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Dawkins Straw Man

The Last Day
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Posted 10/04/08 - 12:51 PM:	#51
Kwalish Kid wrote: So what is the metaphorical meaning of the various examples of genocide in the OT, and what is the Christian perspective on these events? Kwalish Kid wrote: Deut. 20:16 But as for the towns of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. Deut. 20:17 You shall annihilate them -- the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites -- just as the LORD your God has commanded, Deut. 20:18 so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the LORD your God. 1. And Samuel said to Saul, "The LORD sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel; now therefore hearken to the words of the LORD. 2. Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I will punish what Am'alek did to Israel in opposing them on the way, when they came up out of Egypt. 3. Now go and smite Am'alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. Of course, as Dawkins point out, if you really have some other standard to appeal to rather than the Bible in making the determination that genocide is wrong, then why not simply stick to that standard? God punishes sin. Israel was a tool. He even sent nations against Israel to punish their sin (cf. Habbakuk, Isaiah 10, etc.). Raugust wrote: The God of the OT is jealous, wrathful, capricious, and deeply disrespectful of free will. This flatly contradicts the God most Christians believe in. Those dirty Calvinists accept the view you just described (minus capriciousness). Dirty Calvinists... Edited by The Last Day on 10/04/08 - 03:33 PM

rigelrover
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Posted 10/29/09 - 06:39 AM:	#52
The real issue at hand, that the Straw Man of Dawkins chooses to ignore (or is ignorant of), is that the whole thing is metaphor. The story is one of people trying to comprehend themselves and God. There are people who take metaphors literally, and those who also realize that doctrine and understanding is constantly changing. The doctrine of the old testament was 'set in stone' by a council that chose from among a large body of work what should be representative of the current understanding. Long before this rabbis arose, countless times, to question doctrine to its core and create fundamental changes. This practice continued to the time of Jesus (an old school rabbi himself) who completely turned doctrine on its head, and still happens today. The role of prophets in the old testament was to point out the evils of fundamentalism, and at times of complacency. If anything Dawkins is a prophet of the new age of complacency and fundamentalism. A call to question and think about that which is deeply engrained in us; the evils of forceful indoctrination, etc. His anger is sometimes righteous, but a lot of the time it seems completely self-serving. Let the prophets open our eyes, but do not let them steer the course for us. Edited by rigelrover on 10/29/09 - 06:44 AM
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

Cheshire
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Posted 10/29/09 - 12:55 PM:	#53
rigelrover wrote: The real issue at hand, that the Straw Man of Dawkins chooses to ignore (or is ignorant of), is that the whole thing is metaphor. The story is one of people trying to comprehend themselves and God. There are people who take metaphors literally, and those who also realize that doctrine and understanding is constantly changing. Saying it is a metaphor is an attempt to excuse religion from reality. It is either fact or fiction not poetry. I do think Dawkins has gone about the subject all wrong. I think the best approach for atheism is to simply state the facts as we see them. Personally, it looks like people are pretending there exists a super being called God. When everyone around you is pretending the same thing it allows for the suspension of disbelief. Hence, acting and movies. Now, honestly, if you had never heard of the remaining god would you take my word for it? If I just said I've got an ancient text here and it supplies the basis for my assertion there is an all-powerful invisible being that I know a lot about, but can supply no evidence for -would you believe me?
Or not.

rigelrover
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Posted 10/29/09 - 01:02 PM:	#54
Cheshire wrote: Saying it is a metaphor is an attempt to excuse religion from reality. It is either fact or fiction not poetry. I do think Dawkins has gone about the subject all wrong. I think the best approach for atheism is to simply state the facts as we see them. Personally, it looks like people are pretending there exists a super being called God. When everyone around you is pretending the same thing it allows for the suspension of disbelief. Hence, acting and movies. Now, honestly, if you had never heard of the remaining god would you take my word for it? If I just said I've got an ancient text here and it supplies the basis for my assertion there is an all-powerful invisible being that I know a lot about, but can supply no evidence for -would you believe me? It is better to suspend disbelief than to be overly confident (or comfortable) with ones pre-conceptions. That is the strength of the message of the prophets (like Dawkins). If you were a rabbi, I would consider what you showed me and think about it as analytically as I could to see what truth was available. I would then proceed to question you. Hopefully you would question me to help me learn about what it was that I was missing in my willingness to accept the prima facie and the comfortable. Hopefully I would continue to pursue questions that did not have adequate answers in a search for bigger truths, and understand that ultimately my attempts may be in vain, or at least fallible. Edited by rigelrover on 10/29/09 - 01:11 PM
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

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2 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 10/29/09 - 02:04 PM:	#55
I don't know whether it is possible to definitively state what the modern Christian actually believes (and does not merely profess to believe)--outside of a few things, perhaps. I don't think there is any "Church" that can be appealed to as arbiter of beliefs. Today's Christians are notorious as "cafeteria Christians." They roam about the great buffet of beliefs associated with Christianity, and pick and choose, according to taste. There are Catholics who routinely disagree with established Church docrtrine on abortion, to refer to a common example. You'll find people describing themselves as Christians who do not care about, even if they know something of, the Old Testament, or the New Testament for that matter, except perhaps to the extent they come in handy as sources of quotations for use in weddings and other ceremonies. What I have read of Dawkins, Hitchens et al has never struck me as impressive, as I think their points were all made, many times, by others long before they were twinkles in the eyes of their no doubt long-suffering parents. Many of those points are, I think, valid. Some are picayune. When they go off on religion, they have a tendency to appear, if not actually become, officious know-it-alls, so I'm not certain they do their "side" any lasting good. They are free to chose their targets, and there are certainly some old standards out there still to be attacked, but I think religion, in the West at least, has become or is becoming a rather vague, amorphous hodgepodge. I doubt that attacks on the Old Testament impress many, as a result.
"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."--C.S. Peirce "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it."--Marcus Tullius Cicero "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men."--John Dewey

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