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I'm sure that this is the passage that Paul brings up about abhorring someone's sacrifices.
If so, that is not because he didn't like sacrifices, indeed he had Noah take along 'clean' beasts so they could be burnt so God could hover over the charring carcass, sniffing away like Hannibal the Cannibal (1) . His beef was that these sinners were not worthy to offer up the blood and burning fat that he loved so much.
(2) N. b "The gods smelt the fragrance,
The gods smelt the pleasant fragrance, The gods like flies gathered over the sacrifice. (Ut-Napishtin Flood-and -ark story; epic of Gilgamesh).
I'm sorry...I just can't believe it...it actually makes me laugh. But somebody wrote that...
as some sort of 'History of Humans and God'.
No wonder there are so many atheists!! LOL Why would anyone want to worship 'that'!!
You got that right, phetaroi !
I can't even get over people would worship 'Him' just hearing/believing this Superior Being just sanctioned stoning! Stone 'em they're worshipping the Sun! Get the popcorn kids! Watch Daddy's aim !
But, then Jesus came along to wake people up that that just wasn't true,voilà ! ....
that's the impression I got from Jesus' mission here; he wanted to set the record straight.
Did God all of a sudden have a change of heart? You tell me.
If you believe the stories in The Old Testament, He sure did...a complete turn around!
I'm sorry...I just can't believe it...it actually makes me laugh. But somebody wrote that...
as some sort of 'History of Humans and God'.
No wonder there are so many atheists!! LOL Why would anyone want to worship 'that'!!
You got that right, phetaroi !
I can't even get over people would worship 'Him' just hearing/believing this Superior Being just sanctioned stoning! Stone 'em they're worshipping the Sun! Get the popcorn kids! Watch Daddy's aim !
But, then Jesus came along to wake people up that that just wasn't true,voilà ! ....
that's the impression I got from Jesus' mission here; he wanted to set the record straight.
Did God all of a sudden have a change of heart? You tell me.
If you believe the stories in The Old Testament, He sure did...a complete turn around!
To me, I have no doubts whatsoever about this. Indeed I would risk saying: "I Know".
I know that Judaism was taken by Paul (I am still thinking about this actually happened) and he transformed something not unlike the animal -sacrificing religions of that time (11th c BC) into something that the Graeco -Romans he hoped to convert would swallow.
The Jewish laws and customs on circumcision and clean food had to go. In fact Jesus and his followers had to go. Then the Gospels were put together to show a Christianized Jesus telling everyone that he hadn't changed the Jewish law at all while tossing it in the bin page 1 to the dating agency adverts at the back.
I have got to love 'David and the Shewbread' where, using the example of an avowed sinner though a solid warband -leader, Jesus says that going to church on a Sunday (1) is a waste of time and doing something a bit more useful in more pleasing to Him. And now Sabbath -observance is back on the Menu as the Observance that separates God's People from the backsliders and weak of faith.
Yes, dear lady - not only did Christians Change it, but the later Christians changed it back!
I'm afraid that we can't be very impressed by this appeal to Unknowns and the lame suggestion that a being wading through blood, slaughtering thousands and ordering acts of abominable cruelty is somehow too far above us to be judged by human standards?
...
I think this is very well stated, particularly what I bolded. If there were a god, and that god was great, then I would expect him to behave in a great manner.
But as I was reading your post, I would suggest that any people in any age who believed in sacrifices to god were misdirected...that they should have sacrificed themselves. It's too easy to sacrifice other animals or people...in fact, that's no real sacrifice at all.
How could puny little human minds speculate about such a being as God, and how he benefits or gains from blood sacrifices?
More than likely, the importance and/or significance is WAAAYYY beyond our ability to comprehend, there could also be much more going on than we realize too.
It may be senseless, barbaric, cruel in our opinion, but to an entity like God?....who knows, maybe its a really big deal to have blood sacrifices done in your name?
Then, how do you know anything about your God? Could it be that he/she/it is evil and you simply understand him/her/it as good?
I'm afraid that we can't be very impressed by this appeal to Unknowns and the lame suggestion that a being wading through blood, slaughtering thousands and ordering acts of abominable cruelty is somehow too far above us to be judged by human standards?
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
I think this is very well stated, particularly what I bolded. If there were a god, and that god was great, then I would expect him to behave in a great manner.
But as I was reading your post, I would suggest that any people in any age who believed in sacrifices to god were misdirected...that they should have sacrificed themselves. It's too easy to sacrifice other animals or people...in fact, that's no real sacrifice at all.
The concept of sacrifice is completely misunderstood. We are to sacrifice our selfish needs and desires out of love of one another, especially as involves mercy and compassion, etc. It has nothing to do with giving God something of ours by killing or any other means. God needs NOTHING from us.
The concept of sacrifice is completely misunderstood. We are to sacrifice our selfish needs and desires out of love of one another, especially as involves mercy and compassion, etc. It has nothing to do with giving God something of ours by killing or any other means. God needs NOTHING from us.
That's fine for your individualized personal religion. It is not accurate for christianity.
How could puny little human minds speculate about such a being as God, and how he benefits or gains from blood sacrifices?
This is a standard cop-out answer -- what I call an "escape hatch from the indefensible."
Because your position IS indefensible from any moral standpoint, so you simply regurgitate the "our puny minds can't possibly understand God" argument.
But here's the thing: If God is THAT unknowable whereby you think horrific blood sacrifices benefit an ALL POWERFUL God somehow (what, does he gain his powers from the life essences of dying creatures?), then the God you worship is truly alien ... essentially a creature that may as well come from a different reality altogether.
You cannot POSSIBLY gain your moral compass from such a being. Worshiping a deity that has adopted behavior along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do" has essentially turned morality on its head.
Believers then find themselves in the impossible situation of defending and justifying horrible atrocities they KNOW are wrong, but then rejecting morality altogether in favor of maintaining their comfort zone -- which includes the idea that their God is good, just, and loving when it is quite apparent that he is not.
So, by all means, pop that hatch and slither away without having answered our challenges directly because, after all, how can we puny minds grasp the idea of God?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rstevens62
More than likely, the importance and/or significance is WAAAYYY beyond our ability to comprehend, there could also be much more going on than we realize too.
What's likely is that you had primitive peoples inventing primitive gods who desired sacrifices to keep them appeased. It's been that way for thousands of years, long before Judaism was even an electrical impulse inside of someone's brain. Blood sacrifices were fairly common among the more primitive belief systems, especially when dealing with war gods and gods of battle -- which Yahweh most certainly was.
Yahweh was NEVER a god of peace and love, but a god of war, violence, genocide, and bloodletting.
For instance, when the Jews stopped using the name YHWH once their religion became global, they reverted to the name Elohim.
The root of this name is "El" which actually means "strength, power, and might." When God used to speak to Abraham, God was known as El-Shaddai, another name with "El" in it. Not to mention the fact that Yahweh is just a re-written version of the Canaanite god "El" ... yeah, just "El" which shows that Yahweh's origins come from a god of strength, might, and power -- NOT love, peace, and forgiveness.
And, in the first book of Samuel, God is referred to as "Yahweh Teva-'ot" which translates into "He Who Brings the Hosts Into Existence." In those days, an army was often called a "host." Thus you have a wargod, a god of battle, mustering his armies to commit genocide against the Canaanites, Medianites, the city of Jericho, and on and on and on.
Given the warlike nature of this "wonderful" moral God who is so full of love and compassion, it is MORE than likely that blood sacrifices were run of the mill, probably performed in exchange for Yahweh's blessing before a fight.
Because history trumps the "our puny minds can't possibly understand" argument each and every time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rstevens62
It may be senseless, barbaric, cruel in our opinion, but to an entity like God?
God is supposed to be the wellspring of goodness, light, morality, compassion, love, and all the rest of the goodies in this world. Is he not?
I've heard countless devout Christians on this forum make the (ridiculous) claim that, without God, we cannot have objective morality -- we need a lawgiver who, well, lays down the law in absolutist terms. A lawgiver who is so perfect that, no matter how cruel, barbaric, trivial, or just plain stupid the law is, we're supposed to blindly accept and obey it.
Yet, how can that be if God's idea of morality is not only different than our own, but diametrically opposed? If the general perception of God is that he is both good AND incapable of committing evil, then the acts we consider evil would have to be good.
Which, of course, becomes paradoxical and makes morality -- especially any morality coming from God, utterly pointless and meaningless.
Can God have ANY relationship with humanity? And that's what Christianity is, right? "It's not a religion, it's a relationship!" But how can you have a relationship with a being, an entity, that is so alien to us that even basic moral standards are beyond our ability to comprehend? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever -- not that I've ever accused religion of making much sense in any aspect, mind you.
So sure, if you want to delude yourself into thinking God's atrocious behavior is the result of our lack of understanding, hey, be my guest. I'm not the one who will have to justify and defend something I KNOW to be unacceptable and immoral behavior -- like demanding blood sacrifices and burnt offerings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rstevens62
....who knows, maybe its a really big deal to have blood sacrifices done in your name?
Well, perhaps it was a really big deal for the ancient Hebrews -- as it was with the Canaanites or even the Aztecs on the opposite side of the world.
Since I don't believe that Yahweh, El, or Quetzelcouatl ever existed, the only entity or entities getting anything from these sacrifices are the people doing the sacrificing. They get to murder their own people, especially children, perform some mambo-jahambo ritual by reciting meaningless jibberish and perhaps waving the murder weapon around in some specific pattern, and then they get to feel at ease because their god is now all happy and as giddy as a schoolgirl with the scent of burnt flesh in his nostrils.
Funny, how I just learned more about the Old T from an atheist (is that correct?..or agnostic?), Shirina,
then from a Christian.
Thanks, would have given this a rep, also!
I do think at the same time the goats were being killed, on the other side of the world
virgins were being thrown into volcanoes...I'm like broken record on that, sorry.
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Wasn't sure how, but I looked it up and now I know.
But somebody wrote that...
Why would anyone want to worship 'that'!!
Stone 'em they're worshipping the Sun! Get the popcorn kids! Watch Daddy's aim !
