proof of a man-made religion, part 1
A good Biblical reading on this is in the book of Job. Job didn’t understand why so much destruction had come to his life. God replied with a question: “Where were you when I established the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4) The entire chapter of Job 38 is interesting regarding the topic of not understanding seemingly unjust destruction.
I’m having an interesting discussion with a Christian about one of the usual subjects – morality. I’ve had to clarify that I only use the term ‘morality’ as the commonly understood label for the evolving instincts we hold regarding generally acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, because for Christians, it comes loaded with bizarre notions of absolute, unchanging law.
As part of the discussion, the Christian referred me to Job 38 to help me understand the (to my view, as a logical creature) inconsistent stand the god in the Bible is depicted to have on many subjects, such as murder and rape. To my delight, he had referred me to yet another part of the Bible that clearly demonstrates this ‘holy’ book was conceived of in the minds of ignorant men from thousands of years ago. For those of you who may have forgotten, or are unfamiliar with the contents of this chapter, let’s have a look together.
- “Who shut up the sea behind doors..?” Did someone forget to tell the god God that the earth he is reported to have made isn’t flat with all the extra sea carefully shut off behind doors? Or did an ignorant barbarian who didn’t know the earth is round create the story of Job?
- “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place ..?” No. And neither did any creator deity. But I can see how the ignorant barbarian who created the story of Job might think that’s how sunrise works.
- “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail …?” Em, this is getting embarrassing. But if I didn’t have access to modern information that told me otherwise, I’m sure I’d consider it was possible that a deity had warehouses full of snow and hail that it dispensed at will.
- “Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew? From whose womb comes the ice?” No, no-one and no-one. Can someone buy this all-powerful god a children’s ‘how the world works’ book?
I’m used to Christians defending the slaughters, rape and genocide promoted in the Bible with a ‘God knows best’ and ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ and ‘we have to look at the cultural context’ line. But really, deep down, they know it’s impossible to believe in benevolent absolute morality and accept these depictions of their deity. The Bible was obviously created by men. and it reflects nothing more than the morality of the culture it was written in.
If an all-powerful creator deity existed, it would know that raping and killing children is never morally acceptable, it would know that snow and hail aren’t kept in storehouses, and that the rest of the sea isn’t shut behind a door at the end of the flat planet Earth. If an all-power creator deity existed, it would inspire a better book than the Bible.
(Part 1 – because I’m sure there’s lots more to come.)
Good pick up on the flat earth! I didn’t know that one… and now i do.
Yes, deep down Christians know its BS, but their problem is they have nothing to replace it with. Star dust and space colonies just doesn’t do it for them. They have feeble minds.
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The sea behind doors and warehouses of snow? I mean, really, this guy sent me to Job to get a feeling of how real his god is. How can Christians believe this rubbish?
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I told you: feeble minds. Children who never grew up. It’s really quite pathetic when you think about it.
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Not really, those I talk to know it is true or don’t know about it at all. Those who claim to know about it, don’t reflect about it
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These are poetic metaphors. I like Job, actually, God saying to Job “I’m God, and I can do what I like” as an explanation of suffering in the world. It takes the world view of Proverbs and some of the psalms, echoed in the Gospels, that the good prosper and the bad suffer, and turns it on its head, pointing out that fate is unjust. The two together are a fundamental contradiction within the Bible:
“I have been young and now am old,
yet never have I seen the righteous forsaken
or their children begging their bread”
and Job, the consistently righteous man, says God at the end, has a ghastly time.
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Sputter … indeed, they became ‘obviously’ poetic metaphors when Christians discovered the earth wasn’t flat and snow isn’t physically shovelled out the sky by angels. Religious interpretation is handy like that. And Job needn’t have grieved over the loss of his first batch of children in a meaningless test because in the end, he got loads more! And obviously when it comes to your offspring, it’s the headcount, not the individuals, that are important. It’s such a horrible story!
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At least, no harm is done to the book by reading them as poetic metaphors. Whether or not anyone ever believed in literal storehouses for the hail, where gnomes, or angels, or whatever, manufactured them before dropping them through holes in the sky, we don’t now, but I can read the book with pleasure.
There is a happy ending for Job, but does that discount his loss of his family? Why should it?
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Clare says the book should be read as metaphor, and I have no problem with that. My question is what parts are we to consider metaphorical or so we take the whole story as metaphor and how do we know which is to be considered one way or the other?
And anytime Job is quoted as an answer to why we suffer, either the person hasn’t read Job or chose to actively forget what they read in it. Unless they are willing to concede that some of the suffering is because their god has an ego.
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I don’t buy that it was ever intended as a metaphor. I can easily imagine that way back then the idea of a god actively taking care of all the details of life was ‘fact’. There would be no other explanation available. The ‘this part of the Bible is a metaphor’ is just handy as ‘God moves in mysterious ways’ – it’s desperation to not lose faith in the face of nonsense.
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The it must be a metaphor looks to me as a way to deal with uncomfortable facts. As you say, I don’t think the scribes saw it as metaphor. They must have believed this to be the case. But I hope Clare would enlighten us of when to see it as metaphor and when to see it as literal
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Thank God for Post-Modernism!! Since P-M, I have the answer: you decide.
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