well… this is an interesting possiblity… and since many people would agree that what’s contained in the Bible is not 100% truth… why couldn’t think have been the case?
I’m not really talking about this from the perspective of a believer… more in a historical/human sense
Playing the god’s advocate, a few questions on the first point:
Does God give free will? Is this biblically supported?
I always thought of “free will” was one of the ways to explain God’s inaction in the face of horrific evils.
There are many statements in the Bible that support the notion of free will. Here’s one example - Deuteronomy 30:
These verses clearly state that the choice is in the hands of the individual.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by jab1 *
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I was wondering when you’d show up jab1. 
I don’t claim to have all the answers. I will however, present several possibilites (many of which are, admittedly, conjecture on my part).
God judges us on an individual level and on a communal/national level. To some degree, we are responsible for the policies and practices of the places we live in, even if we don’t (as individuals) actively implement those policies. Horrible things that happen in nature (earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, etc.) which affect entire areas, could be said to be a result of this type of judgement.
It is possible that those Egyptians who were sympathetic to Jews didn’t suffer nearly as much as those who were outright hostile to them. Possibly someone who was kind to the Jews had an easier time finding water during the plague of blood than someone who took every opportunity to harm them.
There is also the classic Enoch explanation. Looking at the lifespans of the individuals in Genesis 5, one finds that Enoch lived a much shorter life than any of his contemporaries. This is questioned by Jewish commentators. The answer most often given is that Enoch was a righteous man living in a wicked society. Had he been allowed to live longer, he might have become corrupted and evil. God therefore removed him from this life earlier, to ensure his place in the afterlife. The same could be said for some of the Egyptians who died as a result of the plagues; including some of the children.
To parapharase something Chaim said in an earlier thread, I don’t have access to God’s spreadsheet. I don’t know His calculations and I wasn’t invited to consult with Him on the final implementation of those calculations. But I do know that a Just and Fair God makes it all work out in the end.
Zev Steinhardt
It looks like your references were cut off - could you post them please? I’m just wondering how you know the nature of God’s personality and what God’s intentions are…
Thanks,
Heembo
My advice: always check 'em yourself before using them in debate.
First one I opened was #283, in which the ‘contradiction’ was between English translations of Jonah and Matthew, which referred to Jonah’s being swallowed by a fish or a whale, respectively.
‘fish’ was one English translation of the (originally Hebrew) word ‘Leviathan’. ‘whale’ was one English translation of the Koine Greek translation of Leviathan. The only contradiction shown is between the translations of these two verses, in an unnamed translation.
Tossing stuff like that in doesn’t do wonders for the credibility of those who compiled the list.
“You are just and fair. We will bring you a shrubbery.”
– King Arthur
::D&R::
zev wrote:
While this concept is certainly Biblical, it is also contradicted by the verses which state that people are only punished for their own sins, not for the sins of others.
The idea of punishing individuals for the sins of their nation becomes even more odious when we consider that ancient Egypt was an absolute monarchy, not a representative democracy. What responsibility could the “slave girl, who is at her hand mill” possibly have for the enslavement of the Israelites?
Finally, you remind me of Jerry Falwell when you state that natural disasters are a result of collective judgment against a group of humans. Surely you don’t believe that Bangladesh is a more evil country than Canada simply because they suffer more natural disasters? Or that hurricanes in Florida are a punishment for Disneyworld’s Gay Days?
Nope, not possible. The firstborn son of everyone in Egypt died. Compared to the death of a child, the ease with which one finds water next to the Nile is unimportant.
I could make just the opposite argument. God is an evil deity. When he kills someone early, it is because he’s being evil. When he lets someone have a long life, he is doing so in the hope that that person will be corrupted by sin.
As you can see, both arguments are entirely ad hoc.
This would be a valid assumption iff we knew with absolute certainly that an omni-max God did indeed exist. For example, we may not know how the Egyptians built the pyramids, but they obviously did. OTOH, it’s not valid to say, “I have no idea why the island of Atlantis sunk into the ocean, but it obviously did.” This is because, unlike the pyramids, we do not have 100% conclusive evidence that the lost city of Atlantis ever existed.
In the abscence of proof of God’s existence, other appropriate conclusions would be:
The universe was created by an all powerful, all knowing, but all evil entity.
The universe was created by an alien fourth grader as a science project, for which he received a D. (George Carlin’s explanation)
The universe was not created by any being whatsoever.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Opus1 *
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While this concept is certainly Biblical, it is also contradicted by the verses which state that people are only punished for their own sins, not for the sins of others.
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Ah, my other friend, Opus1.
True. However, considering the numerous places in the Bible where whole cities and countries are prophesied against, it stands to reason that, under certain circumstances, the idea of communal/national guilt is a valid one.
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They may have rejoiced at the status of the Jews in that they were lower than she was.
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Again, I’m not God’s bookkeeper. Could it be as a result of Disney’s Gay Days? Maybe. God didn’t personally tell me one way or the other. However, the approach that one should take to natural disaster in the world, according to Jewish teaching (after saving any possible lives, of course) is to consider to oneself “Why did they deserve this? Is it possible that I may be guilty of something? Is there something I could learn from this?”
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Agreed (with regard to that plague). Maybe they fall into my first or third explanation
Yes, I grant you are correct in that I am offering an ad hoc argument. However, see below.
In the end, when reading the Bible, one must start with the assumption that a Fair and Just God exists. Can it be proven? No, I don’t think so. I just take it as a given.
By the same token, the exodus and the plauges haven’t been proven either. In your arguments, you are taking these as givens, but not God’s existence.
You are arguing on the one hand that God was terrible to kill the Egyptian first born and then on the other that there is no God. You can’t have it both ways.
Zev Steinhardt
I don’t think he was taking both ways… I think the general idea was to say: if you want to believe in a God, these other things still don’t make sense… furthermore, if we’re on a search for reason, there are reasonable ways of viewing the world other than one including a God in the sense you might think of it.
also… he said that the concept of punishing an entire nation was in the bible, but that it contradicted another teaching in the bible (ie: Ezekial 18:20, “The son shall not suffer the iniquity of the father…the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”)… providing a few more examples of one side of the contradiction (the fact that whole cities were prophesied against, for example) doesn’t clear anything up.
First of all, it was Pat Robertson who warned Orlando that they might get hurricanes and a meteor or two for having Gay Days. Let’s get our IFCs (Idiot Fundamentalist Christians) straight, shall we?
Next: Hurricanes, earthquakes and even droughts aren’t necessarily bad things. Without earthquakes (and volcanoes), we would have no mountains and erosion would eventually wear down the continents and islands to below sea level.
Some parts of the world, like Florida, have a climate that goes back and forth from flood to drought. It’s natural. The wildlife (flora and fauna) have evolved to handle this. If it weren’t for the occaisional hurricane, Florida would not be so lush and green. But without the occaisional drought which leads to wildfires, certain plants would not even germinate. (This is true for nearly all conifers, for example.) If there are no new plants, the species eventually goes extinct. The occaisional hurricane also flushes clean the waterways and recharges the water with oxygen and replenishes the underground water supply.
Volcanoes aren’t necessarily bad things either. Mt Vesuvius is well known for having destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum; nevertheless, its slopes are among the most fertile soils in Italy and there are numerous vineyards growing there. Anything that can produce great wine has GOT to be a good thing.
One must learn to take the good with the bad and to recognize the good that come from a seemingly bad thing.
Besides, if these natural events are punishments from God, zev, maybe you can explain why these events occur even in unpopulated areas, why they occurred even before there were any people at all?
Does this statement disturb anyone else but me?
Are you really stating that each and every non Jew in Egypt harbored ill will or ‘rejoiced’ in the ‘lower status’ of the Jews, and therefore deserved to be punished?
Please re-read your statement and consider the thought process that justifies it. Yes, I know that you don’t have ‘God’s Spreadsheet’ and that you cannot know ‘his will’ but c’mon.
Wouldn’t this kind of thing disturb you if it weren’t in the Bible and carried out by an entity that you consider holy?
Here’s another popular biblical mystery: First there was Adam and Eve, the only two people on earth. They begat Cain and Abel. Suddenly, Cain gets a wife. Where did she come from?
She was his sister (or niece).
No, I never said each and every. Others may have been punished for other reasons.
I’m not going to sit and defend every one of God’s actions, simply because I can’t. Yes, there were things done that I personally don’t understand and personally don’t agree with. But if you hold of a higher power who is Just and Fair (yes, Opus1, I know there’s no proof. I’m taking it as a given), then He knows what He is doing and He will ultimately balance out the scales. I’m willing to concede that I don’t know everything and that there are concepts and ideas that are beyond me that only God understands. Where I don’t understand, I simply have to trust that God does.
Zev Steinhardt
Wow! In addition to digging up a treasure trove of contradictions from the Bible, we’re also discovering some fresh ones, courtesy of Zev…
…Which contradicts Zev’s earlier suggestion that God values free will above almost anything else, even at the expense of human suffering. I mean, if you’re dead, you don’t have any more free will, right? To say nothing of Enoch’s freedom to choose to be wicked, had he lived longer.
At least Zev is contributing to the main thread, though. As Kaje pointed out, it was Zev who noted the contradiction between God’s stated policy of punishing sinners for their own sins and God’s habit of dishing it out communally. Keep up the good work, Zev!
I’m still waiting for an explanation about natural disasters being punishments from God. If they are divine punishments, why do these disasters happen even where there are no people? Why did they happen before there were people? Was God punishing the dinosaurs when He dropped a meteor on the Yucatan 65,000,000 years ago?
I didn’t say that every natural disaster is a punishment from God. :rolleyes:
Obviously, punishment only applies in a place/time where there are people to be punished. A storm in the middle of the Pacific where no one is around may have some other purpose.
Zev Steinhardt
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If you really want to get picayune, Jewish tradition holds that Enoch did not die (he is the only person of those listed in Genesis 5 about whom it does not say “and he died.”). He was simply removed from the planet (entered Paradise alive).
I gave you the traditional Jewish answer. If you don’t like it, you certainly don’t have to accept it. It’s not considered canonnical in the sense of “believe this or you’re a heretic.” If you want to believe that Enoch died because he was more wicked than anyone else, then so be it.
Glad I could be a help.
Seriously, however. Consider the possible scenario. Bill Blasphemer may be deserving of death at heaven’s hands. God may, however, decide to hold his punishment in abayence until his entire community may be deserving of punishment.
Again (and I can’t stress this enough) all I am pointing out are possibilities. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m simply trying to present a suggestion of what God is doing “behind the scenes.” I, in no way, said that what I am presenting is, in deed, fact.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: If you posit a Fair and Just God, then you simply have to admit that there are things we don’t understand and that it all works out in the end.
If you posit an evil god, or a god who created the universe as his fourth grade science project, then I would agree with you all.
However, since both cases are, essentialy unprovable, we are simply left in a state where we agree to disagree.
Zev Steinhardt
Indeed, this too was prophesied by MEBuckner:
Am I good or what?