H E Pennypacker
@HEPennypack1
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Math teacher. Part-time woodworker. Liberal. Former Christian. Vegan. Master of the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
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Is there free will in heaven? If there is, then it seems that God could have created our world free of sin while maintaining the volition of man. Why, then, do we have a fallen world? Surely it's not of necessity.
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1. God is the greatest conceivable being.
2. A being that doesn't condone slavery is conceivably greater than one that does.
3. Yahweh condones slavery.
4. Yahweh is not the greatest conceivable being. Conclusion: Yahweh is not God
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@MattWalshBlog
I'm a school teacher Matt. Have you ever tried to teach 7 classes a day with 35 hormone filled students who could give a shit regarding what you're teaching? Then staying for after-school tutoring? Then getting home, grading papers and writing lesson plans into the late evening?
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1. God is the greatest conceivable being.
2. A being that doesn't drown infants is conceivably greater than one that does.
3. Yahweh drowns infants.
4. Yahweh is not the greatest conceivable being.
Conclusion: Yahweh is not God
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Here were the typical Christian mental gymnastics from my post yesterday regarding slavery in the OT:
1) Slavery was just indentured servitude.
2) We're all slaves in one sense or another.
3) Every society has had some form of slavery.
4) God can do what he wants. He's God.
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For Christians that affirm evolution and read Genesis as non-literal, how do you square this with the fact that the writers of scripture referenced Genesis as literal history?
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Christians only make up about 31% percent of the population. The world seems unable to determine unambiguously what constitutes God's revelation. And even that 31% can't agree on how to interpret God's "clear" revelation. If the Christian God exists, he is a poor communicator.
There are many who say God does not exist because if he did, he would be a better communicator and clearer. Yet, many more say he does exist because of the clarity of his communication.
Being one of the latter God's revelation in Christ is loud and clear.
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@grcastleberry
So in the Gospel of Matthew where it says that the graves of the saints were opened and they walked around Jerusalem, this is not a myth? This is cold, hard, objective history? Pious zombies?
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According to Christianity, God has an urgent message for humanity. Our salvation and the well-being of our eternal lives depends on it. And yet God's message is concealed in an iron age book that is indistinguishable from the myths and primitive barbarism of it's time.
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@dragodimitrov
Condone means "approving of or sanctioning." Slavery means "owning another person as property."
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@autocorrect2_0
I've never met a non-believer who claimed that, for instance, Jesus' admonition to love your neighbor as yourself was evil. That's a caricature.
And way to avoid the actual argument.
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@grcastleberry
There are literally thousands of different Christian denominations Grant. How do you know you have the right one? Or to put it another way, how do you know you're interpreting scripture correctly?
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@negativenancy29
@MattWalshBlog
Just because someone chose profession (x) doesn't entail that profession (x) is properly compensated. I didn't choose the nursing profession, but I can still argue that they should be paid more.
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@autocorrect2_0
Isn't it just more likely that a book written during the Iron Age, when fantastic and mythological tales were ubiquitous, is the result of primitive and gullible religious fervor?
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@wendelltalks
Hey Wendell, do you mind explicating what is contradictory in the "nature of atheism?"
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@_ChristIsLord
Slavery is the owning of another person as property or as a possession. Leviticus 25: 45 makes it quite clear that the Israelites could own foreigners as slaves in this way.
Promulgating immoral laws is immoral, no matter the intended audience.
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We don't choose our beliefs. Finding an inference convincing either forces itself upon us, or doesn't. Atheists, then, are not atheists of their own volition. They didn't choose it. And if it turns out that God does in fact exist, then nonbelief is quite literally his failing.
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@autocorrect2_0
How sad that you were brought to the point where you almost took your own life over a made-up notion like "sin."
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@benshapiro
Be charitable Ben. I'm pretty sure she didn't mean that Fifty Shades of Grey should be in a children's library.
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@MinistriesMicah
If the state "regulated" that someone could gamble away (i.e. bet) their children as property, would you consider the law immoral?
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@autocorrect2_0
Caricatures aside, the issue with Christian indoctrination is that it's usually performed on children, not adults.
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In light of the advent of Easter, I thought I would highlight two accounts of the Empty Tomb in Mark (left) and Matthew (right) that *clearly* contradict each other. The contradiction between these passages is evident, and gives us reason to doubt the veracity of the tradition.
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@ifffster
The flipside of that notion, though, is that because there are so many different denominations of Christianity, the indictment of not *truly* understanding Christianity can always be leveled at those who left a tradition different than the one espoused at the moment.
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@thesmithsquares
We former believers all felt the same at some point. The point at which my faith was slipping away seems like a distant memory now. It was tough and emotionally discomforting, but I'm personally happier on this side.
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Ah yes, God revealed himself in the 2,000 year old medium that was written in an ancient language, decades after the events it records, with disparate accounts, with no originals, and during a time when superstition was rampant. Makes sense.
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@grcastleberry
No, the reason we "hate" the Bible is because it promotes a barbaric, primitive, misogynistic, superstitious, and false worldview--and yet people still venerate it and attempt to enact legislation under its authority.
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@NathanBozeman2
Foreign slaves were slaves for life (their master's property) as were their offspring. Their children were literally sold into slavery. Claiming the Bible has moral high ground here is like claiming Charles Manson has moral high ground compared to John Wayne Gacy.
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@NoHolyScripture
That's what caused me to deconvert. My testicles got crushed and I knew I was unworthy of the Lord Almighty. I packed up my stuff, including my crushed testicles, and went home.
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@copystarr
@TateTheTalisman
Demographics that consume low amounts of dairy have optimal health, longevity, and lower levels of heart disease and cancer compared with demographics that consume higher amounts of dairy.
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@scrowder
Correlation does not equal causation Steven. Men's testosterone and sperm count levels are decreasing. They're also making up a smaller ratio in graduate degrees, and are doing poorer in grade school overall. The number of incels is increasing. Maybe the problem is not women.
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@_ChristIsLord
No, my employers do not own me as property nor as a possession. People don't "sell themselves" to their employers, they exchange in a voluntary agreement to exchange labor for money. In the military, the bodies of soldiers are not chattel, and are not owned as possessions.
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@autocorrect2_0
Because no one denies that there are Biblical verses that promote justice and beauty. Those verses aren't the issue. The issue is the plethora of verses that do indeed promote slavery, genocide, misogyny, and primitive barbarism.
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@autocorrect2_0
The claim isn't that there can't possibly be any good reason for permitting the suffering. The claim is that if God is omnipotent then he could achieve this good without the need for suffering.
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My fellow non-believers: Were you once a believer, or were you always a non-believer?
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@wendelltalks
Yeah, the foundation of modern biology, anatomy, genetics, paleontology, anthropology, and psychology is false. But a book written 2,000 years ago by primitive, superstitious, barbaric, and Iron Age writers must be our guiding light.
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@CapturingChrist
Except that in the Bible God has regrets, gets jealous, murders children, and somehow dies. All varieties of imperfection.
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@wendelltalks
Translation: Dear Christian, sometimes you will realize that reality is at odds with what you believe. This will produce psychological discomfort. Don't give in. Ignore your doubts and give in to cognitive dissonance.
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@HoytRaptor
@MattWalshBlog
Bravo for your dad. Unfortunately, no anecdotal evidence of this kind is enough to demonstrate that teachers are not underpaid. And the notion that "real men" don't complain about the inadequacy of their compensation for their profession is a non-sequitor.
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What a strange coincidence that people tend to adhere to the religion they were raised around. It's almost as if religious belief is not rooted in rational consideration and evidence, but is instead a cultural and geographic happenstance. 🤔
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Pretty much every creationist is a theist. Is this not a striking correlation? Does anyone really believe that creation scientists are approaching their scientific endeavors without a foregone conclusion? Are they following the evidence where it leads, or leading the evidence?
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Either 1) our moral intuitions can be applied to evaluate God's actions, or 2) they cannot. If 1), then we can, for instance, survey the Bible to justifiably infer that Yahweh is not good. If 2), then we cannot justifiably say that God is good.
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The Bible was written during a time when people used to try to predict the future from the entrails of animals. Antiquity was the epitome of superstition; people simply didn't know better. Is it any shock, then, that the Bible contains talking donkeys, zombies, and magical fruit?
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@AiG
So when God's word says it's moral to own other people as property, but my view of reality entails that this is immoral, I should side with scripture?
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@grcastleberry
Yeah, trust Christ because otherwise he'll burn you for eternity. That's a great sales pitch.
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@SteveTiger999
Precisely! There's a plethora of portraits of Yahweh in the OT that lend themselves to this argument.
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@NathanBozeman2
The existence of God (i.e.the necessary being) is the necessary and self-sufficient condition that explains why there is anything at all. His nature is the standard and the origin of order, meaning, beauty, morality, and logic. God cannot be denied lest these things be denied.
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@ProudSocialist
They fall for it because tribalism is alive and well. They've been misled into thinking the opposition to their freedom comes from those on the other side of the political spectrum instead of the system itself.
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@autocorrect2_0
Foreign slavery in the OT consisted of 1) keeping slaves for life, 2) passing them down through the family, 3) keeping their children as slaves, and 4) the ability to beat them so long as they didn't die immediately.
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@LizzyEllaK
@MattWalshBlog
My problem is not the students. If I were to leave the profession it would not be because of the students.
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@autocorrect2_0
Of course I would agree with that. I'm not closed off to the existence of God and the supernatural. That notwithstanding, an Iron Age book that mentions fantastic things, with no way to justify it's truth, is just not good evidence, at all.
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@autocorrect2_0
@RandalRauser
@mrickardpgh
If God can take life at will and we cannot, then God's nature, which grounds His actions, is not our standard of goodness. This has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
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@TentSpike
@autocorrect2_0
Cherry picking is not a persuasive option for one who wants to claim that the totality of the Bible is righteous and just. But for those of us who understand that the Bible is an amalgam of beauty and abhorrent nonsense, cherry picking is no issue.
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@MereSkepticism
If God can do as he wishes, can he conceivably command rape?
Slavery being common, doesn't make it moral.
Is codifying rape immoral?
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The majority of believers were indoctrinated into their beliefs. The majority of non-believers overcame this indoctrination and gradually stopped believing because of the lack of evidence. Which epistemic disposition is rooted in rational reflection?
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@autocorrect2_0
We've gone over it 100 times because you've never been able to justify your position. And I've provided clear syllogisms regarding why your position is problematic:
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@autocorrect2_0
If God can treat his creation however he desires, no matter the amount of suffering, pain, agony, and death it causes, then his nature is not the standard of goodness.
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@w210203040
@tee_aziz
@TateTheTalisman
He literally said "An Alpha male can't be vegan." Meaning all I need is one counterexample to prove him wrong.
Now if you want to defend the claim that vegans are weaker versions of themselves, then I'd be happy to hear your justification.
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@sarahsalviander
Many times when I engage Christians and I bring to light certain verses that are morally vacuous, they seem to have no idea that verses like that were even in the Bible in the first place. Sorry, but most Christians don't read their Bible "properly."
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You can't make this stuff up.
Biblical slavery was a good thing, actually, and would solve many of our current problems.
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@Jesus4AllAlways
Forgive me, but I'm a bit confused regarding exactly how what you articulated addresses my question.
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The Bible appears as a book we wouldnt expect to be inspired by God. It contains errors, interpolations, contradictions, and primitive superstition. It does contain beauty, poetry, and some history, but this is largely overshadowed by barbaric nonsense of its time.
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@wendelltalks
The earliest historical record where we see mention of an empty tomb comes at least three decades after the supposed events it records. We really don't know if there even is a fact of the matter regarding an empty tomb.
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@NathanBozeman2
Slavery is wrong. Period. This isn't an emotional response, it's a moral truth. Absolving the Bible on the grounds of anachronistic sensibilities doesn't really cut it. We're talking about the God of the universe here.
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@autocorrect2_0
All education is indoctrination. But not all indoctrination is created equal.
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@0liviajulianna
Biden is the most progressive president we've had? I must've missed when he reduced the Pentagon budget, regulated Wall Street, gave us universal Healthcare, and eliminated student loan debt.
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@AleMartnezR1
Sorry, but we have no testimonies from eyewitnesses. What we have are copies of copies of copies, which contain a plethora of errors, of documents that were written decades after the events took place, of which we do not possess the originals.
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@autocorrect2_0
No, I'm claiming that if God can perform actions that would be immoral for humans to perform, then God's nature is not the standard of goodness.
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@darwintojesus
Jesus is not equating himself with God in that passage, he's equating himself with the Son of Man figure from the book of Daniel. They were not understood to be the same figure.
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@Zenaphobe
Indeed. And the fact that Jesus affirms the story of Noah as historical makes it all the worse for inerrantists.
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Ladies and gentlemen, I give you religious cognitive dissonance at its finest:
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@_ChristIsLord
It doesn't *have* to be proven. Self-evident propositions are permissible in logical syllogisms. Nevertheless, it seems quite clear that a being that causes unnecessary suffering to infants is not maximally great. Any child can conceive of a greater being.
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@aaron_p_edwards
It seems to me the question is not whether we get to disagree with God but, rather, if we get to disagree with those claiming to speak on behalf of God. And the answer is: of course we do.
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Let us not forget that in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' death causes a premature resurrection of the dead wherein the dead Saints leave their graves and go window shopping in Jerusalem. But, the Gospels are sober historical accounts based on a rigid oral tradition, right?
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@Saif61099546831
Yeah, so God could conceivably command rape on that thesis. It sort of refutes itself.
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@NathanBozeman2
The other cultures of the aNE have an excuse: they were primitive iron age desert tribes with no omnibenevolent divine being instructing them. The Israelites unfortunately didn't have this excuse.
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@autocorrect2_0
That doesn't excuse keeping someone as a slave for life, nor their children. Nor does it excuse the ability to beat them to death.
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@wendelltalks
I must've missed the part where Marx and Darwin were US government lobbyists and legislators.
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@RudyCerda
No it's not. It contains numerous inaccuracies (scientific as well as historical), immoral and abhorrent actions and proclamations on behalf of God, and fanciful and naive mythology. It's clearly a primitive book of the ancient Near East.
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The God of the philosophers: Purely actual, changeless, non-temporal, immaterial, the standard of goodness.
Yahweh: Exhibits human emotions, exists in time, manifests physically at times, drowns infants and commits genocide.
Methinks these two are not the same.
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@geostylegeo
I'm not a believer, but this is not a logical hill to die on. Jesus almost certainly existed.
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@LiveDie4Jesus
You can mock L. Ron Hubbard now, but you will bow down to Xenu later. Willingly or not.
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@darwintojesus
Because he believed himself to be the Messiah, who, in that time, was understood to be the one to usher in the new reign of God as the Son of Man figure. It was a move of political and religious insurgency.
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@darwintojesus
Some yes, but not all had the following Jesus had and preached in Jerusalem and blatantly challenged the authority of the Jewish leaders. You might not like the viewpoint I espouse, but it's the consensus of critical scholarship.
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@iamAtheistGirl
This, to me, is one of the most efficacious, and underrated, arguments against all religions . When non-believers articulated it to me when I was a Christian, I had no answer.
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@BahBahBased
@dragodimitrov
Ok, then your position affirms that slavery is morally superior to its antithesis. Your position is morally vacuous.
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