Theistic Evolution/Old Earth Creationism

[Simon_Jester]

Isn't this a violation of Occam's razor, and therefore quite contrary to actual scientific thought?

That depends on whether you approach the question of the existence of God as a hypothesis in need of investigation. If you already believe, for reasons that satisfy you, that God exists, theistic evolution is the only possible way to go without rebelling against science.

As a rule, theistic evolutionists aren't presenting "evolution occured and God exists" as a hypothesis in place of "evolution occured." They are merely taking a worldview that already includes "God exists" and adding a newly discovered fact that does not, a priori, confirm that God must not exist. The fact that they do not then reexamine their old belief that God exists in light of the new information, conclude that God does not necessarily have to exist for the universe to exist, and thus decide that God must necessarily not exist...

Well, that's a breakdown in logic, but if I started chewing out people for breakdowns in logic on that level I'd never have time to do anything else.

[General Mung Beans]

Young Earth Creationism is pretty much considered a steaming pile of BS at this forum

Not just at this forum. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that YEC is regarded as a giggle-worthy crock by all but a tiny eccentric percentage of professional scientists in every field upon which it presumes to touch.

The fact that you imply that it's just 'at this forum' makes me wonder about you, General.

I was just writing badly-sorry.

To note I'm of the theistic evolution perspective myself.

I know I'm going to regret this, but...your evidence? That is to say, your *new* evidence, not regurgitated bullshit that's been demonstrated as worthless, time and again whenever someone chooses to barf it out...[/quote]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

[Liberty]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

Ah. Because you don't want it to be true, it's not true. That makes sense.

Here's a little something I always try to do Mung Beans. I try to set up my beliefs in such a way that they can be falsified. Then I try to falsify them. It is only when they hold true in spite of my trying again and again to prove them wrong that I continue to hold them. So. How could your belief in theistic evolution be proved wrong? What would convince you, for instance, that there is no god?

Also, do you believe that evolution alone can explain for the the existence of the world we see around us, or not? In other words, do you just believe in god to make yourself feel better about your purpose in life, or do you believe evolution is flawed and use "god" to plug the holes?

[General Zod]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

A hundred and twenty years? What kind of bullshit are you reading to get that number from?

[Serafina]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

Ah.
So you are afraid to die, and hence you make up a comfortable delusion.

That's it. You just said that
-you do not want to die after your lifespan is over.
-you believe in god due to that, and possibly solely due to that.
Well, being afraid to die is natural for humans. But i found it much easier to just accept that it will happen eventually. I do not want it to happen now, or soon - but i have no problem with my existence being finite. Mostly because, if you think about it, an infinite existence doesn't seem all that good. If something is finite, you can value the moment. If it isn't, then you don't. We can observe that in everyday life - when you are doing something special which you only do very rarely, you will value it more than when you do something you do every day. Because you know that it is limited, you enjoy that experience more. And that's what i try to do with my life.

And when i am dead - well, then i am dead and do no care about anything at all. I did not mind not existing before i was born, i will not mind not existing after i am dead.

A hundred and twenty years? What kind of bullshit are you reading to get that number from?

Uh, i think he is simply referring to the highest know lifespan in human beings. Not to "the world will end in 120 years" and not to "i will life for anther 120 years".

[General Mung Beans]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

Ah. Because you don't want it to be true, it's not true. That makes sense.

Here's a little something I always try to do Mung Beans. I try to set up my beliefs in such a way that they can be falsified. Then I try to falsify them. It is only when they hold true in spite of my trying again and again to prove them wrong that I continue to hold them. So. How could your belief in theistic evolution be proved wrong? What would convince you, for instance, that there is no god?

The simplest argument against God of course is that He does not suddenly appear in public giving divine commands a la the Ten Commandments. And then there are such arguments as the existence of evil and the fact that humans are evolutionarily perfect.

Also, do you believe that evolution alone can explain for the the existence of the world we see around us, or not? In other words, do you just believe in god to make yourself feel better about your purpose in life, or do you believe evolution is flawed and use "god" to plug the holes?

I believe in God because I feel moved by him-no not in the "voices in my head" sense but a subtle change and control within me. But as to your question I think the universe could exist without God solely by scientific laws though I don't believe it.

[Liberty]

I believe in God because I feel moved by him-no not in the "voices in my head" sense but a subtle change and control within me. But as to your question I think the universe could exist without God solely by scientific laws though I don't believe it.

So you believe in god because you feel like he exists. I have news for you. Muslims "feel" like Allah exists. Jews "feel" like Jehovah exists. I was raised a Christian fundamentalist, and let me tell you, I felt god moving me all the way until my second year of college. I could feel his presence, feel him comforting me, etc. I felt moved by him, I felt him within me. And then I realized that there was no god and that I had been imagining those feelings for years. If you close your eyes and start telling yourself there is someone in the room watching you, etc, you will start feeling like there is someone in the room watching you, even though there isn't. Anyone can do that. It's called being human.

And you didn't answer my other question - what would convince you that there is no god? What would have to happen?

[Surlethe]

All right, a reminder: no dogpiling. We're watching.

[Serafina]

The simplest argument against God of course is that He does not suddenly appear in public giving divine commands a la the Ten Commandments. And then there are such arguments as the existence of evil and the fact that humans are evolutionarily perfect.

You do not understand the principle of falsification.
It goes like this: What evidence would disprove your claim?
In your case, what evidence would convince you that god does not exist?

The general problem with most (or even all) concepts of god and religion is that they are not falsifiable. In your and many other cases, you simply claim that god does certain things you can not yet explain otherwise. But if we find an actual explanation, you simply ignore that your claim has just been falsified.
Additonally, many claims about religion are constructed in a way that can not possibly be disproven. The typical example for that is the afterlife, those claims are usually constructed in such a way that it is impossible to observe it.

Rational people and scientists do not operate that way. Any scientific claim includes a way to prove that claim wrong. Note that wrong doesn't necessarily mean that the claim is entirely wrong - something can be partially wrong. Newtoninan physics was falsifiable - simply by showing that it does not work in certain areas, that the calulations do not work out. And Einstein did just that - but Newton was only partially wrong, since Newtonian physics works in most instances.
Likewise, Evolution is falsifiable - all you need to do is show an animal that can not possibly have an evolutionary ancestor. Such as, say, a direct crossbreed between a crocodile and a duck. (not just something that looks like one, but an actual one). We do not find it because it doesn't exist, but if we would evolution would be falsified.
And that goes on and on for every other area of science.

So in order for your claim of a god existing to be falsifiable, you would have to have something like that.
Something like "if god was true, we should not find X". Or at least "if god was true, we should find X".
But as i said, those claims have been made before. Such as "if god was true, we should not find anything more than 6000 years old (age of the earth)". Or "if god was true, prayer should have an observable effect not explicable by science".
But all these claims have been shown to be wrong.
God is accepted by faith - and by faith alone. You can, by definition, not argue about it in a logical way.

I believe in God because I feel moved by him-no not in the "voices in my head" sense but a subtle change and control within me. But as to your question I think the universe could exist without God solely by scientific laws though I don't believe it.

What i said - faith alone.

[Channel72]

The general problem with most (or even all) concepts of god and religion is that they are not falsifiable.

In theory most religions are falsifiable. Christianity and Judaism make very specific claims about cosmology and the nature of the Universe, as well as certain claims about history. Many of these claims are directly falsifiable, and in fact, they have been falsified. The problem is, in practice, people simply ignore the falsifying evidence, or interpret it away to suit their needs, as the author of this thread nicely demonstrates.

[Serafina]

The general problem with most (or even all) concepts of god and religion is that they are not falsifiable.

In theory most religions are falsifiable. Christianity and Judaism make very specific claims about cosmology and the nature of the Universe, as well as certain claims about history. Many of these claims are directly falsifiable, and in fact, they have been falsified. The problem is, in practice, people simply ignore the falsifying evidence, or interpret it away to suit their needs, as the author of this thread nicely demonstrates.

Hmm. Yes, that was worded badly.
I was actually talking about these specific claims tough. I think "religious concepts are not seen as falsifiable" or something like that would have been better. Because they ARE, but religious people do not care about such things and ignore it if their religions if falsified - either by shifing the goalposts or by denying the evidence.

Old Earth Creationosm and theistic evolution are a case of the former - the goalposts have been shifted. The claim that god made the earth and the life on it in the way the bible describes it has been 100% debunked. We do not need god to explain the orgin of our planet (solar system, galaxy, universe) and of the diversity of life (evolution) or the origin of it (abiogenesis).
So they shift the goalpost into another niche - god is not only casually intervening in order to guide the process. We will never be able to disprove that, because we will never be able to observe all of history. So they can always find a place for their tiny little god - because the more evidence we gathered, the smaller he got. Now he is reduced to a tiny little intagible being with little influence, else we could observe him.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

A hundred and twenty years? What kind of bullshit are you reading to get that number from?

I believe he's referring to Genesis 6:3, where the Bible asserts that humans shall only live to be 120 years old. Presumably because God got sick of people living past 400 years apiece. Later, in chapter 11, we learn that God apparently forgot his decree in chapter 6, because there were patriarchs seeing their 200th, 400th, and even 600th birthdays. It must've come as a shock to Jeanne Calment, who exceeded that divine decree by well over two years.

The answer to the person who believes out of fear of death is . . . well, do you remember the first 13.7 billion years of the history of the universe? No? Are you sure? It's okay if you don't, because you weren't alive back then. That's right. You haven't been around for the first 13.7 billion years of history. You've been dead that whole time. Are you feeling any real loss for all those years you weren't alive? Is the knowledge going to send you into an existential crisis? Unlikely. The number is mind-boggling in its size, and you weren't experiencing any of it to begin with; so it's not something you can really miss.

Let's say that you got really good genes, and get a few lucky breaks and live to 110 - 130 years old. Which means when you go back to being inanimate, you will have spent about 8.75x10-7% of the history of the universe alive. That's one over 114 million. Are you feeling soul-crushing despair for all that time you've missed out on? You shouldn't. You weren't around to experience any of it. And you shouldn't be afraid of the billions of years to follow after you go back to being inanimate. You're not going to be around to experience any of that either.

So instead of focusing on all the time you will spend not being around, focus on the time you will spend being alive. It's valuable time . . . you never know when you'll step out in front of a bus with your name on it.

[General Mung Beans]

I believe in God because I feel moved by him-no not in the "voices in my head" sense but a subtle change and control within me. But as to your question I think the universe could exist without God solely by scientific laws though I don't believe it.

So you believe in god because you feel like he exists. I have news for you. Muslims "feel" like Allah exists. Jews "feel" like Jehovah exists. I was raised a Christian fundamentalist, and let me tell you, I felt god moving me all the way until my second year of college. I could feel his presence, feel him comforting me, etc. I felt moved by him, I felt him within me. And then I realized that there was no god and that I had been imagining those feelings for years. If you close your eyes and start telling yourself there is someone in the room watching you, etc, you will start feeling like there is someone in the room watching you, even though there isn't. Anyone can do that. It's called being human.

And you didn't answer my other question - what would convince you that there is no god? What would have to happen?

If I concluded from certain interpretations of the Bible that God directly decreed evil (rather than permit it) [1] than I can't help but conclude such a contradictory Being (who is supposed to be all good yet orders evil) couldn't exist.

[1] This view is advocated by certain Christian fundamentalists who nontheless insist God is still all good.

[Serafina]

If I concluded from certain interpretations of the Bible that God directly decreed evil (rather than permit it) [1] than I can't help but conclude such a contradictory Being (who is supposed to be all good yet orders evil) couldn't exist.

Ah, now we are getting somewhere.
So according to you "if god exists, he can not do evil" or "if god exists, he can only do good."

Well, let's look at your specific example, shall we?
Let's start right at the beginning. Do you consider it evil to punish children for the crime of their parents? Because God did that to every single human being ever alive, according to the bible - we are all punished for the "crime" of Adam and Eve. In my book, that's evil.
Do you consider it evil to murder everyone alive? Because God did that as well: Remember the Great Flood?
Do you consider it it evil to command people to commit warcrimes (the very thing Hitler did btw.)? Because God does that too.
And the list goes on and on and on.

Here are some specific examples of things that are clearly evil in the bible, AND directly done or commanded by god:

The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you -- so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

In other words: God made it so that the Israelites would suffer longer and that he would eventually kill many egyptians.
If i force you to do something and later punish you for the same thing, i consider that evil.
The result:

At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

God directly commands the death of tens of thousands of people.
Remember that Pharaoh not giving in was Gods fault right from the start. And then he does not even punish Pharaoh, but completely innocent children.

But Sihon king of Heshbon refused to let us pass through. For the LORD your God had made his spirit stubborn and his heart obstinate in order to give him into your hands, as he has now done. The LORD said to me, "See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his country over to you. Now begin to conquer and possess his land." When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, the LORD our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them--men, women and children. We left no survivors.

God directly commands his chosen people to commit genocide. One of the worst evils possible.
That happens all over the place in Deuteronomy.

So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.

I tried to pick some strong examples, but i really do not want to slug trough all the violence in the bible - because that's most of the Old Testament. I deliberately left out all passages where it is not clearly god or gods command, and i even ignored all the times where god kills people for harmless things - such as eating apples or making a campfire or looking at the ark of the covenant.
Your god IS evil if your god is the god of the bible.


Here is a very powerfull video for you. All in there is taken from the old testament (they are jews, they do not have a new one - but it still applies 100%). Those things are clearly evil. Your god is NOT good.

Watch it. It's really worth it. And listen carefully.

[General Mung Beans]

That certainly is a difficult problem. However the term harden can be used to indicate that God simply left someone or allowed someone to do what he or she wished. http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2259

With that in mind, Bullinger’s fourth list of idiomatic verbs deals with active verbs that “were used by the Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do” (p. 823, emp. in orig.). To illustrate, in commenting on Exodus 4:21, Bullinger stated: “ ‘I will harden his heart (i.e., I will permit or suffer his heart to be hardened), that he shall not let the people go.’ So in all the passages which speak of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. As is clear from the common use of the same Idiom in the following passages” (1968, p. 823). He then listed Jeremiah 4:10, “ ‘Lord God, surely thou hast greatly deceived this people’: i.e., thou hast suffered this People to be greatly deceived, by the false prophets….’ ” Ezekiel 14:9 is also given as an example of this type of usage: “ ‘If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet’: i.e., I have permitted him to deceive himself.” James MacKnight, in a lengthy section on biblical idioms, agrees with Bullinger’s assessment that in Hebrew active verbs can express permission and not direct action. This explanation unquestionably clarifies the question of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. When the text says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it means that God would permit or allow Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened.

The part of God ordering massacres and so on is a very hard thing to deal with. This seems to be the standard argument which I will admit I'm not at all convinced by. http://www.carm.org/bible-difficulties/ ... ple-inside

Why did the Israelites destroy cities and kill all of the people inside?

(Deuteronomy 2:33-34) - "And the Lord our God delivered him over to us; and we defeated him with his sons and all his people. 34So we captured all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor."

The command by God to kill all inside a city is seen by many to be immoral and a demonstration that the Bible is not true. But, we must examine the issue in light of its context, its biblical context, not in light of present day, non-Christian assumptions. If we want to see if it is moral or not, we must know which morals are in question.

First of all, the context of this verse is dealing with the wickedness of the Amorite king Sihon of Hesbon, a city of the Amorites (Num. 21:25). They were a wicked people (Gen. 15:16; 2 Kings 21:11). When the Israelites wanted to pass through their land during their exodus from Egypt, the Amorites refused them safe passage and attacked the Israelites. However, they were soundly defeated by Israel (Num. 21:21-31). It is in this context that God delivered them over to the Israelites; that is, in the context of the battle.

Why would the decision of the Amorites be so serious to God that He would have all their people wiped out? The answer is simple. God tells the Israelites why the people were destroyed. It was because of the wickedness of the Amorite people.

"It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," (Deut. 9:5).

God has declared that the Amorite people deserved to die because of their sins. They remained unrepentant (unlike Nineveh) and the righteous wrath of God fell upon them via the Israelites. Since all are sinners, all deserve to die. They were no exception. Nevertheless, God is merciful by allowing them to live. In the case of the Amorites, God was gracious to them by letting them live and enjoy life with its generic blessings from God (provision of rain, sun, water, etc.), while He encouraged them to repent of their sins. They refused to turn from their immorality and were finally wiped out.

Also, the death of a child might be a very merciful thing because had the child grown up in the sin of the Amorite culture, it would surely have suffered the eternal wrath of God. If the "age of accountability" notion is correct, then God delivered them into His hands and it is possible that by this they were spared eternal damnation.

The final and most important reason for their destruction is that God needed to keep the messianic line pure so that Jesus could be born and thereby redeem His people so that believers could go to heaven. Without Jesus' sacrifice, all would be damned. If the Amorites were allowed to live, surely they would have influence the Jewish nation in a harmful way thereby threatening the arrival of the Messiah. Therefore, God in His righteous judgment executed judgment upon them.

[Serafina]

Gee, and already you are in denial. Anyone surprised?

That certainly is a difficult problem. However the term harden can be used to indicate that God simply left someone or allowed someone to do what he or she wished.

So you take a word and take it to be the complete opposite of it's actual meaning. Great.
Look, even if we accept that ludicrous interpretation, god still commited an act of evil. Why? Well, simple - if he had NOT done whatever "hardened" means, then tens of thousands of people would have been spared. Since NOT hardening the heart caused no harm (else, it would have been apparent), not doing it was clearly the good choice.
Gods direct actions still killed tens of thousands of people in that part of the bible. Deal with it.

The part of God ordering massacres and so on is a very hard thing to deal with. This seems to be the standard argument which I will admit I'm not at all convinced by.

You disgust me. You are now defending genocide. Fuck off. And get some morality.
Anyway, that won't stop me from ripping this apart:

First of all, the context of this verse is dealing with the wickedness of the Amorite king Sihon of Hesbon, a city of the Amorites (Num. 21:25). They were a wicked people (Gen. 15:16; 2 Kings 21:11). When the Israelites wanted to pass through their land during their exodus from Egypt, the Amorites refused them safe passage and attacked the Israelites. However, they were soundly defeated by Israel (Num. 21:21-31). It is in this context that God delivered them over to the Israelites; that is, in the context of the battle.

Okay. First of all, i do not think that the Israelits were actually attacked. Because he does not cite a bible passage that says so.
Even if they were - how does that justify genocide? It doesn't - they could just defeat their armies and then move on. There was no need to slaughter their families other than sheer bloodlust and cruelity - including their so-called god.

Why would the decision of the Amorites be so serious to God that He would have all their people wiped out? The answer is simple. God tells the Israelites why the people were destroyed. It was because of the wickedness of the Amorite people.

Is that wickedness described? No? Then who is that god to decide that ALL of these people deserved death?
They obviously had to had moral principles, else they could not be a functioning society. Even if they, say, sacrificed their own children - does that justify slaughtering those very same children?

"It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," (Deut. 9:5).

Hey, guess what - that oath was "i will give you land and children". And thats the reason why god ordered that genocide - because he favored one race over others. Yet another thing he has in common with Hitler.

The final and most important reason for their destruction is that God needed to keep the messianic line pure so that Jesus could be born and thereby redeem His people so that believers could go to heaven. Without Jesus' sacrifice, all would be damned. If the Amorites were allowed to live, surely they would have influence the Jewish nation in a harmful way thereby threatening the arrival of the Messiah. Therefore, God in His righteous judgment executed judgment upon them.

Yet more fucking racism. Or do you think that "racial purity" is anything but racism? Do you think that racism is NOT morally evil and reprehensible?

The fact remains. God directly ordered genocide. And more than that - he also ordered them to kill the lifestock of the people he conquered. Why? Absolutely no reasonable reason exists for this.
Heck, when one of their Kings (Saul, IIRC) took that lifestock to feed his starving people, god was angry with him. How good can your god be if he prefers mindless slaughter of lifestock over using it to feed starving people?

You probably did not watch the video. Do it. Your god is evil. Accept it.

[Liberty]

That certainly is a difficult problem. However the term harden can be used to indicate that God simply left someone or allowed someone to do what he or she wished. http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2259

With that in mind, Bullinger’s fourth list of idiomatic verbs deals with active verbs that “were used by the Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do” (p. 823, emp. in orig.). To illustrate, in commenting on Exodus 4:21, Bullinger stated: “ ‘I will harden his heart (i.e., I will permit or suffer his heart to be hardened), that he shall not let the people go.’ So in all the passages which speak of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. As is clear from the common use of the same Idiom in the following passages” (1968, p. 823). He then listed Jeremiah 4:10, “ ‘Lord God, surely thou hast greatly deceived this people’: i.e., thou hast suffered this People to be greatly deceived, by the false prophets….’ ” Ezekiel 14:9 is also given as an example of this type of usage: “ ‘If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet’: i.e., I have permitted him to deceive himself.” James MacKnight, in a lengthy section on biblical idioms, agrees with Bullinger’s assessment that in Hebrew active verbs can express permission and not direct action. This explanation unquestionably clarifies the question of God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. When the text says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it means that God would permit or allow Pharaoh’s heart to be hardened.

Two problems with this line of reasoning. First, during the first plagues, in Exodus 8, the Bible says that "Pharaoh hardened his heart." During the last plagues, in chapter 10, the Bible says that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart." Huh. Clearly, something changed. First it was Pharaoh; now it's God.

Second, just so everyone knows, he lifted the passage above from apologeticspress.org. There are no credentials given for this "Bullinger" person. Finally, I actually just looked up "E W Bullinger," and he was a Anglican dispensationalist living a hundred years ago. Clearly, there is a great grasping at straws going on here. I'd like to hear this from an actual reputed academic scholar, rather than a fundamentalist fundamentalist.

The part of God ordering massacres and so on is a very hard thing to deal with. This seems to be the standard argument which I will admit I'm not at all convinced by. http://www.carm.org/bible-difficulties/ ... ple-inside

Just so everyone knows, he's quoting a fundamentalist apologetics website.

But regardless, Mung Beans, you just said you're not convinced. You say that God ordering massacres is "a very hard thing to deal with." What do you mean, deal with? Do you mean, it's a hard thing to explain away? Because yes it is. No, it's impossible to explain away. God ordered the massacre of men, women, and children. God killed David's infant son to punish David for David's sin. And the list goes on. So what do you say? You earlier said:

If I concluded from certain interpretations of the Bible that God directly decreed evil (rather than permit it) than I can't help but conclude such a contradictory Being (who is supposed to be all good yet orders evil) couldn't exist.

What, then, is keeping you from admitting, like you said above that you would, that God can't exist?

[Channel72]

God has declared that the Amorite people deserved to die because of their sins. They remained unrepentant (unlike Nineveh) and the righteous wrath of God fell upon them via the Israelites. Since all are sinners, all deserve to die. They were no exception. Nevertheless, God is merciful by allowing them to live. In the case of the Amorites, God was gracious to them by letting them live and enjoy life with its generic blessings from God (provision of rain, sun, water, etc.), while He encouraged them to repent of their sins. They refused to turn from their immorality and were finally wiped out.

Also, the death of a child might be a very merciful thing because had the child grown up in the sin of the Amorite culture, it would surely have suffered the eternal wrath of God. If the "age of accountability" notion is correct, then God delivered them into His hands and it is possible that by this they were spared eternal damnation.

This silly Bronze-Age mentality is best enjoyed by juxtaposing it with the beliefs of another Bronze Age tribe. The Moabites, another Ancient Near Eastern Tribe who inhabited a small Kingdom to the South of the Israelites, used the exact same religious justifications for wiping out their enemies. You could basically take any Moabite inscription about the wrath of their God, and replace each instance of "Chemosh", the Moabite God, with Yahweh, and voila, you have a typical Old Testament passage. Here's a nice quote from an inscription of the Moabites:

And Chemosh said to me: "Go take Nebo against Israel"; and I went by night and fought against it from break of dawn till noon, and I took it and slew all, seven thousand men, boys, and women, and girls, for I had devoted it to Ashtar-Chemosh.

Look, the Israelites were just another territorial, Near Eastern tribe who killed in the name of their deity all the time. The more that modern Christian apologists try to justify it, the more ridiculous they will look. Too bad there's no modern Moabite apologists to make excuses for the ancient Moabites and their brutal ways.

Finally, it's hilarious how this silly apologist actually argues that God was merciful in killing the Amorite children, because otherwise these children may have potentially gone to Hell had they been brought up in the wicked Amorite culture. So basically, Yahweh must have said to Himself, "I better kill these little tots, otherwise I'll get so angry at them later I'll probably have to send them to Hell. Hmm...maybe I need to rethink something here..."

[Kanastrous]

If I concluded from certain interpretations of the Bible that God directly decreed evil (rather than permit it) [1] than I can't help but conclude such a contradictory Being (who is supposed to be all good yet orders evil) couldn't exist.

Since an omniscient God can see in detail the full train of consequences following each event unto the End of Creation, and humans can't, and since with this perfect knowledge God is in a superior position to judge the ultimate goodness or ultimate evil consequent to any given event while with imperfect perception human beings can only make imperfect judgments, you can still have your God who decrees what *appear* to be evil things and eat his pure holy goodness too.

I'm sure somewhere some theologian has formulated something along those lines. And probably filled s couple hundred pages while they were at it.

*edit* just occurred to me that maybe this is why God is so annoyed at Adam and Eve for eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and thereby gaining an understanding of Good and Evil. Because so much of the He exists no He doesn't neener neener crap revolves around the presence of evil and if the children of Adam and Eve couldn't distinguish between the two it would have saved a great deal of argument on the subject, and vast quantities of ink.

[Darth Hoth]

So you take a word and take it to be the complete opposite of it's actual meaning. Great.
Look, even if we accept that ludicrous interpretation, god still commited an act of evil. Why? Well, simple - if he had NOT done whatever "hardened" means, then tens of thousands of people would have been spared. Since NOT hardening the heart caused no harm (else, it would have been apparent), not doing it was clearly the good choice.
Gods direct actions still killed tens of thousands of people in that part of the bible. Deal with it.

I have done some limited studies on theology and the history of Judaism/Christianity (partly to be able to refute fundies I know, rather than let them dominate any religious discussion with their POV), and from what I understand from commentaries, the original Hebrew is somewhat murky on that point; supposedly it does not necessarily imply an active command from God, but more that he "allowed Pharaoh to harden his heart". I cannot guarantee that is really so, though; my own knowledge of Hebrew is very limited.

In any case, fundies like to play that up, and usually make it into a "Free Will" argument: God is so nice and gives free will to all people that he would not tamper with Pharaoh's mind, but allowed him to catastrophically defy him to the very end, even when it would save millions of lives to just brainwash him.

Okay. First of all, i do not think that the Israelits were actually attacked. Because he does not cite a bible passage that says so.
Even if they were - how does that justify genocide? It doesn't - they could just defeat their armies and then move on. There was no need to slaughter their families other than sheer bloodlust and cruelity - including their so-called god.

It is specified in the Bible that the Israelites originally just wanted safe passage through the land, and Sihon the Amorite king attacked them (Numbers 21:21-25). That they exterminated his people afterwards was to be able to possess the land uncontested; I am unsure whether Jehovah actually ordered it, although he did not object.

Is that wickedness described? No? Then who is that god to decide that ALL of these people deserved death?
They obviously had to had moral principles, else they could not be a functioning society. Even if they, say, sacrificed their own children - does that justify slaughtering those very same children?

The typical fundie argument is that the society was so evil that its every adult member must be killed for his crimes, and since the children would starve if left alone without their parents, it was more merciful to kill them, too, so that they died quickly.

That, and it was God's will, and therefore exempt from morality otherwise.

Yet more fucking racism. Or do you think that "racial purity" is anything but racism? Do you think that racism is NOT morally evil and reprehensible?

The fact remains. God directly ordered genocide. And more than that - he also ordered them to kill the lifestock of the people he conquered. Why? Absolutely no reasonable reason exists for this.

Racially, there was little or no difference between the Israelites and the Amorites. It was their culture/religion that Jehovah wanted exterminated, not their blood. When Israel exterminated the Midianites (Numbers 31), they only killed the men and married women, but "kept alive for themselves" the virgin girls.

Heck, when one of their Kings (Saul, IIRC) took that lifestock to feed his starving people, god was angry with him. How good can your god be if he prefers mindless slaughter of lifestock over using it to feed starving people?

The people were not starving right then, as far as I can gather. The issue was simply that the animals should all be slaughtered along with the Amalekites who had owned them; this was a part of the Israelite ritual in holy wars of extermination (cherem). Saul failed to control his men, so that they plundered the booty for their own gain instead of destroying it, and for that, he was accursed.

[Lagmonster]

But regardless, Mung Beans, you just said you're not convinced. You say that God ordering massacres is "a very hard thing to deal with." What do you mean, deal with? Do you mean, it's a hard thing to explain away? Because yes it is. No, it's impossible to explain away. God ordered the massacre of men, women, and children. God killed David's infant son to punish David for David's sin. And the list goes on. So what do you say? You earlier said:

If I concluded from certain interpretations of the Bible that God directly decreed evil (rather than permit it) than I can't help but conclude such a contradictory Being (who is supposed to be all good yet orders evil) couldn't exist.

What, then, is keeping you from admitting, like you said above that you would, that God can't exist?

Because he was lying. The adamantly religious only claim to have standards which must be met for them to change their minds; when those standards are met, they invariably change the rules, or deny the evidence, or run away and pretend nothing happened. Religion is about what you feel, and it's hard to override a feeling with rationalism.

[Broomstick]

Young Earth Creationism is pretty much considered a steaming pile of BS at this forum however what is your opinion of theists who accept old earth and/or evolution but just think it was guided by God. To note I'm of the theistic evolution perspective myself.

It's still a steaming pile of bullshit. If you accept the mechanics of evolution, then why dirty it up by invoking a supernatural actor?

Because religion serves emotional needs that religion does not. The universe is hostile, dangerous place. Some people seem to need the "warm and fuzzy sky pixie" in order to function. I don't kick the crutch out from underneath cripples, and I don't see a need to remove this one from people who can accept the scientific process and don't believe in the literalness of the Bible - there are far worse things out there than that, and I only have so much time and energy with which to combat ignorance.

Basically, they accept evolution but say God set up the process and watched it run on its own. Well, their god is not a falsifiable hypothesis, cannot be proven to exist or not, and has no place in science.

[Broomstick]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

^ This is what I mean by "serves emotional needs that logic does not". Clearly, the prospect of a godless universe, of a mere 122 years of life at best then nothingness, scares the shit out of Mung Beans here. So, in order to get some sleep at night he believes in his god. As the alternative is probably nightly medication with pricey pharmaceuticals, this therapeutic belief in an invisible sky pixie is arguably of some utilitarian use. However, like all drugs over-reliance on religion and abusive doses of it can have bad side effects.

[Kanastrous]

Growing a pair might be a non-pharmaceutical alternative. I'm just sayin'.

[Broomstick]

Perhaps you'll think me insane and delusional but I simply cannot believe that humanity's life ends on this Earth within a hundred and twenty two years at best and then eternal nothingness. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically-it requires faith.

A hundred and twenty years? What kind of bullshit are you reading to get that number from?

That is not, in fact, bullshit. 122 years IS the current record for a human lifespan, one Jeanne Calment of France held it before her demise in 1997.

So, in this case Mung Beans is factually correct.