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God Commanded Terrible Stuff!

In regard to God defining morality (part of a reply to this post), Alex wrote:

Right, so I guess then that slavery is fine, that homosexuals should be killed, that it’s ok to kill people who pick up sticks on a Saturday or Sunday, that child sacrificing is perfectly fine, that a tooth for a tooth is perfectly fine and on and on?

This has all been answered before, so here’s the round-up of replies:

No, slavery is not okay. Check Glenn Miller, too.
No, we are not going to kill gay people and Sabbath-breakers. I’ve talked about the church’s shoddy treatment of gays before, actually!
No, the Bible does not condone child sacrifice. J.P. Holding weighs in. With a cartoon, too!
“Eye-for-an-eye” laws were more complex than just that (rebuttal, cross-ex, Paul Copan weighs in).

Amazingly, no mention of God commanding genocide. That’s the only atheist talking point missing from Alex’s short list.

Hopefully, I won’t have to answer any of these charges again, but I kind of doubt it. All of these are atheist favorites, despite repeated correction by many, many Christian apologists. I’m sure we’ll keep seeing these brought up over and over again, until Christ’s triumphant return.

Posted in Apologetics, Religion, Sin

4 Comments

Tags: child sacrifice, eye for an eye, genocide, Glenn Miller, homophobia, homosexuality, JP Holding, lex talionis, Paul Copan, Sabbath, slavery

Questions Theists Can’t Answer: God and Rest

Mar 29

Posted by Cory Tucholski

Let’s take a look at a question theists allegedly can’t answer from an old thread on Reddit. Warning: it’s lame.

“On the seventh day, he rested.”

So many thing wrong with that one statement, who would a god need to rest?

I don’t need to drink Pepsi, but I do. I don’t need to blog, but I do. I don’t need to pain miniatures, but I do. I don’t need to watch The People’s Court everyday, but I do. Shall I go on?

No where in the Bible does it say God needs to rest. It says that he does rest. Big difference.

A day is a measure of time on Earth, who did not exist.

It does now. What’s your point?

If he worked for 5 days on one planet, thats pretty damn slow, at that the rest of the universe would take a lot longer that 14 billion years.

Actually, Genesis 1:1 says that God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:2 says that the earth is there now, formless and void. So everything–the universe, the earth, etc–existed before Genesis 1:2 continues the narrative. Verses 3-31 show God ordering what already exists.

We can prove that the solar system took billions of years to form and used only 2 things, gravity and time.

Okay. So no matter or energy involved there? Just gravity? That’s an amazingly dense statement.

With that in mind, why would a god, any god make things by just waiting around for gravity to do what it does naturally? And theists will just say, “oh well god made gravity and put the wheels in motion”, ok well thats not how it says he does shit in the bible, so one of them must be wrong.

The Bible describes God as active in nature and using nature to achieve his ends. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit, which represents the active hand of God moving in the world around us. The book of Colossians describes it best:

He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (1:15-20, emphasis added)

Preeminence and sovereignty don’t always imply an active hand in every single detail that transpires, but it does imply that God worked everything to create what he desired. In him, it all hold together. It’s possible that both the people who say God set it in motion and the Bible which describes God as active are both correct.