Did you notice that you start referring to me as "Petronius" after the first quote? For a moment I thought you had only responded to me once.
Oh, and damn this took a long time to type -- I've been sitting at the computer for two hours. I think we need to limit our responses somehow.
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Twain has read the Bible and these are his interpretations based upon the things he read. This is standard for those who don't like (and/or don't understand) the character of God as presented in the Bible. How am I supposed to respond? Refute all these? Even if I did, it's highly unlikely that you'd conceed anything.
Oh, the irony.
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But, I will do what I can:
1. God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones;
No: God made Adam and Eve pure and good; they chose to sin, and as our first parents, they passed sin down to all follwing generations. God will not go against the human will. He cannot make me "good" if I do not wish to be good. Provide a proof text from the Bible (the only authoritative record of God's character) to substantiate Twain's charge.
Now this discussion gets interesting. If they are "pure and good," why would they sin? The point isn't that God should infringe on anybody's free will, the point is that he has the ability to create people with a genuine abhorrence of sinning. Why would he create us so that we are instinctively drawn toward behavior that is considered sinful? You say that he "cannot make you good if you do not want to be," but he could have created mankind with the natural urge to do good and never evil. What possible sense does it make, except to exalt the strongest and punish the weak?
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2. who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one;
I repeat: God will not go against the human will. He cannot "make" us be happy. Our happiness is a byproduct of other things that happen in this life. Christians suffer as much as non-believers - but their confidence in God and their faith often helps them face trials with more hope than those who don't believe. Again, where's Twains proof that God doesn't "make" happy people?
Once again, good could have instilled happiness as an inherent quality in humanity. He could have created humans so that they never felt bad or unpleasant feelings. Why didn't he?
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3. who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;
Christians prize life as a gift of God; this does not mean we always enjoy it. If God chooses to shorten a life, who are we to argue? He CREATED us; it is His prerogative (as an all-knowing, wise, just and loving God) to decide how long He wants us here on earth. You don't have to like it.
My parents created me; should I accept that it is their perogative to decide how long I should remain on the earth?
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4.who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it;
Adam and Eve were given happiness "unearned": they chose to squander it and we (unfortunately) have inherited that condition. If angels chose the same, they too would have to "earn" happiness - but again, I think Twain's focus on "happiness" is misguided: happiness cannot be the goal of existence: that is a fruitless pursuit: happiness must come as a byproduct of something else we do or experience.
First and foremost I take tremendous issue with a god who punishes generations and generations of human beings for the actions of the first, but that's a slightly different matter. Is God omniscient? Does God see all that will ever happen? If so, he would have known from the beginning of creation that man would sin, and would then be forced to earn eternal paradise. If he knows how it will turn out from the start, I don't really think it makes any difference how he puts it into play.
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5. who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body;
See above.
Ditto.
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6. who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell;
Hell is justice. It is God's acknowledgement of the human choice to be rule oneself instead of submitting to the Creator. God will not force anybody to live in eternity with Him because to do so would be to make these individuals absolutely miserable.
So you are asserting that God's presence in the lives of certain people is equal to misery? I've never heard a Christian actually admit that before.
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God allows the individuals who choose to reject Him to exist without Him - but what they may not realize is that existence without God is not worth living.
But you just said that they would be miserable with God's presence.
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Ditto with "mercy": it is unjust to extend mercy to the unrepentant; it is unloving to extend mercy to those who do not want it. In the end, those who are not with God, will not desire mercy - and if they did, it would not be for the right reason.
God will extend forgiveness to anybody who sincerely calls out to Him with a willingness to repent, surrender, and invite God into his heart. Hell is a chosen destination.
I find these ideas of "mercy" and "forgiveness" to be cruel examples of taking the path of least resistance. It is not "unjust" to refuse to forgive or show mercy to the unrepentant any more than it is "unjust" to show love to one's enemies. Besides that, if he really wanted to save people, God could actually show himself to every skeptic and unbeliever on the face of the earth; I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I reject the idea of a god because I have never seen any evidence for one, or have ever seen any reason to believe in one (for the record, I'm a life-long atheist -- I was an atheist before I even knew what an atheist was, because ideas of religion were never instilled in me), not because I shun mercy and forgiveness. If God would actually appear before me, rather than forcing me to rely on faith (once again, I'm forced to ask: why? Why should humans have to take everything on faith?), I would become a believer. He could save everybody (without infringing on free will), but he chooses not to.
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7. who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself;
Without Twain (or you) providing some sort of substantiation or examples for me to deal with, I cannot take this seriously. As well, it is illogical: if God has no morals, then He has no reason to extend mercy to anybody who rejects Him, mocks Him, disobeys Him. The fact that we are free to sin attests to God's fairness in honoring our freewill, as well as His justice.
You just said in your last point that he, in fact, does not extend mercy to those people, and that it would be unjust of him to do so. But as far as God being immoral, there are countless examples in the Old Testament, like getting angry and drowning just about every person and living creature on the face of the earth. God murders a lot of people, and commands a lot of people to be murdered, and sends plagues to torture people. He is described as being "proud," "wrathful," and "jealous." Besides any specific examples, I think that the very existence of evil is evidence of God's immorality. If God has free will, and never chooses evil, then he could have created man with the same quality. There is no need for the existence of evil. Therefore, God either created evil for other reasons, and is immoral for causing suffering, or he does, in fact, choose evil, and is thus immoral by implication.
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8. who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all
Ditto - see above.
Murder, pride, jealousy...
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9. who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself;
Arrogant beyond belief. As detestable as the child who - angry at his parents - says "I didn't ask to be born" - as if Life is something they would have chosen to reject if offered it; as if whatever is bothering them compares to being alive. Childish to the extreme.
It's not the same thing, because God created man a certain way, and then blames man for acting as he created him. As I've stated before, God could have created man so that he is always happy, so that he never chooses sin, but he did not. It isn't childishness on Twain's part, it's cruelty on God's part. Besides, I'd say that it is pretty reasonable to assume that there are people out there who would not have chosen life, people who live in misery, poverty and squalor. Certainly people who commit suicide probably don't value the gift of life, and they are condemned to hell for it -- where is the justice?
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Creations don't have to ask or like that they were created. Here is where Twain loses my respect. I contributed to the "creation" of my children; I am not responsible for their choices in this life. You cannot blame God for what His creations have freely chosen to do.
I've said this many times, but I'll say it again for emphasis: God could have imbued mankind with any quality that he wanted, but he chose mostly bad ones instead of good ones.
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10. with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
God invites His creatures to worship Him 1) because - as the sustainer and creator of all life - He is worthy of our praise. Yes life is full of bad things that aren't His fault - but don't dismiss the many blessings that do exist.
Wait, you mention blessings that exist. Does that mean that you are asserting that good things are the result of God, but bad things are not his fault? If he is the creator of all, then he is responsible for all the good AND bad things that happen. And why does creating us inherently entitle him to praise? If he created us -- for lack of a better word -- poorly, then he is surely NOT worthy of praise, and is in fact worthy of scorn.
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2) God designed us: we were designed to need God - as such, praising/worshiping Him benefits us.
I have never felt any need for your god.
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Just as in sincere praise given to one who deserves it here on earth benefits both the praised and the praiser, the same is true of God: I believe that the human spirit benefits from giving praise to God.
I don't think that the human spirit benefits from praising a cruel tyrant, though.
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All in all, Twain's list is nothing more than a rant of complaints based on misinterpretations and misunderstandings as to who God is; honestly, it is not the list I'd expect from a thinking man of Twain's caliber; it strikes me more as an angry teenager complaining about his parents.
I would say that your defense of God is the product of misunderstandings and lack of thought on the issue, and is akin to a person being coerced into thinking that the cruel tyrant who rules over him is in fact a kind and generous leader.
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But there is no debate about the actuality of Gatsby; it is a given that this is a fictional character in a fictional world - a unified creation of the author. Not so with the Bible: we do not agree that God is a fictional character; as well, in Fitzgerald's book, we don't say "well, this incident is true, but this one is not." People who attack God, generally discount the parts of the Bible that argue against their interpretations. There is a significant difference in discussing a literary character and the God of the Bible. Just because you think he's fictional doesn't mean that your argument holds any weight with those of us who know Him to be absolutely REAL.
This is really your problem, not mine. You're essentially saying that I should treat the bible and God differently because YOU treat the bible and God differently.
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You are free to criticize God; I only ask that you consider all the evidence - not just that which fits your argument.
I have seen almost no good morals from God. Jesus, on the other hand, is a wonderful character (and yes, I said character), but even in the New Testament God still comes off as evil; I don't think that ritualistically sacrificing his son was the only way for an omnipotent god to solve the problem of sin.
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As we all were; that doesn't make you any type of credible authority on raising children. I've been a teacher for 14 years; that doesn't mean that I know how to be a principal (part of the job which is to evaluate teachers).
It also doesn't make you an authority on the psychological development of children.
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Your response to the porn site proves nothing; first, because who'd actually admit that such a thing affected them?
And who would say that it did affect them if it did not? I hate this kind of "logic."
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Second, the effects of premature exposure do not always manifest themselves in catastrophic ways; they may show up in very subtle attitdues or expectations that are not healthy in relationships.
This is pure speculation on your part.
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As well, who's going to actually claim that "yes - my views on sexuality are now totally warped through my viewing pornography"?
Woody Allen.
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I respect your statement, but it really cannot carry much weight.
And yours do? You're just contradicting me.
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I'd have to have access to all your relationships as well as your spiritual being to truly know if you haven't been affected at all - and I can't do that (but God can).
This line of thinking seems a little precarious, don't you think? After all, since you can't really know if knowledge or some event has affected a child, then surely anything could theoretically warp a child's mind. I mean, how would you ever know?
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My apologies; are you suggesting that there's no truth in what I said? Your repsonse simply says you didn't like the content - but it didn't say if I was wrong or not.
Your argument was that you wouldn't accept what I wrote because I could be in denial. If I say you are wrong, then it follow to reason that you would simply say, "Well, you could be in denial, so how will you prove it?", thus effectively rendering yourself cut off from anything I have to say. I could do the same thing: I could assume that you're actually an bourgeoning atheist in denial who deals with his crisis of faith by arguing about Christianity with others, and that all of your arguments are an extension of that denial.
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Hearing the same arguments from elsewhere doesn't validate the ones you're presenting (the two wrongs don't make a right fallacy).
That's hypocrisy. You did the same thing with atheist writers.
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1. In general, Christian writers do not attack atheists with the kind of venom that Hitchens and Dawkins do. Period.
Well, this is an unsupported assertion, but I think it's probably true. Do you know why? Because you're comparing "general Christian writers" with "extreme atheist writers." It would be like if I wrote, "In general, atheist writers do not attack Christians with the kind of venom that Ann Coulter does."
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2. Could you give me an example of the "intolerance" you experience at the hands of Christians "every day"?
An example? Sure. In study hall last year, there was a group of Christians who sat behind me and taunted and mocked me every day, probably to try to get a rise out of me. Instead of calling me by name, they call me "the atheist" and "the devil," and talk about all the bad things that are going to happen to me in hell when I die (one of which was being sodomized by Hitler). Most people aren't that bad to me, obviously, though I thank my lucky stars that I'm not a homosexual. I can't imagine what a gay person would have to go through from the Christians in my school (most of whom openly admit to not just "disliking," but outright "hating" homosexuals).
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1. You misunderstand. Christians who only do the right thing for the reward,or the fear of punishment, will not do so for long (as our earthly crime rates attest to); the only way to truly be good is to do so because you love God and wish to please Him.
I disagree, for one because there are fewer atheists in prisons than any other group (even accounting of the statistical minority of atheists). I do good things because I derive a genuine and sincere satisfaction from the realization that I've made a beneficial difference in somebody else's life experience.
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2. There is no substantiative proof that atheists are any more moral than believers.
My point was that atheists do good even without believing in the promise of an eternal reward.
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As well, I have never suggested that Christians are inherently better than atheists; what I do suggest is that the knowledge of a final accounting does place our behaviour in a different context than the idea that there is nothing beyond. Seriously, atheists can be moral too; but what I'm pointing to is that the Christian's morality is more binding because it comes from God; the nonbeliever can take it or leave it - why sacrifice and be selfless when it doesn't benefit me?
'Why sacrifice and be selfless when it doesn't benefit me?' Do you actually think that way, because I find that reprehensible. Besides, it does benefit the individual because it benefits society as a whole, and better enables human beings to live in peace with one another.
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Why do anything kind, or generous, or sacrifical? And, why not do what pleases me if the only thing I have to fear is earthly punishment?
Do all Christians have this, "Do good for the benefit of myself" mindset, or is it just you? I mean...Wow.
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Human beings very much function under the knowledge of accountability; you don't like that Christianity says that "you'll get into trouble for doing that" but I'm certain you acknowledge that without a similar system on earth (police, laws, courts, consequences) that our society would fall into total anarachy.
Not necessarily -- it depends largely on the culture. Besides, you seem to be functioning under the impression that most people are immoral, reprehensible scum, and as soon as they can get away with it, they'll start robbing, stealing, murdering and raping others. I happen to think that most people are good and decent, and will usually do the right things.
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Christian moraltiy has a more stable basis, because our adherance to do what is right is not founded on our moods, or our whims about what is right. The atheist has no such stable foundation; he may dismiss morality as worthless if he so chooses because it has no basis beyond human whim or preference.
You keep saying things about the immoral things that atheists COULD do, but what does the fact that the overwhelming majority does not do such things say about your worldview? Most of the violence and cruelty throughout history is a product of religion. How do you explain that?
Besides, I have a tremendous fear of anybody whose morals are static and unchanging in the face of an intellectually progressive culture. For example: the bible says that it is wrong to lie, steal and murder. But if somebody approaches you wanting to beat up your best friend, is it wrong to lie about his location? Is it wrong for a starving man to steal food to feed his family? Is it wrong to execute a brutal serial killer who shows no remorse for what he has done? That fact that most people would seriously think about the morality of each individual situation says a few things to me: morality comes from our ability to reason, not God; morality progresses as society progresses; and morals are not absolute.
