Is Yahweh Someone You Would Wish to Worship?

  I for the sake of argument am going to assume what the bible says is 100% true accurate and literal. Today I am going to pose a single question is Yahweh the Judeo-Christian deity a deity you would wish to worship? In this post I will provide biblical justification for all points made.

If the what the bible says about God is true I could see several reasons why worshiping this deity would be an absurdly immoral thing to do. Firstly this deity commanded genocide to be carried out in his name during the Conquest 0f Cana'an he was ordered to kill everything in this land no man, woman, or child was to be spared. Now is a deity that would order the massacre of woman and children one you would wish to worship? This is simple genocide.

1 Samuel 15:1-3




1Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.
2Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.


The bible also supports an institution that every industrial nation for the better part of two centuries has abolished and deemed inherently evil. How could a book said to be the word of an omniscient and benevolent deity fail to see the evils that is so blatantly obvious to all individuals not blinded by the mentally crippling doctrine of hate apparent in the system. Not only does the bible say slavery is acceptable it claims that it is perfectly fine to beat these people you claim as your property as seen here.

Exodus 21:20-21

20And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

21Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

The bible describes God himself as a slave owner and a cruel one at that.

Luke 12:46-47

46The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

47And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

So far we have a deity that had ordered the deaths of women and children, a deity that had ordered genocide to be carried our in his name, and a deity that fully supports the evil institution of slavery. So what do you think so far? Is he that benevolent shepherd you always thought him to be? I don't know about you but my idea of a virtuous and benevolent deity doesn't exactly entail a genocidal slave owning deity with power issues. It took me only a handful of verses to destroy the facade put on by his followers, this is not a deity worthy of anyone's praise.

Also I think another point could be brought up about the insecurities of God he seems to need your worship but that shouldn't really matter all that much to you if you are an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-present being. So either God has the same insecurity issues as a typical teenage girl who wants to be accepted or the creators of this false religion knew God only existed in peoples minds and therefore the God would die as soon as we stopped believing. I am going to go with the former as the latter is another topic entirely. Is a God with insecurity issues one you would wish to worship? More important what does this Lord wish to do with those that do not wish to worship him?

Luke 19:27


27But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.


Anyone who does not submit is to be killed, your benevolent deity has advocated genocide once again. This is eerily similar to a end of the book Uncle Tom's Cabin where Tom is asked to submit or be killed by his master (the personification of the evils of slavery). This was said by Simon Legree "I'll conquer ye or kill ye!" now it is pretty bad when you find Jesus and a slave trader conveying the same message.

I think this is a good place to stop there are thousands of verses like what I listed above. But I'm not going to insult you intelligence I believe if you read this correctly you have gotten the point by now. Further more it would take an entire book to go through every last verse that shows the distasteful personality of God.

The Problems With an Objective Morality

First let me define what morality is, I will use a simple definition for the purpose of this post. What is the right and what is wrong.

I have multiple problems with the idea of objective morality. To a certain extent an individual could argue that they are objective, no one would say that killing is acceptable no one believes that theft is acceptable but this is not because of moral reasons but evolutionary ones. How long would a species or society survive if they would kill each other? If things were like that we as a species would have slaughtered each other to the point of extinction. So it is in the best interest of the species and our society that we not kill each other. Let's look at a different situation because quite frankly the idea of objective morality works with the Wizard of Oz type of good and evil but fails in real world application because evil doesn't always put on green makeup and a pointy hat for you. Evil could be something as subtle as intentful inaction and good can be something as simple as being polite to others.

Now let's take the idea of taking another human life obviously our species would not survive if we took this lightly so we as a species we would have gone extinct ages ago. However some individuals can find the taking of human life acceptable in certain situations. Some individuals find the use of lethal force acceptable when they need to defend themselves or their families. Some find killing for a cause acceptable. If morality were something completely objective we would all come to the same conclusions to all moral dilemmas.

Now for my main point against objective morals. If a mother takes a knife and uses it to kill a potential threat to her children would that be an immoral act? If killing is wrong it should be consistently wrong no matter the circumstances. Would you have the nerve to give that mother a lecture on morality? Would you have the nerve to tell her she acted in an improper manor?

Two individuals in the Nazi Germany are confronted with a decision, they could speak out against the genocide going on around them or they could remain silent.  Each individual has to decide what is right given each situation they come to different conclusion as to the proper action or inaction. Person A decides to remain silent because his actions would bring harm to his family. Protecting your family would I hope be a moral thing in your mind. Person B decides to speak out because this injustice cannot go unchallenged but he and his family are killed for this dissent. Speaking out against genocide is to you I hope a moral action.

If morality is something objective than one of these individuals acted improperly. So my challenge to those who believe in an objective moral truth: Tell me which individual acted correctly and justify your answer.

I have heard many people say, "Just because we do not know the objectively moral thing to do does not mean it doesn't exist." I would agree but you just rendered morality unknowable therefore you would merely be left speculating on what the proper morality might be. This renders objective morality meaningless because if it is unknown we might as well be bloviating on what colour underwear Santa's elves are wearing. With an unknowable objective morality any statement about it would be without basis and without merit.

The idea of morals come from people and people vary greatly in many aspects. To try and remove people from a purely human idea is frankly absurd. Some cultures/individuals value things differently but to claim they are wrong to come to a different conclusion in the matter of morality is to claim knowledge you do not have.

If there were an objective moral law and the moral law were consistent the taking of human life would always be wrong no matter the circumstances. I use this example because often time Christians are arguing for an objective moral law but they constantly contradict themselves in this regard and the sad part is they do not even know it. The Christian's moral code is based solely on the judgement values of a single deity, a deity that has trouble abiding by his own rules. How can a deity so inconsistent be the foundation of an objective morality? He tells us we should not kill but then he orders genocide to be carried out in his name, he orders individuals to be stoned for breaking the most trivial of his arbitrary rules. I never seen a individual for killing yet against killing at the same time. That is another thing is your moral code were objectively true it would not break the logical law of noncontradiction which it clearly does.

This would apply to more than just the Christian God. This would apply to any religion that has a deity dictate their moral laws. You are basing all of your moral code on the judgement values of a single deity. Just because they aren't your own subjective take on the right thing to do in a situation doesn't mean that the subjective nature changes.

Damn Politics

 I normally try to stay away from politics if at all possible I really consider myself fairly apolitical. I find philosophy to be more rewarding and more challenging. Furthermore political experts as they call them seem to be very intellectually impaired, independent thinkers in the world of politics seem to be about as common as cannibalistic elves. When you watch people debate politics it seems like they are just routing for a sports team rather than stating and defending a set of beliefs. However the intellectual bankruptcy of political debate is only a half of the reason why I despise politics.

Furthermore politics is about the obtainment of power through force and coercion. No matter how free you think your government is, no matter how benevolent you think they are, they have only one thing backing their authority and that is coercion. They attempt to protect you from yourself by illegalizing a plant called marijuana, if you refuse to obey this they will initiate force upon you. I reject the legitimacy of the state ergo I reject the political system by which it is run.

This is a rather short post as I do not have very much to say I could spread this out by using more example but that is not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is simple.

1. To state my disgust and absolute rejection of the coercive state.
2. To state my rejection of this state's coercive political system.
3. To explain why I am apolitical and why I will not discuss politics.

Libertarianism and Voting

A lot of Libertarians who speak out against voting are of the Anarchist persuasion. The reason they do not vote is not because of apathy but quite the contrary it is a principled stand against the current form of government. People in our society usually see not voting as a sign of indifference, it has gotten to the point where many say if you don't vote you do not have the right to speak out against the government.

However in the case of the anarchist the act of voting is seen as a implicit approval of the current form of government so by voting you are giving the system legitimacy. Anarchists believe rights are naturally occurring and not dependent on the approval or disapproval of others. Voting goes against a couple basic anarchist principles The Non-Aggression Axiom and the Principle of Self Ownership. Voting violates The Non-Aggression Axiom because you are asking others to coerce people into believing as you do. Say I would vote to illegalize drugs that is like me asking others to arrest coerce and use violence against those who use drugs. It also violates the Principle of Self Ownership in that by voting you are claiming a higher authority over others lives then they have. Staying with the example of drugs, by saying the are not allowed to use certain substances is to say you have a higher claim to their life and their body which is a kind of slavery.

Some people say it is your civic responsibility to vote, but I believe my moral responsibility to not harm others in anyway and my moral opposition to slavery far outweighs any sort of patriotic guilt trip you can think up.

Epicurean Riddle

I use Epicurus' riddle quite frequently in my thinking when it comes to religion and though I believe it has some basic flaws I believe he was fundamentally asking the right question. If there is indeed a God what kind of God would that entity be? Now let's take a look at the riddle.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
-Epicurus


If he is willing but not able then he certainly by definition is not omnipotent however this leave the door open to an omniscient God. If he is able but not willing God is implicitly doing evil but does that mean his motive is of malevolence? It could be apathy or another of other numerous motives. It is clear that their is not a God both able and willing to prevent evil as evil does exist. If God is neither able nor willing then it could be an omniscient apathetic God. Epicurus' riddle is very handy when you are speaking of a God who's properties are known but more or less useless for deistic Gods with unknown properties. In my post refuting the Judeo-Christian God I was only able to falsify the Judeo-Christian God because the properties were known. While it would be a fools errand to attempt to falsify a deity that is declared unknowable.


You cannot falsify something with unknown properties, it is known as an unfalsifiable hypothesis. In fact every time you are talking to someone who says their God transcends the rules of reason and logic I encourage you to immediately end the conversation. It is not worth your time to reason with an individual who believes that their beliefs are an exception to the rules of reason and logic. 

Refutation of the Christian God

 The Christian God is perfect. The Christian God is benevolent. The Christian God is Omnipotent and Omniscient.

Why the Christian God is not Perfect.

a) First I would like to cover the idea that the Christian God is perfect and completely with out character flaws. The Christian God is a very angry God. As we all know anger is a human aspect and it is an aspect that makes us less than perfect, it clouds our judgement and affect our actions in a negative way. In some ways anger makes us lose control of our actions and when it comes to that point we seek counseling for this character  flaw. If an individual had the same anger the Christian God had it would be safe to say he would be going to court mandated anger management classes  Take for example the story of Noah, he flooded the entire earth killing everything not on Noah's ark. Such a temper would not be acceptable in a human so why would it be acceptable for a perfect deity to act in this way. The God in the Christian bible is a deeply troubled being who isnt by any stretch of the imagination perfect. 

b) Also his hypocrisies are evident throughout the bible, I dont believe anyone could argue that hypocrisies are an aspect you would find in a perfect being. Do as I say and not as I do is an absurd statement crappy parents tell their kids so they do not have to work on their own character flaws. It is a base aspect of humanity a perfect being should follow the same guidelines they ask others to follow. "Thou shalt not kill" and "kill everything in the land of cana'an" would be seem a logically incompatible with each other.

c) Another problem with the idea of a perfect Christian God can be seen in his creation. God created something very imperfect he created man with all of their character flaws and this should have a reflection on the creator. When an a watchmaker producer mediocre watches it show that the watchmaker is mediocre. So  when God produces imperfect beings it indicates that he is an imperfect creator. It is said in the bible God created us in his image, a perfect image but we are not perfect. So for the purpose of non-contradiction either the bible was mistaken when is said God was perfect or it was mistaken when it said God created us in his image, you cant have it both ways.

Why the Christian God is not benevolent.

a) Benevolence is defined as "inclination or tendency to help or do good to others; charity" and I would also like to add kindness to the definition.  This is obviously inconsistent with certain parts of the bible mainly the old testament. Some Christians would say the old testament is irrelevant to the Christian God as he had forged a new relationship with the people. When you are looking into hiring an individual you look at their criminal background and depending on what you find you may not hire them for the job even if they say they formed a new relationship with society. You are not without cause for refusing to employ this reformed individual as it speaks to his character. Just as the old testament speaks to the Character of God.

b) Now that I established that the old testament is in fact relevant to the view of the Christian God let's look at some examples of his benevolence. The bible advocates the practice of slavery, nothing screams the tendency to do good to others like enslaving them.


"Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour."


-Leviticus 25:44-46


No one could possibly argue that the practice of slavery is an example of God's benevolence. Slavery has been a bane on society and yet the Christian God seems not to see a problem with its inherent evil. However some Christians defend this by saying, "The slavery of the bible was much more humane than the slavery of the American south." This to me is an absurd statement there is no "good" slavery to have a individual claim ownership of another human is a moral wrong, a moral wrong that the Christian God is blind to.

c) Would a benevolent God order his followers to kill in his name? God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone and everything in the land of Cana'an. God asked them to kill everything that breathes to leave no one alive no matter their sex and no matter their age. I think it is clear to me the killing of children is not exactly the benevolent thing to do.

The Christian God is not omnipotent.


My reasoning for this part is very short... When God created Adam an Eve he created them with free will and he has no power over that free will. So you can see the contradiction if free will is something God can not control then he is not omnipotent.

The Christian God is not omniscient.


My reasoning for this part is also very short. I will use the same example when God created Adam and Eve and said they could do whatever they wanted except partake from the tree of knowledge he failed to grasp the simple factor of human nature. You stick a child in a room full of toys and tell him he can play with any toy except the red fire truck, he will end up playing with that fire truck. Was God so completely clueless of human  nature that he unknowingly set Adam and Eve up for failure?

Conclusion


I have established the Christian Go is not omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, or perfect and as a Christian you still may be hanging on the the fact I did not disprove the existence of the being you called God however I did disprove the defining characters of this being.

Think of the Christian God as a four sided figure like a square and each side represents a defining aspect of God.

This is God each side represent a defining aspect.

God is not perfect, and by taking away one side of the figure(God) I changed the figure into something completely different.

God is not benevolent, and it loses another side.

God is not omnipotent, leaving it with one side. At this point the refuted aspects make the figure unrecognizable.

God is not omniscient, now the figure has been refuted to non existence as its properties are no longer there. Sure you could argue that it is there just not as anyone would recognize it but it would not be the Christian God as we know it.

Religion's Role in Society

What is religions role in society? Should it be a basis for laws? Should the state enforce morality? If your answer  to those questions are yes then that raises a whole new set of questions. What religion should dictate the official morality of our nation? Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism? Clearly if we want to legislate morality we must determine which religion's moral codes are objectively true because we shouldn't be expected to enforce something based on the judgement values of the individual. Can anyone's moral code be considered objective? After all we as humans do frequently disagree when it comes to morals.. If morals were objective then they would be a matter of fact and disagreement shouldn't be a problem. When it comes to objective fact disagreement doesn't exist. When was the last time you heard someone argue that a triangle has four sides? You haven't because people would point out that by definition a triangle has three sides and the person claiming a triangle has four sides would look like a total wanker. Now when individuals make judgement values on things like lying is the answer as clear as the number of sides on a triangle? Of course not when it comes to lying an individual must consider the circumstances around the lie and who is hurt because of the lie. Different individuals would judge the same situation in different ways. So because morality is based on the judgement values of the individual it is clear that morality should not dictate laws as it is not objective.

Ok now let us throw all reason aside and say that morality is now objective and Christianity is the dictator of all that is good. Now we are enforcing the moral laws of Christianity to the full extent of the bible. Now how can this coexist with the freedom of religion granted in the constitution? If you are enforcing the Christian morals you are violating their right to worship as they please when their morals directly contradict that of the Christian moral code. Also how does this coexist with the principle of free will often supported by Christians? If you are enforcing your moral code you are by your own theology negating God's gift of free will.

Thus you come to the conclusion that the only kind of state capable of freedom of religion and free will is a secular state.