Noah unbelievably bad and no redeeming moments!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen writes:Presuming again.

It's just my opinion of your exceedingly ugly words. They reveal a lot about you and your attitude towards your own life. And that ugliness is pure venom.

I think the "jealous god" quoted in the passage you provided from the Bible is an ugly sort of person. I wouldn't want to be friends with such a person.

And the erroneous conclusion in your previous post was that evil people don't deserve the consequences they set into motion with their own evil acts. It's the childish futility of angrily damning gravity as a "prick and a narcissistic intimidator" for getting exactly what you deserve when you step off a cliff.

Greg

I said no such thing as that evil people don't deserve bad consequences of their actions, if that's what you mean. (I think that evil people don't always get bad consequences, although you think they inevitably do. But I think there's no example you'd accept as a counter-example. I.e., you make an unfalsifiable claim.)

I don't damn gravity. Although you sometimes talk of God as if you meant simply reality, the equation doesn't work with the particular examples cited in this discussion. See my post #120..

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Actually, you'd meanwhile answered my post #120, only without addressing the issue. The usual.

Ellen writes:I have yet to hear of an objective physical law proposed which could send "the angel of death" selectively to enter homes without lamb's blood on the lintel and selectively to strike dead the first-born sons residing in those homes. Methinks a consciousness would be needed to do this.

Moral law is just as impersonally objective as any physical law. It objectively afflicts only the evil while protecting the good......and it is not fooled by pretense.

Greg

I'm wondering why the quote function continues not to work for you. It's apparently working now for the others who were having trouble with it. Maybe something to do with objective moral law. :wink:

Ellen

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

I think the "jealous god" quoted in the passage you provided from the Bible is an ugly sort of person.

The Person who blesses a thousand generations of those who love goodness could only be ugly in your eyes... but that's only because of your own attitude. The irony is that you're only damning yourself just as you deserve.

Greg

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

I said no such thing as that evil people don't deserve bad consequences of their actions

If what you say is true... then you agree that the Egyptians deserved to lose their first born males for not freeing the Israelites they had enslaved, even in the light of the 9 previous plagues which went unheeded.

It was simply a case of stubbornly choosing to get a two by four over the head instead of a gentle tap on the shoulder. Everyone today is presented with exactly the came kind of choice. Whether you do it the easy way or the hard way is totally up to you.

Greg

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

I'm wondering why the quote function continues not to work for you. It's apparently working now for the others who were having trouble with it. Maybe something to do with objective moral law. :wink:

There's a way to get around everything.

Morality is the real world. This is only virtual interactive public television.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

Ellen writes:

I have yet to hear of an objective physical law proposed which could send "the angel of death" selectively to enter homes without lamb's blood on the lintel and selectively to strike dead the first-born sons residing in those homes. Methinks a consciousness would be needed to do this.

Moral law is just as impersonally objective as any physical law. It objectively afflicts only the evil while protecting the good...

...and it is not fooled by pretense.

Greg

Can you show us how moral law flows from physical law? The Universe is physical all the way down to and past the subatomic level. There is not one thing in the cosmos that is not physical or the effect of physical causes.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Bob writes:

Contrast this to Abraham who tried to talk God out of zapping Sodom and Gomorrah.

Israel means to contend with God... which is what everyone is completely free to do. Ellen can even call God a prick for all the good it'll do her!

Sodom and Gomorrah illustrated the threshold of socially redeeming value that avoids complete destruction. Noah illustrated the same principle. When a society becomes completely infested with degenerates, the toilet gets flushed.

Greg

The Black Plague?

--Brant

1/3 the population of Europe?

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen writes:

I think the "jealous god" quoted in the passage you provided from the Bible is an ugly sort of person.

The Person who blesses a thousand generations of those who love goodness could only be ugly in your eyes... but that's only because of your own attitude. The irony is that you're only damning yourself just as you deserve.

Greg

You're right if there is a God. She's right if there isn't. Note she thinks "God" is a "person" and you don't. I'm not talking about your estimation of her, but your estimation of God.

--Brant

I prefer beer

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen writes:

I think the "jealous god" quoted in the passage you provided from the Bible is an ugly sort of person.

The Person who blesses a thousand generations of those who love goodness could only be ugly in your eyes... but that's only because of your own attitude. The irony is that you're only damning yourself just as you deserve.

Greg

You're right if there is a God. She's right if there isn't. Note she thinks "God" is a "person" and you don't. I'm not talking about your estimation of her, but your estimation of God.

--Brant

I prefer beer

Brant,

Please pay attention. The quotes about "God" being discussed make no sense taken as meaning "reality," only as describing a person. And Greg wavers back and forth in the way he speaks of "God."

The idea of reality blessing a thousand generations of those who love goodness is absurd. And a person who blessed (or punished) descendants because of what an ancestor did would not be a person acting with justice.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Yes sir!

--Brant

will someone pass the Valium; my nerves are shot (domestic situation)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen writes:

I said no such thing as that evil people don't deserve bad consequences of their actions

If what you say is true... then you agree that the Egyptians deserved to lose their first born males for not freeing the Israelites they had enslaved, even in the light of the 9 previous plagues which went unheeded.

It was simply a case of stubbornly choosing to get a two by four over the head instead of a gentle tap on the shoulder. Everyone today is presented with exactly the came kind of choice. Whether you do it the easy way or the hard way is totally up to you.

Greg

What the parents might or might not have deserved isn't the point. The children did not deserve to be punished for their parents' actions, and a just God wouldn't have killed the children to get at the parents.

Btw, you make God sound awfully helpless in his omniscient omnipotence. What's the poor guy to do with those stubborn Egyptians except kill their first-born sons?

Ellen

[moralist]

Brant writes:

You're right if there is a God. She's right if there isn't.

Yes. See the symmetry?

There is a perfectly poised balance. Only the objective reality of moral law which governs the consequences of our actions has the power to tip that balance. Only it has the power to convince.

It's the perfect free choice. Ellen is exactly as free to damn God as I am to love Him.

Note she thinks "God" is a "person" and you don't.

That's another relevant distinction, Brant.

When a person doesn't know for themselves, God is only an intellectual idea, so they will naturally personify by ascribing all of the human traits with which they are familiar. In this instance Ellen ascribes "jealousy" as she personally knows it in her own life.

I don't experience God as a person. In fact I don't experience Him directly at all. However, I definitely do experience, through the consequences of my own actions, the effects of the moral law He created for the good of anyone who loves what is good and right and true.

Whenever I'm mindful of the moral propriety of each moment and act accordingly, it positions me in harmony with the objective reality of the flow of events just like a surfer catches a wave, and all goes well. The overwhelming beneficence of that harmony with objective reality is palpable.

Greg

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

What the parents might or might not have deserved isn't the point.

It most certainly is, Ellen.

What parents deserve is the sole determinant in the lives of their children until they grow to become responsible for themselves.

The children did not deserve to be punished for their parents' actions

You cannot just cut the causal bond between children and their parents. It's as damaging as chopping off your own arm. For better or worse, children are "collateral damage" of the morality of their parents.

and a just God wouldn't have killed the children to get at the parents.

You're not the final judge of what's just. Only objective reality has that power to do that, and you know in no uncertain terms when it renders the final verdict on your life, by the undeniable consequences of your own actions.

Btw, you make God sound awfully helpless in his omniscient omnipotence.

Exactly right. He is.

Because God is good, He is true to His love for us... so he never forces us to love Him.

What's the poor guy to do with those stubborn Egyptians except kill their first-born sons?

The Egyptians were the sole determinant of the consequences they deserved to get... and so are you.

Greg

[moralist]

Bob writes:

Can you show us how moral law flows from physical law?

It doesn't.

The objective reality of moral law is of a higher order than physical law because it specifically applies only to good and evil human behavior.

The Universe is physical all the way down to and past the subatomic level. There is not one thing in the cosmos that is not physical or the effect of physical causes.

If you truly believe the lie that are no moral consequences to your actions...

...then you also believe the lie that you can do evil without consequence.

Lots of luck with that, sucker.

Greg

[moralist]

Ellen writes:

The idea of reality blessing a thousand generations of those who love goodness is absurd.

See how you are perfectly free to damn what is good, Ellen? Everyone has that free choice, and you already have what you deserve in your own life as the result of your choice.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen writes:

What the parents might or might not have deserved isn't the point.

It most certainly is, Ellen.

What parents deserve is the sole determinant in the lives of their children until they grow to become responsible for themselves.

The children did not deserve to be punished for their parents' actions

You cannot just cut the causal bond between children and their parents. It's as damaging as chopping off your own arm. For better or worse, children are "collateral damage" of the morality of their parents.

and a just God wouldn't have killed the children to get at the parents.

You're not the final judge of what's just. Only objective reality has that power to do that, and you know in no uncertain terms when it renders the final verdict on your life, by the undeniable consequences of your own actions.

Btw, you make God sound awfully helpless in his omniscient omnipotence.

Exactly right. He is.

Because God is good, He is true to His love for us... so he never forces us to love Him.

What's the poor guy to do with those stubborn Egyptians except kill their first-born sons?

The Egyptians were the sole determinant of the consequences they deserved to get... and so are you.

Greg

"Collateral damage" are the words T. McVey used to describe the children he killed when he blew up that federal building in Oklahoma in 1995.

I suppose the same can be said of the children the feds murdered at Waco in 1993. But they knew there were children inside so the genocide was generally imposed regardless.

You keep switching between personally deserved and collectively deserved as the Egyptians collectively deserved what they got consequent to hard-headed ruler not listening to Moses, which of course is actually an allegory for refusing to listen to wise counsel.

--Brant

it's quite obvious that "God" is used in the Bible as a force of intimidation and even to justify genocide for if He can do it you can do it, especially with priestly blessing and dispensation (I like the part about not killing the cattle, as if He cared about cattle--He didn't, the human leader did, obviously not a vegetarian and likely not a pork eater either)

to actually argue with an irrationalist is irrational or non-working rational; you cannot win for there are no rules of accepted and common evidence and discourse

[tmj]

Ellen writes:

The idea of reality blessing a thousand generations of those who love goodness is absurd.

See how you are perfectly free to damn what is good, Ellen? Everyone has that free choice, and you already have what you deserve in your own life as the result of your choice.

Greg

Could be just a touch of Pharohitis, heart hardening but probably deserved.

The Passover story could be seen as a moral lesson , if the deck wasn't stacked and had the endgame not be predetermined, but since it contains those elements, I think the take away should be that it was an obstensive lesson to the Hewbrews of God's power. Examples that show his power through and over any other god ie those of water, crops , insects and the like.

[moralist]

Brant writes:

"Collateral damage" are the words T. McVey used to describe the children he killed when he blew up that federal building in Oklahoma in 1995.

But I'm referring to the causal connection between the morality of parents actions and its effect upon the lives of their individual children.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Brant writes:

"Collateral damage" are the words T. McVey used to describe the children he killed when he blew up that federal building in Oklahoma in 1995.

But I'm referring to the causal connection between the morality of parents actions and its effect upon the lives of their individual children.

Greg

Yes and no.

--Brant

[moralist]

Tad writes:

The Passover story could be seen as a moral lesson...

Yes. In fact, the whole Bible is a moral lesson.

...if the deck wasn't stacked and had the endgame not be predetermined, but since it contains those elements, I think the take away should be that it was an obstensive lesson to the Hebrews of God's power. Examples that show his power through and over any other god ie those of water, crops , insects and the like

As humans, even though we rarely know for sure what the general outcome will be... yet that doesn't mean our own personal situation needs to be dragged along with the fate of the collective.

Whenever we do what's morally right, we subtly shift out of one world and into another. It's almost imperceptible with the only indicators being the beneficent consequences that unfold from our right actions.

It's ironic that any Egyptian could have been convinced by the ample warnings from all of the other terrible plagues, and could have easily saved their first born by the simple effortless gesture of a little lambs blood above their doorway.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

Tad writes:

The Passover story could be seen as a moral lesson...

Yes. And the lesson is: My god can beat up your god.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tmj]

Tad writes:

The Passover story could be seen as a moral lesson...

Yes. And the lesson is: My god can beat up your god.

Ba'al Chatzaf

ya got your rte 66 paved intentionally, or Yaweh(MY Way), in the story the Egyptians were put on the on ramp to the highway to hell, they had no choice, their hearts were hardened. Not only can my god beat up your god, he can kill your honor student too

[BaalChatzaf]

Tad writes:

The Passover story could be seen as a moral lesson...

Yes. And the lesson is: My god can beat up your god.

Ba'al Chatzaf

ya got your rte 66 paved intentionally, or Yaweh(MY Way), in the story the Egyptians were put on the on ramp to the highway to hell, they had no choice, their hearts were hardened. Not only can my god beat up your god, he can kill your honor student too

Actually it was only Pharo's heart that was hardened. The hoi poloi of Egypt were only too glad to let the Hebrews and their camp followers go. They even gave them money to be used on their journey.

There is a commandment in the Torah: You shall not despise an Egyptian after the third generation, because you (the Hebrews and their camp followers) we bond servants in Egypt and you know their hearts.

In a word, the Hebrew were command not to hold a grudge forever and a day.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

Yes. And the lesson is: My god can beat up your god.

That's the lesson you took away from the Bible. I learned that good beats up evil.

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes. And the lesson is: My god can beat up your god.

That's the lesson you took away from the Bible. I learned that good beats up evil.

Greg

So why is there so much evil in the world, if good is winning?

Ba'al Chatzaf