore, I consider the modern bible worse than any modern anthropologist’s just-so explanations of a given culture’s mythologies and beliefs because the current bible was put together entirely as a means of social control. Don’t trust religion because the powerful in religion is a pack of liars.
They all lie their asses off because they’re accountable to a non-existent god and they knew it.
I’m not sure how much allegiance you think I have to the text - I’m not suggesting it has been perfectly passed down to us and there are certainly problems with the translations, but these don’t seem to be on the level of the deception that went on in the centuries after the events depicted. The first Bible I was given at about 6 had notes that pointed out discrepancies between different translations or points where the text was absent in some manuscripts. They made the choice to include or exclude texts, but this was based on the manuscripts that were available, which already had these discrepancies. People are going to disagree with their choices and clearly they came from a western protestant perspective, but you can hardly claim that modern translators of serious versions are uninformed by the original languages (in the way that the Vulgate was by the Hebrew text) or that that they were less accurate or more biased than earlier translations (such as the Septuagint).
Again, I’m not claiming that the modern Bible is uncolored by modern sensibilities, just that there’s no good reason to single the KJV out as the origin of this or to claim that the elements of texts like Job and Psalms that I mentioned (and which arguably go against modern evangelical sensibilities) are particularly suspect in this regard.
Sorry about the belligerence. I was assuming too much, and ended up making an ass of myself, which happens all too often.
I’m highly polarized into the new atheist position when it comes to anything religion. I could go into how my family lied to me my whole life, and how living by the scripture hurts people, but I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say, I have a ton of baggage when it comes to the bible and religiosity, and it’s probably best if I keep out of such discussions.
ETA: The more I talk about religion, and my religious views, the angrier I get. Sometimes to the point of full-blown rage. And we all know arguing and expositing from an angry and rageful headspace just sets one up to say foolish things, so I’m calling it quits tonight before I start saying things I’ll regret when I’ve had a day or two’s distance.
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