God the shoddy craftsman

[HansMustermann]

The point has probably been made before, but it kinda starts to bug me, so here goes: why does God give rules and threaten harsh punishments, against bugs that an omnipotent creator should fix himself? It's a bit like MS threatening to throw you in the dungeon if your Windows CTDs.

E.g., Leviticus 11, where the dietary rules are mentioned, and it's a part that gets overused by aplogetics as, basically, "see, it's good, 'cause pork has all sorts of parasites and goes bad very fast in that climate, etc"... wth? Can't God fix that, then? How does one reconcile the idea of an omnipotent God being unable to do more than warn to avoid a part of His creation? That falls a bit short of omnipotence from where I stand.

And apparently it does become fit enough to eat in the NT. So what took Him so long? Or is it that the best an omnipotent God could do was to wait until humans discover smoking and meat fermentation, i.e., sausage making?

And why the threats?

E.g., Exodus 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Wth? If magic is such a big problem, why does an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God rely on humans who are imperfect, uninformed and prone to use torture for false results, to solve that problem? Can't He just nerf witches? I'm pretty sure Blizzard, Sony, EA and generally every MMO publisher have managed that feat before, and nobody but their fanboys would call _those_ gods ;)

E.g., there are some 9 places where the Lord warns against those with familiar spirits. Wth? Can't an omnipotent God just nerf familiars, if they're such a nuissance? I'm pretty sure the Wizards Of The Coast managed that before ;)

And so on and so forth, going all the way back to that buggy tree in Genesis. Oh sure, let's punish the users who ran into the bug. That's such a great and responsible attitude. Not.

[Sledge]

It's pretty obvious that God hates mankind, and sets endless traps to trip them up.

[HansMustermann]

Well, that's one interpretation, Sledge, and probably the sanest one, but I want to see how the "god loves you" crowd reconcile _that_ cognitive dissonance exercise.

I mean, they tell me essentially that in the Genesis God made everything peaceful and serene and perfect, and saw that it was good... even though he has to say so himself. It's not like he's going, "it'll have to do until I get to coding the carnivore AI and plagues next week" or anything. He likes his garden just the way it is.

Then a hairless ape girl plucks an apple, and it's like pulling the pin on a grenade or finding the self-destruct button on a supervillain lair. Everything goes _spectacularly_ nuts. Half the animals start killing the other half, although apparently God hadn't actually created death himself or given them an AI capable of hunting behaviours. Their digestive tract changes. (Unless someone wants to tell me that in the beginning the lions and wolves peacefully ate grass without having been given the kind of stomach that can actually digest it.) Pain is born. Aging kicks in. Monkeys fling poop. Dinosaurs get extinct. Ok, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea.

As bugs go, this is the most spectacular bug ever recorded. The only way it could have gone any more haywire would involve a mushroom cloud.

And God sees it and doesn't exactly go, "Muahahaha, they found it, my master plan works." Nor even, "Darn, I was hoping it would take a bit longer before they figure that one out, but oh well, I knew it would happen when I put that tree there."

No, he's furious. He dishes out punishments and threats. And apparently he turns into a bitter misanthrope and mysoginist because of that.

I mean, that's what the fundies tell us. It's not God wanting it that way all along, it's _us_ who are to blame for ruining a good thing. And it pissed God off no end.

And I say **** that, that's a bug then. If just plucking an apple can make the whole place go surrealistically nuts, and it wasn't intended to happen, that's most clearly a bug.

Why doesn't he fix it instead of blaming the users?

[oldunbeliever]

I hope it is not inappropriate and I thought you all might enjoy this poem that I wrote some years ago which seems to fit right in the idea of this thread. Of course it's all in fun. (Think "Yellow Submarine").

WE ALL LIVE IN A RECURSIVE SUBROUTINE

We all live in a recursive subroutine,
an awful black machine,
where life is brief and mean.
Why do we live in this cursed dark ravine?
It’s gotta be a bug.

We’ve been stuck in an infinite program loop,
since the pre-Cambrian soup,
without a parachute.
All coders know, which you can’t refute,
that there are always bugs.

How’d it slip by, this gross software defect,
egregiously incorrect,
didn’t anyone inspect?
You wonder why He didn’t hit “reject,”
with a little shrug.

Sooner or later, the system’s gonna crash,
memory’s not cached,
index needs rehashed,
the Programmer, I’d think, would be somewhat abashed
for failing to debug.

Did He, perhaps, forget a parentheses,
the cause of war, disease,
misery, unease?
And why, looking at the murd’rous birds and bees,
should He be so smug?

As programs go, I think He blew “The Universe.”
Have you ever seen one worse?
So obstinate, perverse.
Were I the Client, I’d never reimburse.
I’d just pull the plug.

[HansMustermann]

All I can say, my good fellow, is: ROFLMAO :p

[SezMe]

Your first problem, Hans, is that you're seeking a logical explanation to the phenomenon of religion, specifically the Christian variety. You seek in vain.

Then a hairless ape girl plucks an apple ...
As an example, you think Eve was hairless? How do you know? Even her pearl? Her pits? Her head?

Yeah, yeah, it's late and I'm avoiding the work I should be doing. Sue me.

[HansMustermann]

Well, I would think humans are pretty hairless, when compared to other kinds of apes. Unless someone wants to tell me that Eve looked like a sexy bonobo girl before biting into that chemotherapy-laced apple ;)

[BobTheDonkey]

Well, I would think humans are pretty hairless, when compared to other kinds of apes. Unless someone wants to tell me that Eve looked like a sexy bonobo girl before biting into that chemotherapy-laced apple ;)

The setup is superb...but I can't follow through, I fear too many good people would be offended :)

[Ralph]

Kind of reminds me of the time my wife (who was PMSing at the time) told me I wasn't getting "any" tonight........because she just found out her car needs expensive repairwork
due to the fact she thought you only had to change the oil---when the oil warning light came on.

[fuelair]

I hope it is not inappropriate and I thought you all might enjoy this poem that I wrote some years ago which seems to fit right in the idea of this thread. Of course it's all in fun. (Think "Yellow Submarine").

WE ALL LIVE IN A RECURSIVE SUBROUTINE

We all live in a recursive subroutine,
an awful black machine,
where life is brief and mean.
Why do we live in this cursed dark ravine?
It’s gotta be a bug.

We’ve been stuck in an infinite program loop,
since the pre-Cambrian soup,
without a parachute.
All coders know, which you can’t refute,
that there are always bugs.

How’d it slip by, this gross software defect,
egregiously incorrect,
didn’t anyone inspect?
You wonder why He didn’t hit “reject,”
with a little shrug.

Sooner or later, the system’s gonna crash,
memory’s not cached,
index needs rehashed,
the Programmer, I’d think, would be somewhat abashed
for failing to debug.

Did He, perhaps, forget a parentheses,
the cause of war, disease,
misery, unease?
And why, looking at the murd’rous birds and bees,
should He be so smug?

As programs go, I think He blew “The Universe.”
Have you ever seen one worse?
So obstinate, perverse.
Were I the Client, I’d never reimburse.
I’d just pull the plug.

SF Filker? Though I knew some computerers who weren't but did similar:

.............
This machine it played one , it pushed START and PROGRAM RUN.
It's an IBM 360 85. This computer came alive.

This machine, it played two, overloaded data to the CPU (etc.)

[shandyjan]

Its like playing the Sims. Some people or gods need to play it on the edge with deviancies and wickedness or its boring. New game updates mostly add new features but dont always take away all the bugs.

[HansMustermann]

Well, I never got into that whole set-your-sims-on-fire thing, but ok, I'm told it's popular. And it would be a bit silly of me to campaign for the human rights of NPCs or something.

But I would think someone is seriously deranged if they started genuinely blaming their sims, and kept the kind of hatred of their descendants that Yahweh still isn't over. Or if they wanted to be worshipped by their electronical creations, or that their mortal avatar be worshipped post-mortem. Etc.

But even that doesn't even scratch the surface of the enormity we're talking about. We're not talking God as the impotent buyer of a game, and whose actions are limited to whatever the GUI and rules allows. We're talking about the _creator_, the one who made the whole thing and whose power in that world is as close to infinite as it can be without causing a paradox.

Think not just being the guy who bought The Sims, but the one who singlehandedly programmed the whole thing, from the graphics code to AI to physics, and who can truly do anything imaginable with that world. Boil the seas or cause a flood, turn off gravity, click-and-drag a mountain over there, get any content added that you can imagine and feel like having, change the rules at the drop of a hat, _everything_.

Holding a grudge against those creations because they don't do what you want is freaking _stupid_. If you're the one who wrote their AI and they don't do what you want (e.g., go plucking apples when you told them to do something else), then it's a bug. If your code does something else than you intended, that's not just arguably a bug, it's the very definition of a bug. It's _your_ problem, and it's your own fault, not those Sims'. Starting blaming them and holding grudges instead of fixing your own bugs, is just something unbelievably stupid.

Or you could decide to call it a feature instead, but then there's even less reason to start blaming the Sims.

[BobTheDonkey]

Well, I never got into that whole set-your-sims-on-fire thing, but ok, I'm told it's popular. And it would be a bit silly of me to campaign for the human rights of NPCs or something.

But I would think someone is seriously deranged if they started genuinely blaming their sims, and kept the kind of hatred of their descendants that Yahweh still isn't over. Or if they wanted to be worshipped by their electronical creations, or that their mortal avatar be worshipped post-mortem. Etc.

But even that doesn't even scratch the surface of the enormity we're talking about. We're not talking God as the impotent buyer of a game, and whose actions are limited to whatever the GUI and rules allows. We're talking about the _creator_, the one who made the whole thing and whose power in that world is as close to infinite as it can be without causing a paradox.

Think not just being the guy who bought The Sims, but the one who singlehandedly programmed the whole thing, from the graphics code to AI to physics, and who can truly do anything imaginable with that world. Boil the seas or cause a flood, turn off gravity, click-and-drag a mountain over there, get any content added that you can imagine and feel like having, change the rules at the drop of a hat, _everything_.

Holding a grudge against those creations because they don't do what you want is freaking _stupid_. If you're the one who wrote their AI and they don't do what you want (e.g., go plucking apples when you told them to do something else), then it's a bug. If your code does something else than you intended, that's not just arguably a bug, it's the very definition of a bug. It's _your_ problem, and it's your own fault, not those Sims'. Starting blaming them and holding grudges instead of fixing your own bugs, is just something unbelievably stupid.

Or you could decide to call it a feature instead, but then there's even less reason to start blaming the Sims.
So, what you're saying is that when Christians shift away responsibility for their actions, they're actually being Christ-like?

[HansMustermann]

I was thinking more like Daddy god than Junior god, but that's probably splitting hairs. But yeah, basically, yes.

[Whiplash]

Well, that's one interpretation, Sledge, and probably the sanest one, but I want to see how the "god loves you" crowd reconcile _that_ cognitive dissonance exercise.

I mean, they tell me essentially that in the Genesis God made everything peaceful and serene and perfect, and saw that it was good... even though he has to say so himself. It's not like he's going, "it'll have to do until I get to coding the carnivore AI and plagues next week" or anything. He likes his garden just the way it is.

Then a hairless ape girl plucks an apple, and it's like pulling the pin on a grenade or finding the self-destruct button on a supervillain lair. Everything goes _spectacularly_ nuts. Half the animals start killing the other half, although apparently God hadn't actually created death himself or given them an AI capable of hunting behaviours. Their digestive tract changes. (Unless someone wants to tell me that in the beginning the lions and wolves peacefully ate grass without having been given the kind of stomach that can actually digest it.) Pain is born. Aging kicks in. Monkeys fling poop. Dinosaurs get extinct. Ok, maybe not the last one, but you get the idea.

As bugs go, this is the most spectacular bug ever recorded. The only way it could have gone any more haywire would involve a mushroom cloud.

And God sees it and doesn't exactly go, "Muahahaha, they found it, my master plan works." Nor even, "Darn, I was hoping it would take a bit longer before they figure that one out, but oh well, I knew it would happen when I put that tree there."

No, he's furious. He dishes out punishments and threats. And apparently he turns into a bitter misanthrope and mysoginist because of that.

I mean, that's what the fundies tell us. It's not God wanting it that way all along, it's _us_ who are to blame for ruining a good thing. And it pissed God off no end.

And I say **** that, that's a bug then. If just plucking an apple can make the whole place go surrealistically nuts, and it wasn't intended to happen, that's most clearly a bug.

Why doesn't he fix it instead of blaming the users?


Well, to carry the anaolgy further, maybe it was Satan who had prepared a ton of nasty viruses and just needed the opportunity upload them into these new creatures. He saw it, and acted upon it. HE was the one who took advantage and turned God's paradise into something else.

Maybe you are seeking to blame the idiot users who get themselves infected rather than the cretins who make these system destroying trojans and viruses in the first place, and do such a damn good job of finding ways of tricking you into ingesting them.

Maybe he infected the apple when God wasn't looking. :)

(I'm not religious any longer, I'm just finding some fault with the anology. I suspect that most Christians would end up saying something like the above in response. It was the fact that Satan was able to get hold of us and poison us and our world, not that we made one simple mistake and God suddenly hated us).

ETA: As to arguments as to why God doesn't just destroy Satan, I never held to religious dogma in this regard. While they like to portray God as infinitely more powerful, and he just "allows" Satan to exist, for whatever reason..as just some poor fallen angel.. No.. I'm more inclined to believe in a strong balance of good and evil or order vs chaos. I think that God's "allowing" Satan to exist is nothing more than propganda. :)

[oldunbeliever]

Or how about this scenario?

The Big Guy writes the program and being he's just a designer and not a coder it's full of bugs and he doesn't know how to fix them so he gets a programmer, one of his assistants, Satan by name, to come in and debug the program and Satan, he takes one look at the code and laughs amd rubs his hands together and tells the Big Guy to relax and let him take over and Satan proceeds to turn the bugs into features and adds all kinds of cool stuff like an eternity of torture and ebola viruses and nuclear bombs and so forth, and that's the way it is today, the Big Guy off playing golf or something while his assistant maintains the software.

[HansMustermann]

Dunno, both of you... if you're going to invent your own cosmology and theistic system instead of the Christian one, sure, any other explanation is just as good. Satan did it. Or the chinese dragon. Or maybe it was Santa, helped by a crack squad of easter bunnies.

I'm trying to work within the framework of what the Bible says, so my choices are somewhat more limited.

I'm told that God alone did all that, for example. Satan isn't even mentioned at all in the Genesis, it's a _much_ later addition. And AFAIK Judaism didn't even have an equivalent incarnation of evil until they stole the idea from Zoroastrism.

Anyway, there is no Satan mentioned there at all. Even if you want to take the later version that the snake was Satan (though apparently even there some would argue that the snake was Lilith, an entirely different entity) it's definitely not presented as a co-author of the garden of Eden.

But, at any rate, then it ought to be between God and Satan, not between God and the humans. If, in your version, it's Satan wot did it, then what kind of an (unjust) idiot would blame the two NPCs instead?

I mean, if a coder on my RP-only D&D themed MUD were to introduce a smurf village as his own act of rebellion (it happened verbatim to someone else's MUD), then the sane thing to do is to blame that coder. Not to blame the smurfs. What Yahweh does is basically the equivalent of blaming the smurfs in that scenario.

And if I went to hold grudges against virtual smurfs and build virtual hell areas to torture them in, probably any sane person would think I'm way overdue for psychiatric help.

Blaming the users... well, it's another thing that doesn't really hold water, as the story is told there. Adam and Eve are not his peers, which _users_ would be. They're his _creations_, i.e., basically the equivalent of NPCs. They have exactly the anatomy, physiology and brain that Yahweh gave them.

And regardless of what your NPCs do wrong, doubly so if it's as wrong as to get your system virused, ultimately they only do what you coded them to do. If they don't behave like you wanted them to behave, you have the power to change them to something more to your liking. Starting blaming them is just stupid.

The virus scenario also implies some entity which is, basically, God's peer. He can not only understand where the buffer overflow is, but he can add substantial additions to creation that way. E.g., change some animals into carnivores (including giving them a different metabolism, different biology, and different behaviours), rewire DNA and the ribosomes to use a massively different DNA-copy mechanism (so there would now be aging), and not just modify some bacteria to create plagues (a _good_ god wouldn't do that, right?) but also invent a brand new life form to that end: the viruses.

It's just about as impressive as writing a virus that turns The Sims into Neverwinter Nights 2.

At any rate, that would give Satan the power to not just modify God's world at his will and leisure, it gives him the power of _creation_. And while you may be prepared to concede that kind of extra powers to Satan for balance sake, I don't think any major Christian denomination is prepared to go half as far.

[HansMustermann]

Just to clarify: although maybe I ran too far with the MMO analogy, actually the idea I'm trying to hammer on is simpler:

Whatever you create is _your_ responsibility. And if it doesn't do what you want, it's only _your_ own fault.

It doesn't even have to be NPCs.

- If I were to create a wind turbine and it came apart in even a light breeze (like Eve didn't really need too much pushing to break), then it's my fault. The thing to think is, "where did _I_ go wrong?" Not to start blaming that turbine and hating it.

- If I were to create a bacteria in the lab, engineered to break down old plastic in landfills, but it ends up turning children's guts into goo... it's my own fault and responsibility. Again, the thing to think is, "where did _I_ go wrong?" not to entertain fantasies about torturing those bacteria as punishment for disobeying my wishes.

- If I made some simple robots that scavenge metal pieces and sand in a big plexiglas box and make more copies of themselves, and they escape and start taking cars and cables and streetlights apart to make more of themselves... it's my own fault and responsibility. There is no point in blaming the robots or hating them, since they only do what they're programmed to do. Any responsibility to include safeguards and make sure their behaviour stays within the limits of what I want, is on me not on them.

The problem with the above is that, basically, until very recently such scenarios were either the purely mental kind or prone to the "yeah, but humans have free will and intelligence!" kind of objections. MMOs and MUDs have finally allowed us to explore the concepts by actually making a small garden and a bunch of creatures in it, and even giving them some autonomy and intelligence, and seeing how that all makes sense.

And it turns out that nothing changed. The creation still is entirely the creator's responsibility.

If Van Cleef in WoW ran out of the dungeon instead of giving you a final fight in the Deadmines, you'd expect Blizzard to fix him. Not to tell you that now they hate Van Cleef and they'll punish him and his offspring for 7 generations. If you asked for support for something like that, and the support guy told you that hating the NPC Van Cleef is the fix, you'd think he's finally snapped and they better get him to a doctor ASAP.

[shandyjan]

Personally I was being simplistic comparing to the Sims, like a game of the gods. But the OT god would have no problem blaming the sims for bad stuff going down.
Not intending to take away from the serious discourse Hans which is always fascinating!
And I'm not belonging to the crew who think we are all in some weird computer programme. ;)

[HansMustermann]

Eh, it would be hypocritical of me to ask others to stick to the serious parts :p

[Sledge]

I hadn't actually considered reality as being God playing The Sims, but the idea has merit. Now I'm terrified that one day I'll go to the bathroom, and suddenly find all the doors and windows have been removed.

[quixotecoyote]

I hadn't actually considered reality as being God playing The Sims, but the idea has merit. Now I'm terrified that one day I'll go to the bathroom, and suddenly find all the doors and windows have been removed.

My personal cosmology has always held that the underlying laws of physics were the language the universe runs on, and we're just odd little procedural generations.

[GrandMasterFox]

Not a believer here, so I can only guess what one would say and that is the classic cliche of "he is testing you".

I would think that a more accurate analogy would be that of a father who has a farm and makes his children do all the chores, even if he can do some of them himself or even purchase a machine that will do it for him.
Because it "builds character".

So he isn't "unable" to change it, he's "unwilling" to change it.

P.S
That Wizards of the Coast joke was just pure gold :)

[HansMustermann]

My personal cosmology has always held that the underlying laws of physics were the language the universe runs on, and we're just odd little procedural generations.

That or physics is still the language, but we're a cosmic scale joke told in that language. I mean, all those begats all the way to the origins, could be just the autistic version of "a rabi, a lawyer and cowboy walk into a bar..." ;)

[Ron_Tomkins]

The point has probably been made before, but it kinda starts to bug me, so here goes: why does God give rules and threaten harsh punishments, against bugs that an omnipotent creator should fix himself? It's a bit like MS threatening to throw you in the dungeon if your Windows CTDs.

E.g., Leviticus 11, where the dietary rules are mentioned, and it's a part that gets overused by aplogetics as, basically, "see, it's good, 'cause pork has all sorts of parasites and goes bad very fast in that climate, etc"... wth? Can't God fix that, then? How does one reconcile the idea of an omnipotent God being unable to do more than warn to avoid a part of His creation? That falls a bit short of omnipotence from where I stand.

And apparently it does become fit enough to eat in the NT. So what took Him so long? Or is it that the best an omnipotent God could do was to wait until humans discover smoking and meat fermentation, i.e., sausage making?

And why the threats?

E.g., Exodus 22:18 "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Wth? If magic is such a big problem, why does an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God rely on humans who are imperfect, uninformed and prone to use torture for false results, to solve that problem? Can't He just nerf witches? I'm pretty sure Blizzard, Sony, EA and generally every MMO publisher have managed that feat before, and nobody but their fanboys would call _those_ gods ;)

E.g., there are some 9 places where the Lord warns against those with familiar spirits. Wth? Can't an omnipotent God just nerf familiars, if they're such a nuissance? I'm pretty sure the Wizards Of The Coast managed that before ;)

And so on and so forth, going all the way back to that buggy tree in Genesis. Oh sure, let's punish the users who ran into the bug. That's such a great and responsible attitude. Not.

Eeer.... well ... eer....... uhh..... because the Bible says so!!!

*Starts preparing to cover his ears and yell "NO NO, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LALALALALA!!"*

[HansMustermann]

Not a believer here, so I can only guess what one would say and that is the classic cliche of "he is testing you".

I would think that a more accurate analogy would be that of a father who has a farm and makes his children do all the chores, even if he can do some of them himself or even purchase a machine that will do it for him.
Because it "builds character".

So he isn't "unable" to change it, he's "unwilling" to change it.

P.S
That Wizards of the Coast joke was just pure gold :)

Actually, I'm more like getting the idea of a loving father who put landmines and rabid weasels in the fields he's making you work. 'Cause that _really_ builds character. And will beat you up if you come back without a leg.

[GrandMasterFox]

Actually, I'm more like getting the idea of a loving father who put landmines and rabid weasels in the fields he's making you work. 'Cause that _really_ builds character. And will beat you up if you come back without a leg.

Ah, but you're forgetting the major issue with religion - chery picking what is literal and what isn't...

When he says you'll die he doesn't really mean it. It's kind of like an idle threat. "Don't make me turn this car around" sort of thing.

[BobTheDonkey]

Ah, but you're forgetting the major issue with religion - chery picking what is literal and what isn't...

When he says you'll die he doesn't really mean it. It's kind of like an idle threat. "Don't make me turn this car around" sort of thing.

I dunno...my dad was always willing to actually turn the car around.

Besides, have you read the OT? It's not exactly idle threats.

Being made to wander in the desert for 40 years (actually, those who did the worshiping died in the desert - the entire generation) for worshiping idols makes those commandments most decidedly not idle threats.

[HansMustermann]

Not to mention that a lot of the time the swift kick in the nuts comes not to those who actually broke the commandments, but to those who didn't. E.g., the plague in Numbers 25 doesn't come over those who abandoned faith in Yahweh and moved to Midian, but over Moses's still loyal flock.

Or, to tie back into the idea of Yahweh blaming and punishing his creations for what _he_ made them do: the massacre of the Egyptian babies is exactly such a punishment. The Pharaoh was perfectly willing to let the Jews go, but then God hardens his heart and makes him say no... so God can then do a massacre as punishment for that saying no. Mind boggles.

It's a bit like a watchmaker setting a clock 1 hour late, then somehow punishing it for being 1 hour late. Major WTH.

But yeah, I'm just not getting that "idle threats" vibe.

[Fiona]

It seems to me that you have missed something here, HansMustermann. We are not NPC's we are playing characters, on the Christian conception. The game has rules. We can choose to take specific actions that will get our characters killed.

[quixotecoyote]

It seems to me that you have missed something here, HansMustermann. We are not NPC's we are playing characters, on the Christian conception. The game has rules. We can choose to take specific actions that will get our characters killed.

I don't think that metaphor has legs (ha ha, you see what I did there).

A PC implies a player, someone outside the game in control of the character rather than purely a creation within the game. In the Christian conception, the only one outside of the game is God. Everyone else is created within his ruleset.

[oldunbeliever]

Dunno, both of you... if you're going to invent your own cosmology and theistic system instead of the Christian one, sure, any other explanation is just as good. Satan did it. Or the chinese dragon. Or maybe it was Santa, helped by a crack squad of easter bunnies.

I'm trying to work within the framework of what the Bible says, so my choices are somewhat more limited.

I'm told that God alone did all that, for example. Satan isn't even mentioned at all in the Genesis, it's a _much_ later addition. And AFAIK Judaism didn't even have an equivalent incarnation of evil until they stole the idea from Zoroastrism.

Anyway, there is no Satan mentioned there at all. Even if you want to take the later version that the snake was Satan (though apparently even there some would argue that the snake was Lilith, an entirely different entity) it's definitely not presented as a co-author of the garden of Eden.

But, at any rate, then it ought to be between God and Satan, not between God and the humans. If, in your version, it's Satan wot did it, then what kind of an (unjust) idiot would blame the two NPCs instead?

I mean, if a coder on my RP-only D&D themed MUD were to introduce a smurf village as his own act of rebellion (it happened verbatim to someone else's MUD), then the sane thing to do is to blame that coder. Not to blame the smurfs. What Yahweh does is basically the equivalent of blaming the smurfs in that scenario.

And if I went to hold grudges against virtual smurfs and build virtual hell areas to torture them in, probably any sane person would think I'm way overdue for psychiatric help.

Blaming the users... well, it's another thing that doesn't really hold water, as the story is told there. Adam and Eve are not his peers, which _users_ would be. They're his _creations_, i.e., basically the equivalent of NPCs. They have exactly the anatomy, physiology and brain that Yahweh gave them.

And regardless of what your NPCs do wrong, doubly so if it's as wrong as to get your system virused, ultimately they only do what you coded them to do. If they don't behave like you wanted them to behave, you have the power to change them to something more to your liking. Starting blaming them is just stupid.

The virus scenario also implies some entity which is, basically, God's peer. He can not only understand where the buffer overflow is, but he can add substantial additions to creation that way. E.g., change some animals into carnivores (including giving them a different metabolism, different biology, and different behaviours), rewire DNA and the ribosomes to use a massively different DNA-copy mechanism (so there would now be aging), and not just modify some bacteria to create plagues (a _good_ god wouldn't do that, right?) but also invent a brand new life form to that end: the viruses.

It's just about as impressive as writing a virus that turns The Sims into Neverwinter Nights 2.

At any rate, that would give Satan the power to not just modify God's world at his will and leisure, it gives him the power of _creation_. And while you may be prepared to concede that kind of extra powers to Satan for balance sake, I don't think any major Christian denomination is prepared to go half as far.


Well, no, I'm not blaming the users. They're the victims. I just satirically suggested that the creation program is full of bugs. Then I carried the idea further by suggesting that an assistant may have messed with the code. Here's how.

In any large software project there is a staff of programmers who do the actual
coding based on the design specs as provided by the Boss. God had assistants, called angels and one of them was a baddy called Satan. Now the grunts who ultimately do the actual coding, since they have to know every detail of the specs, could easily, if supervision and error checking is lax, slip in a few lines of code turning Sims into Neverwinter Nights 2 (whatever that is) or indeed invent a brand new life form.

Therefore, my suggestion that Satan, a rebellious angel, for nefarious purposes of his own,
changed the design, or, rather, took advantage of a bad design that is full of bugs,
to re-create portions of the project as he likes, is logically consistent within our scenario. God of course, if he were paying attention, would detect these changes and fire the coder, but He's too busy basking in adoration or whatever; or maybe He's just not smart enough to realize that He has been had.

How else explain all the dumb, inconsistent and evil things that have crept into the program?

Of course ultimately the creator is responsible. But Creation is a big job and He had better be paying attention to His staff.

[GrandMasterFox]

I dunno...my dad was always willing to actually turn the car around.
Many others don't. Heck, they even joked about that in the simpsons :)


Besides, have you read the OT? It's not exactly idle threats.

You're confusing things here. HansMustermann asked about specific things before. Like why are they allowed to eat certain things and not others and god didn't make all the animals an okay thing to eat and threaten to kill you if you ate them.

This wasn't a question of whether or not god punishes people to death. That is why I started my statement with the infamous cherry picking phrase.

They think some of the text are mere warnnings and some warnnings are a serious threat.

I fully admit I'm not 100% fluent of all ancient history trial system, but one must ask if anyone was actually putten to death for eating pork.


Or, to tie back into the idea of Yahweh blaming and punishing his creations for what _he_ made them do: the massacre of the Egyptian babies is exactly such a punishment. The Pharaoh was perfectly willing to let the Jews go, but then God hardens his heart and makes him say no... so God can then do a massacre as punishment for that saying no. Mind boggles.

It's a bit like a watchmaker setting a clock 1 hour late, then somehow punishing it for being 1 hour late. Major WTH.

But yeah, I'm just not getting that "idle threats" vibe.
Because like BobTheDonkey, you are confusing the issues. What does god killing egyptian babies have anything to do with what you said in your original post about eating pork and bugs?

I'm not saying you are wrong on the moral issue here, but you are jumping from one thing to another and each one has its own explanation on the beliver's end of the line.

The killing of the egyptian babies actually makes "perfect sense" in the form of justice that you see througout the bible. It's the "the punishment must fit the crime" theme.

How does the story of the hebrews in egypt start? Slight introduction and then pharoh orders to kill hebrew children. How does it end?
Egyptian children are killed.

See how that works?

Again, for the record, just plaing devil's advocate here.
Not really believing in that stuff...

[BobTheDonkey]

Many others don't. Heck, they even joked about that in the simpsons :)


You're confusing things here. HansMustermann asked about specific things before. Like why are they allowed to eat certain things and not others and god didn't make all the animals an okay thing to eat and threaten to kill you if you ate them.

This wasn't a question of whether or not god punishes people to death. That is why I started my statement with the infamous cherry picking phrase.

They think some of the text are mere warnnings and some warnnings are a serious threat.

I fully admit I'm not 100% fluent of all ancient history trial system, but one must ask if anyone was actually putten to death for eating pork.


Because like BobTheDonkey, you are confusing the issues. What does god killing egyptian babies have anything to do with what you said in your original post about eating pork and bugs?

I'm not saying you are wrong on the moral issue here, but you are jumping from one thing to another and each one has its own explanation on the beliver's end of the line.

The killing of the egyptian babies actually makes "perfect sense" in the form of justice that you see througout the bible. It's the "the punishment must fit the crime" theme.

How does the story of the hebrews in egypt start? Slight introduction and then pharoh orders to kill hebrew children. How does it end?
Egyptian children are killed.

See how that works?

Again, for the record, just plaing devil's advocate here.
Not really believing in that stuff...

It seems that you're the one missing Hans' original point here.

His point is that as we're just constructs in God's game, why does he get mad and punish us for simply exercising the rules/code he/she/it wrote?

[HansMustermann]

No offense, GrandMasterFox, but the purpose of the exercise is not to make bullcrap up. That's not how Exodus goes in the actual Bible. There is no sorta "a baby for a baby" warped justice, the symbolism is entirely different.

Exodus 4

21. And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.

22. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

23. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.

The crime and punishment are pretty darned clear there, and there is no killing of jew babies involved. Every bleeping firstborn in Egypt is slain if the Pharaoh doesn't let the Jewish people -- the Lord's firstborn -- go. (Never mind that 99.999% of those or their parents had no say in the Pharaoh's decision anyway.)

But, and that's the whole fly in the ointment, the Pharaoh only does what the Lord makes him do. He only says "no" because the Lord personally hardened his heart and made him say "no".

So any revenge by the Lord against the Pharaoh for something which the Lord makes him do is freaking stupid.

The same hardening the Pharaoh's heart is also mentioned at the very least in Exodus 7:3, 7:13-14, 7:22, etc... and by this time the Lord was already piling nasty stuff upon Egypt start as punishment for saying "no" too. The theme continues through Exodus 8, 9, 10.

By Exodus 10, the Pharaoh is already fed up with the plagues and pretty much says "ok, go, but I'm not giving you cattle too."

Exodus 10

24. And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you.

25. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God.

26. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.

27. But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go.

The Lord is tampering with the Pharaoh's free will every couple of verses, like clockwork, to make him do his part in setting up the punchline. And a bloody punchline that would be.

Exodus 11

1. And the LORD said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.

2. Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver and jewels of gold.

3. And the LORD gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.

4. And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt:

5. And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts.

6. And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more.

7. But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

8. And all these thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow down themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee: and after that I will go out. And he went out from Pharaoh in a great anger.

9. And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you; that my wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.

10. And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.

Exodus 10:2-3 is interesting because that's an endorsement of mass-theft. The Jews are encouraged to borrow money and jewels and generally everything they can, in the knowledge that they'll bugger off over the desert instead of repaying the loans or giving the jewels back. Nice morals, Yahweh. Real classy.

But let's skip that.

The main theme there is that Moses is to deliver a horrible ultimatum: let the freaking Jews go with the loot, or every single firstborn in Egypt dies. It's something even the worst terrorists haven't even thought about yet.

But again the Lord tampers with the Pharaoh's free will and makes him say no.

And so it happens:

Exodus 12

29. And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

30. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

But even there God apparently he didn't have all his fun yet. He tampers with the Pharaoh again -- honestly, by this point the Pharaoh seems to be God's NPC completely in the matter.

Exodus 14

4. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.

... which is how the Egyptian army gets to follow the Jews and be drowned by the Lord. You know, 'cause it would be boring without one more quick mass-murder as a bye-bye.

[HansMustermann]

And yes, Bob got it perfectly right. This is a place where God doesn't even just punish his automatons for playing by the rules and with the brains they were given, it's a place where he punishes an automaton he had effectively taken full control of and used as a freaking puppet. At every place we're reminded that it wasn't a decision taken by the Pharaoh by his own free will, it's God personally who makes him say "no" repeatedly. Then punishes him for saying "no".

It's as stupid an exercise as taking revenge on a sock puppet, or like a D&D GM ending up coaxing and threatening and punishing an NPC under his full control.

ETA: and it ties in with your previous post, in that it's an illustration of the horrible punishments that Yahweh does dish out. The whole OT theme, like Bob already pointed out, isn't one of empty threats, but of horrible acts of vengeance and punishment by the Lord. When he says "jump", you're supposed to just jump, or there's a mighty steel-toed kick in the nuts coming your way.

[HansMustermann]

And for that matter, check out Romans 9:17: "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth."

Pretty much as clear a confession as you can get that the Pharaoh was from the start an NPC in God's little horror play. He's not even just tampered with when the Moses incident happens, but from the start he's been put there by God for the purpose of God's showing off how great he is.

[RSLancastr]

Shouldn't that be "God the Jolly Swagman"?

[Mr Clingford]

Hans, if you are genuinely asking questions, without taking the piss, why do you ask them in such a sarcastic manner, suggesting anything someone may say in reply is bollocks? It doesn't encourage dialogue.

[HansMustermann]

Mostly I _am_ taking the piss out of the Bible, which I find particularly stupid even as fairy tales go. (But, to be fair, most other religions are just as bad and I won't pass up an opportunity to take the piss out of Buddhism or Islam either.)

I don't remember discouraging anyone from posting their own view though, except in as much as that view (A) relies on logical fallacies, or (B) involves making one's own stuff up. One can, of course, still make up their own analogies and metaphors, but making stuff up about what the Bible says is a no-no.

It doesn't even matter if it's for or against Christianity. Broken logic is still broken logic either way, and arguments from making stuff up are still broken anyway. I don't think we really need either on the atheist side either, basically.

But other than that, shoot, argue what you will, and if you can make it funny too, all the better.

I don't see why sarcasm about the Bible is a problem anyway. If I'm sarcastic and you have a good argument why I'm wrong, it only makes me look stupid.

E.g., if I were to post a sarcastic disbelief post about, say, General Relativity, I can even think of about half a dozen people on this board alone who'd have no trouble demolishing that with solid logic and proper references anyway. At the end of the day, I'd be just the silly nutter who tried an appeal to ridicule fallacy and got pwned.

So, really, why is sarcasm a problem with the Bible?

[Mr Clingford]

Thanks for the reply, Hans, I appreciate it.

I'm not sure what you mean about making stuff up about the Bible, though.

Sarcasm isn't a problem, per se. I do think it is nonsensical and stupid to take amounts of it as literal truth and/ or science. It is a bit tiresome to point at Xtians and say look how stupid they are - it's a broad brush stereotype. We know that a literal reading of the OT God is contradictory.

I think I'm also somewhat cranky ATM!

[Paulhoff]

Hans, if you are genuinely asking questions, without taking the piss, why do you ask them in such a sarcastic manner, suggesting anything someone may say in reply is bollocks? It doesn't encourage dialogue.
What's wrong, can't a so-called all powerful god take it on the chin, seems that it needs others to fight for it.

Not having and/or needing something that explains nothing makes ones thinking much less pigeonholed.

Paul

:) :) :)

[HansMustermann]

Well, for you or me it's clear that the Bible can't be taken literally without _major_ problems. It's not even just the OT god. E.g., in Romans 9, God pretty much generally reserves the right to override the free will of his creations... but he still gets to judge them for the sins that he just made them do. That's NT, not OT.

The problems aren't even new. Reconciling some of those sins with a benevolent god has been the bread and butter of theological philosophy for almost two millenia, and... well, let's just say if you laid all apologists end to end they'd probably reach all the way to the orbit of Jupiter, but still wouldn't reach a consistent conclusion ;)

But for a lot of people it _is_ the literal inerrant word of God. Or so they claim, and there is no shortage of that even on this board.

(... except for the about 80% of it they don't really feel like keeping. Then it's time for "but I think what god really meant is..." and "well, that must have been only Paul's personal opinion, and can be ignored" and whatnot. But apparently except for whatever exact verse you pick on, everything else is 100% the literal and inerrant word of God.;))

And all I'm doing is pointing out the problems with that setup. And taking the piss in the process, as you noticed.

[Simon39759]

Thanks for the reply, Hans, I appreciate it.

I'm not sure what you mean about making stuff up about the Bible, though.

Sarcasm isn't a problem, per se. I do think it is nonsensical and stupid to take amounts of it as literal truth and/ or science. It is a bit tiresome to point at Xtians and say look how stupid they are - it's a broad brush stereotype. We know that a literal reading of the OT God is contradictory.

I think I'm also somewhat cranky ATM!


Well; YOU know that a literal reading of the OT God is contradictory.
But there are many Christians that do not and will defend a literal reading through obfuscating apologetics. These Christians are the one Hans it taking the piss at, IMHO.

There might also be a cultural factor at play here as these literalists are much more common (and powerful, constituting a voting block large and rich enough to influence elections and boards of education) in the US (where Hans, I think, reside) than in the U.K (where you, if I recall, hail from).

[HansMustermann]

But to tackle the other problem too: yes, I know that about half the Christians are Catholics and those have the blanket excuse that they're non-literalists. Except too often that's just an excuse to not have any goalposts at all, much less fixed ones. For most non-priest Catholics you'd be hard pressed to get more than a "yeah, but we're not taking that literally" about most of the Bible. They can't even say what _does_ it mean according to their doctrine.

And when you do get an "it's a metaphor for X", it actually leaves me stumped as to exactly why would god say "black" when apparently it's a metaphor for "white."

E.g., to take Genesis as an example again, but from that angle, I'm told basically that it's one big metaphor for the accretion of Earth, for evolution, etc. And even that when God gives Eve birth pains as punishment for having learned good an evil, what he really means is: a brain big enough for sentience will mean a big head on the baby and it'll hurt like a sonofawitch when it comes out.

But the problem still is that that metaphor gets so many basic things wrong (e.g., birds before reptiles, or advanced trees with seed before a visible sun), that it's really not a metaphor at all. A God who actually knows how that stuff happened, and made it all with his own two hands (ok, ok, with the Logos:)), can put it oversimplified or use metaphoric language, but has no excuse to get the order wrong or basically to describe something hideously unrelated. There's only so much you can stretch a metaphor before it ceases to be a metaphor entirely.

Basically I'd still want to see _some_ stuff in that Bible that supports those leaps of faith to what it really means. Just going "we're not literalists" only cuts it so far.

Well, unless they want to tell me that God was just taking the piss all along. Fair enough. As a bit of a class clown myself, it would be a bit hypocritical of me to ask God to stay serious ;)

[Mr Clingford]

Well; YOU know that a literal reading of the OT God is contradictory.
But there are many Christians that do not and will defend a literal reading through obfuscating apologetics. These Christians are the one Hans it taking the piss at, IMHO.

There might also be a cultural factor at play here as these literalists are much more common (and powerful, constituting a voting block large and rich enough to influence elections and boards of education) in the US (where Hans, I think, reside) than in the U.K (where you, if I recall, hail from).Well remembered about my home country. I think you make a good point about the differences between the two countries. Fortunately we do not have that block the Religious Right in the UK and I come from an educated Anglican background.

[Mr Clingford]

But to tackle the other problem too: yes, I know that about half the Christians are Catholics and those have the blanket excuse that they're non-literalists. Except too often that's just an excuse to not have any goalposts at all, much less fixed ones. For most non-priest Catholics you'd be hard pressed to get more than a "yeah, but we're not taking that literally" about most of the Bible. They can't even say what _does_ it mean according to their doctrine.

And when you do get an "it's a metaphor for X", it actually leaves me stumped as to exactly why would god say "black" when apparently it's a metaphor for "white."

E.g., to take Genesis as an example again, but from that angle, I'm told basically that it's one big metaphor for the accretion of Earth, for evolution, etc. And even that when God gives Eve birth pains as punishment for having learned good an evil, what he really means is: a brain big enough for sentience will mean a big head on the baby and it'll hurt like a sonofawitch when it comes out.

But the problem still is that that metaphor gets so many basic things wrong (e.g., birds before reptiles, or advanced trees with seed before a visible sun), that it's really not a metaphor at all. A God who actually knows how that stuff happened, and made it all with his own two hands (ok, ok, with the Logos:)), can put it oversimplified or use metaphoric language, but has no excuse to get the order wrong or basically to describe something hideously unrelated. There's only so much you can stretch a metaphor before it ceases to be a metaphor entirely.

Basically I'd still want to see _some_ stuff in that Bible that supports those leaps of faith to what it really means. Just going "we're not literalists" only cuts it so far.

Well, unless they want to tell me that God was just taking the piss all along. Fair enough. As a bit of a class clown myself, it would be a bit hypocritical of me to ask God to stay serious ;)
Well to take the two Creation stories, they are myths, stories told to try to make some kind of sense of where we have ended up. As such I don't think it is possible to do any close mapping, as it encounters problems such as the ones you mention. There are Xtians, including me who have considerable problems with the idea of the Fall. The universe is free to develop. For me, a huge problem is that God appears happy with all the pain and suffering that life and evolution entail.

I don't think one can get round the fact that the Bronze and Iron Age peoples had some pretty gruesome ideas about what 'God' is like and there are lots of Xtians who are honestly trying to grapple with those implications. I've just bought an NRSV with notes and I can't wait to unleash it on literalists as it is scholarly. For instance, in the second creation story the notes point out about God, "The LORD God creates the animals in a comical, failed attempt to make a helper" for the man.

I am someone who is reasonably comfortable with uncertainty, and as such, all my ideas are provisional.

[Hux]

Doesn't the two Testaments become Metaphorical, the more people question and observe them?

Is metaphor not the only way to read what is palpable crap if claimed to be reality?

[Mr Clingford]

Doesn't the two Testaments become Metaphorical, the more people question and observe them?

Is metaphor not the only way to read what is palpable crap if claimed to be reality?

What do you mean by metaphor? There are many types of writing.

[HansMustermann]

Well, what I would expect from a _good_ metaphor, heck, even a barely _usable_ metaphor (or metonimy, or simile, or whatever), is that it conveys a clear meaning and not just helps obfuscate.

E.g., when I say that I paid damages, or was sentenced to pay damages, the metonymy doesn't need any further explaining or retrofitting. It's clear right there that I mean a compensation for damage I caused. (Presumably, monetary.)

E.g., if I say that Hollywood produced only crap this year, it takes very little more context to understand that by "Hollywood" I mean the American film industry. And not literally the city in relationship with its sewage system.

E.g., when Shakespeare wrote, "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances" it's pretty clear what he's trying to say with that metaphor.

Now enter the Catholics trying to reconcile the bible with science by claiming it's just a series of parables or metaphors where it doesn't fit...

I'm supposed to understand that, for example, when it says that God created Adam from dirt and then Eve from Adam's rib, it's actually saying that the two appeared by evolution from apes, and pretty much both at the same time at that.

Or that the creation sequence in Genesis 1 is actually accretion, and evolution, and (even in one thread on this board) it actually metaphorically describes the Theia impact too. (See, Giant Impact Hypothesis for the formation of the moon.) Never mind that the order is completely unworkable to that end. If the Theia impact had actually happened when there were already trees with seeds, for example, we wouldn't be here to debate this. Earth already had an oxygen atmosphere and there is no way for life to appear from scratch again in these conditions. (And yes, an impact whose raw energy turns Earth into a molten ball of lava, would leave no traces of the existing life.)

But more importantly, it's _horrible_ and non-working metaphors, or as whatever other literary devices you wish to call them. If you made someone read Genesis 1, and they don't already know about Theia, there's no way it'll convey that meaning to them.

The only way to link those two is basically to decree that that's what it means. But unfortunately at that point, it's a bit like Nostradamus: you can assign almost any other arbitrary meaning too. At that point it's bereft of any claim to give you any actual information, that you didn't already get from another source anyway. And it makes no testable predictions, since you can just retrofit another meaning later if any particular prediction fails.

In short, it becomes just about as useless as the apendix on humans.

[Mr Clingford]

Fair enough. As I see the creation stories in the category of myth, I see attempts to try to make them fit science, even metaphorically, as misunderstandings of the nature of the texts.

Hux did refer rather sweepingly to both the OT and the NT. The Bibles are collections of lots of different types of writings.

[Simon39759]

Well, what I would expect from a _good_ metaphor, heck, even a barely _usable_ metaphor (or metonimy, or simile, or whatever), is that it conveys a clear meaning and not just helps obfuscate.
E.g., when I say that I paid damages, or was sentenced to pay damages, the metonymy doesn't need any further explaining or retrofitting. It's clear right there that I mean a compensation for damage I caused. (Presumably, monetary.)
E.g., if I say that Hollywood produced only crap this year, it takes very little more context to understand that by "Hollywood" I mean the American film industry. And not literally the city in relationship with its sewage system.
E.g., when Shakespeare wrote, "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances" it's pretty clear what he's trying to say with that metaphor.
Now enter the Catholics trying to reconcile the bible with science by claiming it's just a series of parables or metaphors where it doesn't fit...
I'm supposed to understand that, for example, when it says that God created Adam from dirt and then Eve from Adam's rib, it's actually saying that the two appeared by evolution from apes, and pretty much both at the same time at that.
Or that the creation sequence in Genesis 1 is actually accretion, and evolution, and (even in one thread on this board) it actually metaphorically describes the Theia impact too. (See, Giant Impact Hypothesis for the formation of the moon.) Never mind that the order is completely unworkable to that end. If the Theia impact had actually happened when there were already trees with seeds, for example, we wouldn't be here to debate this. Earth already had an oxygen atmosphere and there is no way for life to appear from scratch again in these conditions. (And yes, an impact whose raw energy turns Earth into a molten ball of lava, would leave no traces of the existing life.)
But more importantly, it's _horrible_ and non-working metaphors, or as whatever other literary devices you wish to call them. If you made someone read Genesis 1, and they don't already know about Theia, there's no way it'll convey that meaning to them.
The only way to link those two is basically to decree that that's what it means. But unfortunately at that point, it's a bit like Nostradamus: you can assign almost any other arbitrary meaning too. At that point it's bereft of any claim to give you any actual information, that you didn't already get from another source anyway. And it makes no testable predictions, since you can just retrofit another meaning later if any particular prediction fails.
In short, it becomes just about as useless as the apendix on humans.


Do Roman Catholic really say it is metaphoric?
In my experience, the official version is that it is a myth or a bit of poetry that got added to the Bible, from a pre-Abrahamic source.
It is 'real', if you want, but as a moral story (because the moral "disobey God and you will be punished" is real) not as a scientific or historical fact.

[HansMustermann]

As I was saying, I've seen it literally argued as being clearly a metaphor for the Theia impact. Whether that's the official RCC position, I wouldn't know. I'm actually curious by now, actually.

[Andrew Wiggin]

I hadn't actually considered reality as being God playing The Sims, but the idea has merit. Now I'm terrified that one day I'll go to the bathroom, and suddenly find all the doors and windows have been removed.

Not only removed, but replaced with portraits of clowns!

A

[Hux]

What do you mean by metaphor? There are many types of writing.

I mean that metaphor is the last bastion for the credulous and gullible. When some are ambushed by reality, they claim such theological writings to be metaphorical rather than real. This gives them a little breathing space whilst their world view continues to crumble.

[Mr Clingford]

I mean that metaphor is the last bastion for the credulous and gullible. When some are ambushed by reality, they claim such theological writings to be metaphorical rather than real. This gives them a little breathing space whilst their world view continues to crumble.

That can happen, true, but you're still not really explaining what you mean by metaphor. Perhaps you have a black and white view of this world - things are either exactly as said or worthless metaphor?

It is possible to approach the Bibles with a different mind set, one that examines the texts more as texts, considering what type of writing they are first.

[Hux]

That can happen, true, but you're still not really explaining what you mean by metaphor. Perhaps you have a black and white view of this world - things are either exactly as said or worthless metaphor?

It is possible to approach the Bibles with a different mind set, one that examines the texts more as texts, considering what type of writing they are first.

I never said Metaphor was worthless. Some of our treasured writings are beautiful in metaphor. But it seems in the case of the scriptures, which is what we seem to be discussing, Metaphor is becoming a hiding place where blind faith once sat. It makes the literalists all the more ridiculous and the moderates are overwhelmingly eager to engage the rest of us in what turns out to be lessons in theology. As if we didn't see right through these things in the first place. But at its heart, religion needs to be based upon a core belief and not just metaphor. Metaphor grows itself into the corner like the God of the decreasing gaps.

I now hear many christians talking about the Lazarus trick as a Metaphor. Once, not that long ago, it was claimed to be actual. (A better trick, I always imagined. than Jesus' rising. Lazarus was dead at least four days and smelling a bit) Now its a metaphor for spiritual awakening. And that's as far away from the original claims as you can get.

[GrandMasterFox]

Okay, let me explain something. If you accuse me of 2 crimes, even if they are the same crime, it is my right to decide how to defend myself against them.

For example, if you accuse me of commiting 2 murders, then I can either dismiss both at once like I was out of the country for both murders or that I can dismiss them seperatlely for different reasons like I had an alibi for one and to show you a tape of the real second killer.

And even if you can prove that I committed one murder, that doesn't mean that I'm guilty of all murders in existence. Doesn't mean I'm not, but there is a reason why there is a separate verdict for each murder.

So going by our case here, even though you are talking about the same crime (god punishes mortals for his own faults) it doesn't matter at all and its each case to his own merits and it is the right of the defendant how he wishes to manage his defense.

That is why I said "missing the point". I can dismiss one claim out of the "idle threat" part and it has nothing to do anything that happens at any other point.





Now, as for the killing of babies part, that is actually true and not made up.
Remember why they sent Moses down the river in the first place? Because Pharoh had ordered them to slaughter the hebrew babies (Exodus 1:22) and the people took part in that so it's their fault as well. You'll also notice that 2 women refused to go along earlier and got rewarded for it.

This is a COMMON theme in the bible. The story begins one way and later has something to do with how it started even though in most cases the story teller doesn't actually tell you one has to do with the other. Which would indeed suggest of course that the story is a parable and not a historical fact but that's another story.

That is the reason why this particular plague was chosen to be the last one. And for the same reason, what happens after that? They follow them and drown in the sea, just like the hebrew babies were drowned at the sea.
See? Common theme.

This is why the plauge of first borns was given as the last one.

As for hardenning the pharo's heart, I can't give the christian explanation, but the jewish one would be that the issue is that pharoh is what most people would define as the first anti-semite who wanted to obliterate the hebrews for who they are rather than a random conquest.

Therefore god needed to make sure that nobody will ever want to mess with his chosen people ever again and therefore could not allow the pharoh to simply say "I'm sorry" and be done with it. God needs to make sure that everyone knows not to mess with his chosen people and that nobody will ever think of doing it again. So 1 plague isn't enough of a punishment he need to take 10.

But now comes the question, if god gives 10 plagues and only the last one convinces the pharoh to send the hebrews away, does that mean the first 9 arean't really that impressive? So the only way to solve that would be to say that it was really impressive but god wanted there to be 10 plagues so he hardned the pharo's heart.

This would basically be like "yeah, I know you're sorry but that's not enough"
Which is why I said it's the non-christian answer.

[HansMustermann]

Well, to be honest, the word "metaphor" itself gets a bit overused by both camps, and I'm guilty of it too, so I'm not pointing fingers on this issue. Some of it could arguably be better filed under, say, allegory (i.e., an extended metaphor, and any metaphor that goes on for several chapters is pretty darned extended in my book;)) or parable (a fictional story to illustrate a concept) and so on.

The problem is that I can't think of many places which get saved by such a re-categorization.

E.g., if the whole apple incident in Genesis is just a parable to illustrate "it's bad to disobey", well, it's a pretty bad parable. It doesn't really illustrate the perils of disobeying in a more memorable way than pretty much postulating divine vengeance at the end. There have been far better takes on the theme of disobedience from a purely secular view, by making it its own punishment, e.g., via a poetic justice twist.

Or it's hard not to notice that Aesop managed to need far less words and far less useless tangents and boring setup, to convey morals that weren't any simpler than this. He managed to argue for nature in nature-vs-nature or to justify child abuse, in just a couple of paragraphs, for example. And they're easier to remember too, than the whole recapitulating the whole creation im Genesis... twice... and in two incompatible ways at that... just to set the stage for where the incident in the parable happened.

The second, and far more perverse problem, is the whole idea of Original Sin. Which the Catholics still have as a core doctrine, last I checked. And which hinges on Adam and Eve doing something that horrible, that the Lord has been pissed at the whole species ever since.

(And in turn a lot of other church rationalizations, such as WTH do they need an immaculate conception of Mary for, depend on their still keeping the idea of Original Sin. If there is no Original Sin, it makes no sense to make a fuss of Mary's being free from it from the start.)

Anyway, if we classify Genesis as just a (bad) parable, if Adam and Eve are just fictional characters in a fictional story to convey a whole different moral, it leaves us without any explanation of what the heck is that Original Sin all about. If a teenage girl (with no sense of right or wrong yet!) _didn't_ tick off the Lord by stealing apples, then, really, what is the Lord ticked off about anyway? What _is_ the Original Sin then?

Or if it's just a metaphor for reaching sentience... is it telling us that the Lord simply hates us for being sentient? That seems... dumb. Any creator would be thrilled at having made an even better automaton for his little garden of wonders. And as the loving father analogy goes, now we have a loving father who hates one of his children for being too smart. WTH? What kind of a deranged idiot _is_ he?

[HansMustermann]

Right, right, I get it. So, the killing of the firstborn of cattle, which crime was that supposed to avenge? :p

[BobTheDonkey]

You're still missing the point, Fox.

The point is that God wrote the rules of the game and then gets mad at the NPCs who follow the rules. Whatever the symbolism, God punishes the Pharaoh and his innocent (more or less) subjects for simply playing within the game's parameters. If God didn't want Pharaoh to kill the Jewish first-born sons, why not simply write the rules in such a manner that doesn't allow Pharaoh to make it happen?


It's as if God said "Oh, F-me...I can't get past this level..." and then typed IDDQD...

[Mr Clingford]

I never said Metaphor was worthless. Some of our treasured writings are beautiful in metaphor. But it seems in the case of the scriptures, which is what we seem to be discussing, Metaphor is becoming a hiding place where blind faith once sat. It makes the literalists all the more ridiculous and the moderates are overwhelmingly eager to engage the rest of us in what turns out to be lessons in theology. As if we didn't see right through these things in the first place. But at its heart, religion needs to be based upon a core belief and not just metaphor. Metaphor grows itself into the corner like the God of the decreasing gaps.Ok. Point taken about appreciation of metaphor. Remember that an insistence on a literal 6 day creation is a 20th Century phenomenon. As far back as Augustine, Xtians have paid attention to science with regard to the creation stories.

I agree that for Xtianity to be recognisably Xtian it must posit a real God and Jesus as divine.
I now hear many christians talking about the Lazarus trick as a Metaphor. Once, not that long ago, it was claimed to be actual. (A better trick, I always imagined. than Jesus' rising. Lazarus was dead at least four days and smelling a bit) Now its a metaphor for spiritual awakening. And that's as far away from the original claims as you can get.It wouldn't surprise that the Lazarus story is interpreted by some as not actually happening, but who are these many Xtians? The mainstream understanding would be still literal history. I am curious about where you have come across these Xtians.

[Mr Clingford]

Well, to be honest, the word "metaphor" itself gets a bit overused by both camps, and I'm guilty of it too, so I'm not pointing fingers on this issue. Some of it could arguably be better filed under, say, allegory (i.e., an extended metaphor, and any metaphor that goes on for several chapters is pretty darned extended in my book;)) or parable (a fictional story to illustrate a concept) and so on.

The problem is that I can't think of many places which get saved by such a re-categorization.

E.g., if the whole apple incident in Genesis is just a parable to illustrate "it's bad to disobey", well, it's a pretty bad parable. It doesn't really illustrate the perils of disobeying in a more memorable way than pretty much postulating divine vengeance at the end. There have been far better takes on the theme of disobedience from a purely secular view, by making it its own punishment, e.g., via a poetic justice twist.

Or it's hard not to notice that Aesop managed to need far less words and far less useless tangents and boring setup, to convey morals that weren't any simpler than this. He managed to argue for nature in nature-vs-nature or to justify child abuse, in just a couple of paragraphs, for example. And they're easier to remember too, than the whole recapitulating the whole creation im Genesis... twice... and in two incompatible ways at that... just to set the stage for where the incident in the parable happened.It isn't just setting the stage, though, the creation stories show that it is not the sun, moon and stars which are divine but God instead. I don't have an understanding of the all the Apple stuff as it doesn't make much sense to me. I like your comparison to Aesop as it is one I use myself! There are a lot of these stories in Genesis; I think they are called aetiological as they try to explain something like a geographical feature, why something is as it is.

The second, and far more perverse problem, is the whole idea of Original Sin. Which the Catholics still have as a core doctrine, last I checked. And which hinges on Adam and Eve doing something that horrible, that the Lord has been pissed at the whole species ever since.

(And in turn a lot of other church rationalizations, such as WTH do they need an immaculate conception of Mary for, depend on their still keeping the idea of Original Sin. If there is no Original Sin, it makes no sense to make a fuss of Mary's being free from it from the start.)

Anyway, if we classify Genesis as just a (bad) parable, if Adam and Eve are just fictional characters in a fictional story to convey a whole different moral, it leaves us without any explanation of what the heck is that Original Sin all about. If a teenage girl (with no sense of right or wrong yet!) _didn't_ tick off the Lord by stealing apples, then, really, what is the Lord ticked off about anyway? What _is_ the Original Sin then?
A lot of people have a beef with Original Sin - actually it is not an Orthodox doctrine and it is contentious whether the Fall can only mean Original Sin. For me, I just go by the fact that no-one is perfect, we all contain selfishness and act upon it and that gets in the way of our relationships. I find the punishing God to be a complete turn off.


Or if it's just a metaphor for reaching sentience... is it telling us that the Lord simply hates us for being sentient? That seems... dumb. Any creator would be thrilled at having made an even better automaton for his little garden of wonders. And as the loving father analogy goes, now we have a loving father who hates one of his children for being too smart. WTH? What kind of a deranged idiot _is_ he?
I agree that that would be a crap God and I don't think Xtians understand it to be reaching sentience. What is this first sin is contentious. My NRSV suggests this in the notes as a possible interpretation: "It describes how the maturing of humans into civilised life involved damage of connections between the LORD God, man, woman and earth". It's a suggestion. I'm open to interpretations.

[HansMustermann]

I would assume that when Pope Pius IX invoked papal infallibility in proclaiming ex cathedra the immaculate conception of Mary, Origina Sin would also kinda stop being a debatable issue. I mean, the Pope is guided by the Holy Spirit when making ex cathedra pronouncements, or so the silly buggers tell us. It's almost as good as pronouncement by the Holy Spirit in person.

And if the Holy Spirit told him that Mary was free since conception of something non-existent... well, then the Holy Spirit is a right comedian. I like his style ;)

This creates a problem with the interpretation that sentience _is_ the Original Sin, e.g., because it weakened our connection with god... yep, I don't doubt that you see it coming. Was Mary non-sentient?

Seems a bit harsh on the poor girl.

Basically it seems to me like going non-literal still has its fair share of inconsistencies and problems too.

[Mr Clingford]

There are always problems with interpreting religious texts! Written in different places, and cultures and times and languages and with multiple slightly differing copies.

I didn't quite follow the infallibility bit and how Original Sin and Immac Con connect, but then I'm not schooled in Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

And if you're going to go that far about poor Mary not being all human, well, she was/is a woman. (!)

[HansMustermann]

The short and skinny is that "Immaculate Conception" means that Mary was since day zero as a cute little zygote completely free from "Original Sin". And a Pope basically invoked his being right about it because the Holy Spirit told him about the whole Immaculate Conception deal. How would that work, if there were no such thing as Original Sin?

Seems to me like no Pope is going to proclaim the Original Sin as being debatable any time soon.

Once something has been proclaimed ex cathedra, you can't un-proclaim it even by another ex cathedra proclamation. No, literally. You can't invoke the infallibility to overrule another Pope's infallibility.

[Mr Clingford]

Ta, that's what I wondered. IMO the Catholic Church has got itself into a pickle with their Infallibility Clause (Invisibility Cloak?). Possibly a bit arrogant and over self-confident of them, if not mistaken power politics.