Questioning Christianity.

Evil comes also from the biblical God (Book of Job).

2008-03-29T14:19:00.006+01:00

The folktale part of Job is one of the most interesting parts of the Bible (in my opinion). There are so many fascinating elements in it:

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.

- God is not living out of time ('there was a day' and time obviously goes by)

- There's a kind of assembly or court in Heaven with regular reunions

- The 'sons of God' report to God there and the the Satan (literally 'the accuser') is one of them

Job 1:7 The LORD said to Satan, "From where do you come?" Then Satan answered the LORD and said, "From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it."

- God either isn't omniscient or is simply faking not to be to get a discussion going

- The Satan is walking around the Earth, it's not implied here that he's doing evil stuff there

Job 1:8 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil."

- God is boasting and taunting the the Satan

Job 1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, "Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 "Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 "But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face."

- God plays favorites for some reason, being wealthy is the result of God blessing you

- The Satan rightfully questions Job's allegiance given that it hasn't ever been tested

Job 1:12 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power, only do not put forth your hand on him." So Satan departed from the presence of the LORD.

- God gets defensive and seems to think he has to justify himself (why would he?)

- God gives the Satan the permission to harass and abuse Job to prove his point

- The prohibition to kill Job is superfluous because that would effectively rob Job of the possibility to curse God

Job 1:13-22

- A lot of innocent people (the servants and Job's children) have to suffer and lose their lives because of God's bet with the Satan. And that's not even mentioning the grief of their relatives and friends.

Job 2:3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause."

- God continues to boast about Job in front of the Satan

- God can be incited ((that doesn't really make him look poised, does it?))

- God takes the responsibility and blame himself for ruining Job although the Satan did the, well, job.

Job 2:4 Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5" However, put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh; he will curse You to Your face."

- The Satan continues to challenges God

Job 2:6 So the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your power, only spare his life."

- God allows the Satan to make Job suffer even more

- The prohibition to spare Job's life again isn't noble but necessary for God to be able to prove his point

A little jump to the end, where this story continues:

Job 42:11 Then all his brothers and all his sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him. And each one gave him one piece of money, and each a ring of gold.

- God was responsible for the adversities that Job had to suffer, not the Satan.

Job 42:13 He had seven sons and three daughters.

- People seem to be as replaceable as camels or oxen. Don't worry about the first sevens sons and three daughters who had to die senseless deaths. They'll simply be replaced by new ones! (would that really comfort you over the loss of your other, murdered children?)

So, in conclusion, the book of Job really doesn't put the biblical God into a good light. It's beyond any doubt that God is to blame for the evil that happened (he even admits it). Either because he has committed it himself or because he ordered Satan to do it so he (God) could prove his point. So God obviously can't be 100% good.

Ethnic cleansing in the Bible

2007-11-02T10:00:00.000+01:00

Regarding the alleged kindness of the biblical (and thus christian) God:

Num 1 1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people."

3 So Moses said to the people, "Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites and to carry out the LORD's vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel." 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. 6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling.

7 They fought against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. 16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

Now that must have been a scene to witness! The Israelites slaughtering the Midianites (ok, that's what people do in wars ...) but then taking the captured women and children back to the camp only to then massacre most of them. I'd be for turning this episode into a Bible movie too! But 'Passion of the Christ' like! Bloody, gory, violent! Show us the Israelites slitting the throats of the Medianite boys and women in close-up. Show us the butchers wading through the streams of blood. Show us the Israelites raping the Medianite virgins. Let us hear their crying and moaning! And all of this in the name of the LORD!

Play this movie at Sunday School!

Wait! I'm hearing objections? Why? It's only a Bible story turned into a movie. It's only words visualized. And since it's from the Good Book it can't be bad, right? So why not show everything that's actually in the Bible? And not just the fluffy peace'n'love stuff. Why hide parts of God's Word(tm)?

Ps. Please do also note that the biblical God wasn't a fan of the 'turn your second cheek' thing yet at the time ...

Suicidal tendencies in Paradise?

2007-11-02T09:59:00.000+01:00

There was no Death in Eden before the Fall, right?

So how could Adam and Eve have known what 'death' or 'dying' were supposed to mean and that this was something bad?

Did God explain this to them in a private session that's not recorded in the Bible? And if he has explained the concept to them then why would their first reactions afterwards be to want to commit suicide? Did they realize that they were prisoners in a golden cage, alive but unaware and unconscious? Did they realize that they had to break out of the nest in order to grow up and be able to think for themselves?

Usually people commit suicide because they have lost hope and/or because they want to escape their own private Hell.

So what exactly did God tell them?

Did Jesus HAVE to die?

2007-03-24T09:28:00.000+01:00

OR could his mission here on Earth have ended differently?

Hello? Anyone there?

2007-03-21T08:38:00.000+01:00

Parents are not continuously hiding from their children to test them, so why does God?

If the christian God is omnipresent ...

2007-03-18T13:04:00.000+01:00

then how can there be a Hell? Especially if Hell is not a fiery place but instead means 'the absence of God'?

Are children gifts of God?

2007-03-17T09:25:00.001+01:00

Do children just come into existence randomly/by chance when a sperm fecundates an egg or did God somehow make the two 'meet' at exactly that moment?

God's Love and the animals?

2007-02-17T09:18:00.000+01:00

I'm watching an animal documentary again, and the beauty and ferocity of Nature are awesome as always. But I'm also asking myself how a supposedly perfect, loving God could have created situations where a lot of animals are senselessly suffering. Example: a baby seal loses sights of his parents, doesn't find back to them, gets rejected by the others and then slowly and painfully dies of thirst and hunger because it's not yet ready to survive alone. And that's just one example. Zillions more could be found.

Since such animals live and die far away from humans and since they haven't done anything 'wrong', why do they have to suffer? They're innocent in a sense, or is there an animal Original Sin as well? Why would God create this beings only so they could more or less rapidly die a painful death again?

Or are they just puppets/robots who can't really experience pain? Or does God use them to teach us a lesson?

How do Christians see this?

Just one Universe?

2007-02-11T22:34:00.000+01:00

Assuming that God exists, that 'he' is omnipotent and that he has created this universe with all the necessary parameters for us to exist in the way we do, why couldn't he have created several more universes before or along ours? Although maybe with totally different parameters resulting in very different forms of intelligence?

Or couldn't he do that and our universe is the only viable one?

Necessity of a Creator?

2007-02-11T22:27:00.000+01:00

Christians claim that an external creator has created the Universe because somebody had to create it. But God on the other hand didn't, according to them, need to be created. 'He' just was or came into existence on his own.

But if it's possible for a God to exist without a prior cause why would it be impossible for a universe to exist without cause? Why couldn't the Universe just have created itself (via the Big Bang for example)?

And why couldn't God be the Universe and vice-versa (pantheism)?

A Creator without Creation?

2007-02-11T22:24:00.000+01:00

Could a Creator exist without Creation?

Did God HAVE to create something in order to create himself? Did he HAVE to create something to give his own existence meaning? What good would it be if God was alone and there was only Nothing (since nothing got created)?

God's omnipresence.

2007-02-06T14:28:00.000+01:00

What does omnipresence in the Christian sense mean?

Please explain in the comments. Thank you.

About God & Time

2007-02-03T12:39:00.001+01:00

The Christian concept is that God exists out of time, right? So wouldn't this mean that when we die we're also out of time? And if we're out of time then what does Eternity mean, both in Heaven and in Hell?How could you be condemned to Hell for all eternity if Time doesn't exist? Or is Time being created again especially for those in Hell? So that their suffering becomes greater?

Was Jesus a puppet?

2007-02-03T12:12:00.000+01:00

After having read the Bible and if the interpretation of the fundies is correct then Jesus was nothing but a puppet. A supernatural puppet, created and sent by God to fulfill a mission that couldn't fail. The outcome was fixed from the start: He HAD to be nailed to the cross as a blood sacrifice to atone Mankind's sins. Which also means that the people had to act the way they did so this goal was to be achieved. Since apparently this blood sacrifice was the only way. So much for freewill: Judas HAD to betray Jesus in order to help Jesus to fulfill his mission.

And after having served his purpose, the puppet would be called back and 'be whole again'. And since it was only an artificially created puppet in the first place, the concepts of 'pain', 'suffering' and 'sacrifice' become obsolete. Because what do these concepts mean to a robot or golem? Or a supernatural being? A supernatural, omnipotent being only has to feel 'pain' if it wants to. And if it WANTS to feel it, where's the sacrifice?

But if the puppet wasn't omnipotent and omniscient at the time and therefore the pain felt real to him, then the puppetmaster was abusing his puppet. Assuming the puppet was a sensitive being.

All things considered, the puppet simply was the remedy for a problem that wouldn't even have existed if God hadn't created it (or the conditions for it). The whole thing is a charade. A cosmic soap opera. With a somewhat crappy screenwriter though. But people love comforting, even though illogical, stories. Especially when they're scared.