Tony\'s God (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, November 19, 2011, 18:40 (4754 days ago) @ dhw

I’ve opened a new thread on the assumption that you would not want your God to be mixed up with Abel’s gods! I hope we now know each other well enough for you not to take offence at what follows. I’m an ignorant agnostic, and can only explain why I don’t share other people’s beliefs. I do, however, respect them. You give us an account of Cain and Abel making their sacrifices to God (the “fruit of the ground” and “the firstlings of his flock” respectively).

Thank you, and no offense taken at all.

DHW
It certainly does. First of all, let’s remind ourselves that it was God who planted the tree of good and evil, so it was God who invented the concept of evil.

I feel compelled to correct you on this point. In the Judeo-Christian belief system the tree itself was NOT the tree of good and evil. Secondly, there were two trees. The first was the tree of knowledge, and the second was the tree of life. The tree of knowledge supposedly 'opened their eyes so that they became like Gods(note the plurality), knowing the difference between good and evil.

DHW

Since he was the “first cause”, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask how he could be aware of something that wasn’t already part of himself.

Good and Evil, as we think of them, are entirely human ideas. For example, death of a creature may or may not be evil, but if you ask a member of PETA, it most certainly would be called evil. This disparity between what is evil and what is considered evil is actually quite nicely illustrated in the account. If you consider that immediately after they 'ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge' they realized that they were naked and became ashamed. Consider the connotations of that simple statement. Their entire life prior to that, they were naked, and yet they were considered innocent, pure, and had committed no sin. Yet, after they got a taste of limited knowledge, they thought being naked was wrong. Notice, that it didn't say it WAS wrong, it said they saw it as wrong. The entire account is about the arrogance of human knowledge, and the suffering that is caused when we place our own ideals over the ideals of God.

Secondly, you say that Cain “wanted favor (i.e. glory) and was willing to kill to get it.” That is exactly the argument I would use against Abel. And the fact that God was pleased to see the blood of the lamb(s) gives me the shivers. In passing, let me also say that a tiller of land has to work just as hard as a shepherd, so I have a great deal of sympathy with Cain – though not, of course, over the subsequent murder, which is unforgivable. You say later that “sacrifices weren’t required prior to sin”. I really don’t know why sacrifices were required in the first place, other than to appeal to God’s vanity.

Honestly, the question of sacrifice is one I have had myself, but for different reasons. The though of sacrificing a lamb and presenting it as a gift to god is no more offensive than coming over to visit you and bringing you a well baked juicy brisket. Secondly, you are doing here what I mentioned in my response above. You have a pre-conceived notion of what good and evil is, with incomplete knowledge(no offense, we all suffer from that condition), and you are using it to cast judgment. This is the ultimate folly in every biblical account, echoed in the supposed words of Jesus, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do." As for why the sacrifice is needed, think of it as a token of apology. Imagine if you will, that you had the most precious thing in existence. Magnaminously, you decide to share that precious thing with someone. Of course, having incredibly intimate knowledge of this thing which they do not, you tell them that if they will be patient, you will tell them everything they need to know to enjoy this thing for their entire life. And then they pee on your shoes and spoil the precious gift that you have given them with the backsplatter. I would imagine that you would be pretty insulted, no? I would also imagine, that any of their kin who knew about this, and were good, upright people, would try to offer some sort of apology. Knowing that there was nothing thing could give you to make up for what was lost, they would simply do the best they could. To me, that is the idea behind sacrifice. Humanity peed on gods sandals, and the good parts of the family tried to apologize for it.

I will answer your last paragraph in my next post, because I think the answer will be quite lengthy.

Thanks for a great discussion, as always.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.