Actually, it does. But if you do check Exodus, the wording varies from plague to plague: sometimes it’s “Pharoah hardened his heart,” sometimes it’s “Pharoah’s heart became hard,” and sometimes (later on) it’s “the LORD hardened Pharoah’s heart.”
I don’t know what, if any, significance this has, but one speculation I’ve read is that, by “hardening his heart” so much himself, he eventually lost the power to do anything else.
This is my first post in Great Debates. Please be gentle with me. 
I don’t think God needs us to worship him; I don’t think he needs anything from us. I do believe that he loves us and wants us to be in a relationship with him. And I think that the natural end of being in a relationship with him, and really getting to know who he is, will be worship of him.
I also believe that God directs us to do things because they are good for us, not because they are good for him. For instance, I don’t think God needs my money. I do think it’s good for me to give a significant portion of my money back to him, because it keeps my perspective in the right place. Likewise, he doesn’t want a relationship with me because it’s so good for him (my conversational skills are just not that fantastic), but because it is ultimately good for me.
This does not mean that the relationship, like a lot of relationships, is not difficult. It is. It does mean I believe I’m better off with God than without him.
Whoops. I lied. :smack:
I guess I have posted in GD before. I’m still scared, though, so you can still be gentle.
Although I’m apparently quite forgetful, so if you are mean to me, I won’t remember it.
Well, from the point of view of the Israelites by whom and to whom this story was originally told, the Egyptians weren’t God’s people, at least not in the same way they were. It was the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were God’s chosen people, and he was their God, and he was supposed to look out for them. From that point of view, there wasn’t anything particularly evil or problematic in the way God plagued Egypt to try to get them to let the Israelites go; they would have been bothered more by how long God waited to deliver them from slavery and abuse at the hands of the Egyptians.
As for why God didn’t kill just Pharoah and leave the rest of the Egyptians alone, I don’t know. Did the rest of Egypt share guilt for the way they had treated the Israelites? Is this yet another example, out of many from history and literature, of how people often suffer from the boneheaded decisions of their leaders? Did it require something really big and dramatic to make sure Egypt would let the Israelites go and never come after them later?
I’ll add to the OP - Joshua, acting on God’s orders, should have been convicted as a war criminal.
God had him kill everybody in Jericho - civilians included, and surrender was not given as an option.
So why not throw out the whole bible? Go ahead. Or, throw it out as inspired by God, and see it as humans’ imperfect attempts to record their understanding of God. With that perspective, one could rationally reject the parts they disagree with, and keep the parts they agree with, just as if you were reading so many philosophers.
But throwing out the bible is not the same as rejecting God. Go with the option that the bible’s a bunch of self-serving, self-justifying, self-righteous crap. That doesn’t mean God is evil. That doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist. Neither does it mean God is good, or that God does exist. It simply means the bible is irreconcilable with the idea of a loving merciful God.
(Warning: the following thought is still at the fuzzy, not-very-well-thought-out stage)
The way I like to think of it is more like Anselm’s Ontological Argument in reverse. If the God you’re thinking of would actually be better not existing than existing, then that particular God doesn’t exist.
Or, if I can imagine a better God (higher, nobler, more worthy of respect and love and worship, more Godlike) than the one you describe, then the one you describe isn’t the True God. (Though I have to humbly keep in mind that, with my limited perpective, I don’t have the last word on what’s best or noblest or most worthy of respect.)
I also need to keep in mind that it doesn’t work to judge God or God’s actions by human standards. Things that we’d call evil if a human being did them may not necessarily be evil if God does them. This is partly because God has a different perspective, with greater knowledge and wisdom. And it’s partly because there are things that God is perfectly within his rights to do that we are not, kind of the way I’m allowed to do things to my own house or my own body or a picture I painted myself that you aren’t allowed to do.
The plagues of Egypt are only about a 6 on the atrocity scale for what is attributed to God in the Hebrew Bible. Here’s my favorite:
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
(1 Samuel 15:3)
Hey, it was ancient, tribal people writing about a henotheistic, tribal war god. It was the normal way people thought about gods at the time. The idea of A universal, monotheistic God for all people hadn’t really developed yet.
If he really wants a relationship so bad, he can start by proving his own existence. Once he does that, it would also be helpful if he were to regrain from demanding that people commit atrocities for him. That doesn’t make me want to be friends with somebody.
Bup, the Bible is the only source for the idea of (this particular) god. If you’re willing to throw it out (for which I commend you), then why would there be any reason to believe the god it describes exists?
Because you don’t understand why the Egyptian leadership forced him to do all those things. You can’t, because you don’t listen to reason and when people try to reason with you you call it crackpottery. You will never understand, and that doesn’t matter because you don’t have to understand for God’s plan to carry through. In fact, it’s better if you DON’T understand because then there’s nothing you can do about it.
(Warning: long post, and this was the long story short version)
The “hardening his heart” has been addressed on the SDMB before, and by much better theologians (i.e., they are theologians) than I am. As I understand, there is some controversy as to the exact translations there. I’ll leave them to someone more worthy.
So, why do I worship?
Here is a simple answer. Because it makes me feel wonderful. It doesn’t make me feel better than everyone else, it makes me feel at one with everyone else, connected through a higher power to all life in the universe. I think it is important for everyone, religious or no, to set aside time in their lives on a regular basis to contemplate the infinite, the world greater than that which exists within the confines of their skulls. Some people stargaze. Some study the inner workings of human beings. Some build houses for the homeless or feed the hungry. Some meditate sitting under a tree or in a quiet room.
Worship is also a valid way of communing with the universe.
I’m a Christian. I don’t, personally, question anyone else’s religion or lack thereof. You don’t believe there’s a god? I might find that a rather sad and lonely belief, but assuredly a person who believes in no god still has some way of reconciling him/herself with the rest of the universe.
There is a much longer answer to the question of why I worship, mixed in with soulshaking epiphanies and a sudden shocked paralysis of faith slapping me in the face on a drive up Highway 290 a year ago and a number of very kind, very patient people. I doubt anyone really wants to listen to me witness, though.
I see the God of the Old Testament as being what was needed by his people at that time. I believe that God evolves, just as everything else in the universe does, and part of his evolution was the shift between the Old and New Testaments. I cannot reconcile the genocide and rape and slaughter of the Old Testament with the God of Love put forth in the New without coming to terms with the fact that maybe God needs to change when the world does. That as humanity changes and perceptions shift, so does God.
I am a bit of a weird Christian. I don’t think God requires worship. I don’t think that He requires His followers to be Christians or belong to any other religion. I don’t think He’s anywhere near that human.
But I do believe there is something that connects all of the life in the universe together, and I believe it is a benevolent force.
I know, rationally, that when I went to go see my rector yesterday, that when he took my hands in his and prayed with me, that when he placed his hands upon my head and spoke gently, that when he anointed me with the chrism and prayed for my healing and health, that this was not going to make my kidney stones go suddenly away or give me the money to pay for their removal. I knew that, all other things being equal, I would have the same chances of success and a speedy recovery if I sacrificed a goat to Satan or burned incense in a Buddhist temple. I knew all these things rationally.
And yet. And yet I could feel a strange power in his hands – you know the feeling when you embrace someone you love? The feeling of that hug? That feeling. I felt light-headed and faint. His prayer comforted me and soothed me and helped me come to terms with a scary situation and with the way I’d been behaving toward my loved ones.
(He also gave me the number of his own therapist and suggested I give her a call. Never did he give me the impression that a prayer would make it all better. God helps those who get counseling.)
There’s no doubt a lot of you say this is sick and bad and wrong. I shouldn’t be telling my innermost secrets to a kind-eyed man in a backward collar. What’s the point in dabbing my forehead with olive oil? It’s not going to take the stones away. And deluding myself that there is a God and that he cares for me especially and personally is just that – self-delusion.
Okay, I say. Then I’m intentionally deluding myself. And I’m doing it for a purpose. Whenever I take Communion I feel literally cleansed, like a cool shower after a hot day working outside in the sunshine. When I speak with my rector (who knows me by name and background and personality, even though I’m just one out of two thousand or so parishoners who doesn’t really go to church that often and doesn’t belong to any committees and doesn’t donate much money) I get the sense that he really is the representative of something far greater than himself.
Lies to oneself are bad, and maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’m deluded. But I don’t refuse treatment for the problems that ail me, I don’t assume that God will take care of everything, and I have tangibly positive effects from my spiritual life. Since I started going to church regularly I have been more even-tempered, more calm, more peaceful in my dealings with people, more thoughtful about how my actions affect others.
Can people get this in ways other than worship? Hell yes! And wherever they do it, I wish them well.
Doesn’t work. If an action is good, it’s good no matter who does it. If god can kill a million people so that his tribe can inavde another country, we can, too (cf Bush, President).
If god is all powerful, there’s no need to cause our suffering to reach some specific goal. Unless he just likes to make us suffer. If you believe it’s actually for our benefit, then you believe that there’s no other way god could have taught us this lesson, which means he’s not all powerful.
If good only means “what god does”, there’s really no such thing as good or bad. If there is such a thing as good and bad, that exists independently of god, and we can rightfully say he doesn’t live up to it. This is pretty basic Atheist 101 stuff.
I’d just like to say that i’ve never believed in the christian God, but this post has made me believe. Through the miracle of bolding, I am become one with the Lord. Just think, if only the Bible could be printed with slightly more ink, all the people we could convert!
Sure you can, if you follow his orders, and don’t you think you can also BE worse by worshipping an evil God?
Why? Why would it ever be wrong to follow your own moral conscience? If God spoke to you, and you KNEW he was God, and he told you he hated Mexicans and he wanted you to kill as many Mexican babies as you could, would you do it? If not, why not? If you think this hypthetical is absurd, see my quoted verse in my last post.
What do you think of 1 Samuel 15:3?
I’m not converting until it’s all in caps, too. Italicized wouldn’t hurt, either.
Saying “You must not go to church much” is NOT an insult, it is a pretty neutral statement. Saying “You don’t know anything about church you moron, or some equivilant is an insult.”
And don’t rail on me about saying “Not much of your post left now” because HE stated it first. My first post wasn’t rude or insulting, but HE decided he wanted to get snarky and rude. I was merely returning the favor.
I see in his response he is JUST as rude. Some christian attitude. And I DO go to church quite regularly. My parents are Fundementalist Baptists, my girlfriend is a regular Non-denominational attendee, and is quite religious to boot. I grew up 20 years of my life going to church 3-4 times a week, bible camps, church camps, bible studies, and even attended a Baptist private school for several years. I have read the bible in its entirety no less than two times, and in my searches I have attended 23 different churches in my area, of which were 5 different denominations, including a Catholic church. I am not an Atheist (though I did go through a phase), I am decidedly Deist. So don’t try throwing that in my face either. *None of the above is to brag, but to show that I am not just “Ranting and Raving with no idea of what I am talking about.”
I still don’t buy that the Christian view of God is good. I don’t think the bible is the word of God either. MY God is loving and caring, MY God doesn’t sentence his enemies to eternal torment. MY God doesn’t require songs and praise and worship, he doesn’t have ego problems or require me wonder why he acts like a hypocrite. HE is worth of worship, even though he doesn’t require it.
The Christian God, IMO, is decidedly NOT.
I think every religion is wrong.
This particular god? I don’t - I can reject the idea of this particular god. Any particular god. But that says nothing about whether God exists.
Would you agree that it is the same thing as rejecting the christian god? Because despite the reconciliation some people make with some parts of the bible, I don’t see how you can claim christianity if you don’t claim all of it. Is it just “god-in-a-plain-wrapper”, bits and pieces of all the gods from all the major faiths, or a completely different being of your own creation?
Fair enough. You were still referring to (capital “G”) God, not “a god”, so I assumed you were referring to the god of the bible.
The Bible says that people know right from wrong. If I think something is wrong, then according to the Bible, I’m correct. If I’m not correct, then I don’t know right from wrong, and the Bible is INcorrect and I can’t have any moral culpability for my choices.
You need to get the version for the hard-of-seeing. It worked for me. 