is YHWH an Evil god?

[DC]

I didn't get the ending, where they decide to pray.

But good movie.

only makes sense, because they actually belief the monster exist, they just wan't the monster to get on their side again. And maybe they pray to teach that monster morals and ethics. like what the one guys think Abraham should have done when the monster asked him to kill his son.

 

[FireGarden]

only makes sense, because they actually belief the monster exist, they just wan't the monster to get on their side again. And maybe they pray to teach that monster morals and ethics. like what the one guys think Abraham should have done when the monster asked him to kill his son.

I don't think the first idea fits the characters. The second idea makes a bit more sense.

This, by the script writer, doesn't really explain it either:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/aug/19/drama.religion

I didn't tell you the end of the story. After they find God guilty, one of the rabbis says: "So what do we do now?" The reply is: "Let us pray." Is this a wry story about Jewish stoicism? Is it about a failure of moral courage? Or what? For me, it's about faith.

[...] The camps tried to reduce individuals to components in a project. In the end, they did that literally. What good stories do is the opposite. They say the human is irreducible. Tobias Wolff has described the story of the Prodigal Son as "surely the most beautiful thing ever written". No one hears it without feeling the conflict between the need to do right by the eldest son, and the need to express the overwhelming love you feel for the lost one, now returned. The father is nothing without the son. That contradiction is crucial. I'm hoping that God On Trial is a mirror image of that story. Only this time it was God who seemed to go away, and people who - inexplicably perhaps - were prepared to rush out to welcome him back.

He had at least one character saying that God was in the camp with them. I don't think any of them had felt God had gone anywhere. So, if the above was his intention, then he expressed it badly.

 

[Cainkane1]

If Karl Edward Wagner had lived his Kane character would have eventually killed the unnamed god.

 

[Leumas]

I think YHWH has broken at least 6 of the so called 10 commandments (click the "spoiler show" button at the end of this post to see what the REAL 10 commandments are) :

1. He killed.... Flood, Sodom, Gomorrah, Egypt etc. etc. etc.
2. He Coveted..... He wanted the land of the Canaanites etc. For his people
3. He committed adultery.....he impregnated Joseph's wife Mary
4. He took craven images.... He orders Moses to make a snake statue to cure snake bites of the Israelites in Sinai that sent to punish them.
5. He stole....He bewitched the Egyptians to give their gold and jewelry to the Israelites. He aided the Israelites in taking Israel from its inhabitants. He sent the Babylonians, Assyrians etc. to pillage Israel and Judah as punishments
6. He lied....He sent a lying spirit to trick Ahab and others in other incidents
7. He swore falsely....He promised to make the Jews more numerous than the sand on the beach and other unfulfilled promises in the Covenant.
8. Broke the Sabbath.....as Jesus he healed on the Sabbath
9. He Insulted his mother.....As Jesus he insulted his mother

YHWH (a.k.a. Jesus, a.k.a. Allah) is

Infanticidal, Megalomaniacal, Homicidal, Racist, LYING, RAPING, INCESTUAL, Jealous, Lustful, Gluttonous, Greedy, Slothful, Envious, Vain, Pompous, Wrathful, Vengeful, Deceitful, Egotistical, Malevolent, Benighted​

 

[RandFan]

I didn't get the ending, where they decide to pray.

But good movie.

It's all they had. They didn't decide that god didn't exist. They decided that god was not good. I would have done the very same thing. Not that it was rational. Not that as I sit here now with my perspective and understanding, but because I understand human psychology and human ego (not the Freudian sense of the word).

 

[RandFan]

I don't think the first idea fits the characters. The second idea makes a bit more sense.

This, by the script writer, doesn't really explain it either:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/aug/19/drama.religion

He had at least one character saying that God was in the camp with them. I don't think any of them had felt God had gone anywhere. So, if the above was his intention, then he expressed it badly.

How to make sense of an irrational world? You don't start by assuming rationality is why we do what we do in the first place. It's not enough though to say "irrational". We must account for the actions. They had been indoctrinated from childhood to believe in adoni (the lord they god). Cruel or merciful it did not matter. Much of their lives and ritual was spent in supplication to this god. When one is facing death one will cling to any hope. It's perfectly understandable to me. What would have been unusual is if they had, in such a short amount of time, decided to reject all ritual and belief. That does not happen.

People who leave Scientology for instance typically take 5 to 10 years to come to terms that it was all BS and completely renounce it. If people could turn on a dime as you suggest then religious memes would not be so pervasive.

 

[RandFan]

To better understand the psychology of believers I recommend Pinker's The Blank slate, Dennett's Breaking The Spell and Margret Singer's Cults In Our Midst (not applicable to only what most of us think of as cults).

 

[I Ratant]

YHWH, God, Baal, Quetezecoatl, Isis, .... are not evil.
They are brain farts.
It's the lackwits that adopt the ideas of those similarly retarded lackwits pertaining to those imaginary things that are evil.

 

[RandFan]

YHWH, God, Baal, Quetezecoatl, Isis, .... are not evil.
They are brain farts.
It's the lackwits that adopt the ideas of those similarly retarded lackwits pertaining to those imaginary things that are evil.

To the extent that the word "evil" conveys information, and I think it does, then fictional charcters like Lex Luther or Jason from Friday the 13th can be said to be evil. So can it be said of the Biblical character YHWH.

 

[FireGarden]

It's all they had. They didn't decide that god didn't exist. They decided that god was not good. I would have done the very same thing. Not that it was rational. Not that as I sit here now with my perspective and understanding, but because I understand human psychology and human ego (not the Freudian sense of the word).

When the judges conferred, there was that one who decided to stick with God, even if he didn't exist. He said something like "keep something which they can't take away from you". I think at that point they were going to give a verdict of innocent -- but that's not totally clear.

Before they give their verdict, the Rabbi who had remained silent so far decides to speak up. And that is the video you linked to. Then God is found guilty.

They had been indoctrinated from childhood to believe in adoni (the lord they god). Cruel or merciful it did not matter. Much of their lives and ritual was spent in supplication to this god. When one is facing death one will cling to any hope. It's perfectly understandable to me. What would have been unusual is if they had, in such a short amount of time, decided to reject all ritual and belief. That does not happen.

I don't find this to describe what I saw, either. Even those who had not lived a religiously Jewish life were praying -- or am I wrong about that?

While watching the movie, I wasn't sure which way they would decide. Maybe they would find that God was good, maybe they wouldn't. I wouldn't have been surprised with either verdict -- even after that final part (to which you linked) as long as there had been more "trust that the sacrifice is worth it" kind of stuff. Either verdict could have been worked into the script.

But the verdict decided upon was 'guilty' -- it's, apparently, based on an event described by Elie Wiesel (possibly apocryphal).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_God

The trial lasted several nights. Witnesses were heard, evidence was gathered, conclusions were drawn, all of which issued finally in a unanimous verdict: the Lord God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, was found guilty of crimes against creation and humankind. And then, after what Wiesel describes as an "infinity of silence," the Talmudic scholar looked at the sky and said "It's time for evening prayers," and the members of the tribunal recited Maariv, the evening service.

Which, I guess, explains why the author of the movie script put the prayers in at the end.

And maybe your explanations can be applied to the event Wiesel witnessed, or to the story as he wrote it. But in the movie, the prayers at the end were a surprise.

Good movie, though.

 

[I Ratant]

To the extent that the word "evil" conveys information, and I think it does, then fictional charcters like Lex Luther or Jason from Friday the 13th can be said to be evil. So can it be said of the Biblical character YHWH.

.
But as long as the fanboys of fictional evil just enjoy the novels, and don't act it out, no harm done.
Any "evil" is like sin.
Imaginary.

 

[FireGarden]

...maybe they pray to teach that monster morals and ethics. like what the one guys think Abraham should have done when the monster asked him to kill his son.

This is making more sense, as far as the movie is concerned.

I realise it's fiction, and I realise it might not apply to the trial which is supposed to have inspired all this. And I also realise, given the above quote, that the script-writer may not have intended it that way.

But DC is reffering to an actual line from the movie.

Anyway, I also realise this was a bit of a derail -- though the scene linked is spot on for the thread.

 

[RandFan]

And maybe your explanations can be applied to the event Wiesel witnessed, or to the story as he wrote it. But in the movie, the prayers at the end were a surprise.

Having read the books I noted above and having studied psychology, sociology and religous indoctrination, had I been asked before they pryaed, if they would pray, I would have said most likely. I think it very unlikely that they would not have. My point about Scientologists and the diffculty that the religous have to give up ritual and certain memes I could not come to any other conclusion as to probability. Now, that isn't to say they did pray. I'm not saying it is the only possibility. But it's a very likely scenario IMO. If not outloud at leat in their minds.

I'll give you one more example. After I became an atheist I heard the name Madalyn Murray O'Hair and instantly had feelings of disgust and revulsion. Now, realized right away that this was irrational but it took awhile before I this visceral feeling stopped.

 

[Mister Earl]

+1

Philosophical questiobn : if you do a deicide, do you go to hell ?

Maybe both heaven and hell would cease to exist. Or maybe highlander rules are in play, and I become the new god.

If that turns out to be the case: Free cheese for everyone.

 

[RandFan]

.
But as long as the fanboys of fictional evil just enjoy the novels, and don't act it out, no harm done.
Any "evil" is like sin.
Imaginary.

You are making two points here that are at odds. Words are not laws of physics. They are means to communicate. In this context evil simply mean pernicous acts. If you are nihilistic and not ethically so then we can have a different discussion.

If I give you an abstract concept like say for instance "genocide", can you say whether or not that is harmful?

 

[I Ratant]

You are making two points here that are at odds. Words are not laws of physics. They are means to communicate. In this context evil simply mean pernicous acts. If you are nihilistic and not ethically so then we can have a different discussion.

If I give you an abstract concept like say for instance "genocide", can you say whether or not that is harmful?

.
"Genocide" as a word, or description of a concept, is something everyone should be familiar with.
In practice, it is evil.
When used on people...
On the smallpox virus, say, it's mandatory! (And has worked very well.)

 

[elipse]

If YAWH were real, then wouldn't Lucifer be the protagonist of the story?

So I guess I'd be a Satanist, if the god of the bible was anything more than an evil character in a very old story.

 

[RandFan]

.
"Genocide" as a word, or description of a concept, is something everyone should be familiar with.

Not sure what that has to do with anything but, okay.

In practice, it is evil.
When used on people...

I would agree, from an abstract POV it is.

Likewise the abstraction of some entity commiting genocide is evil. Therefore, in principle, the character of god is evil because god commits genocide on people.

 

[Weak Kitten]

.
"Genocide" as a word, or description of a concept, is something everyone should be familiar with.
In practice, it is evil.
When used on people...
On the smallpox virus, say, it's mandatory! (And has worked very well.)

I argue self defense! Smallpox was doing the equivalent of running around with a knife trying to kill anyone it met! We had to shoot it!

 

[Aepervius]

Interresting Randfan, I knew the link on youtube already, but I always thought the praying at the end was more a pleading to not "look" at them while the evil god has new favorite.