Natalie

The Christian Delusion - Debate Part One

When Alan invited me to participate in a debate entitled “The Christian Delusion” he knew I was an atheist, but he did not know what sort of an atheist.  I could have been an atheist through ignorance, never having really heard the word of God. I could have been an atheist through conviction, having read the bible and some theology and then having decided on intellectual grounds that I did not believe in the existence of God.  I could have been an atheist on emotional grounds, having thought about God and just not liking the idea that God exists and should be worshipped.

In fact I am an atheist for all these reasons.  I became an atheist at the age of 8 when I saw how worshippers behaved to one another.  At that stage I was certainly ignorant.  I was another 8 years before I even discovered that the words “atheist” and “agnostic” existed, and that I was not the only person in the world who did not believe in God.

The emotional reasons are not debatable. It would not make sense for me to say to you “I am not in love with your spouse, and so you are wrong to be in love with him/her”.  Similarly our different feelings about God are only debatable if you believe that God has actually given you your positive feelings towards Him, but has deliberately denied me the same emotions.

The debate will therefore start from the intellectual reasons why I think that Christians are deluded.

I hope we can agree on this potted history.

Around 3900 years ago Abraham became a monotheist and, in return for not worshiping idols, God promised him that his descendants would be a light to the other nations and would be given some land on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean.

About 650 years later at Mount Sinai God gave Moses the 613 laws that righteous Jews need to keep and the 7 laws that righteous gentiles need to keep. Some of the laws, for example the many sacrifices, require the presence of the temple. Religious Jews still try to keep the other laws.  Jesus declared that His coming made many of those laws redundant.

For the next 12 or 13 centuries, the Jews had a very mixed fate.  During times of trouble the various Jewish prophets emphasised that disaster is the result of not following God’s laws.  They also prophesied that someday The Messiah would come.

About 2000 years ago a Jewish man called Jesus lived in this land at the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, and was crucified by the Romans.  Millions of people believe that he was The Messiah that the prophets had spoken about.  However this view is not shared by the Jews.  It is comparatively easy to discover why the Jews think that Christians are deluded.  It is not easy to find Christian commentaries which address the points made by the Jews, but I hope that this debate might elicit some.

The first point I would like to make is that God cannot be trusted to keep his promises.

The text which proves this Leviticus 25.  This is probably not a chapter which you have read with much attention.  It starts:-

The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a Sabbath to the Lord.  For six years sow your fields and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops.  But in the seventh year the land is to have a Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the Lord.”

Verses 20-22 say:-

You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?”  I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years.  While you plant during the eighth year you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.”

The other biblical promises fall into one of two categories.  The first category can be summarised as “Believe in Me, be good, obey My laws, and you will be rewarded either at some unspecified time while you are alive, and/or when you die.”  The second is the opposite: “If you don’t believe in Me and  do not obey My laws, then at some unspecified time while you are alive disaster will strike, and when you die you will not have the rewards given to those virtuous people with faith.”

What happens after one dies can never be proved in this life.  Ideas about this must be a matter of faith and hope. They are also not debateable.

If I promise to give you a thousand pounds but don’t say when I am going to make this gift, until the day I die, and my will has been read, you can never accuse me of breaking this promise.  I might still keep it.  God is eternal and so He can never be accused of breaking undated promises.

However, the promise in Leviticus 25:21 is dated.  It promises a triple harvest every 7 years. September 2007 was the end of just such a year.  My e-mail contains appeals to support farmers in Israel who are not doing any work this year and so have no income.  If God kept His promise, there would be no need for the farmers to appeal for my charity to keep them from starving.

As far as I know the promise in Leviticus 25:21 is the only one where God promises to do something before man does anything.  If anyone can think of any other similar promises, please let me know.  My response to the above charitable appeals is rather uncharitable.  I ask why the farmers feel they should obey the commands to do no agricultural work when God clearly has not keep His part of the bargain to make it easy for them to obey.  I have been unable to find any evidence that there has ever been even a slight increase in the harvest in the 6 th years of the 7 year cycles.

My first debating point is therefore that if God cannot keep a promise He made directly, those who believe the promises made through the prophets or the promises that Jesus is reported to have made, must be deluded.

Alan

Response to Part One

Natalie has helpfully given a cogent description of the reasons for her atheism, and a historical overview of the origins of the phenomenon we call ‘Christianity’.

Her initial objection to the ‘god of the bible’ is that he cannot be trusted to keep his promises. I say ‘god of the bible’ because it is theoretically possible that ‘the cosmic deity’ may exist and may in fact be vindictive, sadistic, petty and unreliable. However such a deity is not described in the bible, and is not the god that millions worship worldwide. It is therefore granted that IF god were those things, Christians are as deluded as if he didn’t exist. Christians believe in a god of judgement and mercy – whose ‘mercy triumphs over judgement’ (James 2:13), a god who is all-powerful and all-good. A god who is faithful and trustworthy – who keeps his promises.

Natalie accuses god of not keeping his promise in Leviticus 25 to bless the land every seventh year with a triple harvest (to last year 6,7 and 8 so that the people can rest in year 7 and reap again in year 9). Key to the argument is the idea that this promise is unconditional – it does not depend on the people obeying any other law.

The first thing to say is that this is NOT an obscure piece of Levitical law which can be dismissed lightly. The recent campaign to ‘Make Poverty History’ has it roots in exactly this type of old testament teaching, and arguably the betrayal of this teaching (if it was in fact ever practiced) has caused more suffering than just about any other ‘sin’ that mankind has committed. The teaching is about ‘Sabbath’ (Shabat) and ‘Jubilee’. One can start from either end of these twin doctrines.

If we begin with ‘Sabbath’ we find that God commands mankind to rest from work every 7 days, and this command is given before even the ten commandments. Indeed God himself sets the pattern in Genesis 2:2 where ‘God rested on the seventh day’. As desert nomads, miraculously fed by the provision of manna the people are commanded to refrain from gathering manna on the seventh day. God’s purposes in establishing Sabbath law can begin to be read, we are to rest because it is good for us, and we are to learn to trust God to provide for us (7 days a week – all good things come from him, and we especially learn this truth when we learn to ‘let go and let God’ every 7 days). Every 7 YEARS the people were to rest the entire land (Levitcus 25 and Exodus 23). The Exodus passage emphasises that this is a command, not an unconditional promise. Furthermore during this ‘Sabbath Year’ debt was to be cancelled. After every 7x7 years (i.e. every 50 th year) the nation was to celebrate a Jubilee Year, where the processes of wealth redistribution went even further, forfeited land returns to its original owners, slaves are freed and (of course) debts are cancelled. Perhaps the doctrine of Sabbath starts from this endpoint. One of God’s purposes is to prevent socio-economic inequality, and observing Sabbath in all of its forms brings this about whilst reminding us that we are souls passing through a world of divine provision, in which ALL things come from God.

I would therefore dispute the reasoning given by Natalie in two ways. Firstly God was not obliged to ‘keep his promise’ as this was not an unconditional promise at all but was entirely dependant on humans trusting that the world (through God’s sustaining power) could provide ‘enough for our need, but not enough for our greed’. Secondly God HAS kept his promise – he provides the harvest every year. Is there enough provision in year 6 to last until year 9? Against a backdrop of human greed, socio-economic inequality and a lack of faith maybe we will never know. Was the year of Jubilee ever kept faithfully? The prophets systematically condemned the people of Israel for failing to ‘walk humbly, live justly and love mercy’ this might imply that they failed to keep the Sabbath in all its forms. It is true that orthodox Jews in Israel today do seek to keep some of this teaching but there have also been workarounds which must ‘amuse’ if not dismay God. For instance ensuring a foreigner ‘owns’ your fields apparently gets around the obligation to rest those fields every 7 years – whether this is ecologically sound is another argument.

Our failure to keep the Sabbath is not about Sunday shopping or narrow legalistic ideas about what constitutes ‘labour’ – it is about justice and our willingness to trust God to provide.

Far from being a text that disproves the existence of God, I would argue that Old Testament Sabbath teaching is so ‘counter-intuitive’ to human beings that it strongly points towards an external author of these radical laws. It is hard to see how a tribal group would come to the conclusion that it is a good idea to do no work once in every seven years, or how a species evolved through millennia of struggle to be ‘the fittest’ would conclude that the strongest members of its group should relinquish their hold over the weakest once every seven years. Radical Judaeo-Christian politics, and Revolutionary Communism are not so very different in this regard – it is not they they have been tried and found wanting, but they have been ‘found difficult and not tried properly’ (GK Chesterton I think?). The only difference is that Communism is plagiarising God’s ideas without giving him the credit.

Footnote:

Perhaps the argument hinges more on our respective definition of ‘miracle’. If we are looking for God to ‘prove’ his existence through a supernaturally miraculous ‘triple crop’ every seven years then we may conclude that as this has not occurred God has failed to ‘prove his existence’.

On the other hand I might regard it as a miracle that the sun rises every day – this is in my opinion entirely dependant on God sustaining the universe; without God it would not occur. In this instance God demonstrably has provided the harvest, any percieved failure is down to human greed and inequality in distribution.

I think there are subtle but important theological reasons why God chooses not to ‘prove’ his existence, we may come to these in the course of the debate.

Natalie

Part 2

Alan claims that the deity described in the bible is not vindictive, sadistic, petty and unreliable.

I am pleased he has made that point early in the debate.  Usually religious people have said this to me when we are saying goodbye to one another and I never get a chance to ask them to give me biblical quotes to justify that statement.  I emerged from reading the bible feeling that those 4 adjectives perfectly describe the biblical deity.  Here are some of the texts which I feel justify my opinion:-

I will start at the beginning.  Gen 1:26 and 1:27 say that man is created in God’s image.  We are obviously not talking about a physical image with hair and hands, so this statement can only mean that if we want to know the nature of God, we need to carefully examine the nature of the image.  As a humanist I believe that people are capable of behaving morally and mercifully and with judgement.  These aspects of “the image” reflect the aspects of God that Christians love and believe in.  It is obvious that people also behave sadistically and selfishly and don’t always keep their promises.  My other examples will show that these aspects of “the image”, perfectly reflect the behaviour of God.  The image may not be as powerful as the original, but it is not distorted or missing important parts.  To know the nature of God, look at man.

I am aware of the interpretation of these verses which says that they mean that God has given man free will. Free will is obviously a property of the deity, so it is logical to say that Gen 1:26-27 means that man has a measure of free will.  However it is not logical to say that is the only aspect of God passed onto man.

In Genesis 2 verses 16 and 17 we find God forbidding man from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and bad.  This appears to me rather like this scenario.

Irate parent: “Don’t do that!”

Child: “Why?”

Parent “Because I say so, and you will be punished if you do it.  That is a good enough reason”.

As I loving parent I tried to ensure that, when it was important that my children obeyed me, they knew the reason why I was making demands. I wanted them to have knowledge.  Ignorance appears to be a godly ideal; it is not mine.

Gen 3 verse 22 has God grumbling “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and bad, what if he should stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever!” The last verses of Gen 3 clearly describe how at the time of creation God did not want man to live forever.  Either God has changed His mind and now grants eternal life to those who believe that Jesus is His Son, in which case He is unreliable, or God is unchanging and Christians are deluded.

Genesis chapter 1 ends with God giving man and the animals plants for food.   The concession to eat meat only came at the time of Noah.  At the time of Cain and Abel people were vegetarian and Cain was the producer of the means of life.  Abel was responsible for life’s little luxuries.  Cain’s first sacrifice was therefore much more of a true sacrifice than was Abel’s, yet God rejected the much more important sacrifice.  (Gen 4, v 3-4) I think this shows a petty god, and if He also knew that Cain would be rather upset, it also shows a slightly sadistic deity.

I have read theological comments which say that Abel willingly sacrificed the best that he had, but Cain was reluctant to make his sacrifice.  This is one of the many times when theologians argue “We know that God = good, and so we must find an interpretation which conforms to the premise that God=good”.  The text does not describe motives,  so I am not comfortable with any interpretation which guesses at motivation.

Genesis Chapter 11 starts with everyone speaking the same language, and co-operating with one another.  It ends with God ensuring that people did not understand one-another.  To me this is the action of a god who delights in war, and does not want universal peace.  It is incompatible with the messianic idea as described in numerous places.  (Isaiah 1:4, and 11:6-8) It leads to the same theological conclusions as the discussion on eternal life – either God is unreliable and changes His mind or Christians are deluded in believing in the messianic idea.

You may wonder why I have started with texts which many people regard as mythical.  We tell our children stories like Cinderella or Aboriginal creation myths, but we don’t tell them that these stories reflect fundamental truths.  Ancient Egyptian or Babylonian myths haven’t made it into the canon because people felt they were not true and did not reflect the true nature of god. The bible is presented as holy and God given and true.  If it includes myths, then the only purpose of the myths can be to illuminate the nature of god, and as such they are more important than the history which has made it into the bible.  If you are teaching 20th century history, you are obliged to teach about Hitler.  You are not obliged to include myths in your holy books, so if you do, you have to take responsibility for the myths which are accorded this special status. I feel justified in using those myths to tell me about your concept of God. 

The other reason for starting with Genesis is lack of time.  It is more difficult to find the other places in the bible where God is described as doing something.  The genealogies and history occupy a lot of space.  But here are some Godly actions which I can easily recall.

God acting as a judge in cases of deception rewards the deceiver and punishes the person who was deceived.  This happened twice with Abraham.  In Genesis 12:10-20 we have Abraham going to Egypt and passing his wife Sarai off as his sister. Pharaoh takes a fancy to her and as a result Abraham becomes very rich.  God, however does not punish the pimp.  Instead he punishes the punter.  He afflicts Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues.  When Pharaoh discovered that he had been deceived he acted mercifully and sent Abraham off with his wife and all his many possessions.                                                                                             

A few years later Abraham repeats the deception (Gen 20).  This time the dupe is Abimelech. God’s intervention is to make Abimelech impotent, and his wives and slaves barren.  When Abimelech discovers through a dream that he had been fancying a married woman, he gives Abraham back his wife together with sheep, oxen and male and female slaves, and tells him to settle wherever he pleases.

In Gen 26 we find Abimelech again being deceived in the same way, but this time by Isaac passing off Rebekah as his sister.  Once more the deceiver, Isaac, becomes very rich.

Genesis 38 verses 7 to 10 show a god whose reaction to being displeased is to kill.  We are not told why Er, Judah’s first-born, was displeasing to the Lord, but we are told that because he was displeasing to the Lord, the Lord took his life. Onan is told to have sexual intercourse with his sister-in-law, but he withdraws, and this disobedience resulted in his death.

The Church often describes God as a loving Father.  If I reacted to disobedience in the same way as God did, I don’t think my children would regard me as loving.  Here are a couple of examples.  I have already discussed the first sacrifice, but now look at the first sacrifices after detailed instructions have been issued.

In Leviticus 10 we have reached the stage where the children of Israel have been told how they are to conduct sacrifices.  Aaron and his 3 sons have made the first sacrifices. 

“Now Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, put fire in it and laid incense on it and they offered before the Lord alien fire which He had not enjoined up them.  And fire came forth from the Lord and consumed them; thus they died at the instance of the Lord.”  When the bodies had been removed Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons “Do not bare your heads and do not rend your clothes, lest you die, and anger strike the whole community.  (I once attended a service at the Peniel church in Brentwood where this was their chosen Old Testament reading.  I was very disappointed that they stopped the reading before the instructions to Aaron not to mourn when God killed his family.)

Fast forward to Numbers 16.  There is a rebellion against Moses. Moses decides to let God decide who is right. God’s reaction is to immediately annihilate everyone except Moses and Aaron (v 19-21), but like Abraham, Moses and Aaron point out that He should not punish the whole community.

God listened to the plea bargain. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the rebels, their families and their possessions. They went down alive into Shoah.  The earth closed over them and they vanished from the midst of the congregation.  All Israel fled at their shrieks.

Sometimes God appears to be content to play sadistic games.  For example in 1 Samuel 8 the Israelites ask for a king. God says that if they insist, he will give them a king, but they won’t like it.  The Israelites persist in their request.  God could have chosen a reasonable king, but instead he chose Saul, a paranoid, unreliable psychopath with a tendency to throw his sword at anyone (family or friend) who annoyed him.  God thus made sure that  this prophecy would come true and  the Israelites would not like their king.

I had not originally intended discussing what God’s actions reveal about His nature.  People have faults, yet most of us love, and are loved.   We sometimes behave badly but sometimes we behave well.  A not-very-nice God who was constant and unwavering would not bring about a Messianic age, but if the Bible tells us about a deity who changes His mind, then even this not-very-nice God could bring about The Messianic age.

When I saw that Alan was saying that Leviticus 25 and Exodus 23 were giving the same message, I was delighted that we are debating by correspondence and not face-to-face with a time limit.  I wondered how I could have not realised that Exodus 23 was relevant, and why none of the 10 or so Jews (Rabbis, journalists and others) with whom I had corresponded about Leviticus 25 had ever mentioned Exodus 23. I went back to read it more carefully. This time I noticed verses 10 and 11 which mention the Sabbath year.

My summary of Exodus 23 is this: Verses 1 to 19 are commands.  The rest of the chapter promises rewards for good behaviour, and also has an implication which deserves a debate of its own:-  The way to deal with people whose ideas you regard as wrong is to annihilate them (verse 23) and drive them away (27-33).  Refugees from political oppression are fleeing from people who are following the advice given in verse 33 “They shall not stay in your land, lest they cause you to sin........and prove a snare to you.”  When Mr. Mugabe says that only God can remove him, he has obviously imbibed the lesson of Exodus 23.  God is allowing him to annihilate and drive away his enemies, so his enemies must have the wrong ideas and his views must be right.

I have never understood what Christians regard as a miracle. I assume that the resurrection of Jesus is regarded as a miracle.  I do remember sleeping next to a bible containing commentaries and notes, (possibly the NIV with study notes).  It included a note on Exodus 7: 8-12 to say that, of course, the turning of Aaron’s rod into a serpent was a miracle, but when the Egyptians did the same thing, it was just a trick!!  I assume that Alan’s “subtle but important theological reasons why God chooses not to ‘prove’ his existence” are of a better quality than the above comment.  Even if we don’t get to his reasons during this debate, we can always continue the discussion after 13 th July.

The points I have made so far could be lifted and put into a purely Jewish debate with a title like “Is the Jewish God worthy of being worshipped.”  It is time focus it on the title “The Christian Delusion”.   I have to decide if I bring in the Alpha course, or the arguments the Rabbis use in their fight against missionaries.

In Alpha’s favour, is the fact the almost every church appears to be running or to have run Alpha courses, so I could assume that the material in that course describes the essence of Christianity.  Against Alpha is the fact that every believing Christian I have spoken to who has also done an Alpha course has not been impressed.  They have been unable to articulate what was wrong with the course, but they knew they didn’t like it.  Also my copy of Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel is so full of critical comments that selecting from them would be a formidable task. 

Against the Rabbis, is the fact that I was invited here as a humanist and an atheist.  Another reason for not bringing in the Rabbis is that the 2 sites I will introduce you to were created to counter the missionaries who specifically target Jews.  I may be wrong, but I don’t think the West Leigh Baptist Church regards its main activity as going to the local university and converting the Jewish students.

In favour of the Rabbis is the fact that they share with you the conviction that God exists and is indisputably good. They also are the experts in the Old Testament.  An essential part of Christianity is that Jesus fulfils OT prophecies.  I would also like to bring into the debate the reasons why these experts think you are deluded. 

There are 2 main web resources dealing with the question “Could Jesus be the Messiah?”.  One is Outreach Judaism http://www.outreachjudaism.org/index.html

Rabbi Singer has 26 audio files accessible from http://www.outreachjudaism.org/biblical.html

I haven’t had time to listen to them.

He also has 36 questions and answers available from http://www.outreachjudaism.org/questions.html

Jews for Jesus have attacked his audios.

The Outreach Judaism site has a very thorough refutation of the Jews for Jesus attack.  If you don’t have time to read the bulk of the Outreach Judaism site, then please just read http://www.outreachjudaism.org/response.html

The other main web site is http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/

The Outreach Judaism question about Sin and Atonement quotes more texts relevant to this topic, but here is the summary page http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/jews-jesus/jews-jesus-index.html.

Alan

Response 2

Richard Dawkins opens chapter 2 of The God Delusion by stating:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

I plagiarised this in my earlier response and I’m pleased that Natalie has picked up on this as an important matter of dispute. I agree that it is very important we describe what kind of god we are talking about.

Francis Schaeffer repeatedly said there is no word as meaningless as the word ‘god’. We can apply this label to any gap in our understanding, and at some purely linguistic level convert all atheists into believing in ‘god’ if we define it as, say, the warm fuzzy feeling we get gazing at a beautiful sunset. This is not the God of the bible. The biblical God is not just ‘good, loving, fuzzy reassurance’ he is sovereign (they’re his rules) holy (pure, set apart) and just (fair). Or at least, so his admirers say. What of his track record? The Old Testament does indeed contain a number of passages which are deeply troubling to us and Natalie has helpfully highlighted and summarised several of these. Rather than address each story in turn I would like to take a step back and ask how we can square this type of behaviour with a God who we are told is all-loving and all-good?

God describes himself for us in Exodus 34, after Moses has asked for a sign that God is with him:

"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

This passage clearly draws a direct connection between God as loving and forgiving and God as just and punishing. It shows us that these two aspects of God’s character are not in conflict, they are inseparable. Put it another way, would you prefer a God who was ONLY loving and accepting? Such a God could only exist if there was no such thing as ‘morality’ – but the very fact that you are outraged by your interpretation of God’s behaviour tells me that you DO believe in morality, you do believe there are standards by which judgements can be made so where do those standards come from?

I find the idea of Hell deeply troubling, I do not pretend to understand it and certainly do not know who will go there – that is for God to decide. However a world with NO ultimate penalty would not be better – it would be much worse. It would be obscenely unfair for God to let genocide, holocaust and abuse go unpunished. I believe many people choose not to believe in God because they would rather not believe in hell. This is a consistent position to hold, but as soon as we accept that God exists we simply HAVE to believe in judgement and hell, otherwise the situation really is very unfair. It is precisely the fuzzy thinking that tries to believe in ‘god’ without believing in judgement that the church needs to engage with.

But HOW can a good God inflict pain and suffering in the way he is seen to do in the Old Testament? Surely this is cruelty, and while such a god may be feared and obeyed, it is hard to see why anyone would want to love or worship him.

Part of the answer is that there is ample biblical proof that God is loving, compassionate, kind, merciful and good…

Genesis 29:31 When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb

Job 42:12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first

2 Kings 4 – Four miracles of Elisha that show God’s love toward individuals and groups of people.

…and so on.

Nevertheless we can concede that the fulfilment of God’s love is shown through Jesus Christ – the actuality of the gift of grace to all, the demonstration of compassion and tenderness towards the least in society (lepers, prostitutes etc) without this we have not fully understood God or fully grasped his nature. Many Old Testament writers were able to anticipate this however, and hence the stories of God as redeemer (Ruth and Boaz) and saviour (the Psalms are full of praise to a good and loving God).

One other point to make – what makes us think we can judge God? It is true that our ideas about justice, fairness and morality come from God – without an eternally good moral being I do not believe we can really demand universal moral standards. However, are any of us 100% good, moral beings, able to sit in judgment of God? To judge a case the jury must hear all the evidence – have we?

In Exodus 33, where God is describing to Moses how he will reveal himself , God states:

“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”

And in Isaiah 55 we are reminded:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.

Of course this line of argument could be seen as the ultimate cop-out, ‘don’t ask difficult questions – it’s not your place’ – or as Natalie puts it ‘because I said so’. I do not believe this is what God is saying. I think we ARE supposed to ask questions, even to question God, but what these passages teach us is to retain a sense of proportion – we do not have all the information, or the moral capacity to judge God.

My apologies if the following illustration has worn thin through overuse but I believe it does remind us of an important truth:

At the end of time, billions of people were seated on a great plain before God's throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with shame - but with belligerence.

"Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?", snapped a young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. "We endured terror ... beatings ... torture ... death!"

In another group a black boy lowered his collar. "What about this?" he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. "Lynched, for no crime but being black!"

In another crowd there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: "Why should I suffer?" she murmured. "It wasn't my fault." Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world.

How lucky God was to live in Heaven, where all was sweetness and light. Where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a black, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the vast plain, they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a man.

Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind.

Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.

At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die so there can be no doubt he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.

As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered a word. No one moved. For suddenly, all knew that God had already served His sentence.

If we only grasp part of the picture of God (that he punishes wrong) our understanding will be partial. If we see the bigger picture we will encounter a God who far exceeds our expectations of justice by taking the punishment we deserve upon himself.

It is possible to select passages from the Old Testament that show god to be all the things Dawkins described. It is also possible to misrepresent the New Testament god as being all about love and forgiveness. Neither of these pictures is correct. The Old Testament is full of stories of a loving, protecting, merciful God, and in the same way Jesus himself has much to say about hell and judgement. Only a God who is both just and loving is described in the bible and only such a God makes sense and is worthy of our love and worship.

Shirley

Response to Natalie

It looks very interesting.  I doubt whether I will have time to do justice to properly participating in the debate.

1. In reading your potted history I find that I disagree with your interpretations of the history. Looking at it from the point of view of secular academic scholarship, I question whether you have sufficient grounds to say that Abraham 'became a monotheist'. I am not sure, either that 'in return for not worshipping idols, God promised him that his descendants would be a light to other nations....' The origin of this claim in the Genesis story is not clear to me.
2. Many modern secular academic Biblical scholars would not agree that the 613 laws that righteous Jews need to keep were transmitted directly via Moses. They would more likely consider many of them to be a post-Moses accumulation over a period of time, probably developed according to the contingencies of historical circumstances.
3. The whole issue of humans acting as a spokesperson/spokespeople for God, i.e. speaking on behalf of God is a difficult one. I can't gloss over that issue and feel it is a subject in itself as is the concept of hearing God speaking to us.
4. It was Jews (some of them) who first were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. Those who believed that he was became, in the post-Jesus era, what we would probably call a sect. It was also Jews who were violently opposed to the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. For a time the Messianic claim and refutation of the claim was essentially a Jewish issue, with Jews being the sprotagonists and pokespeople for both sides. It was only as gentiles were included in the 'church' and gradually gained influence that the gentile/Jewish divide widened and led to a separation between the two.

I’m resisting the temptation to continue. You have the wonderful knack of asking difficult and provocative questions. I realise that I can never give responses that satisfy you, because I think we may have different starting points other than the obvious Christian/Jewish and atheist/non-atheist ones. I think I must sound to you like someone interviewed by John Humphries who is trying to dodge the question and wriggle out of a direct answer. I realise that having studied the Bible academically (and academic study must necessarily be secular) makes me approach your questions from a different angle. In the end we will meet up, but the detour is a long one!

I think your co-debater has an interesting take on the Jubilee year and would probably side with his less literal interpretation.

Good luck with the debate! I am sure it is worthwhile and I take my hat off to the church that is hosting it. I wish I could be there! I would like to see a discussion on what Christians can learn from Humanists. I think plenty!

Love

Shirley

Natalie

Response to Shirley

Here is my reply to Shirley:

Re point 1:

I got the events in the wrong order.  Gen 12 starts with God promising to make Abraham a great nation and to blessing him.  The promises are amplified in other places. From then onwards there is no mention of Abraham worshipping any other God.  In 11:7 he builds an alter to the Lord.  In 11:8 he invokes the Lord by name.   The Rabbis who write on the web all describe Abraham as the first monotheist, and I must have been reflecting what these Rabbis say.  You are far more of a biblical scholar than I am, so I would not be at all surprised if a careful reading of Genesis showed that only Abraham’s descendents were interested in idol worship.

Re Point 2

Shirley is quite correct. I should have been more careful to differentiate between the first 5 books of the bible, the Jewish Torah, and the enumeration into 365 negative commandments (corresponding to the days of the year) and 248 positive commandments (corresponding to the rabbinic idea of the number of bones and significant organs in the body!)  365+248=613

However if I had said “ About 650 years later at Mount Sinai God gave Moses the Torah (the first 5 books of the bible). This includes all the commands that righteous Jews and righteous gentiles need to keep.”, Shirley would still have brought up the view of scholars that the text was written over hundreds of years.

Lack of time, and a very inadequate internet connection means that I have not had time to examine your website and see where in fundamentalist spectrum the West Leigh Baptist Church should be placed. When I was involved with editing the Salvation Army song book, the Salvationist I was working with saw a Jewish biblical commentary on my computer and he was astonished to see that that author took it for granted that the first 5 biblical books were dictated to Moses.  This very religious man, who is probably still praying that I see the light, took it as established that the Torah had had several authors.  Orthodox Jewish Rabbis have to maintain publicly that they believe in the dictation to Moses, and some members of their congregations share this belief. Other orthodox Jews, and the many non-orthodox Jews have no problem with the view that Shirley ascribes to “many modern secular academic Biblical scholars”.

I am assuming that those with whom I am debating regard the Bible as God inspired and holy, and it is often not necessary to decide exactly when the holy words were written, or by whom.  The important thing is that they were written and are available.

Alan

Response to Natalie

I was driving home from work this evening when I heard a news report that Iran had tested some ballistic missiles, with a capability of striking Israel. Earlier in the week the Israelis performed an air force exercise, which was widely assumed to be a warning that they could strike alleged Iranian nuclear facilities. The news report contained some soundbites from people in Israel – one said ‘The Bible says if someone wants to kill you, you should kill them first’.

I was gobsmacked – which bible is this? Which book, chapter, verse? I’m utterly convinced that a fair impartial reading of the bible would not lead any right thinking person to draw this conclusion, but it does highlight the very obvious fact that people have systematically misquoted this book to defend their position for centuries. The stakes are high.

Was Jesus the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament? One of the arguments I discovered in reading some of the links Natalie provided was that the Messiah was not expected to die. My immediate reaction to this was to turn to Isaiah 53 which I believe clearly speaks about Jesus Christ, his suffering and his death. In researching the websites further I discover that I’m treading on familiar ground, and Isaiah 53 seems to be at the centre of that argument. However Rabbi Singer’s argument as to why it is not read aloud in the synagogue does NOT address the question of whether he regards it as an authentic part of Isaiah and therefore who it is supposed to be referring to.

When the stakes are this high we are unlikely to find a ‘textual’ solution to our argument. It will not be about ‘proving’ who is interpreting Old Testament prophecies correctly or otherwise. I think this is an important point that we need to respect in the course of the debate. It seems to me that the difference between atheists/agnostics and the average member of West Leigh Baptist Church is not principally about how we interpret biblical texts. I would go further and say that while we DO accept that the bible is God inspired and holy, for most people it was not an in depth study of biblical texts, with a crash course in Hebrew and Greek, that led people to belief in Christ. The main difference is an orientation toward God and a personal faith in Jesus Christ as his son and our means of salvation. For the vast majority of Christians, serious bible study begins AFTER they have come to faith, and through those eyes, few find any contradiction between the prophecies of the Old Testament and the person of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

I realise this is getting into ground which you wanted to avoid. At the very beginning you said that the emotional reasons for your atheism were not debateable. I think I understand what you mean, it is easier to empirically address what a text does or does not say, but for most people their faith IS about much more that empirical facts. Whether those reasons should be called ‘emotional’ ‘spiritual’ ‘experiential’ or some other term I think they are unavoidable and worthy of inclusion.

A very short thought about the missionary efforts to Israel – by and large I would regret many of the ways that (in particular) American Churches have poured large amounts of money and effort into attempts to proselytise. But we should not forget that around 3% of Palestinians are Christian – a figure which has fallen from perhaps 40% prior to the creation of Israel due to mass emigration. Christianity is not a new phenomenon in the region.

My belief is that Christianity has the resources of forgiveness, reconciliation, humility and love which can bring peace to a troubled region. It is true that these traits have not always characterised Christians themselves – or those who bear the name, but they are the characteristics of Christ himself, who can transform our hearts from selfish desire (Kill or be killed) into sacrificial peacemaking.

VARIOUS

RESPONSES TO Alan being 'Gobsmacked'

Jonathan says:

That is slightly misstated.  Jewish code permits self defense, as does the code of most other societies including that of all the countries in the modern world.  You are permitted and required to kill another person if the act of killing that person is necessary to prevent the other person from harming you.  Every court in the land accepts this principle.  What's the big fuss?

Shira writes:

I havent' read the whole email but here is some info:

There is a halachic concept of a Rodef, someone who is chasing you or someone else to kill you or them.  You are then allowed to kill the Rodef in self-defense, just as you are allowed to do so in English law.

I'm not sure which verse in the Torah this comes from, but there is a mention of the rodef somewhere in the Torah, which is where the rabbi's base this halachah.

The concept of the rodef also has applications to wider ethical problems, such as the right of a woman to have an abortion to save her life (something that Roman Catholics do not agree on).  The baby is a rodef even though it is innocent.  Also the case of siamese twins where one is parasitic.  Halachah allows them to be separated even if the weaker twin dies, if the twin's existence threatens the life of the other twin.  (Remember the famous case of Jessica?)

I really don't find these concepts at all shocking.  They're common sense and entirely consistent with modern ethics and English law.

As far as politics is concerned, people often extend the rodef concept a bit too recklessly.  In order for the concept to fit, the person you are killing must actually be chasing you to kill you.  This would justify a pre-emptive strike, but only if the evidence is absolutely solid rather than being based on guess-work and exaggeration as in the case of the Iraq war. 

There is a real danger of people using this concept to justify whatever they want to do.  In fact, this very concept was used by the person who murdered Yitzchak Rabin, since the murderer had been taught by his Rabbi that Rabin's policies threatened the lives of Israelis, and therefore Rabin was a rodef.

And in response to Isaiah 53 Natalie says:

The question about Isaiah 53 not being included in the Haftorah is a red herring.

The haftorah readings were selected about 150 years BC and are mentioned in Acts 13:14-15.  They reflect the Torah readings that Jews were forbidden from reading at that time, or Jewish festivals.

The Question “Did Jesus have long life?” is where Rabbi Singer says that Isaiah 53, like chapters 52 and 54 is clearly referring to the Israeli nation.  It is not fair to summarise his long careful arguments, but here are a couple of paragraphs from his answer

Finally, it is essential for those interested in possessing a clear understanding of Isaiah 53 to carefully read the surrounding chapters.  The context of Isaiah 53 immediately reveals that the prophet is speaking of the nation of Israel in the singular.  It is unfortunate that few missionaries are as familiar with the 52nd and 54th chapters of Isaiah as they are with the 53rd.  The consequences of this sort of unbalanced knowledge are great.

Isaiah 52 and 54 both serve as an indictment against the Christianization of Isaiah 53.  The continuous relationship between Isaiah 52 through 54 is evident because the theme, poetic structure, and motif of Isaiah 53 closely mimics the illustrative language of Isaiah 52 and 54.  As in Isaiah 53, Isaiah 52 and 54 clearly identify Israel in the singular, suffering innocently as a result of the vile wickedness of the gentile nations.  In addition, all three of these exhilarating chapters vividly describe the glorious redemption of Israel in full view of the gentiles, her former persecutors.

Perhaps a complete study session should be devoted to Isaiah 52-54 as a whole, with Rabbi Singers comments as a study aid.

Natalie also says:

When the Reverend Sydney Smith (1771-1845) saw two women shouting at each other from houses on opposite sides of an Edinburgh street he remarked, "They will never agree; they are arguing from different premises!"  Alan and I also will never agree.  He interprets the opening of Leah’s womb as the act of a kind and loving God.   My reactions to Gen 29:31 “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb” were :- (1) If Leah had been loved, would God have kept her childless? (2) Is infertility a sign of God’s displeasure? Throughout the bible God appears to sadistically use fertility as a reward for acknowledging his power by praying to him.  Leah’s sister was obviously an idol worshipper.  Perhaps that is a reason why she remained childless for so long

Similarly my reaction to the least in society is not the same as Alan’s.  I remember one charitable appeal arrived in my mail box with a picture of starving African children saying prayers before being fed by the missionaries.  I wrote to ask what prayers the children were saying.  The only one that came to my mind was “Thank you God for making me poor so that rich people can feel good and virtuous when they make gifts to keep me from starving.”  I never did get a reply so I still don’t know what prayers these children were taught. 

On the other hand, if you pick up any Jewish joke book you will find lots of jokes about Schnorrers, the Yiddish word for beggars. These jokes cannot be recast as say Irish jokes.  The Jewish schnorrer knows that his is an honourable profession.  Without him the rich would have difficulty fulfilling their obligation to give at least 10% of their income to charity. A Jewish charity would probably have sent me a very sharp reply.

Alan

General response

The 'big fuss' is that the speaker seemed to be taking the principle beyond one of personal self defence toward justifying a premptive air strike on foreign soil. I just don't think God is very pleased when we twist His Word to support our military aspirations. If I was being picky it is the word 'should' in the phrase ‘The Bible says if someone wants to kill you, you should kill them first’. God in his infinite mercy may excuse a killing that occurs in the examples given by Shira but I do not read this as a command - and certainly not a command that should 'trump' the overwhelming message of BOTH testaments regarding our personal behaviour. That message can be summarised as:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5)

and

Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19: 18)

This summary of the 613 laws was the way Jesus answered the question 'what is the most important command?' (Luke 10) but being the radically provocative man that he was he went on to surprise his audience by dramatically extending the concept of the word 'Neighbour' from 'Fellow Jew' to including our enemies.

Part of the reason I am a Christian is because this radical teaching sounds like good news - it sounds like a reason for hope where previously there was none.

Natalie suggests we will never agree, we're coming from different premises. I disagree (which perhaps proves her point but bear with me!)

We agree about lots of things. Some are assumed (I assume we agree the world is round, the universe is very big, food and sleep are important to human beings). Others are implicit - for instance that by participating in this debate we clearly agree that language can convey meaning. We might disagree regarding political affiliation, musical taste and the existence of God but why should these beliefs be fixed.?

In my experience many people's political views can change quite a bit from their radical teens to their sober middle age. Until recently I had not heard much Jewish music and was rather indifferent to its charms. The BBC Four programme Early Music introduced me to 'The Burning Bush' and now I'm hooked - fantastic life-affirming stuff. Why shouldn't we change our opinion regarding God? To use Natalie's illustration, all that is required is to walk across the street, live in another person's house for a while and start to see things their way.

Obviously this can work both ways. In 'The God Delusion', Dawkins invites his readers to put on the 'not believing in god glasses' and discover how liberating the experience might be.

Timothy Keller in 'The Reason for God' invites his readers to try on Christianity as a pair of spectacles.

In both instances you have the (God-given) free choice to take the glasses off again, but I see no reason why we shouldn't try them both on for a while and discover which ones really help us to see more clearly.

Alan

Why I am a Christian - the text of Alan's 5 minute opening presentation is available to download HERE

Natalie

Why I am NOT a Christian - the text of Natalie's 5 minute opening presentation is available to download HERE