Would you sit back and let a crime happen when you could prevent it safely?

[Greatest I am]

Would you sit back and let a crime happen when you could prevent it safely?

Some societies have laws that say that to do so would be a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BzP1wr234

If you would act to prevent a crime when able to do so safely, what does that say of an omnipresent god?

Are human/secular morals and laws better than gods?

Regards
DL

[Antonio the Sixth]

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Uh... no? (not a sociopath)

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I can imagine a lot of possible answers to that question. Not necessarily the one you are implying.

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lol

[Mopsus]

You can't have synthesis without negation, man.

[Greatest I am]

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Uh... no? (not a sociopath)

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I can imagine a lot of possible answers to that question. Not necessarily the one you are implying.

If your imagination is that good, then tell us which answer justifies god doing less than what you would do?

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lol
[/quote]

I also laugh at the laws of god and so do those who create our better secular laws.

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
    I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
    Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
    and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors
    when it burst out from the womb?—
when I made the clouds its garment,
    and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
    and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
    and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
    and caused the dawn to know its place,
so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
    and the wicked be shaken out of it?
It is changed like clay under the seal,
    and it is dyed like a garment.
Light is withheld from the wicked,
    and their uplifted arm is broken.

“Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
    or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?
    Declare, if you know all this.

“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
    and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
    and that you may discern the paths to its home?
Surely you know, for you were born then,
    and the number of your days is great!

“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
    or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
    for the day of battle and war?
What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,
    or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain,
    and a way for the thunderbolt,
to bring rain on a land where no one lives,
    on the desert, which is empty of human life,
to satisfy the waste and desolate land,
    and to make the ground put forth grass?

“Has the rain a father,
    or who has begotten the drops of dew?
From whose womb did the ice come forth,
    and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?
The waters become hard like stone,
    and the face of the deep is frozen.

“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
    or loose the cords of Orion?
Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season,
    or can you guide the Bear with its children?
Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
    Can you establish their rule on the earth?

“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
    so that a flood of waters may cover you?
Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go
    and say to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who has put wisdom in the inward parts,
    or given understanding to the mind?
Who has the wisdom to number the clouds?
    Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,
when the dust runs into a mass
    and the clods cling together?

“Can you hunt the prey for the lion,
    or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,
when they crouch in their dens,
    or lie in wait in their covert?
Who provides for the raven its prey,
    when its young ones cry to God,
    and wander about for lack of food?

“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
    Do you observe the calving of the deer?
Can you number the months that they fulfill,
    and do you know the time when they give birth,
when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
    and are delivered of their young?
Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;
    they go forth, and do not return to them.

“Who has let the wild ass go free?
    Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,
to which I have given the steppe for its home,
    the salt land for its dwelling place?
It scorns the tumult of the city;
    it does not hear the shouts of the driver.
It ranges the mountains as its pasture,
    and it searches after every green thing.

“Is the wild ox willing to serve you?
    Will it spend the night at your crib?
Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes,
    or will it harrow the valleys after you?
Will you depend on it because its strength is great,
    and will you hand over your labor to it?
Do you have faith in it that it will return,
    and bring your grain to your threshing floor?

“The ostrich’s wings flap wildly,
    though its pinions lack plumage.
For it leaves its eggs to the earth,
    and lets them be warmed on the ground,
forgetting that a foot may crush them,
    and that a wild animal may trample them.
It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own;
    though its labor should be in vain, yet it has no fear;
because God has made it forget wisdom,
    and given it no share in understanding.
When it spreads its plumes aloft,
    it laughs at the horse and its rider.

“Do you give the horse its might?
    Do you clothe its neck with mane?
Do you make it leap like the locust?
    Its majestic snorting is terrible.
It paws violently, exults mightily;
    it goes out to meet the weapons.
It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed;
    it does not turn back from the sword.
Upon it rattle the quiver,
    the flashing spear, and the javelin.
With fierceness and rage it swallows the ground;
    it cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
When the trumpet sounds, it says ‘Aha!’
    From a distance it smells the battle,
    the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

“Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
    and spreads its wings toward the south?
Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up
    and makes its nest on high?
It lives on the rock and makes its home
    in the fastness of the rocky crag.
From there it spies the prey;
    its eyes see it from far away.
Its young ones suck up blood;
    and where the slain are, there it is.”

And the Lord said to Job:

“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
    Anyone who argues with God must respond.”

Then Job answered the Lord:

“See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
    I lay my hand on my mouth.
I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
    twice, but will proceed no further.”

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:

“Gird up your loins like a man;
    I will question you, and you declare to me.
Will you even put me in the wrong?
    Will you condemn me that you may be justified?
Have you an arm like God,
    and can you thunder with a voice like his?

“Deck yourself with majesty and dignity;
    clothe yourself with glory and splendor.
Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
    and look on all who are proud, and abase them.
Look on all who are proud, and bring them low;
    tread down the wicked where they stand.
Hide them all in the dust together;
    bind their faces in the world below.
Then I will also acknowledge to you
    that your own right hand can give you victory.

“Look at Behemoth,
    which I made just as I made you;
    it eats grass like an ox.
Its strength is in its loins,
    and its power in the muscles of its belly.
It makes its tail stiff like a cedar;
    the sinews of its thighs are knit together.
Its bones are tubes of bronze,
    its limbs like bars of iron.

“It is the first of the great acts of God—
    only its Maker can approach it with the sword.
For the mountains yield food for it
    where all the wild animals play.
Under the lotus plants it lies,
    in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh.
The lotus trees cover it for shade;
    the willows of the wadi surround it.
Even if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened;
    it is confident though Jordan rushes against its mouth.
Can one take it with hooks
    or pierce its nose with a snare?

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,
    or press down its tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in its nose,
    or pierce its jaw with a hook?
Will it make many supplications to you?
    Will it speak soft words to you?
Will it make a covenant with you
    to be taken as your servant forever?
Will you play with it as with a bird,
    or will you put it on leash for your girls?
Will traders bargain over it?
    Will they divide it up among the merchants?
Can you fill its skin with harpoons,
    or its head with fishing spears?
Lay hands on it;
    think of the battle; you will not do it again!
Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;
    were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?
No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.
    Who can stand before it?
Who can confront it and be safe?
    —under the whole heaven, who?
“I will not keep silence concerning its limbs,
    or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame.
Who can strip off its outer garment?
    Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?
Who can open the doors of its face?
    There is terror all around its teeth.
Its back is made of shields in rows,
    shut up closely as with a seal.
One is so near to another
    that no air can come between them.
They are joined one to another;
    they clasp each other and cannot be separated.
Its sneezes flash forth light,
    and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.
From its mouth go flaming torches;
    sparks of fire leap out.
Out of its nostrils comes smoke,
    as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
Its breath kindles coals,
    and a flame comes out of its mouth.
In its neck abides strength,
    and terror dances before it.
The folds of its flesh cling together;
    it is firmly cast and immovable.
Its heart is as hard as stone,
    as hard as the lower millstone.
When it raises itself up the gods are afraid;
    at the crashing they are beside themselves.
Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
    nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.
It counts iron as straw,
    and bronze as rotten wood.
The arrow cannot make it flee;
    slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.
Clubs are counted as chaff;
    it laughs at the rattle of javelins.
Its underparts are like sharp potsherds;
    it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.
It makes the deep boil like a pot;
    it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
It leaves a shining wake behind it;
    one would think the deep to be white-haired.
On earth it has no equal,
    a creature without fear.
It surveys everything that is lofty;
    it is king over all that are proud.”

Then Job answered the Lord:

“I know that you can do all things,
    and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
    I will question you, and you declare to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
    and repent in dust and ashes.”

[Greatest I am]

“Who has let the wild ass go free?
    Who has loosed the bonds of the swift ass,

Who has made women less than an ass and placed her in the same commandment that show what men own.

Who has made women to be worth less than men?

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Fascinating that that's the bit you zeroed in on. I was always partial to the part about the ostrich.

[Greatest I am]

Fascinating that that's the bit you zeroed in on. I was always partial to the part about the ostrich.

My favorite is in Job 2;3 And the LORD said unto Satan: 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a whole-hearted and an upright man, one that feareth God, and shunneth evil? and he still holdeth fast his integrity, although thou didst move Me against him, to destroy him without cause.'

Note how Satan moved God to do evil and sin.

Nothing quite like god doing evil to win a bet.

Would you hurt your children to win a bet?

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

[Greatest I am]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

Care to discus the morality of hurting people to win a bet?

If so, start with the question I put in my last post to you about your children.

Let's see if you can win that argument.

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

The entire point of Job, neckbeard, is that we live in a stupefying universe, and that natural evil can't be explained away with reference to pat sermonizing or the types of fundamentally frivolous justifications and excuses that theodicy typically involves. The point is that God's power over our lives and fortunes is absolute and is often exercised without reference to our own self-perceived needs or interests and not necessarily in response to any particular good or evil or deeds we have committed. Note that in the climactic section that I quoted at length above, God not only does not justify Himself morally, but also does not even provide Job with the explanation of events that we, the readers, get in the first two chapters. It isn't meant to be relevant to Job's moral considerations what reasons for His behavior He did or didn't have. We the readers have the scintillating pleasure of seeing a stark and horrifying fairy tale play out in the beginning of the book, but it's a somewhat weirdly structured book because this isn't brought up again nor is it really relevant to the Book of Job's main point. It's an irruption into the book's literary structure.

Of course I wouldn't hurt my children on a bet. I also didn't bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion.

The Book of Job is a thorny text that provides answers that many or even most people find emotionally unsatisfying. The prologue in heaven exists in blatant and terrible defiance of all known rationales for believing in Divine justice. It is an immensely challenging and frightening text and I will not let some smug internet atheist reduce what's frightening about it to a self-congratulatory gotcha exercise.

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The floodlit, ascetic terror of the fairy tale that is Job can have a very salutary spiritual function and can stimulate really interesting discussions about exactly what you're trying to have a discussion about, among people who are arguing in good faith. In your hands, it loses the gelid healthfulness of Snow White's poisoned apple and becomes something more akin to the lurid, lazy image of children's melting fat sloshing around in a witch's oven. That sh**t'll kill you.

[Greatest I am]

The entire point of Job, neckbeard, is that we live in a stupefying universe, and that natural evil can't be explained away with reference to pat sermonizing or the types of fundamentally frivolous justifications and excuses that theodicy typically involves. The point is that God's power over our lives and fortunes is absolute and is often exercised without reference to our own self-perceived needs or interests and not necessarily in response to any particular good or evil or deeds we have committed. Note that in the climactic section that I quoted at length above, God not only does not justify Himself morally, but also does not even provide Job with the explanation of events that we, the readers, get in the first two chapters. It isn't meant to be relevant to Job's moral considerations what reasons for His behavior He did or didn't have. We the readers have the scintillating pleasure of seeing a stark and horrifying fairy tale play out in the beginning of the book, but it's a somewhat weirdly structured book because this isn't brought up again nor is it really relevant to the Book of Job's main point. It's an irruption into the book's literary structure.

Of course I wouldn't hurt my children on a bet. I also didn't bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion.

The Book of Job is a thorny text that provides answers that many or even most people find emotionally unsatisfying. The prologue in heaven exists in blatant and terrible defiance of all known rationales for believing in Divine justice. It is an immensely challenging and frightening text and I will not let some smug internet atheist reduce what's frightening about it to a self-congratulatory gotcha exercise.

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The floodlit, ascetic terror of the fairy tale that is Job can have a very salutary spiritual function and can stimulate really interesting discussions about exactly what you're trying to have a discussion about, among people who are arguing in good faith. In your hands, it loses the gelid healthfulness of Snow White's poisoned apple and becomes something more akin to the lurid, lazy image of children's melting fat sloshing around in a witch's oven. That sh**t'll kill you.

Nice that you would not do what god is shown to have done which shows that your morals are better than what god displays in that story.

"The point is that God's power over our lives and fortunes is absolute"

Absolute idiocy if you are talking of bible god.

BTW. I am not an atheist. I am a Gnostic Christian.

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

BTW. I am not an atheist. I am a Gnostic Christian.

1. ...you know, certain things make a lot more sense now that I know that.
2. WHAT A TWEEST

[Greatest I am]

1. Good.
2. That is what we do.

Regards
DL

[Antonio the Sixth]

As much as I can't stand the snarky euphoria of the internet atheist (or Gnostic Christian - never forget those!) who knows nothing about theology but thinks he's figured out the Big Truth about religion, I can't help but feel that the sort of attitude that emanates from the Book of Job feeds right into their narrative. That, of course, hinges on how much I myself understand the Book of Job and how it's been interpreted, which is to say barely more than the euphorics. So yeah, what follows might be utter nonsense, but at least I hope there's no doubt that it's in good faith.

I absolutely understand the importance of facing the harsh truth that there's no easy answer to the existence of evil, and that it's something that must forever remain puzzling and unsettling. I think it's a crucial lesson to learn for both believers and nonbelievers. If that is the heart of the Book of Job's message, I can absolutely see its value. However, it seems to me that it goes beyond that to say that this is not a question that people should even inquire into - that inquiring into it is illegitimate because, as human beings, we couldn't possibly understand God's purposes. That attitude, to me, is not just emotionally unsatisfying - it's morally damaging.

What I've come to value so much about religion in the past couple years is its ability to provide a solid, unassailable foundation for a set of moral principles. This is something that I, as a nonbeliever who wants to do good but keeps failing miserably, have come to envy. The rationalist-skeptic critique to this view is to say that those principles are fundamentally arbitrary, that they're just a set of rules produced by historical happenstance that the believer blindly follows without any critical judgment "because God says so". This is how I myself have viewed religious morality for several years (roughly from 14 to 17) - it just seemed too easy. Thankfully I've moved away from that phase, and come to realize that this is not how most religious people actually think. I've got a glimpse of the depth and richness of theological thought, and it's pretty obvious there is a lot of critical judgment involved.

At this point, my understanding of how religion ought to inform morality (and yeah, I know, who the f**k am I to tell religion how it ought to operate? but I will anyway) is roughly as follows. God is infinitely benevolent: He wills the absolute good of every human being who ever was, is and will be. If we follow His commands, it is because we know that they derive from this intent. However, good is something so pure and fundamental that it cannot be encompassed in a set of commands, no matter how specific. Good is a state that, to be sought, requires all the means God has given us - means which include judgment. It is crucial that we personally, in everything we do, always question ourselves and the world around us on the nature of good and evil and the nature of God's purpose. If we don't, then we're essentially venerating God like the ancient Greeks venerated theirs, offering obedience in exchange for a reward. That is not, to me, what God may want from us.

The idea that God would tell Job to, essentially, stop asking question, to me really goes against this spirit. I understand it if the idea is that we shouldn't ask God for an easy answer - that we have try to figure it out on our own because only then will that knowledge elevate us morally. But if, instead, the idea is that inquiring about the reason for evil's existence (or, more generally, inquiring about the nature of good and evil) is itself an affront to God, a denial of His greatness, then this leads right back into that narrow and to me frankly downright offensive caricature of what religious morality is supposed to be. It means just shut up and obey. I'll take "pat sermonizing or the types of fundamentally frivolous justifications and excuses that theodicy typically involves" (which, admittedly, is all I have to offer) any day over this.

Again, I have no right to tell religious people what they should believe, and I'm terribly sorry if this will come across as pretentious.

[Greatest I am]

"What I've come to value so much about religion in the past couple years is its ability to provide a solid, unassailable foundation for a set of moral principles."

Your kidding, I hope.


“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Strange that you would respect the mainstream religion that promote homophobia, misogyny and intolerance to all those not of their ilk.

Regards
DL

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I absolutely understand the importance of facing the harsh truth that there's no easy answer to the existence of evil, and that it's something that must forever remain puzzling and unsettling. I think it's a crucial lesson to learn for both believers and nonbelievers. If that is the heart of the Book of Job's message, I can absolutely see its value. However, it seems to me that it goes beyond that to say that this is not a question that people should even inquire into - that inquiring into it is illegitimate because, as human beings, we couldn't possibly understand God's purposes. That attitude, to me, is not just emotionally unsatisfying - it's morally damaging.

The way I've often seen people's attitudes towards Job change over time goes sort of like this:

1. Having been told that the heart of Job's message is the first possibility for it that you gave (if they've gone to one type of church), or the second possibility for it that you gave, the one that you reject as damaging (if they've gone to another type of church), they approach the text itself and find that it doesn't quite support such an intepretation.
2. They go all-in on whichever interpretation isn't the one they were originally taught, OR they turn into a hackish shill for the interpretation they were originally taught.
3. They get tired of this and come towards some sort of rapprochement between the two interpretations, and treat this itself as another area of uncertainty and unsettled boundaries.

There are two major interpretations of Job (that I'm aware of) that don't really fall into either of these categories--one is that of Greg Boyd (who I think is some kind of Anabaptist), which I quite like (although I can't fully embrace it due to its in some places quite aggravated heterodoxy), and which I think you might too, and the other is that in St Gregory the Great's six-volume Commentary on Job, which I sometimes pretend to have read but am not yet reduced to having occasion to pretend to understand.

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There's somebody (as in, somebody whom I consider something of an authority) with whom I'm conversing occasionally these days who told me a while back that it's a very American and very Protestant attitude towards religion to associate it primarily with moral behavior and attempts to understand the sources of moral principles. I've been turning that over in my mind ever since. I don't consider being characteristic of Protestantism and American-ness a point in that attitude's favor, but you might, and I'd respect that.

*snip*

Oh, for heaven's sake.

[Wells]

Would you sit back and let a crime happen when you could prevent it safely?

Some societies have laws that say that to do so would be a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BzP1wr234

If you would act to prevent a crime when able to do so safely, what does that say of an omnipresent god?

Are human/secular morals and laws better than gods?

Regards
DL

No, no, and no.

[Kingpoleon]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

Care to discus the morality of hurting people to win a bet?

If so, start with the question I put in my last post to you about your children.

Let's see if you can win that argument.

Regards
DL

It is not a bet. It's a statement of God's omnipotence. He showed Job's righteousness, and later blessed him many times over what he had before.

You speak of things you know nothing of. Does not even Satan use Scripture with words laced with deceit, with a pretended meaning that is not there?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

Care to discus the morality of hurting people to win a bet?

If so, start with the question I put in my last post to you about your children.

Let's see if you can win that argument.

Regards
DL

It is not a bet. It's a statement of God's omnipotence. He showed Job's righteousness, and later blessed him many times over what he had before.

I mean to be fair it is a bit screwed-up (on surface level, anyway) that He gave him a new complement of children rather than bringing the ones he had before back to life.

[Greatest I am]

Would you sit back and let a crime happen when you could prevent it safely?

Some societies have laws that say that to do so would be a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Samaritan_law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1BzP1wr234

If you would act to prevent a crime when able to do so safely, what does that say of an omnipresent god?

Are human/secular morals and laws better than gods?

Regards
DL

No, no, and no.

Thanks for the detailed argument. You have convinced me, not.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

Care to discus the morality of hurting people to win a bet?

If so, start with the question I put in my last post to you about your children.

Let's see if you can win that argument.

Regards
DL

It is not a bet. It's a statement of God's omnipotence. He showed Job's righteousness, and later blessed him many times over what he had before.

You speak of things you know nothing of. Does not even Satan use Scripture with words laced with deceit, with a pretended meaning that is not there?

Only fools believe in Satan, a mythical and imaginary construct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6I5VSZVqc

Strange that you would think that the reward of new children would appease the pain of having Job's original murdered needlessly.

So much for your twisted view of love and justice.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Don't try to play gotcha or make inveigling insinuations about the Book of Job with me, neckbeard. You will lose.

Care to discus the morality of hurting people to win a bet?

If so, start with the question I put in my last post to you about your children.

Let's see if you can win that argument.

Regards
DL

It is not a bet. It's a statement of God's omnipotence. He showed Job's righteousness, and later blessed him many times over what he had before.

I mean to be fair it is a bit screwed-up (on surface level, anyway) that He gave him a new complement of children rather than bringing the ones he had before back to life.

I agree and posted about the same thought before reading your reply.

Regards
DL