An Atheist (Fool) Debates Bob on God's Rights - Theology Forum | Religion | Politics

fool · 07:09 AM

An Atheist (fool) debates Bob on God's rights
Tue. 3-28-06 this is show #62

fool's favorite Quote of the show;

Quote:

If Yaweh wants these babies butchered, He can jolly well do it himself

Give your opinion on our BEL forum at TOL!

Summary:
* Archaeologist Steven Baird, of Evolution on Trial , talks to Bob about the debunked claim that mankind evolved from Lucy.
* A fascinating call from an atheist at TheologyOnline , who goes by the name Fool, pre-empted the second half of our planned program. Fool tried to show that the Bible is internally inconsistent because God forbids murder, and yet He commanded the Israelites to kill innocent children. Bob invited Fool to continue the discussion on Thursday's show. They have identified two different questions. Q1: Does God have the right to transport His creatures from their earthly life to the afterlife? And Q2: Does God has the right to delegate such authority to men? So far, Fool admits to equivocating answering Q1, and Bob will not allow the discussion to proceed to Q2 until Q1 is resolved. So the two talked about whether God could be righteous and yet bring people of varying ages into the afterlife, some to eternity in heaven and others to hell.
Today's Resource: Enjoy Bob's Does God Exist? debate against TOL 's Zakath! Read it for free, online at TOL, or purchase the debate in its more comfortable and helpful 170 page manuscript form!

kmoney · March 29th, 2006, 07:09 AM

I just downloaded it! Do you know about how far into the show you called in?

fool · March 29th, 2006, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmoney

I just downloaded it! Do you know about how far into the show you called in?

I'm the whole last half of the show, starting right after the commercial break @30 min. in.

eisenreich · March 29th, 2006, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fool

Fool tried to show that the Bible is internally inconsistent because God forbids murder, and yet He commanded the Israelites to kill innocent children.

Did you use any quotes from the Is God Pro-Choice thread? At work now, but looking forward to listening when I get home.

fool · March 29th, 2006, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eisenreich

Did you use any quotes from the Is God Pro-Choice thread? At work now, but looking forward to listening when I get home.

I used that thread to bookmark a couple of spots in my Bible where Yaweh orders the complete destruction of people, so yes! I was familier with Joshua, but I forgot about Samual. Good job on that eisenreich, the patio party comes up on the show. (it's actuallly a porch, and there's no party)

fool · March 29th, 2006, 07:49 AM

Sorry I stole your gig Jefferson, I'm suposed to reappear on thurs. so I wanted to get some feed back as soon as possible.

Jefferson · March 29th, 2006, 08:15 AM

Jefferson's favorite quote of the show:

Quote:

Bob Enyart: If there is creator God who makes His creatures in such a way that they can live their lives in 2 stages, (stage A on the porch and stage B in the mansion or stage A in the earthly life and stage B in an afterlife) is it therefore necessarily immoral, inherently wicked for that Creator to bring 1 or many of His creatures from the 1st stage of their life to the 2nd stage? Is that inherently wrong for the Creator to do that?

fool: I would say, for Him? No.

Bob: Okay, very good. That's progress.

SUTG · March 29th, 2006, 10:30 AM

Looking forward to hearing this one, but I'll have to wait until after work.

Knight · 11:14 AM

fool, it would have been more fun if you had given Bob the SAME hypothetical you gave me. Then we could have compared how I responded with how Bob responded.

Also... you misrepresented my argument on Bob's show... I have never said that "God is righteous and therefore God can do anything and it would be righteous".

I have never once said that.

What I did say was.... in response to your hypothetical.... IF I was a Hebrew soldier and IF God asked me to slay a village I could TRUST that God was not commanding me to do something unrighteous, in the same way you said you agreed you could have TRUST in a pilot friend that instructed you to drop an atomic bomb on a village.

That aside... it was a really good call!

Granite · March 29th, 2006, 11:20 AM

Rationalizing atrocities doesn't change a damn thing.

Fool, ya did a great job. Props!

fool · March 29th, 2006, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight

fool, it would have been more fun if you had given Bob the SAME hypothetical you gave me. Then we could have compared how I responded with how Bob responded.

It was a tiny little bit of a trap, I first wanted him to say it was wrong, then when I cited the Biblical accounts of Yaweh ordering it watch him justify doing what he just agreed was wrong.

Quote:

Also... you misrepresented my argument on Bob's show... I have never said that "God is righteous and therefore God can do anything and it would be righteous".

I have never once said that.

That was a paraphrase of this;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight in post 2647 of the ask Knight thread

If the God of the universe told me to wipe out a tribe I would be stupid to do anything other than what He instructed.

and this;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight in post 2649 of the ask Knight thread

Yes, because it would be silly to disobey knowing I was disobeying the creator of the universe and everything in it.

In both responses you emphisize that the fact that the instruction came from Yaweh is the operative factor in the decision, and that it would be silly and stupid not to obey.
If there is a situation where you wouldn't follow Yawehs instruction, then this would be a good place to illustrate that.

Quote:

What I did say was.... in response to your hypothetical.... IF I was a Hebrew soldier and IF God asked me to slay a village I could TRUST that God was not commanding me to do something unrighteous, in the same way you said you agreed you could have TRUST in a pilot friend that instructed you to drop an atomic bomb on a village.

I didn't agree to that, I stated that I would drop an atomic bomb, but under the hypothetical you proposed I would NOT drop a bomb

Quote:

Originally Posted by fool in post 2652 of the ask Knight thread

Very different from what you said I said.
The difference is even with a person I trusted I would still evaluate the decision, hence an order recieved from a trusted person would not automaticly result in a bomb drop.

I maintain that in the hypothetical you gave, dropping the bomb would be irresponsible, incidentally, the military agrees with me, it take two people to release nukes, and they both have to agree on everything from whether or not a lawful order has been recieved, to if they are in fact over the target. The point of this argument is the fact that as an ethical human being I posit a individual responsablity beyond the verification of target and release authority. So properly formatted drop order, with all appropriate launch codes, that told me to bomb Denver would not be carried out, Whereas Tehran probably would.

Quote:

That aside... it was a really good call!

Thanks.

GuySmiley · March 29th, 2006, 11:57 AM

fool, it was a great call and an interesting subject. How many times to people on TOL have problems with Enyart and they are told they can call him? Well you have done it, so props to you! Looking forward to hearing Thursday's call.

edit: I must spread rep . . .

Knight · March 29th, 2006, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fool

That was a paraphrase of this;

That wasn't a very accurate parahrase was it?

par·a·phrase
n.

A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.

fool · March 29th, 2006, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight

That wasn't a very accurate parahrase was it?

par·a·phrase
n.

A restatement of a text or passage in another form or other words, often to clarify meaning.

I forgot to include this;

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight from post 2664 in the ask Knight thread

It all boils down to this...
God would never tell anyone to do anything so severe if it wasn't absolutely necessary. If the God of the Bible is real, then God is righteous and would never do anything wicked or vile and never tell anyone else to do anything wicked or vile.

From this statement it logically follows that whatever God tells you to do is right.Right?

Knight · March 29th, 2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fool

I forgot to include this;

From this statement it logically follows that whatever God tells you to do is right.Right?

Yet that isn't what you said that I said. You insinuated that I said.... God could do anything and it would be righteous.

That is very different from saying we can trust that God wouldn't instruct us to do anything unrighteous.

God's people echo this throughout the Bible....

Psalms 129:4 The LORD is righteous; He has cut in pieces the cords of the wicked.

Psalms 145:17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works.

Proverbs 21:12 The righteous God wisely considers the house of the wicked, Overthrowing the wicked for their wickedness.

Zephaniah 3:5 The LORD is righteous in her midst, He will do no unrighteousness.

Etc. etc. etc. (The Bible is filled cover to cover with statements like these). None of these statements mean that God has free reign to do whatever and call it righteous. Instead.... we can put trust in God because we know He is a righteous God and His ways are righteous.

It's like this...
I might say to you... we can trust that a smart man does smart things. And that's true... by definition a smart man does smart things. Yet it would be silly for us to then conclude (from that statement) that a smart man could hypothetically do ANYTHING and it would continue to be smart.

That would be silly conclusion to jump to wouldn't you agree?