RoR: Forum

Post 0

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 12:13pm

Link

Edit

Oh, come on. Satan killed only ten people? As bad as Satan is and he could only manage to kill ten people?

I guess the Christians and Jews are right; ‘our god is an awesome god’.

Post 1

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 - 6:07pm

Link

Edit

The painfully obvious and incontrovertibly correct answer is the Jews. (Amalekites, anyone?) Duh.

Post 2

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 8:51am

Link

Edit

Anyone know where these numbers come from and how they were calculated? Link to a website?

Ed

Post 3

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 12:32pm

Link

Edit

Are you asking for academic documentation, Ed, of the fictional killings of individuals by non-existent entities? I think it's sufficient to recall that God supposedly drowned the entire human race except for Noah and his family, not to mention the children that he had devoured by bears for mocking one of his prophets, what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's wife, Moses himself, and so on. It wasn't Satan that rained down the plagues upon Egypt. I am unaware of anyone actually killed by Satan, he simply tempts and deceives.

But again, the plausibly real killings documented in the Bible, such as the first documented genocide (the Hebrews killing off the Amalekites) and the murders of the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Edomites and the inhabitants of Jericho are all done by God's "chosen people."

I defy anyone to find one Christian or Jewish cleric who will dispute that the Jews are the greatest documented killers in the Bible.

Ted Keer

Post 4

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 2:11pm

Link

Edit

Ed,

I found this:

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-many-has-god-killed.html

Post 5

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 3:12pm

Link

Edit

Thanks Joe! That's just what I was looking for.

Ted, I figured someone might have gone through the Bible and added up the numbers where there were murders actually attributed to Yahweh by name. It's always fun to point out to Christians the most violent and vile parts of the Bible, congratulate them on wisely rejecting those injunctions or permissions--to sell your daughter into slavery, stone to death folks who work on Sunday, etc--and ask them why not go for full consistency and reject the lot.

By the way, I have a review of Sam Harris's two books in the May issue of The New Individualist (should be in your mailbox soon) and a healthy slap at Newt Gingrich and his book Rediscovering God in America, in the upcoming June issue. And we had a review of Dawkins's The God Delusion in the March issue. I see a pattern emerging here!

Post 6

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 3:52pm

Link

Edit

Since we're on the topic, check out the series of comics at the Russell's Teapot site. Go back through the archives. The strip is very funny. This is an Atheist site that gets it name from the following quote by Bertrand Russell:

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."

Also check out the "Know Your Bible" posters!

Post 7

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 6:22pm

Link

Edit

For a believer, death is of no consequence, only salvation or damnation in the afterlife - what happens on the day of judgment. Keeping a body-count has a certain morbid fascination, but is of no relevance to a thoughtful religionist. Shocking mere ignorant fools is not really worth the effort, at least after one graduates from high school.

I think that the essential question is Abraham's dilemma. What if God told you to murder someone, would it be evil? Thomists hold that God has a (benevolent) nature which he does not contradict, while m*slims and Calvinists assert that God's will is transcendant, and that nothing limits his whim.

I personally believe that God is of necessity an Objectivist. But if I ever met #llah I'd spit on him.

Ted

Post 8

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - 8:23pm

Link

Edit

This post has certainly taken a different rout; thank you Ted. Of all the things said, the last line is the most interesting to me.

‘I personally believe that God is of necessity an Objectivist.’ Since God is fictitious and appears often in literature I think the question becomes what is the character of God. Understand that I am not referring to any theologic character, only God’s nature in literature and then into common language.

So, if John Galt is an Objectivist, possibly the most true one, then what would God’s philosophy be?

Post 9

Thursday, April 19, 2007 - 1:06pm

Link

Edit

Steve, I found the John Galt character to be the main flaw in Atlas Shrugged, he is not introduced as a person until too late in the story, and he seems unreal compared to Dagny, Rearden, Francisco & Ragnar. I liked the speech, but his character doesn't move me in the way that the other fleshed-out characters do. Had I been Dagny, I'd have stayed with Hank.

That being said, his speech is, of course, wonderful, if a bit too didactic for a work of literature. It's a "flaw" that I'm willing to overlook.

To answer your question as to what God's philosophy would be, one could say that he would be an Aristotelian, of course. But if one takes him seriously as being omniscient and outside time, then he wouldn't really have knowledge or philosophy in the way humans do - he wouldn't need philosophy - in a sense he would embody it. If one thinks of God as personified, then I would imagine him as Tom Baker's incarnation of Doctor Who, (below) or as Gandalf from LoTR, embodying wisdom through action and quiet conversation rather than Sturm und Drang.

Ted Keer

Post 10

Thursday, April 19, 2007 - 6:50pm

Link

Edit

My pick for favorite in Atlas Shrugged: Hank Rearden. I just like him.

As for your view of the character God, I take it you are a theist. I don’t know what books you have read where the character God has been portrayed as wise or logical, but from what I have read God would not be. If God were to choose a government it would definitely be an autocracy.

P.S.- I got my first Atlas points today!
(Edited by Steve
on 4/19, 6:56pm)

Post 11

Thursday, April 19, 2007 - 7:22pm

Link

Edit

No, Steve, I have no belief in a personal God, or anything at all supernatural, although you can learn a little about my sordid past if you click on my name and read my profile. I fully comprehend the meaning of the primacy of existence, and find the idea of a creator incoherent and literally unimaginable or better, incomprehensible in a fully focused context. I also fully appreciate Rand's "indestructible robot" argument, which was what made me free to throw off the psychological shackles of religion as a source for morality.

Congratulations on your atlas points. They do feel nice when earned.

Ted

Post 12

Thursday, April 19, 2007 - 7:33pm

Link

Edit

Oh, and I can't really think of any literature off hand which I've read that had Yahweh or the like as a character. The closest would have to be perhaps King Jesus by Robert Graves which portrays Jesus as a mystic and a magician. I found the book mediocre and the character of Jesus positively disappointing.

And Francisco is my favorite character by far, a real ham, like myself.

Ted
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 4/19, 7:35pm)

Post 13

Friday, April 20, 2007 - 10:27am

Link

Edit

The question, of course, is how many of those killings were murder. Many clearly were.

The one that I find most ironic is when Moses comes down from the Mount with his celebrated commandments of eternal ethnic categorical imperatives, sees the hedonistic romp around the golden calf, and orders (on God's order) the ritualistic slaughter and sacrifice of one son/brother from each quarter until 3000 were murdered. Thus, He changed the meaning of “thou shall not murder” to “thou shall not murder for the most part.”

In the Cecil B. DeMille version, God does the killing, which is never murder since God defines justified homicide by arbitrary fiat.

Looking forward to Ed's articles.

Post 14

Friday, April 20, 2007 - 10:35am

Link

Edit

You hit right on the point Jason. When God (or his representative) does the killing it’s not really murder. It must be okay if God does it, right?

Post 15

Friday, April 20, 2007 - 2:25pm

Link

Edit

It must be okay if God does it, right?

That is excusemongering of the lowest order...

Post 16

Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 6:44pm

Link

Edit

Don’t tell me. I’ve been wondering why any man who did these things is a monster, however if a god does it that is perfectly alright.