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Tekton was summoned to take part in a forum debate where a certain person using the name "Quath" (but hereafter designated "Quacky") was spreading around some of the usual bales of dirt. The central subject was one we have dealt with in other venues: Namely, that of Skeptics or others who look at God's actions or choices in the Bible, and raise Cain over what they perceive to have been an immoral or stupid choice. Against UFO scholar J. B. McPherson, for example, we have written:

Why did God choose people like Abraham, Saul, and David to do His bidding when they turned out to be such rotten eggs? May I just say that this objection is highly presumptuous in that it assumes without the least hint of proof that someone better must have been available. God chose Abraham -- who else was available? Perhaps if (allow me to be facetious here for a moment) unknown to divinity some large chunk of masonry had come crashing down on old Abe's head when he was 20, someone else would have been second choice, anyone from Farmer Nxlhtl in the Yucatan jungles to Sheepherder Wong in desert China. But unless someone can prove (and they obviously cannot) that there was another person in the world who would have been both more moral and better able to do God's bidding, then this objection is nothing but a pathetic attempt to sidestep faith. Indeed, the fact that this is something beyond proof proves that it is a sidestep.

And more recently we gigged someone else thusly:

In terms of choosing "bad eggs" we would challenge our opponent to provide a full and complete list of candidates for the kingship in Israel who would have been a better choice, in the longer term, than those who did get the nod. If he can produce such a list, his debate challenge is accepted.

It is into this realm of complaint that Quacky stepped, and we will begin by relating where we stepped in. The first exchange is between Quacky (Q) and another member we will designate "D" who started by answering, "Why did God call out for Adam in the Garden if He was omniscient?"

D: God knew where Adam was, but thru other means. Adam was not decieved nor did God lie. Adam had understanding of God's words and satan's ploy.

Q: This is all an assumption based on what you wish to be true. There is no proof that Adam knew eating the fruit was wrong. All evidence presented in the Bible points against that since Adam did not know of good nor evil. When God says "Where are you?" He is implying He does not know or He is hunting prey. I think the story shows that God did to Adam and Eve what He later did to Pharoah. He did a set up.

D also addressed a matter Quacky raised of sacrificing animals, and then of free will, and of God's alleged favoritism (there was also some discussion of evolution and the Noachian flood, which is outside our purview):

D: Don't really understand your goat soul question sorry....

Q:It was more of a comment on how silly it is to kill animals to God. It makes Him sound demonic to want souls or blood or whatever. The good questions are usually "Why did God do it this way..." Like why didn't God just allow for people to kill plants instead of animals? There is no reason other than it is more brutal or the people lose more when they lose a plant or God eats the sacrafice and is not a vegatarian.

D:Oh there is manipulation, but there is free will. A beautiful woman can tempt me, and offer everything I want. But I still have a choice. Manipulations can be very powerful, but we still have choice.

Q: But when God manipulates and He knows what the result is, there is no free will. Phraoah did not have any free will to let the Isrealites go. So in effect, the Egyptian citizens lost their first born male children as well as many other plagues because God removed free will from Pharoah. So God wanted to kill babies once again and set the stage to do so. The main difference is He confessed this time.

D: God no longer asks for circumcision of the flesh, now its of the heart. Why are we not born that way? its a covenant thing, which means its a 2-way deal.

Q: Then we should be born with velcro-foreskins. It makes no sense that he valued them before.

D: Remember circumcision is just a shadow, its action is not the main intent of God.

Q: A pretty silly action as well. Look at all the other things God could have asked for instead like making a necklace out of flowers, sleeping under the stars, making peace with your neighbor or any other action. But when it comes down to it, God chooses actions that lead to war, plagues, murder, and blood.

D: He made deals with other races.

Q:Where are the deal with the pygmies, native american indians, people from Hawaii, Chinese and all the other races that God ignored. Why would just one tribe pay attanetion to the all powerful God and all others not even have a record of Him?

D: Killing animals does not make it alright again, it gives minimal acceptable results that need to be repeated. God provided a better way since then.

Q: What results are you referring to? How can slaughtering an animal do anything to help God accept sinful people? Are the animal souls like currency to Him? Does He just see the sacrafice and say "Oh wow! More blood!" and forgive the sinner in His bloodlust? It only makes sense if God is some kind of blood crazed demon.

D: Please remember God is not just Love but is also Fire.

Q: Fire burns without prejudice, but God kills with prejudice. What separates God from Satan? If Satan ruled the world, what would Satan do that God hasn't done? I have a feeling it couldn't be as evil as what God does.

There are too many possibilities with this story. If Adam was not deceived, then he did it out of love probably. Then God had punished humanity for its love. Also, if Eve was tricked, why would God punish her more? (She got all of Adam's curses plus a few new ones.) Or maybe Adam thought Eve would die since that is what God told them would happen. So he pulled a Romeo to her Juliet and was going to die with her.

D: A parent knows what happens to a child if they play in the street. The parent tells the child not to. If our conscience is hardened, its because we disobeyed it too many times.

Q: The difference is that God knows the outcome of what He does. In the Pharoah case, God wants the Isrealites free. What would a good god do? (WWGGD) A good god would teleport everyone away or make the Pharoah see wisdom. An evil god would make the Pharoah act badly so He can war with the people of Egypt. So God set the stage so he could later act like He was justified in killing children and starting plagues. Where does God act good in all of this?

D: and if so, we (they) deserve every bit of it.

Q: Battered wives will sometimes say they derserved to be beaten by their husbands. This sounds awfully similar.

D: So the church has succeeded in evangelizing, whether or not you agree the whole earth was evangelized before scripture was done.

Q: The reference is from the Bible. What other people talk of hearing about God? Unless God is also Zeus, Odin, Ra, etc there is no other record. If God is these people, then it is very easy to show that God is of low character. So do you think God is also Zeus? If so why do you think the Christians have characterized God better than the Greeks?

D: Sin must be punished. The punishment of sin is death, the shedding of blood. When anyone sins, someone must die for the crime. This is justice. As for the details...

Q: But God was ok with something dieing instead of someone. So if he can be pacified by this, then why not a plant instead of an animal?

You also never see God denounce human sacrafices even when a human was sacraficed to Him. Also, when people hear of slaughtering animals for religion, they think of Satanism or paganism, but they should also realize their religion is based on it as well.

D: By the way, satan wants everyone dead. Every human. Every.

Q: Why would Satan want that? What fun would it be to rule a dead world? Wouldn't a world with suffering and wars be a lot more evil and fun?

As can easily be seen, Quacky was much into the emotional sort of "argument by outrage" methodology we see from Skeptical quarters. We stepped in here and replied; hereafter my words are in normal type, and Quacky's words are in italics. The "AV" I refer to is the person who asked us to come on board. Our "satire mode" was fully turned on for emphasis and entertainment purposes. The full debate may be found here (the link gets you to the middle, where we came in, and thereafter also includes an encounter with an Acharya S fan who dodged our questions).

Oh brother, here we go again,

This is all an assumption based on what you wish to be true. There is no proof that Adam knew eating the fruit was wrong. All evidence presented in the Bible points against that since Adam did not know of good nor evil.

So we need to know good or evil to follow the order of one who provides all our needs, created us? The First Couple by the story had an intimate relationship with their Creator. He said "don't jump" and that should have been sufficient for anyone who isn't a whiner. Present company obviously excluded! So you're ready to spit in the eye of someone who gives you nothing but sustenance and fellowship? Good boy! By the way, "knowledge" here implies not no moral discernment -- since in the ancient world, conscience was external, not internal -- but lack of practicing familiarity.

When God says "Where are you?" He is affecting the method of a rhetorical questioning well known from Ancient Near Eastern texts and languages. Yes, AV, this is another reason you should look for higher-quality debate partners.

I think the story shows that God did to Adam and Eve what He later did to Pharoah. He did a set up.

Um, yeah. By the modern legal definition, it sure wasn't entrapment, so where's the validation of the charge?

Oh. We take our modern weebo fear of blood -- not shared by the ancients -- and anachronize it. Meanwhile we spit violence and gore all over prime time. How consistent.

Wrong answer, Quizmaster. Pharaoh had the "free will" to let the Israelites go for years before Moses ever came back from summer camp demanding it.

Well, aren't we just the modern individualist. Do you know the difference between a society centered on the individual and a society centered on the collective? News flash: By that latter standard -- still shared by 70% of the world today, in case someone wants to be a bigot about it -- any member of the society, whether young or old, male or female, is subject to judgment for the acts of the leader. Why? Because their survival was all interlinked. Because a leader WAS his people, and vice-versa, and that's the way THEY wanted it to be. Sorry, but that soft-hearted baby talk won't cut the mustard. By all indications the Egyptians endorsed the slavery and killing of Hebrew children right along with their Pharaoh. God at least gave them a chance to move to His side -- any single Egyptian could have joined up and taken the Passover break, just like the mixed multitude that left Egypt with Israel. The Hebrew babies weren't so lucky.

Heck, yeah, what a way to ensure a committed choice, the new rip and zip method. "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself nothing, and kick back, and relax." NOT! I sure hope we never see [Quacky] take up any social causes. "Do we have to march on Washington? If you want me to do that you should provide me with a motorized chair. Or maybe bring Washington to me. Or can't we just flip our remote control in the direction of Washington?" GAG!

Where are the deal with the pygmies, native american indians, people from Hawaii, Chinese and all the other races that God ignored. Why would just one tribe pay attanetion to the all powerful God and all others not even have a record of Him?

Someome's anthropology is out of kilter. Familiar with the Chinese deity Shang Ti, for example? [Quacky ignored this part of the reply, as we will see -- JPH.]

There are too many possibilities with this story. If Adam was not deceived, then he did it out of love probably. Then God had punished humanity for its love. Also, if Eve was tricked, why would God punish her more? (She got all of Adam's curses plus a few new ones.)

"Out of love, probably" -- there we go, another weebo reading from the soft heart of exegesis. A few? Is that a new way to say "one, maybe two"? Try some perspective from http://www.christian-thinktank.com/made4pain.html.

Also we need a little education about original sin -- http://www.tektonics.org/origsin.html Deception is most likely in any event.

The difference is that God knows the outcome of what He does. In the Pharoah case, God wants the Isrealites free. What would a good god do? (WWGGD) A good god would teleport everyone away or make the Pharoah see wisdom.

Teleportation! Why not ask God to shine our shoes, dress us, and clean behind our ears as well? The Egyptian Pharaohs were a darned stubborn lot as a whole; just check their inscriptions. Getting them to see wisdom was like getting Benny Hinn not to see money.

Battered wives will sometimes say they derserved to be beaten by their husbands. This sounds awfully similar.

To those of soft heart and lacking in sense, perhaps: beating husbands are not omniscient and holy, and battered wives do not actually sin against their husbands.

You also never see God denounce human sacrafices even when a human was sacraficed to Him.

What? Not the old "Jepthah canard"! http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_03_02_04.html

"Once again, that was 'Anachronize Freely' by the Beatles!" By this logic if Satanism or paganism picks up a practice of the true God's religion, God has to order people to drop it so as not to be accused of affecting your personal thought life. What a lame deity! What a lame thinker!

Hereafter we will see how Quacky dodges, evades, and refuses to deal with questions, merely repeating the same arguments based on emotion over and over again. My next reply to him went as follows -- I do quote all of what he says back, but those with doubts may write me for the full URL.

Quack quack,

Duh ah, of course, uh, I ain't dealin' with a man who did a word study before taking his dive. Beg pardon.

Oh! So everyone had no idea what God was. How silly of me.

Ga-oh! So this guy only knew of working in brass when he started picking up brass? Until then he had "no idea" of anything about it? How brassy!

Oh wow! You can kill someone and have no idea you're killing them! Try that on the judge! Bottom line: Yes, it is familiarity, experience, awareness -- not plain old "knowledge" as in "who knew beforehand"?

It was implied that we gained a gift of the gods to know of good and evil from this tree.

Your "implication" just went down the porcelain facility. Clockwise.

Any what insight did God give to Adam and Eve from this rhetorical question? I can see none other than God sounding like He is hunting them.

Hear that? God can't say ANYTHING unless it's purpose was to give 'em INSIGHT. Rhetorical questions like these were a chance to 'fess us, a challenge in an honor-shame societal setting. Quacky wants INSIGHT. Too late for that, sorry! The closest equivalent today is being questioned by the police even if they do have the goods on you already.

Modern legality does not handle cases of possession or spiritual manipulations. The validation of the charge is that God confessed that He was going to make Pharoah deny Him so God could justify a war against him.

Better read that text carefully. Aside from that Pharaoh and his people had already been deserving the corner for years on end, as you have failed to address other than by whining, this was a team effort: God hardened Pharaoh's heart some; Pharaoh hardened his own heart some as well. [Later I offered a link to Glenn Miller's article on this subject. -- JPH]

It is not so much about the blood but the waste. Why kill a goat to a god and burn it. Why not get milk and meat from it instead? Why kill thousands of animals to make God happy? He appears to enjoy wasting our resources to please Him.

OH! The waste it is, now! Well! "What a waste!" says Quacky as he wastes watts of electricity sitting at his computer discussing this, knowing those watts could be used to provide heat for a cold family. "What a waste!" Quacky moans as he tosses a banana peel in the trash that could be used for compost in a Third World field. "What a WASTE!" Quacky mutters beneath his breath as he tools around town in his gas-guzzling, pollution-making vehicle to go across town to get a cappucino. Psst! Aren't we BEGGING THE QUESTION a little that one man's "waste" is another man's UTILITY? I guess you don't care that to the ancients such symbolic acts were HIGHLY significant and useful. Nah, what do you care? You're in the here and now and you're judge and jury. What a bigot!

But the important decision was taken away from him -- the one that God used to kill his people.

It was "taken away" from him after eons of chances to make it! The decision, again, to stop enslaving the Israelites faced him every second of every day for years before that. Pharaoh had that decision when he brushed his teeth in the morning, when he sat down to a sumptuous dinner every night, when he looked out the window at the sweating slaves and their back-breaking labor, the moment before and after he decided to kill the Hebrew babies. I guess you just don't CARE about any of that in the here and now. I guess you think when Moses walked in and demanded freedom for Israel, Pharaoh got up, stunned, walked to the window, saw all the slaves, turned to Moses, and said in his best Steve Urkel imitation, "Did I dooooo thaaaaaaaat???"

If God has knowledge of the future, then He knows what Pharoah would have done.

Sounds fair! "Hey, that baby just born will go into eternal damnation. Why not save time and send him there now?" I can just hear your howls of protest now! "QUUUAAA-CK! QUUAAA-CK!"

So you support bombing citizens in Afghanistan to get to the Taliban?

Apples 2, Oranges 0. You'll note that the smart Afghans got OUT of Dodge when they knew the US was coming. You'll note the legions of Iraqi soldiers waving white flags during the Gulf War. Any Egyptian could have done the same. Citizens don't live in a vacuum; they either support their leaders or they don't.

It does not matter whether the people back then thought it should. God should know better and He was just looking to pick a fight.

It does matter, and it is a bigoted and anachronistic attitude to say otherwise and simply wave it off as not mattering. It works out nevertheless that we ARE still collective in practice even as we pretend to honor individual autonomy. We all pay taxes to our government. We all elect our representatives (and often do so on no more basis than that their name sounds funnier than the other one's). That we might do so apathetically is of no relevance.

Why do you have to have suffering to make a point? Why not just let logic and reason suffice?

Exactly as I predicted: "Bring Washington to me! The heck with commitment and effort!" Logic and reason "suffices" only on the Planet Weebo, Quacky. You don't get healthy with "logic and reason"; you grunt and strain lifting weights, running laps, doing situps. Rip and zip foreskins? PLEASE! See the man age 92 who has lived all his life boozing, gambling, killing, etc. -- all he has to do to miss out on justice? RIP! ZIP! The ancients didn't share this weenie view of suffering you seem to hold. To withstand pain and suffering was an honorable thing. Their view of life was long term and not "I gotta boo boo!" immediate. The hackneyed appeal to "logic and reason" is the misplaced sentiment of someone with rose-colored glasses and stars in their eyes.

By your logic you should have people commit suicide so we can get more cheese on school pizza.

Only if a) lesser means have failed, AND especially B) more cheese contributes to the greater good in terms of issues of significance (i.e., eternal life!), which, given the state of school cafeteria food last I checked, it doesn't. Not cheese, but artificial cheese-flavored soy product.

many extra burdens that God gave to woman like extra pain from PMS and childbirth in addition to being placed in a lesser position. God explicitly states he is giving intense pain. I don't care if the fererences say there are ways women can reduce it, Gods intent is for pain and lowering the woman.

Wow! What a thorough refutation of those two articles [the ones links were given for above -- JPH]. "I don't care"! I knew we had high-quality opposition here!

point is that God states His desires which is to get the people free. However, He deceives the listener by chosing a path that would not lead to that but instead to death and destruction. If God had been sincere He could have gotten His people out of Egypt with no killing or plagues. But He clearly shows this is not His goal.

Then the suggestion of teleportation is a patent absurdity. Beyond that the service of justice, of returning to Egypt and Pharaoh that which they justly deserved, remained. To which you, Rodney King, reply: "Can't -- can't we all just get along?" Query, Quacky: Is punishment ever deserved? Yes or no? Why or why not?

The woman is made to believe she has sinned or did wrong to her husband and she forgives and repeats.

"Made to believe" -- not actually sinning. My point exactly. The analogy is lame and needs to be shot.

God is more concerned with killing than saving. He is more concerned with war than peace. He is more concerned with wasting animals than using them wisely.

Yeah, indeed! He gave Egypt only 100 years or more to change. That sounds like a wrongheaded attitude sure enough. Murderers should get 30 kills free before we even lock them up. See on your bigoted perception of "waste" above. Get off that computer and start etching in stone yet?

The idea is that God knew He was made a promise to people He would listen to. Jephthah told Him he would sacrafice what came through the door. Now since God listened and it was considered Bible worthy, the story speaks as if endorsed by God. Since God could have easily had a goat go through the door, He let the daughter go instead. God could also have stopped it like He stopped Isaac from being sacraficed but didn't. So at least by God's silence He endorses this killing. (It is a far stretch to think she was not killed.)

Once again, "No answer!" If it's a far stretch, show it and answer what I have written in the link [on Jepthah -- JPH] instead of pontificating vaguely and emotionally from that comfortable seat. If you don't I'll bring the party HERE.

We feel that blood sacrafices are barbaric and only demons would be pleased due to their desire for death and destruction.

Ah! We FEEL, do we? How sweet and lame. I "FEEL" that you are wasting resources by using that computer. Only a barbarian would use precious energy that could be turned to more practical and useful purposes. GET OFF NOW!

Did they surely die the day they ate it? No. So you can say that God lied or twisted some meanings.

Rather, you must be vastly ignorant of Hebrew figures of speech. No doubt Quacky walks around with a can of Raid in his hands for all those people who say they have ants in their pants. To plagiarize my own words: Commentators as far back as pre-Christian Judaism have read this as indicating spiritual, not physical, death (though physical death was also seen as an inevitable component). The overall pervasiveness of figurative language in Hebrew, combined with an understanding of the Semitic theological mindset, gives the meaning. Genesis goes on to depict Adam and Eve as losing fellowship with God. To the Hebrew mind, loss of fellowship with God is a fate worse than death, for it was the loss of fellowship with the prime source of peace. Thus the word "death" --- representing the most fearsome and irreversible fate in this life --- was chosen to figuratively describe this loss of fellowship with God. Twisted meaning? You're opening the wrong semantic strongbox, Quacky. And why are you confused when so many ancient commentators weren't? D'oh!

We now move to my next round response.

Quack quack,

Do you have to make points by trying to belittle me?

Yes. Do you have to make points by belittling other people's beliefs in ignorance?

So they did not have this familiarity or knowledge beforehand. So how can they know to disobey God is a sin or evil? Just because you know does not mean they know. After all, it seems like the story shows we received a give of God in exchange for some curses.

Are you paying attention or do you only take time to do that on weekends? You're playing games by mixing "familiarity" and "knowledge" in the first sentence. They are not the same thing. You bleated out that they had "no idea" what good and evil was based on a skewered (in this context) definition of "knowledge". I showed that "knowledge" here meant familiarity in practice and experience. Then you blap out your second sentence which takes for granted that same incorrect meaning of "knowledge" that I showed was incorrect! Hence they indeed KNEW to disobey God was evil/sinful. Your third sentence has undergone grammatical torture and doesn't make sense. "Give" of God? What's a "give"? Gift? If so, what gift and what's the problem?

So do you think that Adam and Eve knew what evil was before they ate from the tree? I have no idea how you are trying to back this up.

Simple:

1. By flushing down the negative conclusion you provided. Step 1.
2. Because as I pointed out, but you didn't "get" the importance of, conscience in the ancient world -- a thorough-going honor-shame society -- was external, not internal. The ancients did not feel "guilt" (a product of introspection); all conscience was external and provided by the rules of the society and by others. God's command, "Keep off the grass", coming from an authority figure and spelling out unpleasant consequences, was all that was needed for an ancient to know that disobeying was evil and sinful. A much simpler process than our guilt wrestling matches of internal conscience, which is probably why you don't "get" the point of this. Try to imagine not having an internal conscience if you can. It's hard for a modern Westerner to do, but if you can at least allow that these people thought differently, you will be on the way to being taken seriously.

There was no society, just 2 people.

How many people are needed to make a society? D'uh! "Sorry! You must have at least 12 members to become a society. Please try again after having babies." And even if you are right, how many people does it take for an informative template to exist? ONE!

God either knew or He didn't know where they were. If He didn't He is not omnipotent. If He did then He was letting Adam know He was coming for him. (Hunting.) I don't see God doing anything different if Adam said "Over here" or not.

Hello? Hello? Operator? Quacky seems to have missed the whole point about rhetorical questions as a norm. I however do see God doing something different if Adam 'fessed up easier: a lesser degree of punishment! How many dimensions did you wake up in this morning?

It does not matter. If God interferes with hardening anyone's heart, He is stealing their free will. So if He does it here, you can assume He does it at other times as well.

It does matter, your insensibility notwithstanding. Stealing free will? Cool! We "steal" people's free will when we lock them in the pokey. Where you lose your shirt is in the question, "Was it just or not?" And we're still trying to get you out of Here and Now mode. Turns out we didn't.

So you are saying that it is justified to kill animals for no real reason because our society uses a lot of electricity? So what utility does anyone get from my carbon dioxide emissions or waste heat from my computer?

You tell me, you wastrel. No, the point was that you're being outrageously short-sighted and selfish, assuming that what YOU think is a waste MUST be just because YOU don't have the means to get utility out of it.

So the bigger question is why did God gain utility from animal killings? Why could God allow for people to do symbolic acts that resulted in less waste like running a mile or planting a garden?

D'huh! The less precise the symbol, the less clear the message, Mr. Selfish and Unidimensional! If we want to warn people about Falling Rocks Ahead, you don't put out a sign with a picture of an ice cream cone! Yep, you don't give a carp if all those people died and suffered because you couldn't figure things out, do you? The power of symbol is enormous in the human mind. That's a basic known even before any first-year anthropology student. Animal sacrifice was the most clear and concise way to express the multi-faceted message that the wages of sin were death and sin required atonement. That you may not like this personally is not an answer.

Are you also saying that because I am in this century, that I am not allowed to look at the past and decide if I think they did right or wrong?

I'm saying you'd better do homework and critical thinking rather than spitting out self-centered, emotion-based, and subjective sense impressions.

It does not matter.

Quacky's favorite answer to sustain his cognitive dissonance!

God took away the important decision so He could kill and plague people. If God did not interfere, Pharoah would have let them go.

Oh, he would, now, would he? Three times at least, Pharaoh made his own decision. The last time, when he DID let them go, he sent the army to get them back. Sure sounds like a sincere fella, that Pharaoh Urkel! Sure sounds like he would have made a different sort of decision without a God-hardened heart! Yeah, you bet he would! After letting them go, he'd send the troops after them! Let me wait and see what you say about punishment ever being deserved, because it hinges on this. 100+ years of enslavement and murder deserved some justice, don't you think? No?

He and his people should not be killed and plagued for a decision forced on them.

Forced on them for 100 years or more, yep.

While the baby may go to hell, his life may inspire others to go to heaven. So it would not save time unless God just went ahead and sent everyone to heaven or hell in an instant.

Oh! Oh! NOW we're thinking long term to save our bacon. Close trap: "While Pharaoh and Egypt's people may suffer now, their lives and fate may inspire others to go to follow the true God and get to heaven." Let's make up our mind which side of life we want to be on.

But then God would be bored and could not incite wars or demand animals to be killed for Him.

WAH! WAAAAAAH! God the Cosmic Meanie, He keeps giving me just punishments! Quacky has it DOWN, this tactic of hoisting up emotional pictures to sustain his cognitive dissonance.

So the poor Afghans that could not travel or were turned back were not smart?

Begging exceptions: A great way to save your bacon! Quacky, there were more options than getting out of Dodge; that was my example for feature. I could obviously list numerous ways for the average Afghan to show their support for the US against the Taliban. They could beat up or restrain a Taliban solider and turn him over to the allied forces. They could give intelligence data (which many tried to do). They could recruit neighbors to help. Take that focus off the narrow and get into dimensions.

By your logic, we should go and kill everyone that stayed in Afghanistan because they must be supporting the Taliban. Did I get that right?

No, you are simply thoughtlessly uni-dimensional and struggling to score points.

But for an oppressive government, the people have little choice. Support the government or die.

How interesting. And which side of Patrick Henry's dictum -- "Give me liberty or give me death" -- do you stand on? Do we have little choice? Or is it just that the choices are painful at times? Note here that it seems clear that Iraq's citizens as a whole would welcome with open arms any attempt to remove Slimy Suddy. I wouldn't blame them for waiting it out. However, if someone came to dump Slimy, and they just sat by twiddling their thumbs or even stood by him, then what?

"No pain! No pain!" Why make things that are easy hard?

Because "easy" is "lazy" and invites false loyalty and apathy, which is far worse in the long run.

By your logic we should drive through rush hour even if there is no reason.

Your aptness for drawing analogies is substantially substandard, since there IS a reason to make commitment to a cause painful or costly -- it keeps out people in for an easy ride and nothing but a free lunch.

The papers had many flaws in them. I don't see the need to add all of that to this already lengthy post.

Aaaand, another thorough and highly specific refutation, brought to you by Quacky! Please send congratulations to Quacky, Hiding Under the Rug, PO Box 0, Frostbite Falls MN, 00374.

Why is teleportation asburd? Is it beyond God?

No more so than asking God to shine our shoes or wipe our noses. You want God to teleport? How willing are you to follow Him?

Punishment is not derserved when the act to be punished for is forced.

And around he goes in the circle again, dodging every sharp point on the Autobahn! So who forced Pharaoh Urkel to keep the Israelites enslaved for X number of years and kill their babies?

I never said the woman sinned. She just believes that she did wrong to her husband like some people feel they did wrong to God.

Ergo, and correct, the analogy needs to be taken out and shot.

Then He should have punished them for that and not for refusal to allow the Isrealites to go to the desert. Why the lieing and deceit by God?

What "lying"? What "deceit"? The refusal was a focal point. Where are your quotations and exegesis? Try harder. The story is full of complexities that I doubt you understand. Give it a try. Or you can prefer your favorite answer: "It doesn't matter."

If you Sacrifice to God, I think He would notice. If you are doing it with faith in Him, then it is His responsibility to let you know you misinterpreted it. God didn't.

Beg pardon? That didn't answer a word I said about Jephthah. I guess I do need to bring the party here, huh?

So why didn't God say "You shall surely lose me? Why be vague?

There is nothing "vague" here; YOU are simply uneducated and assuming everyone else was equally uneducated. Again: Why did pre-NT Jewish commentators understand it meant loss, why did Christian commentators also understand this, and why are you the only one with a problem? Not a word of this is an answer to what I said.

You can talk about symbolism but there is no need for God to be vague or misleading when He can be plain and clear.

Hear that folks? Don't even tell Quacky you have ants in your pants. He'll spray Raid down your trousers, then blame you for not being "plain and clear". D'oh!

Last try, Quacky, to come up with something rational rather than a tearjerker. AV, if this is the best he can do, I think you can succeed with half your brain tied behind your back.

JPH

Now round 3:

Quack quack,

Please by all means expose my ignorance. I invite all to do so.

It'd be an all-night party. But by now it's clear you haven't got anything to offer, so this will end the thread AFAIC. Six dodges in one message! AV, if you have any further questions, write me.

But I see no need for the childish name calling and immaturity you display in an attempt to answer me.

Nor do I see a need for you to belittle and trivialize serious beliefs with limited understanding based on no more than a cursory and anachronistic reading of the texts. Yet you do it anyway. How odd.

If your poor attempts at insults were vaguely funny it would be worth it, but most of your comments remind me of the way elementary school kids act on the playground.

Oh! That's where you're taking classes these days? It shows in the quality of argumentation.

So if you wish to keep insulting me personally, please try to be more inventive.

Ah, the strings of jealousy...

You assume familiarity means there was knowledge beforehand. This is not stated or implied.

Why does it have to be? You're dodging and ducking and trying to bust out of a bad argument that you've been flattened on. God issued a command to keep off the grass. Next you'll suggest that was the only conversation they ever had. It's a tremendous absurdity to suggest a total lack of knowledge of good and evil in adult persons as A and E were. You think they were blank slates? Humbug. Obviously by the paradigm they knew how to eat and use the restroom; they didn't flop to the ground useless and starve to death. By your *cough cough* logic because we don't see them being given knowledge of how to eat or use the restroom, they must have flopped to the ground, wet on themselves, and starved to death. Could they talk? Who gave them language lessons, Mr. Magoo? By your *hack, spit* LOGIC they never should have been able to talk and someone must have been using their bodies as ventriloquist dummies. Why don't you just admit you're cornered and posted an uninformed and baseless argument?

If I am not familiar with quantum mechanics, that does not mean I know what it is. What is implied is they were innocent before eating the fruit. (They did not know nakedness was something to be ashamed of.)

Precisely. No familiarity and experience with the practice of good and evil. Basically they worked the Garden, talked with God, did what was natural, and that was it. No big fat moral decisions in that context.

So they learned of this from the tree. Equally they learned it was wrong to disobey God from the tree.

There you go, back to the same assumptions yet again. Restating your case in different words, sorry, is not an answer.

The "gift" was we have knowledge of good and evil.

Ditto. Same hackneyed rap, and you still haven't dealt with the meaning of da'ath, which in any event totally emasculates your argument.

You are failing to recognize the difference between sociology and psychology. There is no reason to believe that Adam and Eve before the fall and before they had many children behaved or thought like their descendents.

My point has nothing to do with seeing and difference between them. And lookee -- there goes Quacky again, down that same hole of, "You don't know that!" -- even as he KNEW with surety he was/is right about what he assumes, AGAINST what evidence we have, and which he can't cope with any other way than, "nuh uh"!

You don't have shame when you don't know of good nor evil.

Which proves what? Obviously A and E were now familiar with good AND evil when it reports their shame. You need to show that they were incapable of shame BEFORE then. After makes no a whit of difference.

Likewise, Adam didn't know shame of nakedness until after he ate of the fruit.

"Shame" has to do with how we are perceived in the eyes of others, in terms of what that means in an agonistic culture. (BTW saying "How do you know" is not an answer; the text was written TO an agonistic culture, which has the pre-eminent right to determine the meaning and speak authoritatively of it.) The "nakedness" was not merely a matter of no clothes on but a matter (as Jewish commentators perceived) of loss of holiness. A loss of the sacred from within and connection to the divine from without. Stop reading the story like a fundamentalist, look into the background data, and maybe you'll get on the right track.

What would God have done? Adam sinned against His word.

A confession outright, as I clearly said, suggests a lesser punishment, as is the case throughout the Bible. Repentance has its own rewards. You need this spelled out in three letter words?

Are you saying that God is a honor-shame society as well?

No. You simply can't read well and are mixing my terms like noodle soup trying to find a foothold in the bowl.

It does matter. God is showing that free will does not matter. So He is reducing humanity to just puppets for His amusement.

A fine example, again, of avoiding the issue. Free will doesn't matter indeed when a man is locked in the pokey. Are they puppets for our amusement? You just skated right over the point. No doubt because you need a way to keep that cognitive dissonance afloat.

Another issue is God is being deceitful. If Pharaoh justly deserved for him and his people to be plagues by God, then God should have punished without having to resort to games of starting a showdown over Israelites going to the desert.

And back to that same pool of upchuck. I gave you the answer to this. You ignored it. Games? If God had not made the offer, you'd call it unfair! Paging Dr. Spin! For those with a real interest in the subject, here's an article Quacky can also just say is full of fallacies as he ignores it:

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/Hharden.html

You stated "Aren't we BEGGING THE QUESTION a little that one man's "waste" is another man's UTILITY?" I was showing that this is not the case.

You didn't show Jack in those terms. All you did was the same bleck over and over. "It's a waste." "Why?" "Because it is." "They found it useful." "It's still a waste." BOP!

So you think killing animals for God is a good thing. Why not also kill people? That is just another sacrifice?

Oh, now we want to post a strawman of excess that doesn't even address the question! Hey, if you'd rather people be killed, drop a note in the suggestion box and volunteer to go first to set an example for the rest of us.

Where do you draw the line at what is a waste of a symbolic act and how do you justify you are not a bigot in the process?

Gosh, whee, these critical thinking processes are complex. Produce a mathematical formula plugging in the variables of utility, ease, symbolic power, long term benefit, short term results, etc. When you are finished get back to me. Here's the core: You, an arrogant and selfish modern, are deciding from your air-conditioned easy chair what EVERYONE ELSE ought to do and see and think. Second-guessing the process from the armchair is easy. As if you got into your Turtledove Time Machine and were such a genius knowing how to work out every option for the greatest good. Your arguments, though, amount to: "This one point here offends me. It could have been done better so as not to offend me." Pfft! Never mind the temporal backwash of the change, and whether it has a more deleterious effect. How not to be a bigot? Simple: When it comes to these complex issues, 1) Study the background context. 2) Assume a stance of humility and admit YOU DON'T KNOW that yours is the better way. 3) Stop making self-centered arguments that the way things were was wrong, until you do 1) and gather sufficient data to do better than 2). Given that your arguments, however, all involve (so far) criticisms of long-term historical processes, you have a lot of work to do.

An all powerful and wise God could shape the symbolic act into something more peaceful and rewarding.

Please! And God can make a stone so heavy He can't lift it. All the power and wisdom in the world can't overcome a simple fact of logic. And there it is again, that same second-guessing arrogance, as if you went through all the options, studied the cultures intensely, and came to the proven or reasonable decision that THERE MUST HAVE BEEN A BETTER WAY. Why? For no other reason than that you personally think so. Selfishness layered with sympathy. Bad rational policy.

If you cheat on your wife, build a shrine instead of kill 10 cows.

Yet another strawman of excess. Also a suggestion from weebo-land. The average wife-cheater would use the shrine as a brothel! 100 years later the shrine would be a monument to a false god. There you go again -- take off the rose-colored glasses and take a good close look at human behavior.

Do you kill an animal every time you sin? Why not? Is the symbolism no longer valid?

Not in the same sense. It has been fulfilled. Now we look backwards at the Atonement.

How do you know when God has taken Pharaoh's free will away and when He hasn't? He admitted to it once but we have no idea how many other times God make the Pharaoh act in a way that would please God.

Whizz, zoom, Quacky dodges again with a "repeat the same old canard" argument. It's simple: in some places it says God did the hardening (clearly later in the game, however, and AFTER Pharaoh Urkel already showed that he wasn't sincere, meaning once he did let them go, out goes the army to save the day!); others it says Pharaoh hardened himself. And by crikey, we still have Pharaoh Urkel's many years every second of the day free will in which he could have made a decision. We seem inclined to avoid that point, don't we, Quacky?

The argument is whether God grants free will and if He encourages war, waste, destruction and hatred. If God did not give life He would not get any of this.

Dodge #3, Mabel! Call out the National Guard! Yep! He didn't answer the implied question.

So any Taliban that did not do any of this, we should kill? What about the children? I bet they did not help us out.

Try defining your terms first. As I recall "Taliban" referred to any member of that government. I understand there were moderates who did not support the regime's full programme and did what they could. Some may have been intelligence informants. In any event you're again dodging the issue by plopping down black and white paint. In terms of children, we as adults are responsible for what happens to them; and in social terms, the background is different than in Egypt. Thus:

After all God killed many children as an example to the Egyptians.

Now then: "While Egypt's children may have died, their lives and fate may inspire others to go to follow the true God and get to heaven." Or, the reaction within Egypt may have kept that obnoxious nation from invading and destroying other nations later on. Egypt always had an eye for expansion; now how if that had happened, and we were speaking Egyptian today and building pyramids for Pharaoh George W. Bushenaten? Any dispute, Mr. Turtledove?

There is a difference between fighting for freedom when there is a chance and fighting when there is no chance.

That's what I SAID, Quacky. And we now ring up Dodge #5 -- you didn't answer my [Patrick] Henry question.

want to vote for someone other than Saddam. You know Saddam will still win and by doing so, you will most likely be killed or your family hurt. What do you do?

I just TOLD you. You didn't pay attention -- too intent on recycling that stale argument you can't get off your mind, no doubt.

I guess that is the difference between us. I chose a path based on efficiency and you chose one based on hard work. I see no profit in hard work just for hard work's sake.

Dr. Spin, what you call "efficiency" is often an excuse for laziness, or getting away with something, and is often perpetrated under that false category name. If you really are able to be dedicated to a cause without hard work -- splendid! You're one in 6 billion. A very very special person. I doubt you actually exist. No, given the tenor and method of your argument, you're not really that way but you're just trying as above to keep from falling in the hole by hook or by crook. But my really key question was, "You want God to teleport? How willing are you to follow Him?" You want all these special favors; how willing are you to reciprocate? You answered with Dodge #6:

No one asked Him to teleport them, but that makes a lot more sense than starting a war and killing a lot of children along the way. I would rather have a smart peaceful God than one that chose the hard way and threw in destruction along the way.

That's it, just stir the emotional pot with the Here and Now present-sense ingredients. It's all you have cooking. And now again for the bacon save:

And around he goes in the circle again, dodging every sharp point on the Autobahn! So who forced Pharaoh Urkel to keep the Israelites enslaved for X number of years and kill their babies?

That is a good question. We don't know. For all we know it could have been God setting this up along the way. Since God does interfere at least once, we can not rule out He did it more than once.

Yessir, he just makes it up as he goes along! For all we know God could have been an alien named Urkel-oo who was making a great movie for the planet Fug! Then just to be sure he reminds us again of that emotional recipe: But putting that aside, God should have punished for that series of events instead of for the Israelites trip to the desert. There was no reason for deceit. That WAS what the punishment was for, Quacky -- the whole process of enslavement. The refusal to bring it to an end was the focal point.

In Ex 7:3-4,3:20,4:21 God confesses to making Pharaoh go against God's will. This is lying because to the rest of the world, it appears Pharaoh is denying God when he is not.

Oh! Oh! Now he wants to bring in the rest of the world as though they were all watching! As if Farmer Pfuzzoti in Japan cared at the time. But see, we have the OT text and we KNOW what's happening, so it's no "lie" at all even if correct and if even IF we had a right to the truth in the first place. God gave us the skinny. Bravo!

It is deceit (Ex 3:7-8) because God states He is doing this to rescue His people. However, when a clear and easy for God to do this is present, He chooses a path that causes many deaths and much pain.

Duh oh! And where do we have the alternate timeline history showing that the death and pain was not necessary to accomplish the purpose and was not actually the most efficient method that cost the fewest lives, in the long term? Don't forget Egypt as an obnoxious expansionist power that readily enslaved a whole race and countless others. Saying, "That's not in the text" is not an answer, since 1) informing all of your non-knowledge on such matters would require a document big enough for a fleet of moving vans; 2) such matters really aren't your business anyway; 3) you're hypocritical if you object this, since you seem willing to speculate outside of and/or against direct evidence; ie., that maybe God set Pharaoh up and made him enslave the Israelites, too!

If it was that well understood, then why was it translated to "doomed to die" instead of "lose your connection with me?" Obviously, it was not that well understood if at all or the people translating did a bad job.

Duh huh, yeah, everyone else was stupid! It's their fault you didn't do your homework! There's that self-centered man again! PS, the guy who speaks of ants in his pants does a bad job of expressing himself! It's his fault I sprayed a can of Raid down his trousers!

This was pretty funny. I get a mental picture of you running around doing High fives to everyone and chortling "Hey! Did you see that. I called him Quacky! I am soooo cool. Now lets go and egg some Mormons!"

Nah, the Mormons have always been smarter than you've shown as a whole. They at least pay attention to arguments, take the text seriously, don't dodge and don't make excuses, and don't repeat emotional "arguments" to distract from their inadequacies. Whoa, that Quacky stuff must have hurt to get such a central focus. Be sure and keep your webbed feet in line.

Well, that seems to be all that can be done with this sovereign of ineptitude. Thanks for the chance, AV.

We'll close now with a look at Quacky's final response, which merely repeated his earlier points.

I raise valid points and your response is to throw silly insults. I invite you to expose any ignorance I have. I am here to learn. Your purpose seems to be to act arrogant and childish. Is this the nice Christian example you are trying to set? If I wanted to see behavior like yours, I could easily turn on professional wrestling or Jerry Springer show.

As usual, "childish" here means "You gored my ox, ouch." Actually riposte-challenge isn't much different than a professional wrestling match! See here.

I did not state they were blank slates. I stated that the story shows they were innocent to begin with. You assume they knew of good and evil without any proof. That is all I am pointing out.

This is already answered above, and shown to be no answer. It is far more absurd to assume lack of knowledge, and by the rules of collectivist external conscience, the command was really all that was needed. Quacky answers none of this.

It is not about humanity as it is about God. God made a rule to kill animals. He could have made a different rule. You assume He made the best rule because your first assumption is God always does what is right. If you drop that assumption, you can see so many other things He could have done. I don't know everything, but I don't see how killing animals made the world any better. I don't see how cutting off foreskins made the world any better. I don't see how Aztecs killing humans for their gods made anything better. So you assume your religion is true and all the suffering was just. But from a world perspective, your religion is just one of many that involve much suffering and destruction.

Once again Quacky merely repeats his second-guessing argument, then erects the straw-man of other practices not ordered or sanctioned by God, with no comparison made to purpose, meaning, or intent. In short, nothing not already answered above.

Now then: "While Egypt's children may have died, their lives and fate may inspire others to go to follow the true God and get to heaven." Or, the reaction within Egypt may have kept that obnoxious nation from invading and destroying other nations later on. Egypt always had an eye for expansion; now how if that had happened, and we were speaking Egyptian today and building pyramids for Pharaoh George W. Bushenaten? Any dispute, Mr. Turtledove?

Sure God may have changed the future of the world by doing that, but He is showing that is not fair nor just by doing so. I don't see how this can be a good lesson from God.

Once again, no more than the same second-guessing process. What is fair? We all deserve the penalty of death to begin with. Quacky sums up his same argument again in closing, ignoring the vast majority of what we said above:

I can make the rest real simple for you. Find the error in the logic:

1. God admits that He will make Pharoah deny the request to go to the desert
2. God punishes Pharoah and Egyptian citizens based on Pharoah's refusal to let the Isrealites go to the desert.
3. If God could do this to Pharoah & Egypt, He could make it so Adam and Eve wish to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Please point out the flaw in my logic above.

The flaws were pointed out repeatedly, but Quacky's only alternative -- not surprisingly -- is to go back to the same pool of vomit like the proverbial dog: Emotional argument based on immediate sensation. Our answers were:

1. God says that He will make Pharaoah deny the request to go to the desert, because:
2. God punishes Pharaoah and Egyptian citizens based on the long-term enslavement of the Israelites and the oppression and murder of their people, and Pharaoah's refusal to let the Israelites go to the desert will be the defining focus point
3. God did nothing to Pharaoah and Egypt comparable to the Adam and Eve/tree of knowledge of good and evil situation

Such is the quality of discussion forums in our modern Net community.