The hell of Mormon afterlife

[_huckelberry]

Philo, you propose a large and contentious project.

The story anyway is that God freed this large bunch of Egyptian slaves and helped them get a place to live when they were not welcomed elsewhere and could have ended starving in the desert. The people who were slaves thought that was great and their descendants celebrate this every year(some three thousand of them) down to the present.

Perhaps not everybody is as happy about this.

Can't please everybody.

[_huckelberry]

I am intrigued by the possibility verses 12 through 15 were additions to the original now.

Well that is a curious question but I do not know how to resolve it. In Celestial form there was an entire Bible thread. It has a few interesting portions which are hard to find in the bulk of the thing. Maklelan (sp?) I remember considered this question as well as the general role of human sacrifice. I tried to give him some pushback but he has strong information.

[_Philo Sofee]

Huckleberry
Philo, you propose a large and contentious project.

that's due to the large and specious claims and interpretations MG is making ignoring the actual evidence of the scripture. Lets just see what it is it actually says Jehovah said and did before imagining him to be something we wish instead of being what he is.
With a Concordance it shouldn't take MG any time at all to find one verse that shows Jehovah is a loving God. When he does, I already have 500 verses showing otherwise, but I promised to only present twice as much evidence against his evidence.

[_grindael]

How can you know this? That's been my point all along during this thread. You don't. And yet you keep saying it as though it were a matter of fact.

The Bible itself shows that this it is a fact that Old Testament GOD is a narcissistic prick:

"I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Ex. 20:5-6)

"My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out." [including the children, as other parts of Scripture make clear] (Ex. 23:23)

"See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. (Deuteronomy 32:39)

And we see how Old Testament GOD lies:

"As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live" (Ezekiel 33:11)

Yet, did he give the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites a chance to "turn from their ways and live?" NOPE. He's a pathological liar.

This is just the tip of the iceberg... there are hundreds more...

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully (Richard Dawkins)

Truer words have not been spoken.

[_honorentheos]

By this argument, we should also judge the God of the New Testament by his earlier antics as the Old Testament's Jehovah.

I don't think that works. Jesus of the New Testament had many witnesses that portray Him as something other than what you are judging Him as being by inference.

Hi MG,

Out of curiosity who among these many witnesses would you say is the strongest for your claim?

[_honorentheos]

Certainly Spinoza or a cookbook could be every bit as good as the Bible.

Your dinner parties must be...interesting.

I feel like I should point out when I read this earlier I had a visual of a dinner party organized like an LDS family home evening. Being a nevermo, you may not be familiar with the FHE assignment wheel which usually looks less wooden but similar to this:



This dinner party version would have three "assignments" on it - the meal, the source for a prayer of thanks before the meal, and the topic of discussion during the meal. When the order is cookbook=meal, Bible=blessing, Spinoza=subject for discussion things should theoretically work well enough. But the evenings when the wheel shows meal=Bible, blessing=Spinoza and topic=cookbook? Sounds like a crap evening with some religious hipster foodies. Or, a helluva fun time. Company would matter. Anyway, I guess everyone needs to have a chance at being the meal, even Spinoza.

This of course brings the following to mind:

https://youtu.be/pneJ0rYr5BM

Und keine Eier.

ETA: on reflection, this could be a million dollar idea. A dinner party game challenge wheel isn't a thing yet is it?

[_Morley]

By this argument, we should also judge the God of the New Testament by his earlier antics as the Old Testament's Jehovah.

I don't think that works. Jesus of the New Testament had many witnesses that portray Him as something other than what you are judging Him as being by inference.

I'm surprised that you're even making that argument. It falls flat on its face at first blush. To even make this argument I have to think that you are heavily invested in the argument that the God of the Old Testament was a 'monster god'.

Throughout this thread there has been very little wiggle room in allowing for the possibility that the God of the Old Testament wasn't a 'monster god'.

As Lemmie notes, this isn't my argument, it's yours. I don't think the god of the New Testament is the god of the Old Testament--you do.

I also don't think the Vedic god, Mitra, is the same as the Persian Mithra or the Roman Mithras. I think the Old Testament God was socially constructed for that people, much as you seem to be (somewhat obliquely) suggesting is the case.

Unlike you, I'd also apply those criteria to Jove, Jesus, and Joseph.

[_Res Ipsa]

The God of the Old Testament was a narcissistic, vindictive, prick.

How can you know this? That's been my point all along during this thread. You don't.

And yet you keep saying it as though it were a matter of fact.

Regards,
MG

I can read.

The God of the Old Testament is the God that is described in the Old Testament. You find the God described in the Old Testament embarrassing, so you change the text without any principled basis. The resulting God isn’t the God of the Old Testament — it’s a different God.

You think you are discerning what the God of the Old Testament is “really” like. In reality, you’re just a guy making up yet another God.

[_Res Ipsa]

Assuming that God exists, what good reason do we have to rely on anything the Old Testament says about the nature of God? If you’re willing to throw out a direct commandment of God stated in the text simply because people didn’t do it, what actual commandments remain? What you propose is simply an ad hoc disregard if the parts of the text that make you uncomfortable or are too embarrassed to defend. But if we can discard portions of the text in such a fashion, why should we trust anything that the book says about God?

For me, the reason I give the Old Testament some credit rather than discarding it completely is the dependance in which the New Testament has on Old Testament prophecy, etc.

https://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.c ... hp#_parent

Being that I have faith/hope in the Jesus Christ of the New Testament gives me reason to think that Jesus, along with His apostles/disciples, were well aware of Old Testament prophecy/teachings and their importance to the mission/purpose which they believed they had been called to in fulfilling those prophecies and the onward progression of the gospel message.

Regards,
MG

OK, so you’re stuck with the narcissistic bastard God of the Old Testament because you need him to support the God you want to believe in. But he’s an embarrassment, so you just edit the Old Testament until it’s God becomes acceptable to you.

How is this different than just making crap up?

[_mentalgymnast]

The Bible itself shows that this it is a fact that Old Testament GOD is a narcissistic prick.

OK. There seems to be a general consensus among many that the God of the Old Testament should be described as you are describing Him.

If we're going to stick with that characterization then let's at least look at the alternative interpretation of Yahweh.

https://carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster

In the conclusion of this article we read:

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.”

I argue, again (and some here have more or less agreed with me) that there are mythical elements to the Bible in which we have 'fish stories' that have entered into the Old Testament record. But, if you want to stick to the overall theme of the Old Testament that God is a monster, etc., then there are also differing viewpoints as to whether or not Yahweh is the monster god that many would like to characterize him as.

Truth is, there have been many great minds arguing for one side or the other. I'm simply stating the facts that:

1. The Old Testament cannot be completely trusted for its veracity in every instance.
2. The 'monster god' of the Old Testament is unfounded even if you take the core elements of the genocide stories and place them at the feet of Old Testament prophets and Israelite battle forces/leaders.
3. It's important to remember that the Old Testament 'monster god' portrayal seems to be a necessary/integral part of the world view of Dawkins and his disciples. That will color their interpretations/views.

As a side note here is a link to a paper which supports the idea that the Jesus of the New Testament is also the Yahweh of the Old Testament. If this is indeed the case, we are forced...at least in my opinion...to find some middle ground/compromise between these two polar opposite portrayals of God.

https://claudemariottini.com/2012/01/21 ... nt-part-1/

There are two parts to this paper to read. The link to the second part is at the bottom of the first part.

The God which President Nelson has been testifying of during his lifelong ministry:

https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-a ... acp-159707

And during the last leg of his whirlwind ministry throughout the world:

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... a-ministry

...points to a loving God who at the same time has given us commandments to live by and called for us to repent.

Granted, this God doesn't jive well with the simplified portrayal of a 'monster god' that many folks are heavily invested in.

Regards,
MG