Job 11-13

[wolfpurplemoon]

Job's friend tries to convince him not to throw out his previously deep faith, but Job is still trying to use reason to understand what has been done to him.

Job says that God is continually giving with one hand and taking with the other, and God's all powerful nature means that a man has no hope against him.

He calls his friends liars for their apologist position, and says that he himself is not a hypocrite so he is in a better position than his hypocritical friends before God.

Am I getting the idea of Job now?

As an aside, the way God has behaved is very similar to how you play Sims when you want to torture your characters for no reason. Putting them in a room with no doors is quite amusing (12:14 he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening) & you can quite easily drive them into deep depression if you're having a sadistic moment. But these are computer generated characters not sentient beings. (It was my brother who made this comparison when I was telling him about what God does to Job)

Comments

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

The difference being, God doesn't cause us to suffer just to be sadistic. He may allow us to be tested, in order to teach us something - to make us stronger. Or to further some purpose of his that is good. We should be humble enough to let him do what he wants, not selfish and angry that we don't live in luxury and can't commit every sin we want. As the NT says "All things work together for good to those who love God."

[wolfpurplemoon]

I really don't understand why an all powerful creator would make the entire universe which is almost entirely hostile to life, create a planet on which life can exist, then create a species that is just one in the many thousands of species on that planet and then bother to test the faith of a few of those inconsequential monkeys. Humans are really not that important in the grand scheme of things.

But anyway, trust you to jump on that bit of my post...

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Hi Jaron,

With respect, your description of why God causes suffering sounds an awful lot like the child of an alcoholic father trying to rationalize abuse.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware children of abusive parents rationalized the parent's abuse. If that's the case, it's pretty sad. I would never rationalize, whitewash, or try to sweep under the rug the abuse of an alcoholic, or any other type of child abuser.

The answers I have given here, to try to explain some of God's actions in the OT, may not be perfect or even totally correct, as I am not exactly an expert on Christian theology.

One phenomenon I do see, is an ironic situation when it comes to those who find fault with God's alleged abuse. Have you noticed how some people here find fault with God's abuse, and in the same breath they curse at me and hurl insults? Such as "you are such a horrible person - I feel sorry for your wife." How can they act so hateful while speaking against hate?

I personally am not sure their problem with God really stems from the supposed abuse He committed. I personally suspect their dislike for God runs deeper than that. Maybe they love to live in sin and don't like any authority that tells them they are indeed wrong. I don't know. But their behavior is indeed ironic.

[funkybomb.livejournal.com]

If you want to look at people being hateful, take a good, hard, long look in the mirror. All over this person's journal, you have demonized atheists as unrepentant sinners who kill babies for convenience, spread disease with their sinful sexuality, leave children without parental figures, and you continue to un-ironically accuse us of being "hateful".

To paraphrase your own holy book: "Physician, heal thyself."

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Hi Jaron,

I'm sorry I haven't had the time to respond, but I'm afraid that this is my busy season both personally and professionally.

On children of abuse - it is the fact that they so often blame themselves for their father's behavior that makes it so frustrating and difficult for police / school authorities / mental health experts. I've also seen it very often in adults (among other jobs, I volunteered at a shelter once upon a time). Ask anyone who deals with domestic violence how often the battered partner will return to the abuser, because "he's really not like that at all. I never should have set him off by saying/doing thus and so..."

The reason I make this point is that you appear to be making excuses for inexcusable behavior on the part of Job's God. That's one way to square the circle of this story, I suppose. More liberal faith traditions view the story as allegory. Job's God is not really God, but the poet's idea of God, much like there really was no physical White Whale, it was created for Melville's story.

As to the conflicts you're experiencing with other LiveJournal writers, I'm afraid I haven't been following them and can't really comment. I'm hoping to find some time this weekend to give this discussion of one of my favorite Old Testament tales the attention it deserves. I would, however, say that it's unlikely that any atheist's problem with God is that they hate his guts. It would be like hating Santa Claus.