Hagee explains his remarks on the Holocaust:
What has been disappointing has been to see my life's work - the great passion of my life - mischaracterized and attacked. I have dedicated my life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel. In taking a stand for Israel I have received death threats from anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, and I've had the windows of my car blown out beneath the windows of the rooms in which my children slept. To hear people who know nothing about me or my life's work claim that I somehow excuse the Holocaust is simply heartbreaking.
Let me be clear — to assert that I in any way condone the Holocaust or that monster Adolf Hitler is the worst of lies. I have always condemned the horrors of the Holocaust in the strongest of terms. But even more importantly, my abhorrence of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism has never stopped with mere words.
I have devoted most of my adult life to ensuring that there will never be a second Holocaust. I have worked tirelessly to eliminate the sin of anti-Semitism from the Christian world and to ensure the survival of the State of Israel.
The fact is that all people of faith have had to wrestle with the question of why a sovereign God would allow evil in the world. After Auschwitz, this question became more urgent than ever.
Many people simply could not explain how a loving God would permit such horrors. After the Holocaust, they abandoned their faith in a sovereign God who intervenes here on earth. While I disagree with this conclusion, I would never denigrate those who arrived at such a conclusion.
But I and many millions of Christians and Jews came to a different conclusion. We maintained our faith in a sovereign God who allows both the good and the evil that is in the world. We therefore search the scriptures for an explanation for that evil. We believe that the words of the Hebrew prophets such as Jeremiah may help us understand the mind of God. But our search for an explanation for evil must never be confused with an effort to excuse it.
H/T: Rosner
Related Posts (on one page):
Atheist commies who believe in extreme micromanagement of human affairs find it hard to imagine an omnipotent God who wouldn't be intervening all the time.
Those who prize freedom of will (including, we are told, God) because it makes human accomplishments genuine rather than the results of divine or human puppetry, understand the superiority of a system of human choice.
Even if bad things happen.
Or perhaps we can conclude that someday, when Hagee actually DOES "explain" his remarks.
Meanwhile, I was drawn to this:
"I've had the windows of my car blown out beneath the windows of the rooms in which my children slept."
My b.s.-o-meter went off the scale on that one.
Because this, in my sad experience, is exactly how nutcase bs-ers talk.
Saying your windows were "blown out" evokes -- no doubt intentionally -- imagery of some kind of explosion or bomb, yet if that had happened I'm sure Hagee wouldn't have spared the details. Why do I get the feeling it was more like "my car windows were broken."
"Beneath the windows of the rooms in which my children slept," meanwhile, sounds like the nutcase-bs-er version of "and my car was parked near my house."
And where is the evidence that any of this was related to his views on the Holocaust or whatever, misunderstood or otherwise?
In other words, I get the strong suspicion that somebody broke into his car one night, possibly using the old "brick through the window" technique, and Hagee now plays that for sympathy.
Color me unconvinced until I see the police report on this allegedly ideologically motivated bombing/hate crime directed at Hagee's children.
Calling Hagee's views "quite standard theology" is at once accurate, and an excellent indictment of theology generally.
That said, Hagee's remarks are obviously subject to a great deal of interpretation and misinterpretation, and I can't blame McCain from saying bye-bye. On the other hand, the attempt to turn Hagee in McCain's Wright is just pathetic.
Once you've gone down this path, there is no coming back. The rest of his justifications are an incoherent bumbling: self-contradiction, deeply confused moral thinking.
The Holocaust cannot both be ultimately good and justified and yet also something worth condemning. And he cannot sincerely insist that he wants to ensure that "there will never be a second Holocaust" when he's already conceded the possibility that Holocausts can be morally justified as God's will. Presumably, if Iran nukes Israel (a possibility that seems as likely to happen because of nutty right wing politics as left wing), Hagee will have to rationalize this as God's will as well, perhaps finding some justification for it in the Pslams.
I just don't understand how this sort of thinking can command any respect. It doesn't make a lick of sense, and it makes an utter mockery of any idea of moral right and wrong.
Sweet, you just solved the problem of evil, the one people have been discussing for 3,000 years, in one paragraph! Props.
The rise of Hitler can be seen as the proof of an active force of evil in the universe. The existence of Israel can be seen as proof that God take the greatest evil and turn it into something good. I realize this is probably offensive to those who were directly affected by the Holocaust, because it appears so theoretical. But I don't personally see how the reality of the Holocaust disproves either the goodness or omnipotence of God.
If you want to see God in the midst of the Holocaust, look at those Christians and non-Christians who did what they could to defeat Hitler, to hide the Jews, etc. People like the many "righteous Gentiles" honored by Israel. To me, the existence of Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Raoul Wallenberg, and Oskar Schindler is proof of the existence and ominpresence of a God who transcends and overcomes evil.
Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. After a series of events, including his imprisonment, he rose to a position of authority and saved many from famine. He forgives them and says, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result . . . ."
God allowed Satan to harm Job in order that Job's faithfulness to God in all circumstances could be displayed. God did not explain his purpose to Job, but simply reminded Job who was boss. (And then restored Job's fortunes.)
Hagee wasn't just explaining why God might let this happen, Hagee was explaining that God intended it - that Hitler was sent by God to do God's work.
God wants his people to be happy, and he's willing to intentionally kill millions of them to make it happen. That's Hagee's God. Bad has it exactly right. The holocaust can not be God's plan and worth condemning.
Some other comments:
Joe Bingham: Henry didn't "solve" the problem of evil, it's your side that has no good answer for it. The atheist answer is "there is no God" and then things make sense. Your side has been discussing it for 3,000 years because you're hitting your head against a wall. Hagee's statement is just another example of the mental contortions required by belief an in intervening God.
Duncan Frissell: I can tell you're not going to take anything serious when you lead off with "atheist commies". This atheist has Adam Smith on his bookshelf, and I think that human accomplishments are "more genuine" when they are ours - neither inspired by, nor done in fear of, some God.
anonxian: You're right, that does not appease. The proof of God is Schindler's work? How about a divine Hitler heart attack instead?
Yes, God has indeed judged Israel severely but, unless God Himself tells us, we will not know why any catastrophy has befallen us other than what is common to us all under a cursed creation.
You, and in seems most others, make the mistake of arguing the mans theology where he was only explaining and clarifying his remarks and a position that was falsely attributed to him.
It was suggested that he in some way admired, condoned, or excused Hitler and the holocaust. He has clarified beyond all question his position on that. AFAIK, his clarification is consistent with his long-term history, and the mis-interpretation of his remarks was totally INconsistent with his history.
He has now made clear that, when he ponders 'God's will and purpose and methods', etc, etc, he is in no way shape or form condoning Hitler or the holocaust, nor excusing them, etc.
If he says 'it was God's will', well, as much as I think that is delusional ( in fact, IMO there IS no god, religion itself is an irrational fanatasy ), he woudl say the same thing about the all-too-common instance, which re-occured recently, of a teenage driver backing out of the driveway in the family car and running over his infant sister, killing her.
If Haggee says he believes 'it was god's will' ( which is what he WOULD say, and a position I find insane, personally ), then I do not take that to mean he's glad the child died, nor that he takes any pleasure or satisfaction in the event, nor that he would not have prevented it if he could, nor that 'it was a good thing because god said for it to happen'.
To confuse his theology about 'why evil exists' with some kind of 'support or approval for' Hitler, the Holocaust, Aids, fatal car accidents, or whatever else, is disingenuous.
Either way the remarks seem somewhat out of line and I'd question someone who uttered them as would most reasonable people. As far as asking for their endorsement . . . .
So much for his stupid first wife and kids, right.
I still just don't get how people can say and think these sorts of things without feeling moral revulsion. To say that all of these things (genocides, destruction of a man's family) are justified merely so that God can SHOW OFF is a moral claim. And moral claims are universal. If God can have unseen purposes that we just assume will work out ok in the end, then so can anyone. Charles Manson's actions could be glorious and all for the best for precisely the same reasons. How can you possibly argue against that premise once you've embraced the sort of depravity that justifies anything merely because people themselves often fight against evil, and sometimes succeed?
What does that have to do with anything in any case? Many many people living today live out their entire lives without the sorts of sufferings that people in past eras faced: and in many cases without even any knowledge of those past lives. So how in any sense was that past evil "necessary" for anything at all? We already know that perfectly whole and free lives can be lived without it: in fact, it seems as if lives lived today in modern liberal societies are both far happier and far freerer than in ancient dictatorships.
Well, yes, it is. But the problem is that we assume that religious believers think logically and accept the logical consequences of their beliefs.
Hagee's statement is a standard excuse for evil that has been around for a long time. It doesn't mean he's condoning the Holocaust or hoping for Jews to die. Yes, logically speaking, there's not much difference between that and condoning, and if Iran nukes Israel, his beliefs will compel him to say that that was a good thing because it was in God's plan. But he'd still try just as hard to stop Iran; his belief that it would be a good thing would only exist after the fact.
If you're going to condemn him for this, you have to condemn most religious believers and leaders throughout the ages who all tried to explain away evil as God's will. None of them thought it through either.
The only disingenuous position here is pretending that it makes any sense to declare that the divine author of all that is good and holy and wonderful, whose actions you fully endorse and would obey to the letter on command, has intended, planned and endorsed a historical event... and yet to then claim that you yourself don't endorse or support that event.
That's like saying "my country right or wrong" and then going to say that this particular event was wrong, carefully avoiding making the logical connection between the fact that this event was caused by your country and your earlier declaration.
It's wacky theology in the sense that theology in general is wacky, but it's utterly standard theology. If you're going to reject Hagee for this, you need to reject just about all religious believers, because they *all* have solutions to the problem of evil that have unfortunate implications.
Your reading comprehension isn't so great, and your BS-meter is clearly broken. It's a great example of trying to obscure the big picture —Hagee's position on Israel, the Holocaust, and the Jews— by nitpicking something; in this case something nonexistent.
Hagee's car windows were destroyed by gunfire; his description is the same as 'Soandso got his brains blown out'. Directed violence in close proximity to children evokes a natural reaction of concern in normal parents; it is something that stands out as significant.
Is it rhetoric? Sure: "blown out" isn't a technical description for anything except 'propelled outward by air'. 'Shot out' would be more accurate. But a bomb that would only 'blow out' a car's windows without proximal damage to nearby buildings is . . . about the size of four or five rifle cartriges. The threat from this limited but expressed violence is clear.
Waldesian uses a a detail in the contents to attempt ad hominem impeachment, no better than a spelling flame. What's worse is Waldesian manufacturing an event —a bombing directed at Hagee's children— when Hagee said no such thing, and made it perfectly clear any threat to his children was one of proximity and opportunity.
Inventing a non-event from a minor detail and making it the most important, that's the nutcase that should set off the BS-meters.
Hagee takes positions that are different from the mainstream and often unpopular. Whether right or left, his message produces frequent threats against him and the venues he speaks at.
Whether you believe the Jews were slaughtered and dragged off to slavery in Babylon by chance or by design is a legitimate question; just as legitimate as the discussion and search for reason to the madness we call Holocaust.
It seems that the problem is the belief in God to begin with, not whether Hagee's thoughts on good and evil and the nature of God's relationship with us.
Pretty much the only answer they've come up with is "we can't see God's ultimate purpose, you just have to keep having faith." Some people find that convincing, others don't.
If you posit a loving god - you can only rationalize evil with that magic unarguable word 'faith'.
If you posit a hateful vengeangeful god, you can only rationalize our continued existence ( oh, wait, he already wiped us out once, so the Book says ) on HIS planet with some lame version of 'faith'.
If you posit a vainglorious god who, although all-powerful, relishes our 'praise', in fact requires it, then y ou can only explain his Godly ego with that one word 'faith'.
'Faith' means 'No rational explanation, and no proof, and no argument allowed because it is inarguable'. SO there you have it - the sum of all religious arguments, rolled up into one.
At the same time, to impute any admiration for, or condoning of ( or denial of the evil in ), Hitler and the holocaust to Haggee, is simply a willful mis-reading of his comments. For those who mis-understood, willfully or unwittingly, he has now clarified his position beyond all doubt.
The idea that the state of Israel is a result of European guilt over the Holocaust is neither new nor is it religious, and it is certainly not antisemitic. The only thing that Hagee is adding is that such a result was part of God's plan.
People may not agree with that kind of theology, but it not any real indictment of Hagee, except in the world of political expediency. To pretend that this is some sort of antisemitic expression is merely wishful thinking.
That pretty well sums it up. That or "God works in mysterious ways."
What's puzzling about this is that those who argue that we can't figure out what God is up to are generally pretty quick to tell us that they know exactly what He wants us to do.
Hagee tells the flock one thing and the media another.
Ahmadinejad tells Iranians one thing and is quoted as saying something different in the world press.
The Dixie Chicks bust Bush to a friendly foreign audience with words they'd never say in front of a Toby Keith audience.
Play to the audience and quibble later.
The hecatombs of the 20th century alone are one heck of a Testament to humans "tell[ing] us that they know exactly what [they] wants us to do." And that has nothing to do with theology, indeed it pertains to virtually the very opposite of theological concerns and problems, it pertains to the deification of man during that century of hubris - and hecatombs.
That there have been, and are, plenty of people who want to tell everyone what to do for non-religious reasons does not refute my point.
I just claim that it is particularly inconsistent for anyone to say, on the one hand, that God is mysterious and incomprehensible, and on the other that we know His precise wishes on so many matters. It's a convenient approach, anyway.
The certainty of believers has always seemed irrational, indeed sacrilegious, to me. After all, isn't fallibility one thing that is supposed to distinguish the human from the divine?
Before he ever endorsed McCain he was pretty well known for speaking out against historic and current Christian anti-semitism.
And I was told by a member of his congregation years ago that the death threats and violence against Hagee are one of the main reasons he moved to The Dominion, an exclusive gated community north of San Antonio that is also home to several players from the Spurs and some country music stars.
As such and in that narrower sense, I'd agree.
Otoh, from the vantage point of the "human condition" as such, seriously inclined advocates cannot simply forward negative (e.g., anti-theistic) critiques without also forwarding their own more positive thesis. They can, and they do, but it does not reflect any philosophical or more practical social/political depth and concern, it simply does not.
Still, if you intended your comment in that narrower sense only, I would agree that it serves its ironic purpose. It struck me, however, as joining the bandwagon exemplified in this thread and elsewhere - and that's why I interpreted it more broadly.
...unless God Himself tells us, we will not know why any catastrophy has befallen us other than what is common to us all under a cursed creation.
This is as good a one-sentence argument for atheism as I've ever seen.
If you look at what he has said about Katrina his is quite straightforward and clear
"In this 2006 interview, Hagee described Hurricane Katrina as "God's retribution for a planned gay pride parade,"
listen here
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He is very explicit in his thoughts about god destroying a city due to a gay pride parade, and if this is the kind of Endorsement McCain wants, I think it shows McCain shouldn't be elected president.
Oh, certainly it is. It just doesn't fit into the arguments of evangelical atheists, so they keep ignoring it and making straw men. God answered this question in Job. In Job, God and Satan make a bar bet about how much they could screw with him before he lost his faith. Job stuck in there and finally asked God why He allowed such horrible things to happen. God's answer was "Bite me."
The bottom line is that for an "Abrahamist" (cute term, that), God's morality and human morality are two different things. God set up a series of rules for *us.* There's nothing there that says He is bound by them.
*Why* there are different rules is a matter of speculation, but the idea that God somehow must be bound by the rules He made for us or otherwise be judged evil simply reverses the role of man and God. It is God's pleasure to judge us; it is not our job to judge God -- unless you happen to be Jeremiah Wright, of course.
My personal opinion is that it's a matter of perspective. As a Christian who believes in an afterlife, I suspect that we will look back on our short period here on earth as a blip on the screen where some important decisions were made, but where most of the things we thought were so important turn out to be either insignificant or of a meaning we could not comprehend at the time. Sort of like boot camp -- many of the things the DI did seemed cruel, thoughtless, meaningless, and inchoate, and involved significant stress, pain, and discomfort. Looking back, it was not nearly as big a deal as it seemed at the time, nor were his acts as silly as they seemed then. It's that "through a glass darkly" thing.
But the idea that "Abrahamists" are obligated to judge God by the same ruler that God judges them is not only wrong, it goes against "Abrahamist" theology itself.
He isn't renouncing what he said, which is pretty benign, considering many religious Christians (and Jews) believe "everything" is the work of G-d and therfore serves a higher purpose.
It follows that the Holocaust was an act of G-d, and Hagee views the creation of the State of Israel as part of His higher plan.
Hagee is simply trying to defuse what his statements imply: that he hates Jews and thinks the Holocaust should have happened.
No, Obama's Rally did not begin with the USSR's national Anthem. It was opened by the Decemberists who sometime open <b>their</b> shows with the USSR's national Anthem.
They are not a pro communist band, they are a pretty good quirky rock band who are so American they played the Colbert Report
Whether that show also began with the SNA is something we'll likely never know.
Them: Oh, why did this happen? Why, God, why?
You: Sometimes God's a douche
Them: Oh, OK. I guess I;ll go back to worshiping him.
Stick with "Satan did it"; it's must less troubling.
EPluribusMoney: A distantly related prince from Europe recently died and left all of his relations a significant sum of money. (He is rich enough that each person will get a significant sum, even after the money is divided among all his relations.) It turns out that you are one of them! You are distantly related on your mother's side! If you could please just email me your bank account and routing number, I will have the money deposited within 5 business days.
None of them thought it through? Oh please. All the church fathers (Athanasius, Tertullian, Augustine, etc.) just didn't think it through? All the theologians over all the centuries, they didn't think it through?
Or perhaps they thought it through, and came to conclusions you disagree with. Perhaps, they may even be right.
Well, if God thought that way, He could just as well give you a heart attack, because He foresaw some evil you would eventually commit in your life. (No, I'm not comparing you to Hitler. But suppose some day you will act in a very hurtful and cruel way on a much smaller scale? Is God obligated to prevent it?)
I for one am grateful for a God who allows human beings to be manifested as they really are. Lest we forget, Hitler wasn't the sole cause of the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Millions of people supported him. Why not get angry at fallen humanity, rather than God? And why not be thankful to God for the many people who were like lights that shined in the darkness, who stood against the tide?
Theology is a very broad field of study. Some Christian theology is focused on the Triune nature of God, for example. Some theology is focused on the divine and human nature(s) of Christ. Some theology is focused on the applicability of Christ's death and resurrection to fallen mankind. You may disagree with this, or be uninterested in it, but to call it "inherently indefensible" is silly and contrived. It also makes me suspect that you are uneducated in theology.
what he really should have said was...
or at least that would have been DB's and a bunch of other poster's opinion if this was wright/obama instead of hagee/mccain.
It would be nice if we lived in a world where people suffering from ignorant hatred and contempt would at least have the humility to recognize their ignorance and not try to spread their hatred and contempt --on the grounds that they might be mistaken. If God were the sort who prevents evil, that's the sort of world we would have. You would be prevented from spreading hatred by divine miracles --your free will completely suppressed in order to ensure that everyone was nice to each other. And that's the world that you think a good God would create.
Score Card in this quarter is 1:1.
Obama dumps regious fanatic. McCain dumps religious fanatic.
What's next?
As has already been explained, no matter what you define "free will" as being, people simply having perfect characters in the first place cannot be said to violate it, no suppression of anything required.
Of course, utterly defensive accusations of "spreading hatred" merely because people no longer buy into a particular line of argument probably wouldn't be around either.
Ah yes: so what are the latest advances of knowledge in this field?
I know this isn't going to do any good, and I probably shouldn't bother, but all of you holding forth on [phrenology] that you know nothing about are embarrassing yourselves to the people who actually know something about [phrenology]. [Phrenologists] have been debating with opponents smarter and more learned than you since the [middle of the nineteenth century], and if you think that your one-paragraph reproofs based on caricature [phrenology] are any more profound than those of the average middle-schooler, you are profoundly mistaken.
It's hard for people to evaluate religious arguments because they have such personal attachments to the subject, but how is this anything other than "If good, then God did it. If bad, then "fallen humanity" did it." Anoxian is arguing that God did something, so it can't be that God just lets free will take its course. Or, God let people choose and they chose - some chose good and some chose bad. Either people choose all the time or people choose some of the time. If it's only "some", then we are entitled to ask Why Case A but not Case B?
So I don't thank God for Schindler, I thank Schindler's humanity and moral spirit. I condemn the complete lack of those qualities in the Nazis.
Hagee apparently thanks God for both, as Hagee believes in an intervening God that makes sure that His will is done, His plan is followed.
anoxian blames humanity for the Nazis and thanks God for Schindler.
My argument in this thread is "At least Hagee is consistent." He manages to be consistent while explaining all that is wrong with faith.
Sigh. This isn't an argument that any critic has avoided. It's just a rather uncommon one. And the reason that it is uncommon amongst many modern theologians today is that it has obvious implications that you don't seem to have considered. If it is true that morality is merely a set of rules for us and not God, then morality isn't what anyone thinks it is: it's merely a synonym for God's wishes, which themselves cannot have any moral content. What you speak of that this point merely becomes an exercise of power, threats, and bribes, not an exercise of moral standards.
You also don't seem willing to take seriously your own "through a glass darkly" scenario. Either suffering and moral wrong in this world are truly evil or they aren't. You can't have it both ways: appeal to the enlightened understanding that the crushing of toddler skulls in earthquakes is merely some neat lesson we're all going to learn and grow from AND then turn around an object to the evils in the world generally, even when committed deliberately by people. You can't declare the world essentially illusory one moment to get your way out of a sticky philosophical situation and then still ask people to still take it seriously the next.
Well, if God has a different morality than the rest of us, what you are saying is that God set up a bunch of rules for us to follow, which he himself has no interest in following. If a parent did that, they would be accused of being hypocrites. If gov't leaders did that, they would be called corrupt.
All the defenses of religion that have come here are basically in agreement that God doesn't intervene when evil happens. he just sits by and let's Satan do his work. Then, after all the suffering has been done, he comes by and cleans it up for us and shows how good things are.
But of course, that doesn't make any sense. Why should God clean up anything? If we have free will, then why would God have a plan or purpose for us to follow? If we have free will, then nothing should be prohibited, and all should be allowed.
But what religionists say is they want their cake and eat it too. We have free will, but we are not to violate God's laws. And we can't really decipher what God's laws are -- heck, we can't even agree on one religion!
"As a Christian who believes in an afterlife, I suspect that we will look back on our short period here on earth as a blip on the screen where some important decisions were made, but where most of the things we thought were so important turn out to be either insignificant or of a meaning we could not comprehend at the time."
And yet, what we do here in the short time determines whether we go to enternal happiness or eternal damnation. And this is a fair and just God that I'm supposed to worship?
What exactly is fair and just about the god that any of you have proposed?
You are misconceiving the most basic grounds of the debate. (Conveniently so, hence it's not clear if you're doing so consciously or unconsciously.)
You and others are free to find them lacking, what you are not free to do is presume to dictate and demand, via a variety of mendaciously informed smears, that others find them lacking, whether on their on right or for purposes of social policy and political effect. You are free to promote most anything you care, you are not free to impose it upon others, or demand that others view it as a serious form of rational inquiry. Likewise, you are free to be as intellectually bigoted and stunted and impoverished as you care, you are not free to demand that a cossetted view of that same be promoted by others.
The most basic grounds of the debate does not concern you accepting someone else's views - or vice versa. The most basic grounds of the debate - since this is being discussed in the public square, in the social/political arena wherein a genuine tolerance needs to be a primary tenet - is precisely that, a grounding wherein a more serious and genine tolerance is first conceived, and then practiced as well.
I agree completely, although I do approve of the states that have laws under which mentally disabled persons can be institutionalized if they pose a danger to themselves or others.
Which state do you live in?
If you're going to allude to philosophical issues, such as the atheist's argument from evil, while also whining and braying about others' lack of philosophical depth, then you should advance more philosophical depth yourself, rather than merely alluding to that particular philosophical problem. Yes, it is a problem which inheres to a theist's position (***) and not to the position of an atheist, but that is far (far indeed) from the end of the story in terms of philosophical depth and breadth. Iow, you have yet to evidence being a serious philosophical inquirer and your superficial forays serve to demonstrate precisely that.
Were you more serious and capable, here's a beginning. One way to view the argument from evil is to first take note of two categories of evil, natural evil (e.g., the 1755 Lisbon earthquake) and human initiated or moral evil (e.g., Hitler's holocaust, Stalin's Ukrainian genocide, Pol Pot's Cambodian genocide, all of which were - variously - enabled by contemporaneous social/political actors).
That is only one beginning of an exceedingly long discussion, but it does begin to make some noteworthy aspects of the discussion accessible to - the mind.
*** Assuming we're talking about grade-A theism, conceived along some form of more or less orthodox lines, within the most basic Judaic and Christian traditions. There are of course polytheistic views and decidedly less stringent and less coherent theisms, but am thinking here of more consistent and substantial orthodox views, fully compatible with natural theology as originated within classical antiquity and elsewhere.
Now, he only says these things to certain audiences. To other audiences, he defends military strikes against Iran as a way to protect Israel &the US by stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, rather than as a step towards Armageddon. So it's no surprise that he's defending his Holocaust comments to a general audience as standard problem of evil talk, rather than premillenial dispensationalism, but it's just not accurate.
That's funny. There are lots of rules I set for my 2 year old son that I have no intention of following myself and he has know way of understanding for now. I guess that makes me a hypocrite.
Sigh. It means nothing of the sort. You are falling into your own tautologies. You define what God must be in terms of what *you* demand of a God you will accept. Your argument depends on the idea that God is subject to rules that are greater than Him. If God *defines* morality, then by definition anything He does is "moral." Your position is addressed directly in the book of Job. The fact that it doesn't fit into *your* definition of what you *want* in a particular morality means nothing.
In fact, your argument is addressed directly in the book of Job, where God tells Job that it is simply improper to judge God by the rules given to man:
"God then confronted Job directly: "Now what do you have to say for yourself? Are you going to haul me, the Mighty One, into court and press charges?"
...
"Do you presume to tell me what I'm doing wrong? Are you calling me a sinner so you can be a saint? Do you have an arm like my arm? Can you shout in thunder the way I can?
Go ahead, show your stuff. Let's see what you're made of, what you can do. Unleash your outrage. Target the arrogant and lay them flat. Target the arrogant and bring them to their knees. Stop the wicked in their tracks—make mincemeat of them! Dig a mass grave and dump them in it—
faceless corpses in an unmarked grave. I'll gladly step aside and hand things over to you— you can surely save yourself with no help from me! "
Your second paragraph consists of nothing other than straw men and either-or choices that simply are not either-or. You claim that I must choose that suffering is either all good or all evil. It is not. Or, more correctly, it is neither. Morality has to do with people's actions. If the suffering is the result of someone's act, then that act is good or evil, not the suffering itself. In fact, the Pauline writings contain numerous examples where Paul suggests we rejoice in suffering. Moral wrong is by definition evil, but hat tautology does not address the question of whether or not the moral rules that apply to me apply to God.
The "through the glass darkly" scenario applies quite well, thank you very much. I never said that suffering occurs for my edification. I said I didn't have all the answers. Read the context of that allusion. And I *certainly* didn't call the world "illusory." The idea that God sets certain rules for us without necessarily requiring of Himself that He do the same no more makes the world "illusory" than the fact that I allow myself to drive a car but deny my four-year-old that action somehow is a statement that cars are an illusion.
This, of course, applies just as completely when that god commands you to fly a plane into a skyscraper full of people as in any other situation, does it not?
When you decide to put your two-year-old behind the wheel of your car, let me know. I want to be out of town. When you decide to start treating your four-year-old to afternoon martinis, be sure to let child protective services know. In fact, we have all sorts of rules for children that we do not apply to adults. Or at least I hope you do.
"But what religionists say is they want their cake and eat it too. We have free will, but we are not to violate God's laws. And we can't really decipher what God's laws are -- heck, we can't even agree on one religion!"
That is nonsensical. Believing that people should be allowed to exercise judgment in no way needs to imply that there is no difference between good judgment and bad judgment.
Indeed it would, if He did.
Well, you've moved from straw men to just making stuff up. Indeed, if God defines morality, and God *did* say that mass rape was OK, then it would be. I don't believe He's given that command recently, and I believe that anybody who claims that God has told him to engage in mass rape is most likely mistaken and is listening to a voice of evil. Thus I will oppose that person, and hope that God will bless my cause. If I am wrong and God supports the person advocating mass rape, then I will likely lose.
If you believe He's telling you to do that, perhaps you should question those voices you are hearing more closely.
Superficial rationalists like you are quick to dismiss theology without having evinced any understanding of the enormous difficulty of grounding morality and reason in something other than some sort of ultimate faith.
I can't believe you complain (illegitimately) about tautologies when you are pulling out this kneeslapper. What you have just stated is essentially the antithesis of morality. It also makes "god is good" a cognitively meaningless statement.
You seem to think that you can go on talking about "morality" when you've undercut every meaningful sense of that concept. You might as well be insisting that pigs can fly because "fly" means "wallow in the mud."
Nothing at all is addressed in the Book of Job. A story is told. No clear or coherent moral or even theological view is laid out. God's reasoning as you describe it is nothing more than evasion of the question altogether, not an explanation of why killing someone's loved ones is morally acceptable as a means to show off to another being you yourself created. That sort of behavior is de facto detestable, and demands explanation. "I'm boss, don't pester or question me" is not a moral answer in any sense.
What makes sense is that this is a story that seemed a compelling means to transmit the message "don't question" to an ancient tribe, but has not and never could stand the test of time or critical scrutiny.
A baseless accusation it turns out you can't defend:
"You claim that I must choose that suffering is either all good or all evil. It is not. Or, more correctly, it is neither. Morality has to do with people's actions. If the suffering is the result of someone's act, then that act is good or evil, not the suffering itself."
Again, this is nonsense. Actions cannot sensibly be immoral if their consequences are morally meaningless, especially if your own moral philosophy essentially reveals them to everyone to be so. Once you've essentially characterized all the evil in the world as a production of Hamlet, it no longer makes any sense to leap up on the stage and try to help the characters. Once you label consequences as irrelevant, then actions are no more than playacting.
You really are an amazing example of just how far someone is willing to sink to cling to a particular theology. Let the world burn. Rape away if God commands it: what's good or bad is utterly relative to whatever I believe God commands today! Let all cruelty, natural and unnatural, account for nothing. Nothing must be allowed to make you question your dogma!
Says who? Says Hagee, apparently. I'd like to hear him talk about this in detail, because I can't find any details in any news story, other than Hagee simply claiming this happened. How does he know it was shot? Somebody find a bullet? Hear gunfire? Was a police report filed? Any investigation?
I just don't buy it. I think somebody busted his car window(s), at best.
Agreed, and so be it.
And that is where you and I simply will have to agree to disagree. You believe that there *must* be an absolute rule of morality which is greater that God, and by which you have the right to condemn Him if He doesn't measure up in your eyes. I believe that God is the *source* of morality and thus can define it any way He likes. The idea that God sets morality to suit His needs no way "undermines" it than the idea that you want to judge Him by your own.
'"I'm boss, don't pester or question me" is not a moral answer in any sense.'
It is when your the boss, and whatever you say is moral is moral. At that point "Because I say so" is, in fact, correct. The fact that it's not a morality you choose to accept makes it no less a meaningful morality. "I don't like it" does not make something meaningless.
"Actions cannot sensibly be immoral if their consequences are morally meaningless, especially if your own moral philosophy essentially reveals them to everyone to be so."
You are begging the question again. That God defines a morality does not make it meaningless. Actions are immoral if they break God's law, regardless of the consequences.
"Let all cruelty, natural and unnatural, account for nothing. Nothing must be allowed to make you question your dogma!"
Now, of course, you are just ranting. I said nothing of the sort.
It may read like that, but it's actually an ad hominem argument. But that's the nature of God -- He's the only one that gets to use it.
Isn't that Theology 101? ... OK, I never took Theology 101, but ...
Well, that's one of the advantages of being a Christian. New convenant and all that.
Bad: This is a venerable point, one thoroughly answered in the literature. If you cared, you could research it.
McCardle:The idea that Christianity is comparable to phrenology is simply not supportable to anyone who has seriously studied the issue. If there are problems with theism, there are also some very serious problem with atheism. If you were more aware of them then you might be less smug about your own faith.
BellWell, I haven't made any arguments. As to the other theists in the discussion, if their arguments are lacking I propose that it is because you do not understand them (certainly your responses indicate this) and that no one has the space or time to try to explain more effectively (although William Oliver is doing an impressive job and if anyone were really open-minded, I think he would be making a difference).
More seriously, there are several objections:
First, Plato. (Note that Plato was dealing with the same argument back when Zeus was the flavor of the day.)
Second, that's not the God that most people think they are worshiping. As Christopher Hitchens says, sometimes it is best not to argue with your opponent; you should just underline what he says. You and I (and I imagine many others) find WO's vision of a God appalling. (A feeling that God must have put there! How backwards!)
Third, WO is confused. "Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law" is the creed of Satan, not God.
Fourth, at the end of the day there is really no arguing with someone who starts with the premise "Whatever God says is moral is moral." You could move on, if you wish, to the idea of learning about God's will. For example, why did God tell some backwards Palestinians 2,000 years ago? How do we know God really told them, instead of them just saying God told them? Why didn't God bother to inform the Chinese or Native Americans at the same time? In fact, different Gods appear to have told those people rather different things.
I'm half tempted to pull the phrenology trick again. (The idea that phrenology is comparable to ESP is simply not supportable...) Doc I've read Aquinas, I've read Martin Luther, and I've studied your arguments. They're all terrible. Some are clever, but they've all been full of holes for centuries. Ask David Hume.
Why do you reject Islam? What about Zorastrianism? Why not Zeus? Have you studied the writings of the Temple of Apollo? What about fairies? Have you compared the versions of the Encyclopedia of Fairies? How can you possibly reject these things without years of study?
As far as the "very serious problem with atheism" I wish you'd name them. Even if I say "I don't know how to explain [insert feature of life]" it gives you no support to claim that you do know because a 2,000 year old book told you so.
As Sam Harris has said, if the Bible had contained calculus I would have been impressed.
As you said, if my arguments are lacking I propose that you don't understand them. (I'll add the words "you arrogant ass" to my version.)
Or not.
<<<<
Geeze, didja HAVE to?
[There are a bunch of other threads on that subject].
No, that is the creed of Aleister Crowley. His was just a wannabe. I've dealt with a lot of evil. When it comes to real evil, he was pretty much a piker. His theatrics don't hold a candle to a real sexual sadist with a knife.
I understand that you and Elliot find the idea of a creator who did not ask your clearance for His moral laws incomprehensible, and thus any morality promulgated by Him to be meaningless, but that's the breaks. What's most amusing, really, is that you find the idea of a God defining morality by His own will apalling when instead you want to judge Him by a morality defined by your own whim. Somehow, His arrogance makes morality meaningless, but yours does not.
But in fact, you convict yourself. One of the primary failings of evangelical atheists who rail against Christian morality is that their primary accusation is that Christians don't measure up to the received conventional Protestant morality that they have so unquestioningly internalized. The primary complaint by atheists is that we all aren't middle class Methodists, but without faith.
"The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. ...'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink."
I don't find the idea of God defining his own morality especially appalling, but I think believers might. God is not real, so all I ever see is believers making up God's Rules and then declaring that everyone else should live by them.
Your argument is disprovable because it is just an assertion. I think believers will find it troubling because they often argue that God's extraspecialgoodness is a reason to believe in him.
For some people, religion is a search for meaning. For some, it is a validation, a way of feeling special and superior to nonbelievers. Hagee's "theology" appeals to that last category in several respects, especially the pining for Revelations. It is that pining that forms the basis for the *charitable* interpretation of his Holocaust remarks -- that he wasn't hating Jews so much as trying to find a sign of the actual apocalypse, the one where the good people go to Heaven.
Most Americans are oblivious to the radical nature of end-times theology, but it makes sense that it is a favorite of authoritarian-minded fundamentalists. People shouldn't be shocked to discover that fundamentalists aren't just traditionalists upset with what they see as negative social change change but people hoping to have their moral superiority validated as soon as possible. The theology of Revelations fits in nicely with the arrogance of fundamentalism (only we know what God really wants!) and the politics it inspires.
But I don't really think Hagee's much of a theological thinker. I think he's a charlatan drunk on power. It's supremely ironic to find atheists chided on this thread for their lack of humility. How about Hagee et. al.? Not exactly a humble bunch.
Believing in Revelations is bad enough, but those who really truly want it to come true during their lifetimes are the worst sort of people with the worst sort of vanity. I don't want anyone who believes in the war of the end times within a mile or a phone call of the oval office. I am floored that Israelis and Jews will take the support of someone like Hagee as a political plus when he is openly hoping for the ultimate destruction of their religion, and of just about everything else.
The nice thing about judgment day on earth is that you don't have to die first. Oh, to be proven right, to have your enemies destroyed by a higher power. I can't wait to be proven right. I can't wait to have the world finally see that my hatred was righteous!
No doubt there's a lot to criticize about Haggee's theology. I'm a Catholic and I think Haggee gets a lot wrong.
But frankly, Haggee is only equally nuts in comparison to the evangelical atheists in this thread. Their anger at God would be amusing if it didn't sound so pathetic. They actually think they have a winning argument when they ask "Why do bad things happen to good people"? How can such an argument have any plausibility when Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God, was crucified? Don't you think that if this argument was such a winning idea, that Christians would've come up with a different theology that avoided their God being murdered?
# of substantive rebuttals made: 0
# of actual objections to anything anyone has said: 0
relevance of complaining that others have not raised issues they've raised elsewhere but have not yet come up here: none
amount of attitude copped, given the above: astonishing
response required: none at this time
Equally nuts? The Holocaust was part of God's pre-planning for the apocalypse (because it has to go down just so) is just as crazy as asking why a supposedly loving God that rewards and punishes good and bad acts also allows bad things happen to good people? Um, no.
The question "why do bad things happen to good people" isn't being asked in a vacuum. Hagee and his ilk like to proclaim that bad things happen to bad people as part of divine retribution, and that more divine retribution is forthcoming if we don't start behaving the way the fundamentalists have deemed to be God's will.
Once you contrive a world where the actions of nature and of other people are ascribed to God, then it is perfectly fair to question why God saves some people and not others, regardless of their faith, prayers, or good works, etc.
Christianity makes a lot more sense in a world where God has left humanity to its own free will. If God is going to meddle in human affairs selectively and give people the power of reason, then people are going to wonder what the guiding principles of His intervention is. Being told by a person that it isn't our place to wonder about the nature of God, while also being told by other people that we have a duty to obey God by obeying the principles in one particular book, just makes religion seem like a big authority trip wrapped up in superstition and fable. And that's fine insofar as other people wish to obey that authority in an unquestioning way, but since people like Hagee also go far out of their way to campaign for the imposition of their theology into my life, I'm going to call bullshit on it.
In any case, there are many people of faith that are happy to believe in a vengeful God because they are absolutely SURE that God is on their side. These people are as dangerous as they are stupid.
I am quite sure that God isn't on anyone's side. Not even America. This despite our constant asking for His blessing because We are so very special. I really don't think He is going to pick up the phone until we at least insist that our leaders ask God to bless us all, everyone.
That last part is going on my wall.
Atheists readily identify acts as Good or Evil, but they're only able to do so because they're standing on thousands of years of Christian and Jewish morality. They're fortunate that they're never asked to do any real digging, and if they are they won't hit bottom for a while.
At the bottom, we're all just protons, neutrons, and electrons that combine and interact. Strangling an infant