Reverse the direction that the hurricane spins then send it back over its path so it blows everything back into place the way things were to fix all the damage it had caused?
That is part of the argument that leads to the proof that the Biblical God could not possibly exist.
If God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and good, then he could have saved humanity without murdering the majority in the flood, without demanding that Abraham circumcise boys, without sending his only son to be crucified, without sending an angel to Muhammad and inspiring jihad, and without the jealous demand for faith.
He could have simply created humans without the capacity and will to commit cruel deeds.
A God that was omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and good could not allow such suffering.
Satan doesn't explain it either, because such a God would not create such an entity.
This post was edited by inky at June 23, 2019 7:05 AM MDT
...know that the books about god that men call scriptures do Him/Her very poor service.
This post was edited by Don Barzini at June 23, 2019 7:05 AM MDT
Indeed. I see the biblical stories as invented to support tribal survival. In Abraham's time, the nomadic herders were increasing in population, putting grazing pressure on the lands, and increasing the erosion that turned the grain-bowl of the ancient world into deserts. The tribe that survived best was the one that could best defend itself against the Bedouin-like raids of others. Wars between tribes became frequent. To be a successful military leader a patriarch required loyal warriors and a cohort of women able to look after the wounded, young and old. The best way to do that was to invent a belief system and set of ethics that would keep people in line in battle and while the men were absent. The evolution of Biblical laws achieved these goals with spectacular success. But I believe our society has developed to the point where some of these laws are obsolete. For instance - chattels or slaves are no longer legally or morally tolerable - nor is treating wives and children as property over which a patriarch has the right of life and death. Other commandments are also evolving their way out of relevance - no longer serving the public good.
The idea of loving others as oneself - needs clarification and assistance. It can't work unless a person actually knows how to love him or herself. The person haunted by childhood abuse is at an automatic disadvantage.
This post was edited by inky at June 23, 2019 7:06 AM MDT
Agreed. Think how it continues to elude Bible adherents how so much of the canon was lifted from much earlier legends, superstitions and pagan folklore. (The Decalogue is nearly verbatim from Spell 125 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.) Or how few (virtually none) of the events in the scriptures were recorded by actual eyewitnesses, or during the lifetimes of the subjects, or even mentioned at all by known historical contemporaries.
This might be because until the 19th century, the vast majority of humanity was illiterate, certainly that would have been eminently true in Bronze Age Palestine. They only repeated what they were told, over generations. This was a fractious culture of fearful, paternalistic desert tribes; people who knew essentially nothing about the world around them. Yet this is where some today still draw their primary worldview. How unfortunate. Tradition as intellectual stagnation.
The most troubling aspect of said belief systems is the pompous co-opting of morality as the product and domain of [their] dogma, not the inverse.
This post was edited by Don Barzini at June 23, 2019 7:07 AM MDT
Kittigate 