Should the bible carry a government health warning?

[Odoital778412]

Not necessarily a problem.  I was raised Roman Catholic, and went to an Episcopalian college, so I'm well familiar with the Christian concepts of god, not only both Catholic and Protestant but also Wiccan, which I practiced for about 20 years (I'm shaky on Orthodoxy and Judaism and well weak on everyone else).

But I don't have to buy into the idea that there is a god in order to have this conversation.  It's the difference between asking me to accept that there is a god for the purposes of argument -- which I won't -- and asking me to accept that you believe there is one and pursuing the matter on that basis -- which I will.  It's a semantic point, to be sure, but an important one conceptually.

This is also getting problematic because of the length of the responses... is there a particular point you want to pursue first or further, then we can come back to the others as we hash things out?

I’ve met all kinds of people who’ve supposedly been a part of a religion for a long time who have very little actual understanding of its content.  In my case, I’m thinking of Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism.  Based upon how to you talk about the issue, it seems as though you actually don’t understand the Christian concept of God.  When you respond to things like God’s actions, you respond as if God is merely another man, with no significant difference in nature, authority or prerogative.  If you’re doing that, then  you’re not actually responding to the Christian concept of God at all.

And yes, you are correct.  You do not.  However, what I’m asking is not controversial.  It’s done in academia and in the courts all the time.  It’s called arguendo, where you assume, for the sake of an argument, certain premises even though you don’t necessary agree with them yourself.  Now why is that?  It’s in order that you can deepen the dialogue and move further in exploring the implications.  If you don’t agree to assume certain things, provisionally, then any real exploration of the topic really isn’t possible.  In other words, you’ve simply stipulated that you will not accept anything more than whatever superficial understanding of the topic you already have.  Now if that’s your position, so be it, but I’m not asking anything controversial.  I simply thought you were actually engaging in some real discussion on the topic.  I guess I was wrong.

Yes, the point I would pursue further is the difference between a human being and God, from a Christian perspective.  And I would like to explore that in terms of His nature, authority and prerogatives.  I think an understanding of the differences would allow His actions to be seen in an entirely different light, analogous to the difference between the average person locking another person up for years on end and a judge doing so.  One of those acts would be entirely unacceptable and the other would not, which illustrates that essentially the same act can be judged morally, entirely differently, one from the other, without the moral law itself changing at all.  This same thing is true in the case of God.

[trdsf]

I’ve met all kinds of people who’ve supposedly been a part of a religion for a long time who have very little actual understanding of its content.  In my case, I’m thinking of Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism.  Based upon how to you talk about the issue, it seems as though you actually don’t understand the Christian concept of God.  When you respond to things like God’s actions, you respond as if God is merely another man, with no significant difference in nature, authority or prerogative.  If you’re doing that, then you’re not actually responding to the Christian concept of God at all.

At infinite risk of having this turn into another hydra of a thread (and you're already back to "No, you just don't understand").  Real quickly, no, I'm not responding to your concept of god and the actions that your god might take.  I am responding to a Christian concept of god -- certainly the one I was raised with, and given that there are over 40,000 different types of Christianity, it is in no way possible to talk about the nature of the Christian god.  There's overlap, but not unanimity, and I trust you don't have the hubris to claim that you and you alone can say what is and is not "the" Christian definition of things.

And yes, you are correct.  You do not.  However, what I’m asking is not controversial.  It’s done in academia and in the courts all the time.  It’s called arguendo, where you assume, for the sake of an argument, certain premises even though you don’t necessary agree with them yourself.  Now why is that?  It’s in order that you can deepen the dialogue and move further in exploring the implications.  If you don’t agree to assume certain things, provisionally, then any real exploration of the topic really isn’t possible.  In other words, you’ve simply stipulated that you will not accept anything more than whatever superficial understanding of the topic you already have.  Now if that’s your position, so be it, but I’m not asking anything controversial.  I simply thought you were actually engaging in some real discussion on the topic.  I guess I was wrong.

Actually, you're asking me to hand the match away before I even get my clubs out of the trunk.  The question of the existence or non-existence of a general divine authority, or of a specific view as to the nature of that divine authority, is central to the whole debate here.  If I stipulate that even for the purposes of argument, that gives the whole debate away.  I am actually engaging, but I am not engaging on those grounds.

Yes, the point I would pursue further is the difference between a human being and God, from a Christian perspective.  And I would like to explore that in terms of His nature, authority and prerogatives.  I think an understanding of the differences would allow His actions to be seen in an entirely different light, analogous to the difference between the average person locking another person up for years on end and a judge doing so.  One of those acts would be entirely unacceptable and the other would not, which illustrates that essentially the same act can be judged morally, entirely differently, one from the other, without the moral law itself changing at all.  This same thing is true in the case of God.

This is the point I was hoping you'd follow up with; it's philosophically the chewiest.

The weakness in the judge metaphor is that a (human) judge is someone who is chosen by the people to be judged from among their own number, either directly by election, or indirectly through elected representatives.  Judicial authority can in principle be practiced by any person (in practice, it's limited essentially to lawyers, politicians, or lawyers who are politicians, but in principle any person), and their authority is granted ultimately by those over whom the judge will have authority.

And there was no election for god.  So we're not talking about a judge/citizen relationship, we're talking about an outside force entirely.

And this raises two problems: first of all, as an outside source, how is there relevance to daily human life if this god is so much different from us?

The second brings us back to the bears and the forty-two children.  If there is an absolute definition of good and evil, then an evil act is an evil act regardless of who does it.  Otherwise, it's "Oh, it's okay for me.  Just do as I say, not as I do."  And that's moral hypocrisy, by definition.