The problem of evil has been hotly debated for thousands of years. How does an omnibenevolent God allow evil in the world? Christian apologists have written volumes trying to reconcile the existence of evil with their all good and all loving God, but they were really wasting their time. If God is pure good, he wouldn't ever do a single evil deed. If he ever did anything evil, then he's not purely good, end of story.
God did a lot of obscene things in the Bible. For instance,
-he allowed a man to kill his own daughter in Judges 11:29-40
-he killed the first-born of every Egyptian family in Exodus 12 because Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites leave, after he himself hardened Pharaoh's heart against... letting the Israelites leave
-he said slavery was okay in Exodus 21 and Leviticus 25
-he said it was cool to sell your own daughter in Exodus 21
-he said witches should be killed in Exodus 22:18, a verse which led to the torture and execution of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children as young as two in medieval Europe
-he sanctioned numerous genocides throughout the Old Testament
-he killed every living thing on the planet except for a handful of people and two or seven of every animal with his flood.
Even if God is real, he doesn't seem very good at all, much less purely and only good. And lest you think I'm ignoring all the good and merciful things God did, I'm not. I know that God did some fine things in his day, but imagine this: Bob is a fine upstanding person. He's a member of the school board, the pta, the rotary club, and numerous other things like that. He donates 50% of his income to charity. He spends a month every summer helping poverty stricken children in Africa. He spends his weekends volunteering at soup kitchens. He does all sorts of good stuff. He also kidnaps, tortures, rapes and murders a little girl once or twice a month. It would be absolutely ludicrous to say that Bob is a good person. Why do people still insist on calling Jehovah a good God?
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give me some time and we will explore each of these. You will have to endure a bit of history lesson and perhaps some Hebrew language, but, what the hey, we are in this to learn, aren't we?
Nice new word, btw - omnibenevolence. I like it
I guess God allows for stupidity. He allows us to say and do stupid things. Why would anyone swear to sacrifice whatever came out of their door? Jephthath, not talking with God, but to God, swore he would sacrifice whatever came out of his house first when he returned from battle. I can't even imagine Jephthath's shock upon learning what his vow meant! Seems like a bad deal, but I guess God will let us do what we want to do. Sounds sort of like free will, but I might be mistaken.
my last comment was to the first scripture reference in the bible you reject
so God allowed someone to do something stupid. I guess that is proof that He doesn't exist?
Comment 1 - I don't think genocide will sound any prettier in Hebrew than it does in English.
Comment 2 - I don't know if he came up with it, but I learned it from George Smith in his (excellent) book Atheism: The Case Against God
Comment 3 - Say I told you that I'd kill the first thing that ran through my door for you, and Wilson busted in a few minutes later. Are you a good father for letting me follow through with my own retarded vow?
Comment 4 - Yeah, I know.
Comment 5 - If you think that what you wrote is true you should read up on logic. I neither stated nor implied any such thing in my original post.
Comment 3 - just as in the bible, that would be a foolish thing to say, so I guess I would knock you down and still be a good father, but then again, I'm not claiming to be god or to know all things that god knows.
Logic doesn't always apply to fallible people. No, I have not taken a high school class in logic from a bible believer, so I will defer to you on that point.
Comment 1 - who said anything about genocide? Your post was about a man killing his own daughter (first line), so unless his daughter was of another separate and unique race, that does not apply.
- Exactly. God could and should have stopped Jephthah from MURDERING HIS OWN DAUGHTER
- No, it doesn't. So are you admitting that what you said was nonsense? Thanks for throwing sarcasm my way instead of even attempting to provide a rebuttal. I don't rely on the logic class I took in eighth grade much anymore. I did take a college level logic class taught by a confirmed agnostic last semester, not that the religious affiliation of the instructor matters much, and I've read numerous books on the subject.
- I said anything about genocide. If you care to read what I wrote in the original post you'll see I mentioned genocide. If you read your first comment again you'll see that you said "each of these." I assumed you were referring to each thing on my list of God's atrocities. My post was not about a man killing his daughter, one line of my post was. My post was about God's actions that preclude his omnibenevolence, one of which was a man killing his daughter, and one of which was the numerous genocides he sanctioned.
genocide? Killing an entire race? Is that what you said? I can't find it in the original post, other than your tortured inference to genocide in your last point when you implied "numerous" genocides. We must explore those later.
You assert that God allowed a man to kill his own daughter. I assert that he allowed a man to be an idiot. Which world would you rather live in, one where God controlled every action of your life or one where He allows you to make your own decisions? I would choose the life of free will rather than being an automaton. You might choose to be controlled. I would guess that being an automaton would be boring
I guess we'll explore the genocide thing later then. All you have to do is read the Old Testament.
God allowing a man to kill his own child is not an either or issue. I didn't mean to imply that the only alternative to killing your own children for God was a loss of free will. What prevented God from saying, "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? Don't kill your daughter. I can't stand that sort of thing because I am an infinitely good entity." He didn't say that though, which leads me to believe that he didn't really mind seeing Jephthah take his daughter's life.
Well, the bible does record that she came out with tambors on her fingers and danced out of the door. Was it possible that she was a temple prostitute? I don't know, but I guess it could be inferred from the context. Not sure what I think about that
If she was a temple prostitute, then she was totally given over to worshiping Baal. As a Baal worshiper, she would have been depraved, in any sense of the word, and thus, not really the daughter of Jephthath any more. In a b.c. world of a Jew, that would have been a sentence of death.
Is that comfortable? I expect not, but in the context of a Baal worship world compared to a Jahweh world...makes sense - completely given over to a god that demanded sex and child sacrifice or given to a god that asked you to behave. Seems like a no-brainer to me
Bullshit. Killing hookers is not okay, and neither is killing people from another religion.
If that's why God let Jephthah kill his own child, he's not earning any points with me.
Yeah, followers of Baal did bad things. Followers of Jehovah stoned a dude to death for gathering wood on the Sabbath. Followers of Jehovah killed women who had sex before marriage. Followers of Jehovah killed disrespectful children. Followers of Jehovah killed sorceresses. Followers of Jehovah killed just about everyone they didn't like. Followers of Jehovah killed entire tribes of people simply because they lived in the land that God promised to the Israelites centuries before. Baal's got nothing on YHWH.
Hold the shrill anger.
Do you agree that evil does exist?
Why is it necessary to ask that question?
Yes. What's your point?
ok, if evil exists, can people do evil?
Jephtah (Jeff) was a Jew. His father was a king but his mother was a prostitute. So, when the queen had sons, they chased him off. Not sure what age, but I'm guessing that it must have been sometime around or after age 18ish. Jeff left and soon found himself the leader of a batch of outlaws.. He must have been pretty tough and eventually had a home and one daughter. Despite the fact that his father was a king, he had been evicted from the kingdom and likely was not very well educated.
The Ammonites were coming to get some revenge upon the Jews for wiping out one of their towns, so they called upon Jeff to come back and save them. He made them work for it, but eventually agreed that he would fight against the Ammonites. Right before the battle, the spirit of the Lord came to Jeff and he made a vow that if God would deliver the Ammonites to him, then he would sacrifice whatever he first saw when he went home. Jeff, being rather undeducated in the ways of Jewish law, said he would make a burnt sacrifice. This is the first point that we see Jeff being a bit undeducated. According the Jewish law, burnt offerings were only for atonement, not thanksgiving, but Jeff did not seem to notice this.
God responded to Jeff and gave the Ammonites over and they were defeated. So, Jeff returned towards his home, heading home in glory. Consider that these people did not live in a large country, so it can be assumed that everyone knew about the victory in battle.
Jeff was coming home. The typical house in the area would have been a mud hut, surrounded by a stockyard. Someone who vowed that he would sacrifice whatever came out first would have almost assuredly assumed that some sort of animal would be the first thing he saw. But, to the dismay of everyone, his only child, a daughter, came out dancing and singing, to greet the victorious hero!
Here is where the biblical account gets sketchy. Jeff says something like “Woe is me, I made a vow to God that I would sacrifice the first thing I saw, and it was you.” The daughter did not respond in a way that one would expect, like, “oh my god, don't kill me!” Instead, she lamented that she was still a virgin and would never have children, but said, “Do what you have to do”. Doesn't seem like the response of someone who was about to be burned to death. Instead, she asked that she be allowed to go away for 2 months to grieve over her still being a virgin and never having children.
After 2 months, she came back and then the bible records that the vow was fulfilled, just as it was said. The bible does not say that Jeff burned up his daughter. It further states that from that day, the daughters of Israel went to the wilderness to celebrate or commemorate this girl. It doesn't say they went to weep, but to celebrate. Again, we find something that doesn't match with something brutal, like burning a child.
The account of the daughter just doesn't fit with someone who was going to be burned up. She must have been fairly confident about that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a burnt offering to the Lord was very specific that only male animals were offered. Never female. Burnt offerings were only for atonement for evil, not for thanksgiving. Look it up.
Likely, what happened, and we can only take a literary look at it, since the account does not say that Jeff burned his daughter, he did not. He likely dedicated her to the Lord, similar to the Nazirites, and she became a temple servent for the rest of her days (never to marry or have children) This type of vow is common in the bible – look at the life of Samuel.
Did God allow someone to kill his daughter, in the name of God? I don't believe this is what happened. Nothing in this passage would indicate it and since Jeff later became a judge of Israel, it is not stretch to think that he spent some time learning about the law given to the Levites.
Jephtah (Jeff) was a Jew. His father was a king but his mother was a prostitute. So, when the queen had sons, they chased him off. Not sure what age, but I'm guessing that it must have been sometime around or after age 18ish. Jeff left and soon found himself the leader of a batch of outlaws.. He must have been pretty tough and eventually had a home and one daughter. Despite the fact that his father was a king, he had been evicted from the kingdom and likely was not very well educated.
The Ammonites were coming to get some revenge upon the Jews for wiping out one of their towns, so they called upon Jeff to come back and save them. He made them work for it, but eventually agreed that he would fight against the Ammonites. Right before the battle, the spirit of the Lord came to Jeff and he made a vow that if God would deliver the Ammonites to him, then he would sacrifice whatever he first saw when he went home. Jeff, being rather undeducated in the ways of Jewish law, said he would make a burnt sacrifice. This is the first point that we see Jeff being a bit undeducated. According the Jewish law, burnt offerings were only for atonement, not thanksgiving, but Jeff did not seem to notice this.
God responded to Jeff and gave the Ammonites over and they were defeated. So, Jeff returned towards his home, heading home in glory. Consider that these people did not live in a large country, so it can be assumed that everyone knew about the victory in battle.
Jeff was coming home. The typical house in the area would have been a mud hut, surrounded by a stockyard. Someone who vowed that he would sacrifice whatever came out first would have almost assuredly assumed that some sort of animal would be the first thing he saw. But, to the dismay of everyone, his only child, a daughter, came out dancing and singing, to greet the victorious hero!
Here is where the biblical account gets sketchy. Jeff says something like “Woe is me, I made a vow to God that I would sacrifice the first thing I saw, and it was you.” The daughter did not respond in a way that one would expect, like, “oh my god, don't kill me!” Instead, she lamented that she was still a virgin and would never have children, but said, “Do what you have to do”. Doesn't seem like the response of someone who was about to be burned to death. Instead, she asked that she be allowed to go away for 2 months to grieve over her still being a virgin and never having children.
After 2 months, she came back and then the bible records that the vow was fulfilled, just as it was said. The bible does not say that Jeff burned up his daughter. It further states that from that day, the daughters of Israel went to the wilderness to celebrate or commemorate this girl. It doesn't say they went to weep, but to celebrate. Again, we find something that doesn't match with something brutal, like burning a child.
The account of the daughter just doesn't fit with someone who was going to be burned up. She must have been fairly confident about that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a burnt offering to the Lord was very specific that only male animals were offered. Never female. Burnt offerings were only for atonement for evil, not for thanksgiving. Look it up.
Likely, what happened, and we can only take a literary look at it, since the account does not say that Jeff burned his daughter, he did not. He likely dedicated her to the Lord, similar to the Nazirites, and she became a temple servent for the rest of her days (never to marry or have children) This type of vow is common in the bible – look at the life of Samuel.
Did God allow someone to kill his daughter, in the name of God? I don't believe this is what happened. Nothing in this passage would indicate it and since Jeff later became a judge of Israel, it is not stretch to think that he spent some time learning about the law given to the Levites.
sorry about the choppy reply, but blogger wouldn't post it all, so a weird cut and paste thing occured
Here's Jephthah's vow:
"11:30 And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,
11:31 Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering."
So he said he would offer whatever ran through his door as a burnt offering.
Here's how he carried out his vow:
"11:39 And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed"
Unless I'm misunderstanding the fairly straightforward language in the sentence, and unless the writer of the Bible chose to lie about this one thing, it's fairly clear that Jephthah burnt her.
As for the daughter bemoaning her virginity in the wilderness for months, in a society where it was alright to give your daughters to religious orders to be servants against their will, where you could own slaves, and where you were to kill your disrespectful children, this behavior might not have seemed so strange.
Human sacrifice is explicitly forbidden in the Bible in the strongest terms possible. If you insist that this had to have happened, then it only makes sense that it would have been done by someone who did not listen to the Lord at all.
I do believe you are talking about the specifics as recorded in Leviticus to back up your claims that it was ok to sell your daughters, have slaves or kill children. Leviticus is a book specific to laying out the law for the Levites - God's priests. As priests, Levites were to be set apart and had to be holy. I've looked at this book. I don't find that is says it is ok to have slaves - it does say, if you must have slaves, you have to set them free after 6 years and if you sell a daughter (common practice by all cultures at that time and still done by some middle east cultures today) or betroth or arrange marriage or dedicate the daughter to religious service, if the new "owner" had specific things he could or could not do.
Finally, if a Levite priest was not respectful of his own parents, how could he be a priest? The Levite priest would not have been a "child" as you are trying to imply that if a little kid talked back to his parents, he should be killed and this would all be just peachy with God. The Bible doesn't say that.
Perhaps you're right, perhaps Jephthah wasn't listening to God when he killed his daughter. Even so, why would an all powerful God allow a story such as this to be printed in the Bible? To test his 21st century followers' ability to understand extremely complex, misleading and contradictory literature? Interestingly, while God may not have wanted human sacrifice (there are more passages than this one where its demanded, often in the form of an entire town) he demanded that if one did dedicate a human to him, that human *had* to be killed. Leviticus 27:28-29 says that if you're stupid enough to dedicate something to the Lord, whether it's an animal or a human, you have to put it to death. God may not have approved of human sacrifice, but if you were dumb enough to talk yourself into a corner like Jephthah did he demanded that you follow through.
There are numerous passages in the Bible where slavery is condoned. In Exodus 21:2-6, it says that if you buy a male Hebrew slave, you must set him free after six years, but if he gets married and has kids, the wife and kids were yours forever. If the man wanted to stay with his family, he too had to remain a slave forever.
In verse 7 of the same chapter it says if you sell your daughter to be a slave, she doesn't get to be freed after 6 years like the men do.
Maybe the "child" as stated in Leviticus 20:9 wasn't a child like Wilson. Maybe he was an "18 or 19 year old thug" like in the story of Elijah/sha (don't remember which it is) and the bears. Are you saying it's okay for parents to kill their children if they're legal adults?
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