The unreliable God

[tsig]

Well, it actually happened before, when talking about God's being stopped by iron chariots. Apparently, see,

1. "God didn't say he'll guarantee automatic victory." (He'll apparently still give you victory, but he can still wants some thousands of you dead, can't he? And it's ok because he never said he wouldn't enjoy to see your bleed and kid die for His wars.)

2. "God wanted to test their faith." (This is a recurring them, in hundreds of different wordings. Apparently God wants to see if you have enough faith in him to not crap your pants when charged at by a scythed chariot, and will only help you if your faith is so strong that you're not even fazed. How that's different from just the effects of high cohesion in a formation, is never explained.)

3. "God wanted to teach them a valuable lesson." (Sorta think like taking your kids camping, and if one gets bit by mosquitoes or scrapes a knee, heck, it builds character. God takes HIS to stab at each other, and I guess getting stabbed in the gut builds character or something)

Plus, of course, the usual cop-outs

4. "God moves in mysterious ways. You can't understand his reasons and motives." (But then the same guy goes into whole speeches that boild down to "but *I* know exactly what God thinks, wants or reasons, and what he couldn't possibly think, so let me tell you in detail.")

5. "Free will." (This is the ultimate cop-out, as anything can be ascribed to leaving people free will. Even if your house is hit by a meteor or you kid gets leukemia, that can be SOMEHOW blamed on free will.)

6. "It's in the divine plan." (Apparently an omnipotent and omniscient God can't possibly figure out a plan that doesn't involve sending a bunch of guys to get stabbed in the gut.) 7. "God has bigger concerns than you." (This is another popular one, in hundreds of different phrasing. The idea is that if God wasn't around when you actually needed him, it was because, damn, at that moment he had something more important to do, some people in bigger need of help, etc, on the other side of the globe. Exactly how a deity can be omnipotent while being capable only of a finite amount of help and intervention, is never quite thought out.)

Etc, etc, etc.

Really, when the cognitive dissonance HAS to be resolved in a given way, people WILL make any excuses necessary. No matter how little sense they really make.

I imagine that if you asked the guy who just got stabbed in the gut how he thinks god's plans are panning out all you'd get would be bloody drivel.

 

[Leumas]

7. "God has bigger concerns than you." (This is another popular one, in hundreds of different phrasing. The idea is that if God wasn't around when you actually needed him, it was because, damn, at that moment he had something more important to do, some people in bigger need of help, etc, on the other side of the globe. Exactly how a deity can be omnipotent while being capable only of a finite amount of help and intervention, is never quite thought out.)

For example....watching a football match and helping them win.

Also....

8. You, or someone close to you, did something wrong or you did not have enough faith. For example when attacking Ai they lost one of the battles and it was because one of the guys took some of the gold instead of "giving it ALL to 'god' ".

 

[paiute]

What's up with that Puss in Boots? Why does he need boots instead of some nice New Balance crosstrainers? Wouldn't a cat be more comfortable in sneakers? Why does he wear them on his back legs and not his front? Cats don't stand up.

 

[Leumas]

What's up with that Puss in Boots? Why does he need boots instead of some nice New Balance crosstrainers? Wouldn't a cat be more comfortable in sneakers? Why does he wear them on his back legs and not his front? Cats don't stand up.

Are there 4 billion people who believe in Puss In Boots' ability to give them life after death and to avenge them and to protect them and to help them win the lottery and to save their dying children?

Are there people who are willing to kill other people because of the story of Puss in boots?

Are there many people who are wasting BILLIONS of dollars on maintaining parasites who tell them that Puss in boots will do all the above for them?


People who think that discussing the BULL in the Bible is as pointless as discussing the bull in other fairy stories are SORELY BENIGHTED.

Debunking the Bible using the Bible is a very worthwhile pursuit.

Most theists will not listen to science or archaeology or any logic......but when one uses the Bible ITSELF to debunk the bible without relying on any extrabiblical sources or facts it SHAKES them.

I maintain and will always assert that the BEST WAY to debunk Christianity and Judaism and Islam is to use their SCRIPTURES.

I cannot remember which book I read this in....but the advice given once by a guy who was a fundamentalist who became an atheist is to use the Bible.

He and I and many others became Agnostics because of READING the Bible. I and many others later became full atheists because of the rejection of any possibility of a meaningful DEISM due to Theodicy.

But the first step is to REJECT THE BIBLE and thus the god of the Bible.

The best way to do that is to HAMMER IN how stupid, moronic, inconsistent, contradictory, illogical, immoral, reprehensible, unfair, criminal, unjust, evil and retarded the Bible is.

So no....it is not a pointless and meaningless pursuit....on the contrary it is a necessary and IMPORTANT pursuit to ANALYZE and DISSECT the Bible.....and the less you can bring in to bear any knowledge from other than the bible the better.

 

[HansMustermann]

For example....watching a football match and helping them win.

Hey, fixing games is a tough job, but someone has to do it

The thing that seems to me even less thought out about that excuse though, is more general. If that's true, if God can't save a kid here because he's saving a kid on the other side of the globe, or, yes, if God can't save some rape victim because he was busy fixing a football match... well, then relying on God is an increasingly losing proposition, innit?

I mean, way back, he had to focus on just 1-2 million chosen people, and still has a very spotty track record. Obviously he doesn't always have the time and power for them all. Now there are over 2 BILLION Christians, and if you believe Vatican about the "anonymous Christian" thing, he can still work through or for the other 5 billion people on the side. Seems to me like the chances to have him actually available when you need him, must have gone down a lot over time.

And what will he do another thousand of years from now, when there's maybe 20 billion people asking for help, and they're scattered across 50 light years? I can just see a terminally overworked God drink himself stupid and cry himself to sleep in the evening, after THAT kind of overload

Maybe we should look instead for a mythical figure who can deliver more, and has proven it repeatedly. I mean, Santa can service a few billion people in one night, can't he? Seems to me a big step forward if you can expect help in the next 8 hours or so -- if you've been good and did the proper offerings of milk and cookies -- instead of it being more likely ignored by an overworked God. Heck, maybe we can throw in the Easter Bunny for a backup too

Also....

8. You, or someone close to you, did something wrong or you did not have enough faith. For example when attacking Ai they lost one of the battles and it was because one of the guys took some of the gold instead of "giving it ALL to 'god' ".

Aye, that's a keeper.

 

[HansMustermann]

What's up with that Puss in Boots? Why does he need boots instead of some nice New Balance crosstrainers? Wouldn't a cat be more comfortable in sneakers?

Well, of course he would, but in the 17'th century they weren't invented yet.

Why does he wear them on his back legs and not his front? Cats don't stand up.

Well, duh. Of course a real gentleman would wear gloves on the front limbs

 

[paiute]

So no....it is not a pointless and meaningless pursuit....on the contrary it is a necessary and IMPORTANT pursuit to ANALYZE and DISSECT the Bible....

Green eggs and ham. Are you listening to the words I am typing? GREEN EGGS AND HAM! Was the ham green or just the eggs? Would it matter? Would you eat the ham if it were perfectly fine in all other aspects if it were sitting right there by some freaking GREEN EGGS?

 

[Leumas]

Green eggs and ham. Are you listening to the words I am typing? GREEN EGGS AND HAM! Was the ham green or just the eggs? Would it matter? Would you eat the ham if it were perfectly fine in all other aspects if it were sitting right there by some freaking GREEN EGGS?

Well, no...... just like I would not eat a Turd Filled BLT Sandwich

 

[HansMustermann]

Green eggs and ham. Are you listening to the words I am typing? GREEN EGGS AND HAM! Was the ham green or just the eggs? Would it matter? Would you eat the ham if it were perfectly fine in all other aspects if it were sitting right there by some freaking GREEN EGGS?

While it's not clear from the text alone, the illustrations in the good book clearly show the ham being green too. What are you, some kind of heathen?

 

[Toke]

I can't help wondering about the logistics of a (claimed) 400.000 strong army in those days.
The problem is not just moving and supplying it, but where to get it from in the first place.
The term "Men who drew swords" must mean able-bodied, not necessarily in possession of a rather expensive sword and kit, or able to use it.

I imagine standing on the wall and see a cultist rabble of every able-bodied male with whatever weapon they could lay hands on. A scary sight, even if they are not too impressive individually.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, it's not just where to get them. Earlier on the same page it says pretty much it was a complete mobilization for total war. If they had some 2 million population, some 400,000 mobilized isn't far fetched.

But indeed, you're correct, given the price of an actual sword in that era, it's highly unlikely that everyone actually had a sword. At a more historically informed guess, probably more people carried spears than all other weapons combined, same as for most of recorded history. Plus in that time and place slings would have taken second place. But I guess "this were men carrying a cheap pointy stick" kinda wouldn't have sounded as poetic

The problem is more like what you mentioned: logistics. An army that big would literally drink rivers dry. At, say, 2 litres of water per day (not that much in that hot climate), that's 800 cubic metres of water a day that they must drink. It's not that much if you're fighting on the banks of the Jordan, but otherwise that's a lot of just water to transport.

I guess the whole story is more of a parable to show exactly how outraged they were and how much they wanted to avenge, umm, the concubine of a Levite guy who had given her to a mob in Gibeah to rape her to death (which they dutifully did) and then he hacked her to pieces to send as proof. Because apparently in that deranged universe when some guy sends you a rotting female foot, from a woman that he self-confessedly hacked to pieces as (sole) proof that someone else killed her, you don't think "you sick bastard, what'd you do that for?" but "oh, ok, the guy sent evidence. He must be telling the truth." Already tells you that if there was an actual civil war there, it must have had other reasons than helping a guy who chopped up his concubine. And once you realize that it wasn't telling the truth about that and by the end of chapter 20 and start of 21 (the part that Leumas pointed out), it completely goes into unbelievable dada land, well, it's probably not hard to suspect that other parts may have been embellished a bit too.

The whole book is full of such stuff ranging from distorted to plain old invented, to show how great the old times were, when they were all united, were all following the Lord, tolerated no failure to toe the line, etc. In tropes terms it's one big Mind Screw, full of metaphors for the present problems that someone at the time would recognize, but mere hundreds of years later already lemmings were mistaking for literal historical truth. With the occasional Gainax Ending thrown in, which kept probably a million theologians in business just inventing BS to explain what it really means and how to reconcile it with other stuff.

Which is really an even bigger problem than just God being unreliable, and in fact the real problem with it. But for the purpose of this thread, I'm going by what the story says.

 

[TjW]

I can't help wondering about the logistics of a (claimed) 400.000 strong army in those days.
The problem is not just moving and supplying it, but where to get it from in the first place.
The term "Men who drew swords" must mean able-bodied, not necessarily in possession of a rather expensive sword and kit, or able to use it.

I imagine standing on the wall and see a cultist rabble of every able-bodied male with whatever weapon they could lay hands on. A scary sight, even if they are not too impressive individually.

Perhaps they were artists.

 

[Trent Wray]

Well, no...... just like I would not eat a Turd Filled BLT Sandwich

Ezekiel's beat you to it ...

Chapter 4:9-15

9Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

10And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.

11Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.

12And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.

13And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.

14Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

15Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.

So Ezekiel was going to crap onto some baked goods in front of everyone, but instead of using human feces he ended up, literally, using ************ instead.

 

[Toke]

Perhaps they were artists.

Could be, and going to war with pens.

....
Which is really an even bigger problem than just God being unreliable, and in fact the real problem with it. But for the purpose of this thread, I'm going by what the story says.

Taking the story at face value they would have been better off without god. Doing without the false confidence would have made sensible tactics from day one more likely.

I guess the leaders were somewhat limited by their initial choice of raising an 400.000 strong mob of cultist with farm implements, it might not be easy to suddenly change tack and employ sensible tactics.

I have not read the bible and cannot comment qualified on what kinds of literary freedoms have been taken by assorted authors to tell their specific story. (Although the lack of coherence is noticeable even in quoted form.)

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I'd blame it on cultists with farm implements too, but Benjamin was one of the tribes of Israel too. In fact that's what sets the stage for chapter 21. So you'd expect them to be at a similar tech level and equipment. And the only troops the book finds worth noting as special are the 700 super-snipers from Gibeah, but even those, really, still had just a strip of leather as their weapon. They were just more trained than the rabble.

Incidentally that's another... weird detail. Training to fight left-handed was a fearsome -- if riskier -- combat technique, since instead of slashing at the enemy's shield, you'd be slashing at where he has to open up to do his own attacks. So the book uses that to indicate, basically, super-soldiers. BUT the funny thing is, that's fully useless for slingers. Shooting a sling with the left or right hand doesn't offer any special tactical advantage either way. So likely it's one of the details that indicate someone was just making stuff up, because combat at the time didn't work the way they seem to think.

But, anyway, that the army of Benjamin would be 11% or so of the army of all 12 tribes, doesn't really hint at their taking only the elite soldiers. Whatever the population was, it's kind of consistent with what you'd expect if both sides conscripted the same percentage of the population. Unless the tribe of Benjamin was ridiculously disproportionately richer, it's believable that the they'd have comparable equipment to the opposing army.

Yet, yeah, the side that relies on God loses 40 soldiers for every Benjamite killed. So, as you say, they'd have been far better off without God's help.

 

[citizenzen]

The part of this story that I find most interesting is the presence of God is quite palpable. The people are described as literally sitting before the Lord and talking to Him.

Why would a God that was intimately and personally involved in these affairs no longer be present? Why can't people today do what the Israelites do and point to their God and say, "My faith isn't blind. There's my God. He's sitting right over there."

What changed in these few thousand years?

 

[catsmate]

I can't help wondering about the logistics of a (claimed) 400.000 strong army in those days.
The problem is not just moving and supplying it, but where to get it from in the first place.
The term "Men who drew swords" must mean able-bodied, not necessarily in possession of a rather expensive sword and kit, or able to use it.

I imagine standing on the wall and see a cultist rabble of every able-bodied male with whatever weapon they could lay hands on. A scary sight, even if they are not too impressive individually.

Very few would have had swords; the professional troops would mostly have had spears and the rabble either converted agricultural tools (e.g. straightened pruning hooks) or hastily knocked up improvisations.

 

[Toke]

When rereading I get a bit in doubt about those 700.
They could very well be 700 professional soldiers who also happen to be great slingers?

One way to explain some of the disparity in casualties would be the quality of troop coherence/leadership. Litterary licence could handle the rest.

It does still not explain why anyone choose to include the story as an example of the benefits of being god's chosen people?

Very few would have had swords; the professional troops would mostly have had spears and the rabble either converted agricultural tools (e.g. straightened pruning hooks) or hastily knocked up improvisations.

True.
Actual sword steel is a late (1000AC?) invention and people had to come up with very expensive and time consuming tricks like pattern welding to get good blades.

ETA: Are there any surviving records on militia requirements for town citizens?
I am thinking of the lists from medieval Europe where there were specifics on what gear what income group were supposed to own.

 

[Toontown]

God also needs us fallen humans to help him carry out his plans.

Yeah, because fallen humans are so very useful in the execution of random, arbitrary, nowhere plans for nobody. That's why there are so many fallen humans. Because those plans of His have worked so well so far.

Or perhaps God deliberately cultivates fallen humans because He needs them for His nowhere plans. "Mysterious ways", indeed.

 

[tsig]

The part of this story that I find most interesting is the presence of God is quite palpable. The people are described as literally sitting before the Lord and talking to Him.

Why would a God that was intimately and personally involved in these affairs no longer be present? Why can't people today do what the Israelites do and point to their God and say, "My faith isn't blind. There's my God. He's sitting right over there."

What changed in these few thousand years?

That's the way I felt when I read the NT. Who couldn't be an apostle when you've got a real, live, person who works miracles to pal around with? All we get is second hand stories and charlatans.

I was told I needed more faith but I didn't want more faith, I wanted proof just like the apostles had.

ETA: actually I would have settled for one lousy small miracle but somehow that would be messing with my free will, no matter that the NT is full of miracles and it didn't seem to scratch their free will.

ETA1: Gods' personality change from the OT to the NT and his/her dropping of personal interaction most certainly marks god as unreliable.