Uyi Iredia:

I'm not going back on that statement. I meant what I wrote there.

Uyi Iredia:

I'm not going back on that statement. I meant what I wrote there.

alexleo:

No, dont be tired bros. General overseer, holy ghost holocaust ministry. When you succeed in converting them by your much effort we shall humbly come and lay our offerings at your feet for the great feat you achieved. Go on brother.

Ihedinobi:

In other words, you hold that if God exists, we would be on the same intellectual level as Him?

Uyi, I've told you enough times, you're free to believe what you will. I am not obliged, however, to sign off on it. I am pursuing my own defence not yours. Therefore, I am free to do as I please with it within the reasonable limits of argument. As for your question, how can I give you a yes/no answer when I don't believe as you do that the incidents in question were massacres. Please stop skipping around and being so irritable, allow me to make the answer you demanded of me. If this is how you treat my response, how differently must you have treated the Lord's? Do you think that you have the God-like intelligence to have asked only the right questions?

alexleo:

No, dont be tired bros. General overseer, holy ghost holocaust ministry. When you succeed in converting them by your much effort we shall humbly come and lay our offerings at your feet for the great feat you achieved. Go on brother.

alexleo:

No, dont be tired bros. General overseer, holy ghost holocaust ministry. When you succeed in converting them by your much effort we shall humbly come and lay our offerings at your feet for the great feat you achieved. Go on brother.

Ihedinobi: @Uyi, about Argument A, it is true that the argument can be set up. It perhaps could go thus:

1. Killing innocent children in order to forgive people is brutal.

2. The Christian God killed an innocent child in order to forgive a people.

3. Therefore the Christian God is brutal.

By implication, this argument continues:

1. A brutal God is not loving.

2. The Christian God is brutal.

3. Therefore the Christian God is not loving.


If you agree, we can address it too. To move the discussion along more quickly, I propose we take the arguments simultaneously. Indicate your willingness or lack of it and we'll proceed or quit.

Uyi Iredia:

Not quite. I simply said we can scrutinize what God does. Of course, if you don't beliewve those killings were massacres I should say you are in a pit of ignorance. BTW just give your answer, you've held off for too long.

Uyi Iredia:

I agree. At this point I'm only concerned with hearing your arguments which I suspect_going by what you've said thus far_will fail.

Uyi Iredia:

I agree. At this point I'm only concerned with hearing your arguments which I suspect_going by what you've said thus far_will fail.

mazaje:

Was it not this same alexloe that set up a challenged for the atheist and FAILED?. . .Why is he trying to mock and berate another of his compatriot in the god is real movement?. . .

.https://www.nairaland.com/445085/chalenge-huxleykay-17ogaga4luv-other-atheists#6032417. . .

vedaxcool: Ahmed Deedat once remarked about the bible tat it is classifiable into Three:

1/ The word of God

2. The word of Prophets

3. The words of Historians

And Uyi that has been what muslims have been saying about the bible, certain words can simply be attributed to the words of Historians who a times blow stuff out of proportions and then claimed God, this is not hard seeing that certain people collect tithes on behalf of God and then spend it on his behalf, people claims to fight for God even when we are certain they are doing it for materials reasons, my point is, this words could have been from God but the word of men who when telling tales of their conquer of other lands gave it a divine "effects", muslim again have argued that the Jews are not God's people, that is why you see them doing things that unacceptable i the bible sometimes with little or no warning! maybe you could buy frosbel argument, it happened 5000 years ago, off course it again brings the problem you are seeing, maybe then buy the Vatican argument (in Vatican II meeting i think 196something) where it argued the Old testament is obsolete and imperfect and express the thoughts of men (well the Qur'an said this from the outset) but the Qur'an argument is the best, woe unto to men who write a book with their own hands and say this is from God! That surmarizes the problem of most religious books with the exception of the Qur'an, words of men crept into them!

Logicboy03:



Wetin this Haram de Boko dey talk?


Is the God of Islam (Allah) any different in terms of love? Did he not suffer Job in the Quran just to test his faith? Or Noahs flood in the Quran where people were drowned?

Ihedinobi:

My friend, let me explain something to you one last time, ok. I am not obliged by anything to give you any answer, neither is my Father. If you want our answer, you have to let us give it. You have not only asked the wrong questions, you have also given yourself the wrong answers and we cannot sign off on all that for you.

To show you our answers, we must deconstruct your arguments and expose their error, we must show you what the right questions are and then show you how to ask them and identify their answers. If none of this appeals to you, you shouldn't waste your time with either me or my Father. And you should stop fooling yourself with the lie that you want answers, you should just come to terms with the fact that you want God and His Family to sign off on your error so that you can perpetuate it and with the fact that we won't.

I won't say any of the above again. I've said it all enough already. If you want answers from someone other than yourself, don't insist on giving them yourself.

---

Now, you said that we can scrutinize what God does. That presupposes an intellect that can judge God's actions. And if it presupposes that, you cannot go on to say that we are not on an intellectual level with God unless you mean He is on a lower level than us. But I don't think you mean either because of the phrase, "God-given intellect", in an earlier post on this thread. That phrase implied that the intellect we are scrutinizing God's actions by is dependent on God for existence and thus operation.

If this is so, then God is His Own Judge and can only ever be rightly judged by Himself not us. If we ever judge Him, our intellect can only do so rightly by appealing to His Conception of the issue in question. Therefore, it is not the right approach to declare God guilty of lack of love because He ordered the extermination of whole nations of people for sin when the same God has said of Himself that He is Love. At least, that approach is impossible to an intellect that considers itself God-given, such an intellect would rather ask, "why would God Who has said that He is Love order an entire nation of men, women, children, unborn babies and old people destroyed? How exactly does Love do that? I don't understand."

That latter approach is born of humility, it says to God, "I agree that only You can explain You and I want to understand You, teach me Who You are and what Love really means for it is clear that I do not know." It is also born of Faith because it counts first on a God Who cares enough to answer a question that He, being God, has no obligation to answer and second on a God Whose answers are always true and thus are to be believed and accepted.

God would not answer that He did no such thing as the OT recorded, rather He'd show you the fuller picture that helps you understand how even these "massacres" are actions taken by and sanctioned by Love.

To judge God guilty of a lack of love is to suppose that you know what love is and to do so in the face of God's Own declaration that He is Love is to call God to the dock on an authority that is not Him. In other words, your argument is not upheld on the authority of a God-given intellect. If it is not, what authority is great enough for you to appeal to to arraign the Christian God Who also considers Himself the Most High or the Highest Possible Authority for actions irreconcilable to Love? Simply put, by what authority have you judged God's actions in the OT incompatible with Love and thus called Yahweh a liar?

InesQor: @Chrisbenogor:

At a time when religion and politics were totally intertwined, it might be difficult to say such massacres were born of religious intent or political intent. And political wars were barbaric back then regardless of the nation: civilians and military agents suffered the same treatment.

I don't think it's fair to compare that dispensation with the modern day where the rule of engagement only includes military agents. Maybe except religious states, in which case all agents know what they've signed up for: their lives and societies to be controlled by religious laws, however whimsical they may be.

Alfamann:

When does a christian stop making sense?
As soon as he opens his mouth.

InesQor: @Chrisbenogor:

At a time when religion and politics were totally intertwined, it might be difficult to say such massacres were born of religious intent or political intent. And political wars were barbaric back then regardless of the nation: civilians and military agents suffered the same treatment.

I don't think it's fair to compare that dispensation with the modern day where the rule of engagement only includes military agents. Maybe except religious states, in which case all agents know what they've signed up for: their lives and societies to be controlled by religious laws, however whimsical they may be.

Logicboy03:
Are you saying that God was barbaric because men were barbaric in the past?

A
1. Killing innocent children in order to forgive people is brutal.

2. The Christian God killed an innocent child in order to forgive a people.

3. Therefore the Christian God is brutal.

By implication, this argument continues:

1. A brutal God is not loving.

2. The Christian God is brutal.

3. Therefore the Christian God is not loving.

B
1. It is not loving to wipe out villages and cities.

2. It is not loving to lay harsh curses for crimes in gardens.

3. The Christian God wiped out villages and cities and laid a harsh curse for a crime in a garden.

4. Therefore the Christian God is not loving.

C
1. A God of love does not indiscriminately kill or punish those who had nothing to do with the crime in the garden.

2. A God of love does not punish down to the 3rd and 4th generations of sinners.

3. The Christian God indiscriminately kills and punishes those who had nothing to do with the crime in the garden.

4. The Christian God punishes down to the 3rd and 4th generations of sinners.

5. Therefore the Christian God is not a God of love.

InesQor:

Is that what you can infer from my post?

Well that's not my point. The man made choices to carry out their politics in a barbaric way (I do not submit that all of Israel's decisions were direct commandments from God, as I have discussed on Pastor AIO's thread). Such was the limit of their understanding, and they operated in those confines. And maybe if man had not been barbaric in prehistory, we would never appreciate or have diplomacy today. These things are progressive.

As I have drummed over and over on this forum, God doesn't intervene with man's freewill. We only suffer consequences of our actions, howbeit carried out in freewill. Who knows if a consequence of such barbaric decisions isn't, for instance, the Holocaust?

Ihedinobi:

This argument turns on the meaning of forgiveness and who the "innocent" child God "killed" is. If your concept of forgiveness is wrong, @Uyi, and your appreciation of the Christ's mission is also wrong, then this argument is false. I ask you questions in order to draw out clearly what you understand the founding assumptions of your arguments are and to see whether or not they are correct and valid assumptions. This is why I asked you about the meaning of forgiveness.

You hold that forgiveness does not imply an expunging of the wrong done. And I asked you what then forgiveness accomplishes. The reason for that further question is to get a clearer picture of how you think forgiveness functions. Forgiveness must necessarily accomplish something for it to be such a major and universal issue in resolving conflicts. So, what do you think forgiveness really does to effectively end a conflict?

---

My preceding post has answered to some of this. I'll integrate your response to that post with the sequel to this one in my next response.

As for crimes in gardens and what follows, this universe was created to run on cause and effect. If it is possible for effects to occur without causes or for causes to produce no effects when they have operated, it is really quite inconceivable to us. This is why the origin of God is impossible for man to comprehend.

In the Garden of Eden, God instructed man to refrain from a particular tree in the middle of the Garden. He told him that if he didn't he would die. Man failed to obey because of a conviction that God had lied to him. God responded to his disobedience with...what? Curses? Yes, but in what sense, really? Because, consider that man had effectively chosen to find his own way and make his own destiny without reference to God.

What is the natural result of refusing to live upon God's providence? Now, whether or not the events of Genesis 1-3 were literal renderings of actual historical events, they were very much indeed symbolic, by which I mean that they held deeper meaning than the surface occurences. Man's eating from the tree under the conviction that God had lied to him was a deliberate choice to support and sustain himself independent of a God he was convinced that could not be trusted. That is not so different from God's curse that he would have to sweat and toil and labor against an unyielding God to feed, or rather sustain himself and perpetuate his existence. Consider that if God exists, then He is the source of all things. If man decides that he cannot trust God to sustain him, he would automatically look for his sustenance everywhere but in God. Outside of God, there is nothing but a frustrating search, therefore man would lead a frustrated life, nevertheless still sustained by the God he had rejected (same as a kid who rebels against his father and runs away from home and still can't help using his ATM to pull money out of the allowance his father continues to provide. Of course, in this analogy, everywhere he turns all the help he can get ultimately comes from his father if such a man owned everything right down to the group of outcasts that the kid joins). Compare Genesis 3:18.

I have only used one curse to explain that all those harsh curses were essentially God stating what should have been obvious: if man cut himself away from God his Source, he would wither and die. If you look at the rest of God's words in that chapter in that light, you will realize that God may well have been speaking to His beloved Creation (the serpent representative of Satan included) with tears in His eyes stating just how much trouble they'd all brought on themselves and how He would fix their mistake.

But if you don't, you'll hold on to the false argument that God failed in loving because He told His beloved creation how badly they'd messed up and how He was going to fix everything.

---

This argument hinges on the fact that only those in the Garden were responsible for the trouble in the Garden and thus should have been the only ones to suffer any consequences. This is true, but the argument also implies that the only people or creatures culpable were Adam, Eve and the Serpent as individuals. That part is false for the following reason.

If we accept the Bible to be Truth, then the story of creation is true even if only as an allegorical representation of the actual events that took place. Therefore, in creating the individuals Adam and Eve, God effectively created the whole of humankind that genetically and psychologically resulted from them. So, while indeed Adam and Eve were in the Garden in their own respect as individual humans, they were also there as the entire race of humanity representatively. They were true and worthy representatives because outside of their own makeup, it is impossible to describe anything as humans. We are human because we are Adam and Eve's children. No human exists whose full individual makeup is not totally resultant from Adam and Eve's. In other words, my friend, had it been you and your wife or me and my wifein their place with their experience and understanding, we would have done the exact same thing.

People are indeed different, but Adam and Eve were biologically all of us (since their genes were the full gene set of the entire human race), psychologically all of us (they had the intellect, will and emotions from which ours derived), spiritually all of us (well, until anyone is born of the Spirit of God, it is Adam's spirit that they have, the same intuition, understanding and attitude toward God). Unless you can define one human without referring in some way to Adam and Eve, we were all in the Garden with Adam and Eve and consented with their choice.

Therefore, no human being is born without that innate leaning toward disobedience to God and independence of Him. It is part of the definition of the human being now. And it became so because the ones from whom we resulted deemed it fit to choose the destiny we are all born into.

Therefore every single one of us is culpable. And every single one of us is subject to whatever sentence Adam and Eve came under as a result of their failure in the Garden.

The part of this argument which holds that God indiscriminately kills and punishes those who had nothing to do with the events in the Garden is thus thrown out as false unlesa you can show an example of one person who cannot be brought under the umbrella of Adam and Eve's representation whom Yahweh killed and punished. And, of course, the person must be human. If he is not, you must show how he is not covered by the Serpent too.

Logicboy03:
God doesnt intervene with man's freewill? Did God not limit Adam and Eve's natural curiosity by not allowing them to eat from the forbidden fruit?

Logicboy03:
Did God not stop man from reaching the limits of the Tower of Babel?

Logicboy03:
Did Jesus not predict that Judas will betray him, thereby binding him to God's foreknowledge? Do you honestly think that Judas could have avoided betraying Jesus? Also, why would Judas still go on to betray Jesus when Jesus has already told them that he knows that someone is going to betray him?

Taking slaves was directly commmanded from God in Leveticus 25;44. Direct.

Chrisbenogor:
Thats a nice way to say hey, that small child was disemboweled with a blunt sword because God ordered it, and wait the pain and screaming of that child was done with so much love when you see the big picture.
And you dare blame boko haram or suicide bombers. Maybe Allah is the real God and maybe their suicide acts are borne out of the love God has for you before you convert to islam which is the big picture.

#loadofhogwash.

Logicboy03:




Good Lawd, I havenever seen such twisting and bullsh!t in my life on Nairaland.


#Dubious douchebag award




Uyi Iredia, are you SMH'ing right now?

InesQor:
What is this? Where did God NOT ALLOW them to eat from the forbidden fruit?


If you must take that story literally (a story that I think is an allegory for the first political systems on earth), then you must agree to nitpick the story appropriately. He didn't stop them from building. He gave them new languages. Their disagreement and refusal to continue the project was of their own freewill. They had a freewill to learn each other's languages and overcome the language barrier but they chose to scatter. So.


He didn't bind him to any foreknowledge. He simply knew the future because He had seen it before. The choice was still that of Judas.

Sometimes I wonder what you guys want. If Jesus hadn't warned Judas, your complaint today would be How can he be so wicked, knowing that Judas would betray him and yet he didn't warn him or give him a choice not to betray him?


God permitted them to trade in slaves, people captured from other nations or who have borrowed themselves into debt. He did not instruct them to trade in slaves. Can you not see the difference?

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

InesQor: @Chrisbenogor:

At a time when religion and politics were totally intertwined, it might be difficult to say such massacres were born of religious intent or political intent. And political wars were barbaric back then regardless of the nation: civilians and military agents suffered the same treatment.

I don't think it's fair to compare that dispensation with the modern day where the rule of engagement only includes military agents. Maybe except religious states, in which case all agents know what they've signed up for: their lives and societies to be controlled by religious laws, however whimsical they may be.

Ihedinobi:

Like I said, for someone whose policy is believe and let believe or whatever, your antagonism is quite interesting.

Now, my entire argument is dismissed as hogwash because...what? You can't believe that there is a bigger picture that accommodates the pain than the pain itself. Ok then, I assume that, if you have kids, you never innoculated them against the various illnesses that could have killed them, or, if you don't, you won't when you do. I also assume that you'll spare your kids the strain of homework because they're nice, little darlings that cry when they have to do homework, if they aren't there yet or haven't grown enough to deal with homework.

Let me know, if you will, how much pain is justifiable in the short term for a long term reward or for a bigger picture.

In the passage, the Jewish army have returned from conquering the Midianites, and Moses has gone down to meet them:

And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp; and Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle; and Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him; but all the women-children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Chrisbenogor:
Sir Truth Bender,
Who is the custodian of Morality? If man can in his feeble mind realize that the killing of an unarmed man is wrong why then would the almighty God who knew better not instruct his people in a rare show of how he knows the future more than we do not tell them not to kill innocent women and children.
I am at a loss how anyone on earth can excuse such crass wickedness. If it was political fine I can say that, but for God to see it done by his General and forget to state in his book that this was not his handwork. Oh by the way, last I checked the bible was a religious book.

Chrisbenogor:
Oga Ihe bin Laden,
Homework? Vaccines? Alright kindly tell us for whose rewards this was for

You make me want to puke with your defense of a blood thirsty God whose general Moses managed to kill more people than the jews killed by Adolf Hitler without the use of fighter jets, bombs, guns and even extermination camps. This is just by using swords alone, if moses Had a Nuclear Bomb at his disposal........

InesQor:

Mr Hostile Atheist-Agnostic,

I suddenly realize that I have answered these questions over and again in various flavours and at various times, even to you in particular: viz from freewill to the "Quarantine" analogy, to the progression of knowledge in man over the ages and how our barbaric history has informed our modern diplomatic way of life as man.

I am confident that no answer I give you will be satisfactory. So I will reserve further comments.