People first, God second. Should people put themselves above God?

@Smileyrius,

Neither my parents nor my employer created me nor gave me freewill. You profess that the God of the Bible did. The three are incomparable. That the comparisons cannot be drawn is glaringly obvious.

This still does not address the assertions and reports in Deuteronomy and 2 Kings that I've pointed out.

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@Smileyrius,

In the Bible, by your interpretation, there is free will given by YHWH. There are also asserted punishments directly meted for not obeying YHWH. Worshiping other gods, for example, has nothing to do with a siege laid upon one's city state other than being a direct punishment from YHWH. Being dehumanized to the point of eating one's children is also a punishment by YHWH asserted by that prophet. But for you it's merely hyperbole and you completely fail to address those punishments by YHWH expressly asserted in the Bible. You want to have your cake and eat it too, as it were.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Neither my parents nor my employer created me nor gave me freewill. You profess that the God of the Bible did. The three are incomparable. That the comparisons cannot be drawn is glaringly obvious.

We will both agree I'm not the smarter of the two of us Infra, so I hope you will forgive me if I fail to see what you see here, in what way does the provision of free will, and creation negate the point of the analogies I have used? I am not being facetious, I truly don't see it.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

In the Bible, by your interpretation, there is free will given by YHWH. There are also asserted punishments directly meted for not obeying YHWH. Worshiping other gods, for example, has nothing to do with a siege laid upon one's city state other than being a direct punishment from YHWH. Being dehumanized to the point of eating one's children is also a punishment by YHWH asserted by that prophet. But for you it's merely hyperbole and you completely fail to address those punishments by YHWH expressly asserted in the Bible. You want to have your cake and eat it too, as it were.

By my interpretations there are punishments (the flood, sons of Korah, exile from Eden etc) and there are consequences (Sampson's capture, inherited sin or defeat of israel by "enter nation name here") The two should not be conflated.

The punishment in this matter is removal of Gods protection, the consequence was the military vulnerability of a nation, so perhaps I am incorrect to say Moses was using a hyperbole, perhaps it was foresight, but regardless, My entire point is that God does not "dehumanise" people (I see what you did there), nor does he punish them by forcing them to eat their children; rather, these people had options. They a) could have heeded the warning, or b) could have asked for his help. Still they turned their back on the benefactor that was providing the help they needed. They then starved to the point of eating their own children rather than ask for help.

The burden of choice was the on the Israelites, they would live and die by the choices they made, this is how free will works.

1 Reply

@Smileyrius,

Employers and parents are themselves created and given free will by, and are under the dictates of God along with all other men. They can't and don't say to other men, "I created you and gave you free will but nonetheless subject you to my dictates." God is under the dictates of nothing and no one but himself. Only he can say, "I created you and gave you free will but nonetheless subject you to my dictates."

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

By my interpretations there are punishments (the flood, sons of Korah, exile from Eden etc) and there are consequences (Sampson's capture, inherited sin or defeat of israel by "enter nation name here") The two should not be conflated.

Like I said you're wanting to have your cake and eat it too. I suspect that you do this in order to reconcile these stories within a theology that asserts that Jehovah is a "loving god."

Smileyruis wrote:

The punishment in this matter is removal of Gods protection, the consequence was the military vulnerability of a nation, so perhaps I am incorrect to say Moses was using a hyperbole, perhaps it was foresight, but regardless, My entire point is that God does not "dehumanise" people (I see what you did there), nor does he punish them by forcing them to eat their children; rather, these people had options. They a) could have heeded the warning, or b) could have asked for his help. Still they turned their back on the benefactor that was providing the help they needed. They then starved to the point of eating their own children rather than ask for help.

Whether it is a foresight or not is irrelevant. The prophet explicitly states, "The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies." (Deutoromomy 28:25)

The consequence, "being defeated before your enemies" is the punishment asserted by the prophet. Further he explicitly stated, "because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you." Again, the consequences are the explicit punishments asserted by the prophet.

Also, it isn't that the Samaritans didn't ask for help, it's that they were punished for not following the dictates of YHWH. The prophet quotes the King of Israel saying, "This disaster is from the Lord." Are you going to dismiss this statement as mere opinion, if not hyperbole?

Smileyrius wrote:

My entire point is that God does not "dehumanise" people (I see what you did there)

What did I do there, exactly? You paraphrased what I had written and I quoted your paraphrase.

Smileyrius wrote:

The burden of choice was the on the Israelites, they would live and die by the choices they made, this is how free will works.

More precisely, in the Bible people are punished for exercising their free will contrary to the way YHWH dictates that they exercise their free will. It has nothing to do with free will, per se.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

What and have to eat your own children for not doing God's bidding? You really want to eat your own kids? (Deut. 28:15,53)

Anyhow, the Sabbath is not God, and vice versa.

This is true but both concepts are man made.

Regards
DL

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@ifo,

ifo wrote:

you must read more scripture

I have read the whole ugly bible.

Perhaps you should give it a go or at least follow it's few wise tenets and show your love instead of the hate in your heart.

Proverbs 3:12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Regards
DL

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The antagonism between the two is based on a false premise.
Respecting your own needs is respectinv nature at large.

Collectively, that attitude, if you look at what we are doing to the environment, is not doing the environment a lot of good. You will agree unless you are climate change denier.

Regards
DL

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

Yeah, I'm just needling Smiley and his selective literal interpretations of the Bible.

In regard to infant cannibalism, there is evidence of mass infanticide throughout that region, and I do believe that ancient peoples resorted to those extreme measures when faced with extreme circumstances like the prospects of starvation due to a siege or other catastrophes. The rationalization for this would be that the gods forced these conditions upon them as a punishment for disobedience.

Perhaps.

I think it more likely that, due to finite resources of the city states, the population had to be stringently controlled because, if there were too many births, workers might starve to death.

I think this way due to the fact that the ancients tried to sanctify sex between husband and wife to keep it at a minimum while at the same time, the King glorified all the sex that went through the Temple prostitutes.

Regards
DL

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@Smileyrius,

Smileyrius wrote:

I think you may have gotten the wrong end of the proverbial stick again, and for that I am sorry Infra. I was not suggesting there is some magical discernment to be made as to which parts of the bible are God inspired.

There is no discernment needed in the matter. When a prophet spoke the exact words he was given, he always announced them as the words of God. Anything not announced as the words of God, was the wording of whoever spoke or wrote them. Bible writers just wrote the accounts and events as a history of their people under inspiration. If they received prophecies or visions, they also were written as such.

2Kings 6:27-29. records a woman crying out to the King of Samaria during a siege which of course incurred a great famine. This is a record of an event

Joshua 10 includes some expressions mouthed by God, but again, you see where God speaks as it is announced.

But, but!

God causes them to lie.

Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.
1Kings 22:23

Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets. 2 Chron 18:22

Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people. Jer 4:10

And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet.Ezekiel 14:9

For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. Thessalonians 2:11

O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. - Jeremiah 20:7

To me, God’s worse lie was to Adam and Eve. He told them they could eat of the tree of life and then reneged and in a real sense murdered them by denying them a remedy.

That pesky God sure works in mysterious ways.

Regards
DL

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

In the Bible, by your interpretation, there is free will given by YHWH. There are also asserted punishments directly meted for not obeying YHWH. Worshiping other gods, for example, has nothing to do with a siege laid upon one's city state other than being a direct punishment from YHWH. Being dehumanized to the point of eating one's children is also a punishment by YHWH asserted by that prophet. But for you it's merely hyperbole and you completely fail to address those punishments by YHWH expressly asserted in the Bible. You want to have your cake and eat it too, as it were.

The notion that God gave us free will is belied by the fact that we cannot help but sin. The bible is forever telling us that we are all sinners.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Psalm 51:5 "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

Regards
DL

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

More precisely, in the Bible people are punished for exercising their free will contrary to the way YHWH dictates that they exercise their free will. It has nothing to do with free will, per se.

Yep.
Nothing screw up free will more than commands and threats.

Regards
DL

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People first, God second. Should people put themselves above God?

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