Ray a Day - 3:1
On to Chapter Three! This chapter is titled "Humanity's Sin Deserves Punishment." Maybe this chapter will explain why victimless "sins" deserve an eternity of torment in hell. Right? Um, no.
The introduction to this chapter is highly entertaining. Comfort gives an analogy. He describes how his 'earthly' father left his family by themselves for long periods of time, physically beat his children, including Ray Comfort, and even killed a defenseless animal with his bare hands.
He then gives us some "missing information." His father left his family to work long hours, ensuring that his family was well provided for. His "beatings" were corrective spankings, given only out of love. The animal he killed was badly injured and dying, so he killed it out of compassion.
This is Comfort's analogy for a negative portrayal of the Bible and the biblical god. He says, "Quote mine the Bible and you can, as some atheists do, paint God as a tyrant."
Well, first off, Comfort obviously doesn't know what quote-mining is. Quote-mining means to take a quote completely out of context in such a way as to make it sound like the source is saying the opposite of what they actually are. See here for a textbook example of quote-mining from Ben Stein's travesty . . . er, movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Comfort himself is very fond of quote-mining, especially Stephen Hawking, for some reason. You might recall a few such instances here and here from previous portions of this book. He also dismissed accusations of quote-mining in "The Atheist Starter Kit," which can be found on his website and in the back of "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence . . ."
Furthermore, I've never seen an atheist quote-mine the Bible. For example, I could post these verses from the book of Numbers, saying:
Atheists (or any other non-Christian) don't have to quote-mine the Bible. The decrees of Yahweh can be quoted completely in context.
Comfort, of course, doesn't give any examples of such, unfortunately. He describes how, like in the analogy with his father, God gives us life and comfort, as well as salvation from hell, regardless of how it sounds if you only have a small amount of info from biblical "quote-mining." The difference between his analogy and the Bible is that he obviously words his information about his father in as deceptive a way as possible to hide the truth. Is Comfort saying that the Bible does this? Does the Bible hide the truth as deliberately and deceptively as Comfort does in his analogy?
If the Bible isn't hiding the truth deliberately, as Comfort's analogy does, then we can have a rational debate concerning whether the Biblical god is moral or not. In Comfort's analogy, he hides and distorts the information, and that's why you reach an incorrect conclusion. But he, presumably, claims that the Bible does not hide or distort the information. So if the evidence of the Bible shows that Comfort's god is indeed a tyrant, then so be it, and Comfort cannot weasel his way out of that conclusion by claiming that information is still hidden.
So does the Bible describe a tyrant, or a loving father? Comfort is obviously uncomfortable (nyuk nyuk) with the question itself - he says, "If I have a question about the character of God, I have the good sense to hold my hand upon my mouth until I am in heaven, and there God may see fit to answer it." So I'll have to speculate without him.
Simply put, read the above passages from the Bible again, very carefully. Now consider that if I posted, here, on this blog, one such Bible story that horribly offends my moral conscience each day, I could go for months . . . or years.
Comfort's other arguments are similarly flawed. For example: God gave us life. But in his analogy, a father can work hard to provide for his family while not commanding some of their violent deaths. The analogy would be more accurate if the father left the family for long periods of time (although to work to provide for them), beat them (although to spank them as a moral correction), and kill an animal (if only to put it out of it's agony), and torture some of his children for disobeying arbitrary rules.
In the same way, the argument that 'God can't be all that bad because he offers us salvation' is moot, as well. God is (supposedly) only offering us salvation from the torment that he himself inflicted. It truly boggles the mind . . . Comfort says that God sentences mankind to hell for any minor transgression, no matter how victimless (such as lust, as we saw in the previous chapter). To grant someone a reprieve from horrible torture (that you yourself have proclaimed) as long as they agree to serve as your slave is not justice.
All you rational and fair-minded readers out there, I can hear you asking . . . "C'mon, Flimsy, Comfort can't possibly mean that God has personally pronounced such torment for humanity, right?"
Comfort, pay very close attention here - I left your religion precisely because of my moral outrage, it was exactly a crisis of conscience like you belittle and dismiss here. Please - I sincerely mean this - you cannot convince me to completely abandon the entirety of my morality with threats of torment in the afterlife. I simply have no reason to believe in your god, your heaven, or your hell. And yes, if I did, I would still never follow your God. In a very real sense, if there is anything of which I am certain enough to stake my life on, it is that the deity described in the Christian Bible will never have my worship, my adoration, or even any small degree of my least respect.
The introduction to this chapter is highly entertaining. Comfort gives an analogy. He describes how his 'earthly' father left his family by themselves for long periods of time, physically beat his children, including Ray Comfort, and even killed a defenseless animal with his bare hands.
He then gives us some "missing information." His father left his family to work long hours, ensuring that his family was well provided for. His "beatings" were corrective spankings, given only out of love. The animal he killed was badly injured and dying, so he killed it out of compassion.
This is Comfort's analogy for a negative portrayal of the Bible and the biblical god. He says, "Quote mine the Bible and you can, as some atheists do, paint God as a tyrant."
Well, first off, Comfort obviously doesn't know what quote-mining is. Quote-mining means to take a quote completely out of context in such a way as to make it sound like the source is saying the opposite of what they actually are. See here for a textbook example of quote-mining from Ben Stein's travesty . . . er, movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Comfort himself is very fond of quote-mining, especially Stephen Hawking, for some reason. You might recall a few such instances here and here from previous portions of this book. He also dismissed accusations of quote-mining in "The Atheist Starter Kit," which can be found on his website and in the back of "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence . . ."
1. Whenever you are presented with credible evidence for God's existence, call it a "straw man argument," or "circular reasoning." If something is quoted from somewhere, label it "quote mining."So . . . Comfort quote-mines all the time, he dismisses the idea that quote-mining is not a legitimate debate method . . . and then accuses atheists of using arguments that are irrational because they are quote-mining the Bible. Wow.
Furthermore, I've never seen an atheist quote-mine the Bible. For example, I could post these verses from the book of Numbers, saying:
32And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day.Now, it would be a very different story if verse 37 read: "And the Lord spake to Moses and the people, saying, 'See, guys? That is what I would command if I were a complete sack of shit. Happily, I'm not, so I forbid you from killing people just because you found some random dude gathering sticks on a certain day of the week."
33And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation.
34And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him.
35And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
36And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses.
Atheists (or any other non-Christian) don't have to quote-mine the Bible. The decrees of Yahweh can be quoted completely in context.
Comfort, of course, doesn't give any examples of such, unfortunately. He describes how, like in the analogy with his father, God gives us life and comfort, as well as salvation from hell, regardless of how it sounds if you only have a small amount of info from biblical "quote-mining." The difference between his analogy and the Bible is that he obviously words his information about his father in as deceptive a way as possible to hide the truth. Is Comfort saying that the Bible does this? Does the Bible hide the truth as deliberately and deceptively as Comfort does in his analogy?
If the Bible isn't hiding the truth deliberately, as Comfort's analogy does, then we can have a rational debate concerning whether the Biblical god is moral or not. In Comfort's analogy, he hides and distorts the information, and that's why you reach an incorrect conclusion. But he, presumably, claims that the Bible does not hide or distort the information. So if the evidence of the Bible shows that Comfort's god is indeed a tyrant, then so be it, and Comfort cannot weasel his way out of that conclusion by claiming that information is still hidden.
So does the Bible describe a tyrant, or a loving father? Comfort is obviously uncomfortable (nyuk nyuk) with the question itself - he says, "If I have a question about the character of God, I have the good sense to hold my hand upon my mouth until I am in heaven, and there God may see fit to answer it." So I'll have to speculate without him.
Simply put, read the above passages from the Bible again, very carefully. Now consider that if I posted, here, on this blog, one such Bible story that horribly offends my moral conscience each day, I could go for months . . . or years.
Comfort's other arguments are similarly flawed. For example: God gave us life. But in his analogy, a father can work hard to provide for his family while not commanding some of their violent deaths. The analogy would be more accurate if the father left the family for long periods of time (although to work to provide for them), beat them (although to spank them as a moral correction), and kill an animal (if only to put it out of it's agony), and torture some of his children for disobeying arbitrary rules.
In the same way, the argument that 'God can't be all that bad because he offers us salvation' is moot, as well. God is (supposedly) only offering us salvation from the torment that he himself inflicted. It truly boggles the mind . . . Comfort says that God sentences mankind to hell for any minor transgression, no matter how victimless (such as lust, as we saw in the previous chapter). To grant someone a reprieve from horrible torture (that you yourself have proclaimed) as long as they agree to serve as your slave is not justice.
All you rational and fair-minded readers out there, I can hear you asking . . . "C'mon, Flimsy, Comfort can't possibly mean that God has personally pronounced such torment for humanity, right?"
If the skeptic still wants to complain that God killed women and children in the Old Testament, he should realize that He did more than that. He proclaimed the death sentence on the entire human race - every man, woman, and child. We will all die because we have sinned against God. So if you are a skeptic, stop whining, get right with Him through the Savior, and escape the damnation of hell, while you still have time.
posted by Flimsyman
at
8:00 AM
10 Comments:
Ziztur, you could end your Ray a Day blog Right Here and you would have completely, and totally, made your Whole Point right here, with that last paragraph.
I know you're going to be doing the whole thing, but that last paragraph just wrapped up an amazing point that to me, makes me see all atheists in a different light (and makes me realize that one-certain-atheist we know, is truly alone).
Thank you.
Awesome!
But you must know, Flimsy wrote this post!
i agree with this post, however maybe not the title... depending on what atheist means in this context. does it mean "there's no doubt there isn't a god" or "i disagree with religions view of what 'god' is", with the latter being the more able to constitute freedom...
Neither Flimsy or I will (probably) EVER claim that there is no doubt there isn't a God - doubt is the product of a free mind. So, it's definitely the latter and not the former.
Good comment!
So you decided to be an atheist, where your still left with the same immoral deaths, the same crimes against humanity performed by humanity, and you rely on the reasoning of the humanity that tortures itself to come up with the best way respect one another's human rights. It is also the same human reasoning that screams for a divine spiritual presence in the first place.
I know, it probably seems like I'm picking on Highboy, but I swear I'm not, it just so happens his comments are often the ones that stick out enough for me to bother commenting on.
"It is also the same human reasoning that screams for a divine spiritual presence in the first place."
I would argue that humans don't necessarily desire a divine spiritual presence so much as they desire a reason for being or the so called "meaning of life". It just so happens that a good number of people feel that life can only have meaning is through a divine or spiritual presence.
However, I would argue that life itself has intrinsic value. You don't need a higher power for your life to have meaning, if that were true, then the Christian God's existence would be without meaning. You could argue that we in turn give God's existence meaning. However, if you argue that, then why couldn't our helping future generations grow and flourish be meaning enough for us to live.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it's just food for thought.
@ Highboy:
I'm not certain what you mean by ""the same immoral deaths, the same crimes against humanity performed by humanity." I've narrowed it down to two possible things you could be saying . . .
1. You could mean that we're accusing God of being an amoral tyrant, while humanity commits similar atrocities against humanity as well. Well, the answer should be obvious. Humanity is not a single, monolithic entity - it is made up of billions of different people. If the Bible asserted several different gods, and only, say, 1 god out of 8 made Hitler look like a colossus of secular humanism, then we would only condemn that god. We do condemn those people who are responsible for evil, but only those people. Neither you or I are responsible for the evil done by others; to simply ascribe the wrongdoing of some people to "humanity" is, well, um . . . just damned silly.
2. Alternatively, you could simply be saying that without a god administering justice in the afterlife, billions of innocent people have been killed, and likely millions of evil men and women have effectively 'gotten away' with their wrongdoing. Well, another simple answer: All the more reason to seek true equality and genuine justice here, in this life, eh? I'm okay with taking some responsibility for seeing that justice be done, precisely because there is no magical fantasy land in the afterlife where all wrongs will somehow be righted.
". . . the reasoning of the humanity that tortures itself to come up with the best way respect one another's human rights."
Um . . . Yes, reason is a useful tool for discovering truth. You don't think that our human reason should be used to decide right from wrong? What should we use? Faith? How do you decide what to place your faith in? Do you simply mindlessly adopt the religion of your family or culture? No? Okay, how do you decide, then? Wait for it, wait for it . . . That's right, if you're not mindlessly accepting the religion of your environment, then to decide what "faith" to have, you have to use . . . human reason.
". . . the same human reasoning that screams for a divine spiritual presence . . ."
Oh, er, well, ah, fuck. No, no, not at all, in fact, actually dead fucking wrong.
1. Human evolutionary psychology offers explanations for why humans believe spiritual assertions, but . . . If human reason screams for the existence of a divine spiritual presence, then why can nobody seem to logically explain it to atheists, like Ziztur and I?
2. I was raised with the fundamentalist Christian god, straight from the Bible, unadulterated by humanism or any other more enlightened thought. Morally speaking, I am far more comfortable with the nonexistence of spiritual presences. Not only do my logic and reason scream for the nonexistence of God, but my conscience screams that much louder that the Christian god is not worthy of worship or respect.
Flimsy you'll have to do better than that. You stated yourself that your own interests often conflict with what is best for humanity. By nature of being human, your self interests conflict with what is moral. Than in the same blog you assert that human reason is somehow qualified to decide what is best for humanity, which is totally absurd. Human reason is totally subjective. Completely and totally. Not to mention about as consistent as silly puddy or at best a fresh batch of lime jello. From culture to culture reason is interpreted differently resulting in so many differences in morality one can't count them all. Of course we Christians all interpret the Bible in various ways, resulting in different doctrines and different beliefs about Christ. We're in the same boat remember? Take God out of the equation, you still have immorality, you still have the same crimes. Simply saying only some humans committed them therefore the collective human reason is still a viable option for discerning moral behavior doesn't wash, because the are multiple billions of people left on this earth with different reasoning than you.
As for Ray, his first mistake was trying to explain God's actions as moral. I wouldn't try to explain them at all. I would ask why a created being feels that he/she are owed any kind of explanation at all. I would laugh in the face at the silly idea that a created being is going to look their creator in the eye and tell Him that what He created has rights that trump His will for them. That is so damn ridiculous I have a hard time typing it. You have rights merely because you want humanity to have rights, and while you're all hot and bothered over God's punishments that you feel are so unjust I have to wonder some things: If simply picking up sticks is no big deal, why risk pissing off the God who created you, gave you life, rescues you from slavery, performed countless miracles right in front of your eyes, and when He says "take a day off" (what a bastard) humanity can't even be trusted to not pick up a bundle of sticks. Are you kidding me? See the problem here is that when reading the Bible and you're picking out all the "unjust punishments" God lavished on humanity you conveniently leave out all the great things He's done that humanity is undeserving of. If I'm a creator, and I go so far as to give them a paradise to live in, rain food down on them from Heaven, and countless other miracles, yet when I give very simple commands such as not working one day of the week or simply staying away from a certain kind of meat, humanity still gives me the finger, I'd be pretty hurt and pissed. Then I even go as far as to perform my own act of salvation so that humanity's crimes are paid for without there having to suffer and yet they still tell me off, and then accuse me of being immoral when I punish them because they think its too harsh. That whole idea is utterly ridiculous, and it only proves the complete and total depravity of man. If God of the Bible exists, then obviously it doesn't matter if he's wiping out countries or setting them free, humanity has still rejected Him.
I . . . uh . . . errr . . . W. T. F. *head explodes*
"If I'm a creator, and I go so far as to give them a paradise to live in, rain food down on them from Heaven, and countless other miracles, yet when I give very simple commands such as not working one day of the week or simply staying away from a certain kind of meat, humanity still gives me the finger, I'd be pretty hurt and pissed."
These are your own words. Please reread them. Then read them some more.
I really don't know how to break this fundamentalist mental block. Normally, I'd put some other figure in the place of God to illustrate how horrifying this is, but you do exactly that - you put yourself in the shoes of God to illustrate that you would do the same thing.
For example, I'd say something like this: "I'm a god. Okay, I help these people on one of my planets. I give them food. I give 'em a hand against their enemies. Let's see . . . I probably shouldn't bother to forbid them from picking up sticks on a certain day of the week, because that rule is just blatantly fucking stupid, really, it's just completely egotistical and authoritarian. I mean, even if I did give such a stupid law, what would I do? Order the violent, painful death of someone who didn't obey? Fuck no."
Or take a father who provides everything and then some for his kids, but who finds one of his sons doing something that is actually wrong, like stealing money from his wallet. So the father beats his son to death.
I just . . . I just cannot comprehend how you can actually say that this senario is perfectly just and moral if the person is God, even though it's indescribably wrong for anyone else to do the exact same thing.
I mean, Jesus buttfucked Christ, Highboy, I'm sorry, but this moral worldview is just abjectly fucking repulsive.
It's also an example of moral relativism.
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