This goes back to what I was saying earlier: you are right, and I understand your deconstruction when scripture is read in this way. But that is not how these stories were written. Beyond the details lies a deeper message that is introduced by the details, and the message is about how people treat each other. In the three synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) where Jesus performs a miracle, he says “Your faith has made you well.” This was a response that turned the very real belief on its head that illness and infirmity were moral failings and an indication that the afflicted person was a sinner. Jesus said no, you are not a sinner, you are cured by your faith in me and in yourself. The miracles were just details to expose a very harmful attitude toward illness and infirmity. We saw this play out in the 1980s with HIV/AIDS, and more recently in the fight over COVID protections.
In what way is “beyond the details” not the same as “ignore the details”? You responded to that post by pretty much ignoring what was said.
My general thought is that whatever set of safety bumpers God put up to block the worst evils, people would still have the same reaction to the worst of whatever evils God still let happen, because they’d now be the worst evils. And if God then protected us from this new class of worst evils, people would have the same reaction, lather, rinse, repeat until we’re in a world where not the least unkind word is allowed.
God has given us the gift of a real world. It is a terrible gift, but I’m not sure what substitute would be better.
“Beyond the details” is to understand what part of the story the details play: are they the point of the story, the context, or a narrative bridge. My mention of Jesus’ miracle stories is to say that I don’t see them as the point or the message. That he performed miracles is not important to me. That he separated sin from illness and disability is important to me, because that was the belief at that time.
That would something to think about…if there was solid evidence that your god existed in the first place.
Or is that one of those details we are supposed to look beyond?
You tell me. We have the Republican Party, driven by evangelical Christians, passing anti-LGBT laws because that community is seen as perverse, sinful, and subject to divine wrath. Meanwhile, we have that community and their supporters saying that they are whole and complete people trying to live their lives like anyone else. You don’t need a miracle to understand that being gay, lesbian, trans, queer, etc. is not necessarily sinful, or sinful at all, if sin is separate from that person.
And once again, you did not address the actual question being asked.
I truly don’t understand what point you’re trying to make here, or how that answers the question.
Since I have gone along a tangent, please remind me what the question is.
If God truly forbids gay sex, then they are more or less correct. (Sure, hate the sin not the sinner, but that means these people have to sacrifice the quality of their lives.) Now you disagree, but how do we tell who is correct? If God showed up, that would help, but he appears to be binging a very long series or something.
Now what if God did show up, and told you the Baptists were right. Would you then get into line or would you rebel against God?
A thing I’ve heard from many atheists, and which I agree with, is that if there were suddenly solid evidence that the Biblical god were real, I would then not be an atheist, but I still wouldn’t worship him, being evil and all. You’ve defined a god worthy of worship, and good on you. You seem to be far more moral than the god of the Bible.
Yeah, and at the end God basically says “might makes right” and list all his awesome power and says Job doesn’t have it. God very much does not come off looking good in this one and Job looks kinda like a fool, because, in fact, God is responsible for his misfortunes because God agreed to it all. But hey, he’s a fool that got rewarded with riches and more kids instead of punished by a vindictive God for actually laying the blame where it really belonged (on God), so I guess we’re supposed to think that’s a good thing.
Except (and this in part lead me to leave the Party), in the United States it should be the Constitution that directs our government and not the Bible. They can be correct or incorrect all they want rolling down the aisle on Sunday but that is not the position a political party should take.
Plus, if it truly a sin then it is for God to punish, not people.
God even lets Satan kill Job’s children, and at the end provides Job with replacement children, as if they were fungible things rather than unique human beings.
I’ve occasionally wondered what the missing wrap-up conversation between God and Satan would have looked like. I can see Satan saying to God, “sure, I’m wicked, but you’re every bit as bad as I am here.”
What lesson did Job’s family learn?
That they can be killed on a whim by capricious divine beings?
Functionally, from the POV of humanity, that’s not that different from living in a universe without divine beings at all.
The religion party or the government party? In any case I was referring to personal opinions and dislike, such as lecturing people about their desires. I wasn’t even thinking about the government.
90% of religious life should be god showing up. Without that even believers clearly have no clue as to what god wants. If science worked that way there would be a church of Newton and a church of Einstein.
Satan had no choice. You don’t sass off to the Godfather, after all. In fact, in the Bible as a whole, Satan’s death count is way, way below God’s. Why is Satan forced to torture his followers. If there was a (nonBiblical, I know) war between God and Satan, that the good guy lost would explain a lot of our history.
There is a tradition that believes the God of the Old Testament is not the same God as Jesus Christ. The Cathars were an especially numerous sect in Southern France and they were eradicated by the Catholic Church. Gnosticism is a more general term, which covers the Cathars as well as other sects. I am not sure if any gnostic Christian sects survive today. Unitarians seem to have the same (general) idea.
Sassing God is exactly what Satan does when he first responds to God’s praise of Job.
And sure, he has a choice. When God gives Satan the freedom to do whatever he wants with Job’s stuff (including children and servants), who says Satan has to kill anyone? That’s Satan’s choice.
And the reason why Satan’s death count is so low is that Satan is a very late invention. By the time Job is written, we’re all but into the inter-Testamental period. Of course no deaths were attributed to him when he hadn’t been invented yet.
That God is sadistic, and doesn’t care about whether people suffer or not. That God is murderous directly and by proxy. And that is a valid conclusion in the context of God who kills, slaughters, and condones the Israelites’ scorched earth mass slaughter in the promised land, as well as drowning everyone because they didn’t follow God’s commands. That is a valid view of God.
That view of God and the recent evangelical Christian interpretations of select parts of scripture vary from centuries of study and interpretation that has formed a tradition of what Job and God means in the broader context of Christian theology. Neither of our interpretations invalidates the other, or proves that the other is wrong. They are both valid within the context of their assumptions about God. It doesn’t matter to me that there is another view of God, particularly the ones posted above, or what they imply.