Job 5-7

[wolfpurplemoon]

Job is now a very broken man, despite his friends continuing to praise God in his presence.

Job says that no man shall come up from his grave once buried there, which to me means that there is no afterlife.

Comments

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

I don't think it exactly says there is no afterlife. He simply says what we know, that dead people do not get up and come back. The Bible is clear elsewhere that there is an afterlife. A good one for those who love what is good and serve God, and a bad one for those who are wicked and bring needless pain to the world by their actions.

[wolfpurplemoon]

I'm curious if you genuinely think there are only these two types of people?

There is plenty of grey in between your black and white portrayal of good and bad.

The definition of being good isn't just 'love what is good and serve God', people who apparently serve God are quite capable of being 'wicked and bring[ing] needless pain to the world' just as those who don't serve God aren't automatically wicked.

But anyway, up to this point in the bible there hasn't been a single mention of an afterlife, the worst punishment for not following the rules is usually death by the hand of your friends and family, while the only benefit of following rules seems to be avoiding death.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

I would think that serving God means obeying him. I don't see how someone can be wicked and bring needless pain to the world by their actions, and say they are serving God. I'm sure you must be aware that just because because a person claims to serve God doesn't mean he truly does. Even if one is a clergyman, he only serves God if he actually obeys God's Word. That's not to say that people who serve God dont mess up once in a while, but God-servers by definition don't lead wicked lives in total disregard for God's Word.

You say "the only benefit of following rules seems to be avoiding death." So I take it you believe there are no benefits of avoiding stuff like adultery and stealing, other than to avoid death? I personally would say that refraining from adultery is beneficial to one's family, in ways that are greater than just avoiding a punishment. Refraining from stealing obviously has benefits above just simply avoiding a punishment; if you think differently you must be a bank robber who is trying to rationalize his lifestyle. :-) There's a saying, "Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but is forbidden because it is hurtful." I disagree with your statement that the only benefit to obeying God's commands is simply to avoid punishment.

[wolfpurplemoon]

Obviously it is beneficial to a society for the people to follow rules and laws that keep order as this maintains the stability of that society. And there are punishments for not following them in all societies.

No moral person is going to go around stealing but I'm not sure what benefits there are of not stealing beyond avoiding the punishments. If you steal things then you are getting those things for a lot less work than if you earned the money yourself, and it is obvious that too many people feel that the benefits of stealing outweigh the risk of getting caught (especially when more of these people are out of work and desperate).

My point about the 'grey area' was really just that you only defined good people as ones who serve God (when quite obviously that is not the only definition of being good) and implied that anyone who doesn't serve God is automatically bad.

Anyway, I think that has got rather off the topic, I knew that posting about reading the bible was going to attract people with your kind of views but also know from experience that we're not going to reach any kind of agreement so the discussion is doomed from the start. Thanks for your comments though.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

Wht I don't like about atheism is that it seems the only reason to do good is to suit your own desires. There is no real right and wrong, but right and wrong are decided by the strongest person around and enforced by that strength. That's why people steal, because they think only of themselves.

Believers in God subscribe to a moral law that is not affected or changed by the whim of the majority, or the whim of the strongest person. So they do what's right even when it may not be in their own immediate convenience.

[wolfpurplemoon]

a moral law that is not affected or changed by the whim of the majority

I'm sorry but that is so totally untrue, I doubt very much you follow every law in the bible to the letter, and it's likely you follow a lot of laws about things that were never considered in biblical times that your government has made.

Morality (and of course justice - to deal with your other comment) has evolved along with human society, the humans (and their ancestors) that did things that went against the good of society were outcast or killed and therefore only those that behaved in a beneficial way would pass their moral genes to any offspring. Also societies that weren't moral enough would likely to descend into chaos and therefore be destroyed.

So the moral sense that modern humans have and therefore the laws our society makes are because the values that survived along with us.

This is why it can be very convincing to think that God made human morality, but try looking up the evolution of altruistic behaviour and you'll see that it isn't just humans that behave in a moral way or a way that keeps families and societies together.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

It's true that humans have behaved in different ways throughout history. The nations that the Israelites destroyed were in the habit of sacrificing their children in hot ovens to their false gods.

I would ask this: Did abusing children in such a fashion become wrong only after humans decided it was wrong and stopped doing it, or was it wrong from the beginning, even while it was being practiced? Christians would hold that it was wrong even while they were practicing it, and I would say the practicers themselves probably knew deep down, from the conscience God gave them, that it was wrong. Just because human practices change over time does not mean the actual Moral Law changed.

You are right, even Christians dont perfectly obey the Moral Law that we are aware exists. That's one of the things about the moral law: we are aware of it, but we don't always obey it. Thats why Christians have a Savior called Jesus to forgive us when we disobey it, and to change our nature in such a fashion that we do strive to obey it.

[wolfpurplemoon]

Killing your children hurts society because you need progeny in order for your society and genes to continue, so some animals have evolved to look after their offspring because those that killed or abandoned their offspring didn't pass on their genes.

I can see that there is really no point commenting to you because you pretty much ignore what I say.

[vonheston.livejournal.com]

Wht I don't like about atheism is that it seems the only reason to do good is to suit your own desires.

I was very happy to read this comment. If that is what you dislike about atheism, I can cure your dislike right away! Soon you will like atheism for, you see, utilitarianism and related ethical systems are not the only systems available to the atheist! The atheist is also not condemned to relativism.

Indeed, I am an atheist who is not utilitarian and not a moral relativist in the traditional sense. While acknowledging that most modern humans are repulsed by negative actions (such as murder, rape, etc) due to evolution, I also assert that these actions were objectively wrong before 'humans' developed natural repulsion. They would be wrong even if the majority of humans found them pleasing. Many atheists throughout history have agreed! (for many different reasons)

I hope this clears up your mistake about atheism for you. I'm not sure who told you that it was the equivalent of hedonism, but they are incorrect.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

In regards to black, white and gray, I think people tend to rationalize stuff they shouldn't rationalize when they get too caught up in calling stuff "gray" when it should be either black or white. Maybe there are situations in the world where right and wrong might depend on the person, but usually its a lot more clear than the rationalizer will admit. I think people should be honest and tough enough to admit when something is wrong, because people get hurt by sin. Kids get hurt by the lifestyles of their parents, who seem to think they aren't hurting anyone, etc.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, I can think of one possible mention of an afterlife. If you remember the story of King Saul meeting the witch of Endor, she called Samuel's spirit from the grave. That would suggest an afterlife to me.

I sm not an expert on the original Hebrew, but I know that often when the English uses the term "grave," as in "I will go down to the grave," the Hebrew is "Sheol," which might mean some kind of place where the dead reside.

[crossbow1.livejournal.com]

The Hebrews at that time did not believe in an afterlife. Have you actually read the old testament at all, or when you say "the bible" do you only mean the gospels?

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

I just exlplained the story of Saul and the witch of Endor. It's in 1 Samuel 28:3-25. I wasn't here when biblewolfmoon was in that chapter, but he must have gone over it.