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shafique wrote:I'm waiting for you to quote Dawkins on the subject. (All mouth, no trousers - again?). When you do, I may agree or disagree with his views on Abraham not sacrificing his son.

In the meantime, the questions to you remain:

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

event horizon wrote:It amazes me how you manage to spin what Dawkins says - by only saying that Abraham did not sacrifice his son.

Err, yeah. But that wasn't the reason why Dawkins considers Abraham to be a religious fanatic - he considers Abraham to be a religious fanatic for the reasons described to you several times now.

duh.

shafique wrote:I'm waiting for you to quote Dawkins on the subject. (All mouth, no trousers - again?). When you do, I may agree or disagree with his views on Abraham not sacrificing his son.

In the meantime, the questions to you remain:

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

event horizon wrote:

event horizon wrote:It amazes me how you manage to spin what Dawkins says - by only saying that Abraham did not sacrifice his son.

Err, yeah. But that wasn't the reason why Dawkins considers Abraham to be a religious fanatic - he considers Abraham to be a religious fanatic for the reasons described to you several times now.

duh.

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

Abraham and Isaac

In the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22, referred to by Dawkins at pp242-43), God tells Abraham to offer his son for a burnt offering. Abraham builds an altar, prepares wood for a fire, ties Isaac up, lays him on the altar, and takes a knife to kill him. Only then, an angel tells Abraham not to harm Isaac, and Abraham sees a ram caught in a thicket; and Abraham sacrifices the ram instead of his son.

This story is apparently considered an example of meritorious sacrifice and obedience to God, carrying also the message that even if what God requires seems difficult to understand, God will make sure it turns out for the best. To my mind, its message about both God and Abraham is abhorrent, and has the potential for great evil.

About God, it says that God expects obedience to God’s command to kill an innocent child, where there is no discernable reason for this except that it would please God (!) to have the child killed and to have obedience shown in this way; that God expects followers to respect a God who would be pleased to have an innocent child killed for no better reason than this; and that God would without good reason subject an innocent child to a terrifying ordeal.

About Abraham, it says that he had respect for such a God to the extent that he would, on the basis of such a capricious order, kill an innocent child. And that is quite apart from the point that Abraham, as a human being with no more than our capacities for perception and reasoning, could not have had any reasonable basis for believing in the existence of a God who would have such expectations or issue such an order, or for believing that such an order had actually been issued to him.

Even if Abraham had seen a great face in the sky speaking to him and had heard the words spoken, it would have been more reasonable for him to believe this was a dream or hallucination than to believe that a God, conceived of as good, would have such expectations and would issue such an order. And even if Abraham was justified in believing that what he saw and heard was not a dream or hallucination, the reasonable conclusion for him to reach would have been that this supernatural phenomenon was a manifestation of evil not of good.

It’s been suggested that Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice the child he loved is admirable. But that assumes Isaac was Abraham’s to sacrifice; whereas in truth no person belongs to another in that way. It has also been suggested that killing an innocent child is not wrong if God has commanded it. But that assumes it is God’s command that makes things right or wrong; whereas, as I have argued, there would be good moral reasons to obey God’s commands only if morality had force independently of God’s commands. And this suggestion also ignores the point that human beings only have their perception and their reasoning to ascertain whether there is a God and if so what its commands are; and reason is strongly against there being a God who would issue such commands.

So this story is about a God unworthy of respect, and an Abraham who was prepared to do something grossly immoral, to kill an innocent child, for no good reason that he could have apprehended. And it has the potential to inspire great evil in its message, apparently accepted by some people today, that it is OK to kill innocent people if you believe God has told you to.

To my mind, its message about both God and Abraham is abhorrent, and has the potential for great evil.

considered an example of meritorious sacrifice and obedience to God, carrying also the message that even if what God requires seems difficult to understand, God will make sure it turns out for the best.

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

About God, it says that God expects obedience to God’s command to kill an innocent child, where there is no discernable reason for this except that it would please God (!) to have the child killed and to have obedience shown in this way; that God expects followers to respect a God who would be pleased to have an innocent child killed for no better reason than this; and that God would without good reason subject an innocent child to a terrifying ordeal.

shafique wrote:So, just to be clear - the two points we're waiting for you replies to are:

1. the list of attributes of God from the OT - do you disagree that the OT does show God acting in these ways?

2. the quote about how the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem being inserted to fit in with OT prophecies in the later Gospels (written perhaps a century after the events) - shows that the Bible is not a historical document. Do you challenge the facts presented?

shafique wrote:However, are you ashamed of your views of what he says about the Bible?

Why else would you be avoiding the two quotes I've given and the questions about them?:

It’s been suggested that Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice the child he loved is admirable. But that assumes Isaac was Abraham’s to sacrifice; whereas in truth no person belongs to another in that way. It has also been suggested that killing an innocent child is not wrong if God has commanded it. But that assumes it is God’s command that makes things right or wrong; whereas, as I have argued, there would be good moral reasons to obey God’s commands only if morality had force independently of God’s commands. And this suggestion also ignores the point that human beings only have their perception and their reasoning to ascertain whether there is a God and if so what its commands are; and reason is strongly against there being a God who would issue such commands.

event horizon wrote:I admit, I'm a bit surprised that you would agree with Dawkins.

shafique wrote:Ok, whilst you're working out the question above, here's the next quotation from the book.

This relates to general authorship of the Bible and cites one historical inaccuracy relating to where Jesus was born - quoted in full so that you can digest the context and let us know whether you agree or disagree with Dawkins well laid out argument:

The fact that something is written down is persuasive to people not used to asking questions like: 'Who wrote it, and when?' 'How did they know what to write?' 'Did they, in their time, really mean what we, in our time, understand them to be saying?' 'Were they unbiased observers, or did they have an agenda that coloured their writing?' Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus' life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different 'Chinese Whispers generations' (see Chapter 5) by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agenda.

A good example of the colouring by religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, followed by Herod's massacre of the innocents. When the gospels were written, many years after Jesus' death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

In the light of this prophecy, John's gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem:
'Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?'

Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes. Matthew has Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem all along, moving to Nazareth only long after the birth of Jesus, on their return from Egypt where they fled from King Herod and the massacre of the innocents. Luke, by contrast, acknowledges that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born. So how to get them to Bethlehem at the crucial moment, in order to fulfil the prophecy? Luke says that, in the time when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus decreed a census for taxation purposes, and everybody had to go 'to his own city'. Joseph was 'of the house and lineage of David' and therefore he had to go to 'the city of David, which is called Bethlehem'. That must have seemed like a good solution. Except that historically it is complete nonsense, as A. N. Wilson in Jesus and Robin Lane Fox in The Unauthorized Version (among others) have pointed out. David, if he existed, lived nearly a thousand years before Mary and Joseph. Why on earth would the Romans have required Joseph to go to the city where a remote ancestor had lived a millennium earlier? It is as though I were required to specify, say, Ashby-de-la-Zouch as my home town on a census form, if it happened that I could trace my ancestry back to the Seigneur de Dakeyne, who came over with William the Conqueror and settled there.

Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius - a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole - but it happened too late: in AD 6, long after Herod's death. Lane Fox concludes that 'Luke's story is historically impossible and internally incoherent', but he sympathizes with Luke's plight and his desire to fulfil the prophecy of Micah.

[pg 92-24]

shafique wrote:Are you ashamed of the Bible and can't defend it, or are you just too lazy?

event horizon wrote:I didn't read your dawkins quote on the NT, but if Dawkins really did say the nativity story is an addition added several centuries later, then he is clearly out of his league to even be pontificating on the NT. Then again, Dawkins isn't a theologian or historian. And, unlike you, I've never quoted Dawkins on these subjects - only on what he has to say on British citizens who believe in creationism (Dawkins contradicts your belief that many British Muslims do not believe in evolution).

But, apparently, that means I'm back 'backpedaling'.

event horizon wrote:

event horizon wrote:I didn't read your dawkins quote on the NT, but if Dawkins really did say the nativity story is an addition added several centuries later, then he is clearly out of his league to even be pontificating on the NT. Then again, Dawkins isn't a theologian or historian. And, unlike you, I've never quoted Dawkins on these subjects - only on what he has to say on British citizens who believe in creationism (Dawkins contradicts your belief that many British Muslims do not believe in evolution).

But, apparently, that means I'm back 'backpedaling'.

This relates to general authorship of the Bible and cites one historical inaccuracy relating to where Jesus was born - quoted in full so that you can digest the context and let us know whether you agree or disagree with Dawkins well laid out argument:

The fact that something is written down is persuasive to people not used to asking questions like: 'Who wrote it, and when?' 'How did they know what to write?' 'Did they, in their time, really mean what we, in our time, understand them to be saying?' 'Were they unbiased observers, or did they have an agenda that coloured their writing?' Ever since the nineteenth century, scholarly theologians have made an overwhelming case that the gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mention almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus' life. All were then copied and recopied, through many different 'Chinese Whispers generations' (see Chapter 5) by fallible scribes who, in any case, had their own religious agenda.

A good example of the colouring by religious agendas is the whole heart-warming legend of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, followed by Herod's massacre of the innocents. When the gospels were written, many years after Jesus' death, nobody knew where he was born. But an Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2) had led Jews to expect that the long-awaited Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

In the light of this prophecy, John's gospel specifically remarks that his followers were surprised that he was not born in Bethlehem:
'Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?'

Matthew and Luke handle the problem differently, by deciding that Jesus must have been born in Bethlehem after all. But they get him there by different routes. Matthew has Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem all along, moving to Nazareth only long after the birth of Jesus, on their return from Egypt where they fled from King Herod and the massacre of the innocents. Luke, by contrast, acknowledges that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born. So how to get them to Bethlehem at the crucial moment, in order to fulfil the prophecy? Luke says that, in the time when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus decreed a census for taxation purposes, and everybody had to go 'to his own city'. Joseph was 'of the house and lineage of David' and therefore he had to go to 'the city of David, which is called Bethlehem'. That must have seemed like a good solution. Except that historically it is complete nonsense, as A. N. Wilson in Jesus and Robin Lane Fox in The Unauthorized Version (among others) have pointed out. David, if he existed, lived nearly a thousand years before Mary and Joseph. Why on earth would the Romans have required Joseph to go to the city where a remote ancestor had lived a millennium earlier? It is as though I were required to specify, say, Ashby-de-la-Zouch as my home town on a census form, if it happened that I could trace my ancestry back to the Seigneur de Dakeyne, who came over with William the Conqueror and settled there.

Moreover, Luke screws up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking. There was indeed a census under Governor Quirinius - a local census, not one decreed by Caesar Augustus for the Empire as a whole - but it happened too late: in AD 6, long after Herod's death. Lane Fox concludes that 'Luke's story is historically impossible and internally incoherent', but he sympathizes with Luke's plight and his desire to fulfil the prophecy of Micah.

[pg 92-24]