How is god just?

[MrMisanthrope]

The nature of this discussion assumes we are talking about Christianity and that Christianity is true at least for the sake of argument. If that is the case, the Christian religion tells us often that their god is superior in all measures to any human being that has ever lived. He's infinitely smart and he knows everything, past present and future.

If we assume for a minute that it's true, wouldn't it make sense to follow that hypothetical supreme being's version of "justice?" Wouldn't that make a lot more sense than each individual person trying to figure out their own version of "justice?" Wouldn't this hypothetical supreme being probably know some things they don't know, possibly about the long term implications of certain people or behavior, that may actually make what he says or does just without us understanding how or why?

Think of it this way - let's say the year is 1901. Young Adolf Hitler, then 12 years old, is a relatively good if not somewhat uncooperative boy and he's about to run off to school. SUDDENLY, the clouds open up and, HOLY DOGSH*T, it's GAWD! That's right, God opens up the clouds in front of everybody and points a giant magic wand at little Adolf. He says "You know what Hitler, I know what you're going to do and I don't like it, so F*CK YOUR SH*T," and then shoots a kamehameha out of his magic wand, annihilating little Adolf to ash.

Everybody would do the obvious - piss and moan about how unfair and cruel that was. Little would they know, back in 1901, that Adolf Hitler would grow up to be... well, Hitler!

With that in mind, let's pretend God is hypothetically omnipotent and omniscient and has our best interests in mind - if he knows everything that's ever happened, is happening right now and is ever going to happen, wouldn't he be in a pretty good position to make judgment calls for our benefit, whether or not we agree with them? If our dad tells us to drop what we're doing and get in the car, and then proceeds to drive all day and all night almost without stopping until we're almost a thousand miles from our current location, is he unjust or crazy if we feel the distant aftershocks of a nuclear bomb rattle our beds as we're going to sleep on the second night?

This is all just hypothetical, but I think it's something people need to think about. I'm just playing devil's advocate here anyway.

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

You just typed 158 words that could have been spent making a logical argument in support of your position...but instead you spent all that time composing the above post which basically says "I think my opinion is right".

This is really weak, shredder.

You have so far failed to back up your burden of proof.

You're skirting the issue.

1. In order for Christianity to be true, Jesus must be demonstrated to be the Jewish Messiah.

You agreed to this.

k, but now you have predicated the Christian God not existing on Jesus failing to meet the criteria for the Jewish Messiah

2. The material I posted demonstrates that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah.

If you bother with reading it, that is. That I did not give you a book report on the material does not make it any less true. If this is your argument, we might as well stop now because eventually, you're going to rely on something someone else has said to make a point and I'll respond by saying, 'in your own words, please'.

3. Christianity is false.

See above.

This isn't opinion. This is fact. The logical aspects of the argument don't go beyond that.

[outlikeatrout]

My faith is stronger than that of a mustard seed indeed, and as for your second part, I see that as the biggest cop out ever. But I digress, I don't think I'm tempting him, I'm just asking for a confirmation of his existence.

That's between you and God bro, good luck and God bless!

[outlikeatrout]

You're skirting the issue.

1. In order for Christianity to be true, Jesus must be demonstrated to be the Jewish Messiah.

You agreed to this.

Actually, if you'll check, you'll see that I said "you've predicated your argument on this". I didn't agree to anything. Let's be precise here.

2. The material I posted demonstrates that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah.

No it doesn't. References on the internet prove otherwise...(lol see how my joke statement holds as much water as your serious assertion here?)

If you bother with reading it, that is. That I did not give you a book report on the material does not make it any less true. If this is your argument, we might as well stop now because eventually, you're going to rely on something someone else has said to make a point and I'll respond by saying, 'in your own words, please'.

3. Christianity is false.

See above.

This isn't opinion. This is fact. The logical aspects of the argument don't go beyond that.

[Zigrakil]

You're skirting the issue.

1. In order for Christianity to be true, Jesus must be demonstrated to be the Jewish Messiah.

You agreed to this.



2. The material I posted demonstrates that Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah.

If you bother with reading it, that is. That I did not give you a book report on the material does not make it any less true. If this is your argument, we might as well stop now because eventually, you're going to rely on something someone else has said to make a point and I'll respond by saying, 'in your own words, please'.

3. Christianity is false.

See above.

This isn't opinion. This is fact. The logical aspects of the argument don't go beyond that.

dude, might i suggest reading some scriptural analysis? you seriously have no clue about interpretation whatsoever.

i know it boosts your ego to be able to say something cutting like 'i can prove christianity is false,' but if you remain woefully ignorant of actual scholarship, nobody in the academic community will ever take you seriously.

[burnedfish]

I'm just waiting on TH3SHR3DD3R to show how he knows that God does not exist...

[Zigrakil]

I'm just waiting on TH3SHR3DD3R to show how he knows that God does not exist...

he posts a bunch of stuff about biblical prophecy (as if there is some tried and true way to interpret prophecy--something he doesn't believe exists) and compares it in the most bizarrely reaching way to the life of jesus.

[drpurple]

the emperor of humanity is just. even from within his stasis-field, he continues to battle the forces of Chaos through his psychic connection to the warp.

even when his most trusted primarch, Horus betrayed him, The Emperor gave him plenty of chances to repent and make good his treachery. when Horus' followers waged war against humanity, The Emperor sought to cleanse them of their affiliation with the dark gods of Chaos.

The Emperor knows full well that there is potential that the gods of Chaos could contaminate the human population of the galaxy, and that it is our choice to do so, but still! He does not punish us for having this choice! He will simply kill us, or send His troops if we betray Him as Horus once did...How the Emperor is merciful! a swift death at the hands of the forces of The Emperor is preferable to an eternity in the clutches of Nurgle, Tzeentch, Slaanesh or Khorne!

If you disagree, you simply do not understand the forces at work!


FOR THE EMPEROR!!

[cman1787]

cause and effect + reincarnation = a just system

[Marc1Mirza1]

I wasn't going for either insightful or content-rich. While I always appreciate applause, you're not answering my question again. Can you please provided an example of god being just?

Please define what you mean by just.

[Marc1Mirza1]

I'll give you an example of how I see it. Lets say a guy kills somebody in cold blood. Shortly after the murder, he's overcome with remorse drops to his knees and begs god for forgiveness. In god's system of justice, all is forgiven and the matter dropped. I fail to see the justice in that.

We all deserve to die as we have broken his moral law. It's just that he has made a way for us out of the "fugitive" status, for those that will accept it.

[Marc1Mirza1]

Cool, you're one of those atheists who states that God doesn't exist.

Care to back up that burden of proof you just created?

(Didn't think so.)

Nice. LOL.

[Marc1Mirza1]

I think the more pertinent question is why does the creator of the universe have bipolar disorder and PMS?

Care to explain?

[Marc1Mirza1]

I don't get it.

Does the OP believe God exists in the first place?

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

dude, might i suggest reading some scriptural analysis? you seriously have no clue about interpretation whatsoever.

i know it boosts your ego to be able to say something cutting like 'i can prove christianity is false,' but if you remain woefully ignorant of actual scholarship, nobody in the academic community will ever take you seriously.

Just out of curiosity, if the Christian God is real, and has revealed itself to humanity, why the confusion? One would think that such a being would make itself painfully clear, and yet we have literally hundreds of denominations of Christianity, thousands of religions, and no two people can agree on every aspect of God. This being has laid out a set of rules for us, and yet it can't even make itself known, let alone provide us with consistent rules for existence. We have no original copy of the New Testament, so barring that, we have 'interpretation' - and who are we to say which interpretations are correct or not? How are we to accurately judge if someone is being spoken to by God or not? After all, lacking an original copy of the New Testament, we cannot accurately define the correct understanding and, much like how the early Christians used the ruse of 'hidden meanings' to deceive their followers, we can merely claim that God is reaching out to us across space and time to tell us, hey, it has changed its mind, and what it was saying all along is finally being revealed to this random individual.

Instead, we have 'academics' who squabble over original Greek or Latin meanings; this purportedly all-knowing being didn't know ahead of time that its message was going to get screwed up and everyone save these 'academics' were going to be getting the wrong books at the start of class?

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

he posts a bunch of stuff about biblical prophecy (as if there is some tried and true way to interpret prophecy--something he doesn't believe exists) and compares it in the most bizarrely reaching way to the life of jesus.

So which parts of the Bible am I to take literally? How is God itself not symbolic when the literature dedicated to it is? If the Bible is nothing more than an attempt at explaining the human condition, how is what I'm saying wrong? If we are to suggest that merely having an idea makes that idea true, then all religions, all ideas, all fleeting fantasies are true, because they present a possibility. Is this how we are to categorize reality? 'I think, therefore it is true, regardless of what the evidence says otherwise'?

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

I'm just waiting on TH3SHR3DD3R to show how he knows that God does not exist...

I'm waiting for you to show where I said that, because I was referring to the Christian God. Its non-existence has been demonstrated; it doesn't mean there isn't ANY god. Just the Christian one.

[Scoundrel]

Jesus was not a prophet. Prophecy can only exist in Israel when the land is inhabited by a majority of world Jewry. During the time of Ezra (circa 300 BCE), when the majority of Jews refused to move from Babylon to Israel, prophecy ended upon the death of the last prophets -- Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
Jesus appeared on the scene approximately 350 years after prophecy had ended.

Interesting...brb, Moses was not a prophet.

Any particular reasoning for this belief? Certainly not in the torah, which random rabbi was this from?

[AlphaMusician]

I don't get it.

Because that's the way it is.

(your short question deserved a short answer)

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

Interesting...brb, Moses was not a prophet.

Any particular reasoning for this belief? Certainly not in the torah, which random rabbi was this from?

The author appears to be making a distinction between an Israel consisting of physical land and the Children of Israel, a people without physical land to call their own.

[Scoundrel]

The author appears to be making a distinction between an Israel consisting of physical land and the Children of Israel, a people without physical land to call their own.

for a few reasons I think this one should be tossed out.

1. 'in Israel when the land', seems to be making the disiinction that its talking about a place.

2. Absolutely no scriptural basis for this in the torah, and imo the opposite is apparent.

3. the life of the prophet Abraham alone dismisses this claim. Wherever he was, he was the minority. moses never made it to the land, jacob was a prophet captive in Egypt, Daniel was a prophet captive in babylon, etc

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

for a few reasons I think this one should be tossed out.

1. 'in Israel when the land', seems to be making the disiinction that its talking about a place.

2. Absolutely no scriptural basis for this in the torah, and imo the opposite is apparent.

3. the life of the prophet Abraham alone dismisses this claim. Wherever he was, he was the minority. moses never made it to the land, Daniel was a prophet captive in Babylon, etc.

Isn't that all what the author is saying, though? Sure, Moses was a prophet, THE prophet even, but having never made it to the land, that would have excluded him from making any prophecy in Israel. That's what the author seems to be saying to me anyway. I don't see anything in there about Moses making prophecy in Israel.

[drpurple]

Cool, you're one of those atheists who states that God doesn't exist.

Care to back up that burden of proof you just created?

(Didn't think so.)

ah, youre one of those people who claims that The Emperor of Humanity isnt fighting the dark gods of chaos?

care to back up that burden of proof? after all, the saga of The Emperor is written in the Lexicanum for all to see. do you dispute the truth in these holy texts?

[burnedfish]

Especially since God doesn't exist. Whew.

I'm just waiting on TH3SHR3DD3R to show how he knows that God does not exist...

I'm waiting for you to show where I said that, because I was referring to the Christian God. Its non-existence has been demonstrated; it doesn't mean there isn't ANY god. Just the Christian one.

There ya go

How come you still won't back up the burden of proof, and answer outlikeatrout?

[Zigrakil]

Just out of curiosity, if the Christian God is real, and has revealed itself to humanity, why the confusion? One would think that such a being would make itself painfully clear, and yet we have literally hundreds of denominations of Christianity, thousands of religions, and no two people can agree on every aspect of God. This being has laid out a set of rules for us, and yet it can't even make itself known, let alone provide us with consistent rules for existence. We have no original copy of the New Testament, so barring that, we have 'interpretation' - and who are we to say which interpretations are correct or not? How are we to accurately judge if someone is being spoken to by God or not? After all, lacking an original copy of the New Testament, we cannot accurately define the correct understanding and, much like how the early Christians used the ruse of 'hidden meanings' to deceive their followers, we can merely claim that God is reaching out to us across space and time to tell us, hey, it has changed its mind, and what it was saying all along is finally being revealed to this random individual.

Instead, we have 'academics' who squabble over original Greek or Latin meanings; this purportedly all-knowing being didn't know ahead of time that its message was going to get screwed up and everyone save these 'academics' were going to be getting the wrong books at the start of class?

there's so much wrong with this i don't even know how to begin. firstly, anything connected to human beings is necessarily fallible, even if god himself communicated it to them. it's just part of the package. people are psychologically prone to twisting things to suit their own meaning. that's why we have academic circles that encourage debate and use of logical argumentation, rather than emotional appeals. the books of the bible which were accepted were not accepted arbitrarily. they were chosen based on criteria designed to exclude those that we too esoteric to be meaningful, too new to have anything to do with jesus, and too isolated to really have any resonance with the faithful. a central tenet of all christians (and jesus) is that the holy spirit works through christians, and, as such, a gnostic gospel rejected by the vast majority of the christian community couldn't be a reasonable candidate for the bible because it was rejected by people all over the world.

continue thinking martyrs were trying to control people though; whatever floats your boat.

So which parts of the Bible am I to take literally? How is God itself not symbolic when the literature dedicated to it is? If the Bible is nothing more than an attempt at explaining the human condition, how is what I'm saying wrong? If we are to suggest that merely having an idea makes that idea true, then all religions, all ideas, all fleeting fantasies are true, because they present a possibility. Is this how we are to categorize reality? 'I think, therefore it is true, regardless of what the evidence says otherwise'?

take a literary criticism course. stylistic cues and commonalities with contemporary literature help to demarcate which parts of the bible are allegory, parable, historical narrative and the like. the historical critical method has never been about suggesting ideas out of nothing and thereby considering them to be true. the idea is to frame books within the historical matrix that they were composed in, and to understand that the bible is a highly social and extremely diverse text. most christians reject 'literal innerancy' in favour of spiritual innerancy because of this reason, namely, that the bible was never intended as a physics or history textbook, but as a historically based chronology of the jewish religious experience. conversely, the new testament styles itself as a historical account of the doings of jesus and his followers. we can locate parts therein which are metaphor by analyzing style: for example, revelation contains sweeping imagery characteristic of eschatological literature of the era. christians claim that the bible is divinely inspired. this is different from the claim that the bible is the untouched word of God whispered in some prophet's ear (that's more of a Qu'ranic claim).

i think you should check out "the church the apostles left behind" by raymond brown. it's written by an academic who rejects a lot of conservative biblical scholarship, so, as an atheist, i think you'll appreciate it as an honest historical study.

[jimbob007]

God is totally just-just a made up figure that does not exist in reality. If he did, then from the old testament, he would just be a total scumbag.

[TH3SHR3DD3R]

there's so much wrong with this i don't even know how to begin. firstly, anything connected to human beings is necessarily fallible, even if god himself communicated it to them. it's just part of the package. people are psychologically prone to twisting things to suit their own meaning. that's why we have academic circles that encourage debate and use of logical argumentation, rather than emotional appeals. the books of the bible which were accepted were not accepted arbitrarily. they were chosen based on criteria designed to exclude those that we too esoteric to be meaningful, too new to have anything to do with jesus, and too isolated to really have any resonance with the faithful. a central tenet of all christians (and jesus) is that the holy spirit works through christians, and, as such, a gnostic gospel rejected by the vast majority of the christian community couldn't be a reasonable candidate for the bible because it was rejected by people all over the world.

continue thinking martyrs were trying to control people though; whatever floats your boat.

So, correct me if I'm wrong here, but basically what you're saying is:

1. People are bound to get it wrong

2. Unless they're Catholic

2A. And only if they meet your criteria for being Catholic

take a literary criticism course. stylistic cues and commonalities with contemporary literature help to demarcate which parts of the bible are allegory, parable, historical narrative and the like. the historical critical method has never been about suggesting ideas out of nothing and thereby considering them to be true. the idea is to frame books within the historical matrix that they were composed in, and to understand that the bible is a highly social and extremely diverse text. most christians reject 'literal innerancy' in favour of spiritual innerancy because of this reason, namely, that the bible was never intended as a physics or history textbook, but as a historically based chronology of the jewish religious experience. conversely, the new testament styles itself as a historical account of the doings of jesus and his followers. we can locate parts therein which are metaphor by analyzing style: for example, revelation contains sweeping imagery characteristic of eschatological literature of the era. christians claim that the bible is divinely inspired. this is different from the claim that the bible is the untouched word of God whispered in some prophet's ear (that's more of a Qu'ranic claim).

i think you should check out "the church the apostles left behind" by raymond brown. it's written by an academic who rejects a lot of conservative biblical scholarship, so, as an atheist, i think you'll appreciate it as an honest historical study.

I'll certainly check out that book. I truly enjoy reading about early Christianities. But you need to understand that, logically, divine 'inspiration' means nothing because we have no way of measuring the qualities of any god. At best we are speculating. This is why even the Christians that are far-removed from whatever is found to be the original teachings of Jesus Christ and the early are just as likely to get it right as you and those early Christians are. They can simply claim 'divine inspiration' and be heralded as the true mediators of God's word.

[Zigrakil]

So, correct me if I'm wrong here, but basically what you're saying is:

1. People are bound to get it wrong

2. Unless they're Catholic

2A. And only if they meet your criteria for being Catholic

catholicism was more or less the only denomination when the gospels were being chosen. everyone was a catholic, since catholic just means universal.

I'll certainly check out that book. I truly enjoy reading about early Christianities. But you need to understand that, logically, divine 'inspiration' means nothing because we have no way of measuring the qualities of any god. At best we are speculating. This is why even the Christians that are far-removed from whatever is found to be the original teachings of Jesus Christ and the early are just as likely to get it right as you and those early Christians are. They can simply claim 'divine inspiration' and be heralded as the true mediators of God's word.

the books of the bible were chosen in such a fashion that corresponds to historical rigor. since jesus strongly asserts (along with the disciples) that the holy spirit actually acts in communion with the congregation. hence, widespread agreement on matters of doctrine amongst the faithful is considered to be divinely inspired on the basis of that being what jesus said. the original teachings of jesus are self-evidently the basis of christianity. that's not really a question open to debate.

[burnedfish]

God is totally just-just a made up figure that does not exist in reality. If he did, then from the old testament, he would just be a total scumbag.

How do you know he is made up?

[Godfrd824]

How do you know he is made up?

Because there's no proof of him, and if we're gonna believe in things that have absolutely no objective validity in them, then why not just believe in pink unicorns that are also invisible and reside in your toilet?