The Bible in quotations

[screenexile]

Gay Byrne's face during this is absolutely priceless. . . thought provoking speech anyway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

[The Iceman]

This is from a sermon this weekend that mentions Stephen Fry. Worth a quick read:
As you may know, Fry is, like his British counterparts Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, a fairly ferocious atheist, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a very public debunker of all things religious. In the video in question, he articulates precisely what he would say to God if, upon arriving at the pearly gates, he discovered that he was mistaken in his atheism. Fry says that he would ask God why he made a universe in which children get bone cancer, a universe in which human beings suffer horrifically and without justification. If such a monstrous, self-absorbed, and stupid God exists, Fry insists, he would decidedly not want to spend eternity with him. Now there is much more to Fry's rant—it goes on for several minutes—but you get the drift.

To those who feel that Stephen Fry has delivered a devastating blow to religious belief, let me say simply this: this objection is nothing new to Christians. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and many, many other Christian theologians up and down the centuries have dealt with it. In fact, one of the pithiest expressions of the problem was formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. The great Catholic philosopher argued that if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. Yet God is called infinitely good. Therefore, if God exists, there should be no evil. But there is evil. Thus it certainly seems to follow that God does not exist. Thomas thereby conveys all of the power of Fry's observations without the histrionics. And of course, all of this subtle theological wrestling with the problem of suffering is grounded, finally, in the most devastating rant ever uttered against God, a rant found not in an essay of some disgruntled atheist philosopher but rather in the pages of the Bible. I'm talking about the book of Job.

According to the familiar story, Job is an innocent man, but he is nevertheless compelled to endure every type of suffering. In one fell swoop, he loses his wealth, his livelihood, his family, and his health. A group of friends console him and then attempt to offer theological explanations for his pain. But Job dismisses them all and, with all the fury of Stephen Fry, calls out God, summoning him, as it were, into the dock to explain himself. Out of the desert whirlwind God then speaks—and it is the longest speech by God in the Scriptures: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know....Who shut within doors the sea...when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place" (Job 38: 4, 8-10)? God goes on, taking Job on a lengthy tour of the mysteries, conundrums, and wonders of the universe, introducing him to ever wider contexts, situating his suffering within frameworks of meaning that he had never before considered. In light of God's speech, I would first suggest to Stephen Fry that the true God is the providential Lord of all of space and all of time.

Secondly, I would observe that none of us can see more than a tiny swatch of that immense canvas on which God works. And therefore I would urge him to reconsider his confident assertion that the suffering of the world—even the most horrific and seemingly unjustified—is necessarily without meaning. Imagine that one page of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was torn away and allowed to drift on the wind. Imagine further that that page became, in the course of several months, further ripped and tattered so that only one paragraph of it remained legible. And finally imagine that someone who had never heard of Tolkien's rich and multi-layered story came, by chance, upon that single paragraph. Would it not be the height of arrogance and presumption for that person to declare that those words made not a lick of sense? Would it not be akin to someone, utterly ignorant of higher mathematics, declaring that a complex algebraic formula, coherent in itself but opaque to him, is nothing but gibberish? Given our impossibly narrow point of view, how could any of us ever presume to pronounce on the "meaninglessness" of what happens in the world?

A third basic observation I would make to Mr. Fry is this: once we grant that God exists, we hold to the very real possibility of a life beyond this one. But this implies that no evil in this world, even death itself, is of final significance. Is it terrible that innocent children die of wasting diseases? Well of course. But is it finally and irreversibly terrible? Is it nothing but terrible? By no means! It might in fact be construed as an avenue to something unsurpassably good.

In the last analysis, the best rejoinder to Fry's objection is a distinctively Christian one, for Christians refer to the day on which Jesus was unjustly condemned, abandoned by his friends, brutally scourged, paraded like an animal through the streets, nailed to an instrument of torture and left to die as "Good Friday." To understand that is to have the ultimate answer to Job—and to Stephen Fry.

[muppet]

Muppet I don't think it's fair to continually drag up old conversations because perhaps you're bored.
It has been discussed a couple of times on this board about Old Testament versus New Testament. All the quotes you bring up are mostly from the Old Testament.
The New Testament supersedes the old. Jesus fulfilled the teaching of the old. The old was designed to point the Jewish people to the Jewish Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and Jesus' teaching supersedes it.

Go an read a Catholic catechism or Pope Francis' teachings and show me where any of these things are promoted that you quote.

I don't know what your ultimate intent is in all of this? To save people? Are you genuinely interested in saving Christians from Christ? Or are you doing your best to reason with others on the subject in an effort to convince yourself? Something deep inside you telling you there's more....? Watch you don't get knocked off your horse Saul....

I am doing it because I am interested and so far very little of the modern version of religion and its application stands up to any serious scrutiny. The overwhelming evidence is that Jesus existed and by any account was an amazing person. That is beyond dispute. The problem arises with His successors and the rules and regulations they put in place.

As for the Old Testament, according to the Bible Jesus called it the Word of God on many occasions. Everyone, religious and atheists included, cherrypicks from the Bible to suit their agenda. That is a massive problem imho.

[Hardy]

That sermon is nicely put, Iceman, but Aquinas and the Catholic philosophers proceed from the assumption that there is a God – a presumption for which there is no evidence. Therefore, for the author of the sermon to present his argument about God's design as an exercise in logic is a bit of a trick and certainly at odds with the rules of logic, since the founding axiom of the argument is mere speculation.

Another philosopher, Epicurus, presents an argument that is more convincing to me, proceeding, as it does, from first principles of logic:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

[The Iceman]

Muppet I don't think it's fair to continually drag up old conversations because perhaps you're bored.
It has been discussed a couple of times on this board about Old Testament versus New Testament. All the quotes you bring up are mostly from the Old Testament.
The New Testament supersedes the old. Jesus fulfilled the teaching of the old. The old was designed to point the Jewish people to the Jewish Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and Jesus' teaching supersedes it.

Go an read a Catholic catechism or Pope Francis' teachings and show me where any of these things are promoted that you quote.

I don't know what your ultimate intent is in all of this? To save people? Are you genuinely interested in saving Christians from Christ? Or are you doing your best to reason with others on the subject in an effort to convince yourself? Something deep inside you telling you there's more....? Watch you don't get knocked off your horse Saul....

I am doing it because I am interested and so far very little of the modern version of religion and its application stands up to any serious scrutiny. The overwhelming evidence is that Jesus existed and by any account was an amazing person. That is beyond dispute. The problem arises with His successors and the rules and regulations they put in place.

As for the Old Testament, according to the Bible Jesus called it the Word of God on many occasions. Everyone, religious and atheists included, cherrypicks from the Bible to suit their agenda. That is a massive problem imho.

Do you think you will find your answers on the gaaboard?

[The Iceman]

That sermon is nicely put, Iceman, but Aquinas and the Catholic philosophers proceed from the assumption that there is a God – a presumption for which there is no evidence. Therefore, for the author of the sermon to present his argument about God's design as an exercise in logic is a bit of a trick and certainly at odds with the rules of logic, since the founding axiom of the argument is mere speculation.

Another philosopher, Epicurus, presents an argument that is more convincing to me, proceeding, as it does, from first principles of logic:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Are you not arguing with yourself Hardy? To include God in the equation then surely God must exist. If He does exist then Aquinas thinking stands surely?

[J70]

This is from a sermon this weekend that mentions Stephen Fry. Worth a quick read:
As you may know, Fry is, like his British counterparts Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, a fairly ferocious atheist, who has made a name for himself in recent years as a very public debunker of all things religious. In the video in question, he articulates precisely what he would say to God if, upon arriving at the pearly gates, he discovered that he was mistaken in his atheism. Fry says that he would ask God why he made a universe in which children get bone cancer, a universe in which human beings suffer horrifically and without justification. If such a monstrous, self-absorbed, and stupid God exists, Fry insists, he would decidedly not want to spend eternity with him. Now there is much more to Fry's rant—it goes on for several minutes—but you get the drift.

To those who feel that Stephen Fry has delivered a devastating blow to religious belief, let me say simply this: this objection is nothing new to Christians. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and many, many other Christian theologians up and down the centuries have dealt with it. In fact, one of the pithiest expressions of the problem was formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. The great Catholic philosopher argued that if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. Yet God is called infinitely good. Therefore, if God exists, there should be no evil. But there is evil. Thus it certainly seems to follow that God does not exist. Thomas thereby conveys all of the power of Fry's observations without the histrionics. And of course, all of this subtle theological wrestling with the problem of suffering is grounded, finally, in the most devastating rant ever uttered against God, a rant found not in an essay of some disgruntled atheist philosopher but rather in the pages of the Bible. I'm talking about the book of Job.

According to the familiar story, Job is an innocent man, but he is nevertheless compelled to endure every type of suffering. In one fell swoop, he loses his wealth, his livelihood, his family, and his health. A group of friends console him and then attempt to offer theological explanations for his pain. But Job dismisses them all and, with all the fury of Stephen Fry, calls out God, summoning him, as it were, into the dock to explain himself. Out of the desert whirlwind God then speaks—and it is the longest speech by God in the Scriptures: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know....Who shut within doors the sea...when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? Have you ever in your lifetime commanded the morning and shown the dawn its place" (Job 38: 4, 8-10)? God goes on, taking Job on a lengthy tour of the mysteries, conundrums, and wonders of the universe, introducing him to ever wider contexts, situating his suffering within frameworks of meaning that he had never before considered. In light of God's speech, I would first suggest to Stephen Fry that the true God is the providential Lord of all of space and all of time.

Secondly, I would observe that none of us can see more than a tiny swatch of that immense canvas on which God works. And therefore I would urge him to reconsider his confident assertion that the suffering of the world—even the most horrific and seemingly unjustified—is necessarily without meaning. Imagine that one page of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was torn away and allowed to drift on the wind. Imagine further that that page became, in the course of several months, further ripped and tattered so that only one paragraph of it remained legible. And finally imagine that someone who had never heard of Tolkien's rich and multi-layered story came, by chance, upon that single paragraph. Would it not be the height of arrogance and presumption for that person to declare that those words made not a lick of sense? Would it not be akin to someone, utterly ignorant of higher mathematics, declaring that a complex algebraic formula, coherent in itself but opaque to him, is nothing but gibberish? Given our impossibly narrow point of view, how could any of us ever presume to pronounce on the "meaninglessness" of what happens in the world?

A third basic observation I would make to Mr. Fry is this: once we grant that God exists, we hold to the very real possibility of a life beyond this one. But this implies that no evil in this world, even death itself, is of final significance. Is it terrible that innocent children die of wasting diseases? Well of course. But is it finally and irreversibly terrible? Is it nothing but terrible? By no means! It might in fact be construed as an avenue to something unsurpassably good.

In the last analysis, the best rejoinder to Fry's objection is a distinctively Christian one, for Christians refer to the day on which Jesus was unjustly condemned, abandoned by his friends, brutally scourged, paraded like an animal through the streets, nailed to an instrument of torture and left to die as "Good Friday." To understand that is to have the ultimate answer to Job—and to Stephen Fry.

Well that's ok then! The children can just put up with their horrific diseases or grim wartorn, orphaned existence, because, well, the disease won't last forever and someday they might achieve "something unsurpassably good"!

Are there different levels of prizes waiting in heaven? I mean, the kid who lives his whole childhood and, should he survive, his adult life with the horrific disease is surely entitled to some better reward than the run of the mill person who lives just as Jesus would want him to! "We have our finest seven star suite reserved for you, young man, with all the prizes of the flesh which you were denied in your earthly life available and every possible whim catered to!"

I'm sure Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins and every other person in the western world is aware of the claims made for "God" in terms of creating everything and the supposed afterlife. I fail to see how that knowledge answers the questions about evil and suffering, especially of innocent children.

[armaghniac]

"Wide"

Mayo 8:2:15

He went up from there to Bethel, and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, "Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!" And he turned around, and when he saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. And two she-bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the boys.

[The Iceman]

Why is it God's fault J70? Why not yours? You have extra money I'm sure and plenty of time on your hands it seems. I'm sure you blew money on stupid things like all the rest of us growing up? and still today?
I wonder if all that excess we have and waste was given to the poor, the suffering, the marginalized.,,,, I wonder would they have enough food and water and shelter, I wonder would we have more cures for diseases...I wonder.....
why is there suffering?

Funny, God was just about to ask us the same thing....

[J70]

Muppet I don't think it's fair to continually drag up old conversations because perhaps you're bored.
It has been discussed a couple of times on this board about Old Testament versus New Testament. All the quotes you bring up are mostly from the Old Testament.
The New Testament supersedes the old. Jesus fulfilled the teaching of the old. The old was designed to point the Jewish people to the Jewish Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and Jesus' teaching supersedes it.

Go an read a Catholic catechism or Pope Francis' teachings and show me where any of these things are promoted that you quote.

I don't know what your ultimate intent is in all of this? To save people? Are you genuinely interested in saving Christians from Christ? Or are you doing your best to reason with others on the subject in an effort to convince yourself? Something deep inside you telling you there's more....? Watch you don't get knocked off your horse Saul....

I am doing it because I am interested and so far very little of the modern version of religion and its application stands up to any serious scrutiny. The overwhelming evidence is that Jesus existed and by any account was an amazing person. That is beyond dispute. The problem arises with His successors and the rules and regulations they put in place.

As for the Old Testament, according to the Bible Jesus called it the Word of God on many occasions. Everyone, religious and atheists included, cherrypicks from the Bible to suit their agenda. That is a massive problem imho.

We always hear this, but is the existence of Jesus the man really proven?

[Puckoon]

Why is it God's fault J70? Why not yours? You have extra money I'm sure and plenty of time on your hands it seems. I'm sure you blew money on stupid things like all the rest of us growing up? and still today?
I wonder if all that excess we have and waste was given to the poor, the suffering, the marginalized.,,,, I wonder would they have enough food and water and shelter, I wonder would we have more cures for diseases...I wonder.....
why is there suffering?

Funny, God was just about to ask us the same thing....

Maybe J70 is only claiming to be human?

[J70]

Why is it God's fault J70? Why not yours? You have extra money I'm sure and plenty of time on your hands it seems. I'm sure you blew money on stupid things like all the rest of us growing up? and still today?
I wonder if all that excess we have and waste was given to the poor, the suffering, the marginalized.,,,, I wonder would they have enough food and water and shelter, I wonder would we have more cures for diseases...I wonder.....
why is there suffering?

Funny, God was just about to ask us the same thing....

So God's position is "Don't look at me young lad with the cystic fibrosis or grieving mother whose child died in utero due to some genetically determined malformation, its your man's fault over there! Same with you, the father whose wife and kids were washed away in a tsunami or horrifically murdered by terrorists"

We're all collectively responsible for what nature and mankind does. God's hands are clean!

Give us a break.

[armaghniac]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwXrcz-F9M

[muppet]

Muppet I don't think it's fair to continually drag up old conversations because perhaps you're bored.
It has been discussed a couple of times on this board about Old Testament versus New Testament. All the quotes you bring up are mostly from the Old Testament.
The New Testament supersedes the old. Jesus fulfilled the teaching of the old. The old was designed to point the Jewish people to the Jewish Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament and Jesus' teaching supersedes it.

Go an read a Catholic catechism or Pope Francis' teachings and show me where any of these things are promoted that you quote.

I don't know what your ultimate intent is in all of this? To save people? Are you genuinely interested in saving Christians from Christ? Or are you doing your best to reason with others on the subject in an effort to convince yourself? Something deep inside you telling you there's more....? Watch you don't get knocked off your horse Saul....

I am doing it because I am interested and so far very little of the modern version of religion and its application stands up to any serious scrutiny. The overwhelming evidence is that Jesus existed and by any account was an amazing person. That is beyond dispute. The problem arises with His successors and the rules and regulations they put in place.

As for the Old Testament, according to the Bible Jesus called it the Word of God on many occasions. Everyone, religious and atheists included, cherrypicks from the Bible to suit their agenda. That is a massive problem imho.

We always hear this, but is the existence of Jesus the man really proven?

I think so. There is probably more evidence for Jesus than say Aristotle or Plato. Using the same criteria of ancient writings to prove their existence, the existence of Jesus stands up to scrutiny.

[Hardy]

That sermon is nicely put, Iceman, but Aquinas and the Catholic philosophers proceed from the assumption that there is a God – a presumption for which there is no evidence. Therefore, for the author of the sermon to present his argument about God's design as an exercise in logic is a bit of a trick and certainly at odds with the rules of logic, since the founding axiom of the argument is mere speculation.

Another philosopher, Epicurus, presents an argument that is more convincing to me, proceeding, as it does, from first principles of logic:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Are you not arguing with yourself Hardy? To include God in the equation then surely God must exist. If He does exist then Aquinas thinking stands surely?

I'm not sure I get your point. I'm not including God in any equation. I'm quoting Epicurus's use of logic to point out the impossibility that an omnipotent, benevolent God can preside over the existence of evil.