6 ms·

dude, c'mon get real. I've read the old testament. It's brutal. Yahwe loved him some genocide.

by ux-app 9y ago

geowwy 9y ago
I know the Bible pretty well. I couldn't get realer.
- ux-app 9y ago
  https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_killing_people https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_kil... seems pretty fked up to me :) I don't know anything about rationalwiki.org, it's the first site that showed up when I googled "old testament character punished" Each statement is linked to Biblical verses though, so any objections would be to the spin they put on it rather than disputing whether those passages are actually there. Basically, old testament Yahwe is a weird dude. Very thin skinned with a hare trigger temper. He's a sociopath who "tests" people by murdering their family among other atrocities. He does have his bro's back though. He sent 2 bears to maul 42 youths to death for mocking Elijah's bald head.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    "In the late stages of the Second World War, Evelyn Waugh was trapped in Europe in the company of Randolph Churchill, the boorish son of the wartime prime minister. "In the hope of keeping him quiet," he wrote to Nancy Mitford, "Freddie and I bet him £20 that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud... or merely slapping his side & chortling 'God, isn't God a shit!'." We were taught the bible every day by our splendid primary school headmaster, who had been a Spitfire pilot in WW2, and he seemed to focus on the most unpleasant bits of the Old Testament - even at at tender age this did not create a particularly positive impression of G. Years, later I did wonder if old Mr C was being just a wee bit subversive with us.
  - geowwy 9y ago
    > seems pretty fked up to me :) I'm sure it does. You're a product of the Enlightenment and when you read you read the Bible you interpret it as a product of the Enlightenment. If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate you need to remember who the Bible was written by and who it was written for. A Bronze-age Middle-Easterners is going to get a very different message from the Bible than you are.
    - ux-app 9y ago
      >If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate Why try to whitewash the bible? The old testament Jehovah was a vile sociopath. Jesus is a cool guy with a dad that has some screws loose. I grew up in a fundie family, the hoops fundies jump through to justify old testament idiot God are ridiculous and I have no time for that.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >Why try to whitewash the bible? Understanding (and understanding in context) is not whitewashing. There's excellent scholarship in the bible, from religious and non-religious authors. Knee-jerk reactions about "vile psychopaths" are not that. For one, the "old testament Jehovah" was the person who gave life, the universe and everything to the people who died (e.g. in Sodom) anyway. So it was his to take. Psychopathy applies to people, not gods.
        ux-app 9y ago
        > So it was his to take fuck off, that's gross. as humans if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework, and yet all knowing Jehovah couldn't fucking do some due diligence? Jesus fucking Christ, how pathetic of him.
        jorangreef 9y ago
        "if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework" There are no grounds (rational or otherwise) for objective morality outside of God. See Hume's "is-ought" dilemma. And if you're into Atheism see also Sam Harris' debate with William Lane Craig.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jorangreef 9y ago
Would you say that God had no right to judge the Canaanites after waiting 400 years for them to stop their child sacrifice? Melvin Tinker provides historical background on the Canaanites and the question of justice vs genocide here: https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/1783971851 https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/178...
- ux-app 9y ago
  idiot God from the OT sanctioned the murder of Egyptian babies, so I don't think he had the high ground there ;)
  - jorangreef 9y ago
    I may be an idiot, but personally, I would find it hard to believe in a God who never sanctioned judgement, who never advocated justice at all. That would be truly evil. As far as the Egyptian first-born, was God not patient and slow to anger? Was that the first plague or the last plague? How many years had the Egyptians oppressed another people? How many Israelite children did the Egyptians not kill? Did the punishment not fit the crime? Is God not just? ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’ “Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’ If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live. “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”

dude, c'mon get real. I've read the old testament. It's brutal. Yahwe loved him some genocide.

by ux-app 9y ago

dude, c'mon get real. I've read the old testament. It's brutal. Yahwe loved him some genocide.

geowwy 9y ago

I know the Bible pretty well. I couldn't get realer.

ux-app 9y ago
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_killing_people https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Examples_of_God_personally_kil... seems pretty fked up to me :) I don't know anything about rationalwiki.org, it's the first site that showed up when I googled "old testament character punished" Each statement is linked to Biblical verses though, so any objections would be to the spin they put on it rather than disputing whether those passages are actually there. Basically, old testament Yahwe is a weird dude. Very thin skinned with a hare trigger temper. He's a sociopath who "tests" people by murdering their family among other atrocities. He does have his bro's back though. He sent 2 bears to maul 42 youths to death for mocking Elijah's bald head.
- arethuza 9y ago
  "In the late stages of the Second World War, Evelyn Waugh was trapped in Europe in the company of Randolph Churchill, the boorish son of the wartime prime minister. "In the hope of keeping him quiet," he wrote to Nancy Mitford, "Freddie and I bet him £20 that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud... or merely slapping his side & chortling 'God, isn't God a shit!'." We were taught the bible every day by our splendid primary school headmaster, who had been a Spitfire pilot in WW2, and he seemed to focus on the most unpleasant bits of the Old Testament - even at at tender age this did not create a particularly positive impression of G. Years, later I did wonder if old Mr C was being just a wee bit subversive with us.
- geowwy 9y ago
  > seems pretty fked up to me :) I'm sure it does. You're a product of the Enlightenment and when you read you read the Bible you interpret it as a product of the Enlightenment. If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate you need to remember who the Bible was written by and who it was written for. A Bronze-age Middle-Easterners is going to get a very different message from the Bible than you are.
  - ux-app 9y ago
    >If you want to actually understand what the Bible was trying to communicate Why try to whitewash the bible? The old testament Jehovah was a vile sociopath. Jesus is a cool guy with a dad that has some screws loose. I grew up in a fundie family, the hoops fundies jump through to justify old testament idiot God are ridiculous and I have no time for that.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >Why try to whitewash the bible? Understanding (and understanding in context) is not whitewashing. There's excellent scholarship in the bible, from religious and non-religious authors. Knee-jerk reactions about "vile psychopaths" are not that. For one, the "old testament Jehovah" was the person who gave life, the universe and everything to the people who died (e.g. in Sodom) anyway. So it was his to take. Psychopathy applies to people, not gods.
      - ux-app 9y ago
        > So it was his to take fuck off, that's gross. as humans if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework, and yet all knowing Jehovah couldn't fucking do some due diligence? Jesus fucking Christ, how pathetic of him.
        jorangreef 9y ago
        "if we ever create AI we'll (hopefully) do it in the context of a robust ethical framework" There are no grounds (rational or otherwise) for objective morality outside of God. See Hume's "is-ought" dilemma. And if you're into Atheism see also Sam Harris' debate with William Lane Craig.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jorangreef 9y ago

Would you say that God had no right to judge the Canaanites after waiting 400 years for them to stop their child sacrifice? Melvin Tinker provides historical background on the Canaanites and the question of justice vs genocide here: https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/1783971851 https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Destruction-Melvin-Tinker/dp/178...

ux-app 9y ago
idiot God from the OT sanctioned the murder of Egyptian babies, so I don't think he had the high ground there ;)
- jorangreef 9y ago
  I may be an idiot, but personally, I would find it hard to believe in a God who never sanctioned judgement, who never advocated justice at all. That would be truly evil. As far as the Egyptian first-born, was God not patient and slow to anger? Was that the first plague or the last plague? How many years had the Egyptians oppressed another people? How many Israelite children did the Egyptians not kill? Did the punishment not fit the crime? Is God not just? ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’ “Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’ If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live. “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and does evil, they will die for it. And if a wicked person turns away from their wickedness and does what is just and right, they will live by doing so. Yet you Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ But I will judge each of you according to your own ways.”