Raf

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet.

Nothing you guys have come up with explains why a moral God killed someone for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week or punished a rapist by having him marry his victim. The logical contortions you have to come up with to excuse Yahweh's immorality make my point better than I have.

No one is claiming that you cannot have objective morality without the founding fathers of the USA. That they were morally imperfect is a surprise to no one. God is supposed to be THE source of objective morality. How could He not get it right the first time? (Answer: God's morality is derived from the people who created Him, not the other way around. God gets his morality from us. That's why He evolves and gets kinder and gentler as history progresses. A God who really existed and was the source of objective morality would not evolve).

What I am proposing is that an omniscient God who is the source of all objective morality could have and should have gotten this right the first time. You are not arguing for the existence of that God. Therefore your barrage of posts on this thread is irrelevant, because you are not talking about the God of the Bible. You're talking about a God whose morality is subject to the people who created him, not the other way around. And that's FINE. But it's also irrelevant. You may as well be talking about Zeus. Whichever God you're talking about, it's not the Yahweh of the Bible. You have moved the goalposts so many times in two conversations that it's become fruitless to discuss anything with you.

God DID work that way. What you call "Stalinist thinking" is His way, not mine.

God can't? You have to be Utopian to denounce slavery? If you're GOD? This is nonsense. You're not engaging in a serious discussion.

"To say I'm more moral than Yahweh is to also say I am more moral than EVERYONE. . . . . All hail ME!" This is the same guy who in another thread accused me of using a straw man argument. This is absurdity and not worthy of a serious reply.

I'd rather not. You're working from a "God" definition that is at odds with the unchanging God of the Bible. It is impossible to kick a field goal when the posts keep getting moved. Excuse me... evolving.

Because Yahweh is a God who says of Himself that He does not change. Therefore, we would expect His morals to not change. Once you start talking about Yahweh changing with the times, you're basically conceding my point. The thread was "monotonous" because the point can be driven home repeatedly using tons of examples all leading to the same conclusion: You ARE more moral than Yahweh.

Do you honestly believe you cannot weigh the morality of someone's actions unless you are as rich or as powerful as that person? That's absurd! I need to be king in order to ascertain that it's wrong to murder someone so I can bang his wife without him finding out? Seriously? I don't understand your concern with "jumping to God's superpowers." God has superpowers (supposedly). Why can we jump to them to conclude that anything is possible yet we cannot "jump to them" about greater matters, such as fundamental decency and morality? That makes no sense. All that said, you are working with a very different definition of "God" than the person who started this thread, which complicates this discussion beyond our ability to work it out. And that's fine, but this whole "evolving God" thing you have going here goes against the "I am the LORD, I change not" God of the Bible. Again, that's your call. But I don't think we can have an intelligent discussion about a God whose attributes change every time he's exposed as anything other than "correct."

Astonishing how not a word of that addresses... never mind. not worth it.

My "Green Goblin" comment was not the argument of a child. It was my response to the argument of a child. Implying as you did that I can't use the story of David without conceding that the story happened in history is tantamount to saying I can't call myself more moral than Lex Luthor without conceding that Lex Luthor exists in real life. It's ludicrous, and it's YOUR argument, not mine. The stories of David are really stories. They are not history. They are folklore. Valuable lessons can be learned from folklore without adopting the premise that they reflect history.

I never conceded your 'evolving God" point, so to accuse me of strawman and dishonestly switching from one perspective to the other makes no sense in context. You're the one switching definitions of God, not I.

Aww, he thinks Wierwille deduced "together with, yet distinctly independent of" instead of reading that wording in Bullinger, finding it useful and simply repeating it (which, I will say, is not the same thing as plagiarism, because most people don't cite the author of a dictionary or lexicon when relaying word definitions. But that's a whole other story). Anyway, the notion that Wierwille "got the idea" of anything is amusing, in this context.

I can concede David existed (there probably was a King David) without believing that he killed a 10-foot gladiator with a slingshot or that he sent a soldier to the frontlines because the man wouldn't bang his wife to take credit for her baby. I can concede all of those things without believing that some all-loving, all-powerful Deity couldn't figure out a way to punish David without ripping the kingdom apart (which, it must be said, flipping happened anyway). Nothing in your "Superman" post actually contradicts my position, so I feel no need to answer it.

I am more moral than the Green Goblin. This does not mean I believe the Green Goblin actually exists. Come on.

So it was impossible for God to serve justice with David while simultaneously protecting Israel. An all-powerful God couldn't pull that off. Never mind that Israel fell apart because of what David did, not a generation later, according to scripture.

ok.

1. There is nothing "miraculous" about societies adapting over time to recognize that there is a better way to do things. Looking down on what came before is neither ego nor immoral. It is, rather, the only way to improve. 2. God should be incapable of improving. Thus, his actions 7,000 years ago are subject to the very same moral analysis we use today. "It was a different time" can excuse what ignorant men did, but it cannot excuse what an omnipotent, omniscient God who defines himself as "love" did. Of course, if the David and Bathsheba story never happened, that changes the game. Same with Job. But that's another story.

I missed this earlier. I think we can agree on the important part of this: Namely, that what we're discussing is greatly alleviated if this is a story and the events did not actually happen to real people. This would make sense on a number of levels, all of which are off topic. My points are irrelevant, except as a theoretical exercise, if no one is insisting on this as actual history.

I don't think there's a need for a new thread, given that it's already the subject of an old thread. I think we can keep it on topic for this thread by, as others have demonstrated, persistently reminding us of the original question. The original question is, what would Christianity today have done with David, given what we know. Given what we know, it is my belief and opinion that Christianity today would try him as a criminal, and rightly so. And unlike (apparently) the rest of you (if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it), I do not believe for a heartbeat that this reflects badly on Christianity today. I think murder and conspiracy to commit murder should be prosecuted, not excused. And I don't think an omnipotent God should suddenly be helpless to bring a murderer to justice because doing so would have negative ramifications on a kingdom. He is omnipotent. He can protect the kingdom and bring the murderer to justice at the same time. This is especially relevant given that the ramifications of what David did ultimately ripped the kingdom apart anyway, according to scripture! It just seems to me that we're doing everything we can to get around the fact that God excused a murder, but made damn sure to punish a baby and a kingdom for it.

Yes, math evolved over time, but its principles didn't change. We just learned them. 2+2=4 always. At all times. It was that way before man figured out addition, and it will be that way long after humanity is extinct. 2+2 didn't become four slowly after people realized 2+2=3 didn't make sense. Nice try, though.

"The concept of God evolved over time." Yeah, that happens with fictional characters. Originally, Superman couldn't fly.

Depends on whether we're talking about Christians or people who call themselves Christians but don't seem to have the slightest idea what Christianity stands for.