My thought is that there must be some ontological reality binding humans one to another, i.e. that we are not merely individuals. Hence God, in creating humans, did not create a set of individuals, but actually also created a whole, and there is a concern for the whole qua whole (which does not deny a concern for the parts). If one buys into the Western notion of individualism too deeply, then traditional Christian doctrines such as Original Sin make little sense.

I am inclined to agree, except wouldn’t it be juridical and not ontologically?

- I think the ontological reality would ground juridical judgments, such as those in question. In traditional, pre-Reformation Christianity God does not make juridical judgments if there is no ontological basis for the judgments.

But how would that ontology work? How would we all be ontologically tied together when we don't even exist in the same time?

- Some examples of accounts that have been given in the past are spiritual accounts and also genetic accounts. The basic idea is that humankind is more than just a number of irremediably separate individual parts; that there is a real interconnection. I am not exactly sure of the mechanism, but in fact this idea is quite common historically, and especially outside of strongly individualistic cultures like our own. In Christianity the idea is taken for granted when it is said that at the Incarnation God took on human nature, and thus elevated all humans in that event.

but I am finding the choices and actions God makes in the Old Testament to be littered with blatant atrocities. I would like to get other peoples' opinions on it. — Bob Ross

it's really hard to know what went through the minds of people who wrote ancient documents, but the old testament was likely part of some ruling class's doctrine on why they are superior; one part of the old testament that supports this is how Lot's daughters got him drunk in a cave and had sex with him to continue the bloodline of their family. It's a blatant appeal to lineage.

there are of course logically consistent and different theories:

1. The existence of a jealous, controlling, and evil God. Whether or not this makes sense is entirely up to you, it's not exactly a comforting belief in my opinion.

2. The people who wrote the old testament were simply crazy and delusional.

3. The documents representing the "Old Testament" are not being translated properly, and we impose our modern ideas and agendas on these ancient people. Lots of people talk about the bible as it is truth, but i have little sense of what the sources are. I think translation error is pretty unlikely because jewish people have been passing down these ideas as traditions. Maybe things got distorted along the way for selfish purposes.

I think it has to be a combination of my theory on it being used as part of a social control scheme and number 2#.

The old role of myth making also wasn't to speak the truth bluntly, but people seem to have a need to condense things into narratives. If you have observed children, you'll see that they have spontaneous imaginations: when humanity was early, they just didn't have access to the type of accumulated knowledge we have today, so they stayed more childlike in terms of belief and explanation.

It's not even that interesting of a question, really. Anyone with eyes to see can tell that the teachings of Christ are completely incompatible with the Old Testament, and that the two should have never been conjoined in the way they have been. — Tzeentch

this is a pretty interesting point; i remember in christian school the logic was that "Jesus fulfilled the word of God", but seems pretty empty, no? What the hell does that even mean? In 6th grade, at a 7th day adventist school, i was confused about how enternal hellfire could be a just way to punish the wicked. They were nice enough that they set up a meeting for me with the preacher so I could talk to him, and he could clarify what their religion. The preacher said it was the Catholics who believed in that, but THEY believed that the hellbound are currently in some sort of holding pattern until the next return of Christ, and the wicked would simply be obliterated while the fallowers would join God in heaven. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are simply too nonsensical for me to take them seriously.

The basic idea is that humankind is more than just a number of irremediably separate individual parts; that there is a real interconnection. I am not exactly sure of the mechanism,

Well biologically we are all clones (I know there is sexual and therefore genetic diversity, but this is merely a means of introducing a mechanism for individual diversity between clones). So we are a colony of clones. This would suggest much more of a common ground between us than would outwardly appear to be the case. Extend this to a transcendent soul and Bob’s your uncle (excuse the pun).

The old role of myth making also wasn't to speak the truth bluntly, but people seem to have a need to condense things into narratives. If you have observed children, you'll see that they have spontaneous imaginations: when humanity was early, they just didn't have access to the type of accumulated knowledge we have today, so they stayed more childlike in terms of belief and explanation.

More than this, people in those days didn’t think rationally as we do. They thought in allegory, it was much more like the dreamtime of the Australian aborigines. In a real sense the narrative of a story would convey a unique morality, applicable only to the story being told, magic and sorcery were real and archaic power structures were still in play.

The problem with interpreting the OT from the lens of our post-Enlightenment modernity is that it completely misses the context of the particular passages in the Bible.

We are, for example, no more meant to question whether there were children killed in the Flood than we are meant to question whether Gandalf should not have converted the Orcs in Lord of the Rings to the side of good.

Or whether we are meant to obsess over whether Lady MacBeth had children ("I have given suck").

Or whether the film's "message" of "Million Dollar Baby" is "pro-suicide".

Or whether, for that matter, whether Romeo and Juliet is "pro-suicide".

That simply is not what the story is about.

As far as the conquest of Canaan is concerned it must be read from the point of view of the norms of that time and place - where the conquest and utter destruction of one's enemies was a completely glorious event, worthy of song and worship.

If we ignore these contexts, we will judge the God of the OT from the post-Enlightenment perspective of the Blind Watchmaker - and miss the point.

PS: Reading the Bible from this post-Enlightenment perspective is akin to claiming that the "days" of Genesis were literal 24 hour days or asking whether the Devil put the dinosaur fossils there.

Interesting. I just don't understand how that ontologically would work; other than if there is some atemporal connection we have to each other.

the old testament was likely part of some ruling class's doctrine on why they are superior; one part of the old testament that supports this is how Lot's daughters got him drunk in a cave and had sex with him to continue the bloodline of their family. It's a blatant appeal to lineage.

The old testament is an attempt at giving a narration of what they believed was Divine Revelation by God (even if it wasn’t); and recording lineages was an aspect of giving a historical account of what was happening.

I think it has to be a combination of my theory on it being used as part of a social control scheme and number 2#.

The idea that the Biblical scriptures were a product of insanity or elitism seems implausible given that they were recording as different times and over a long period of time. It was and still is a generation-by-generation effort. You would have to believe that these were historically unfolding for the purpose of aristocracy…

 If you have observed children, you'll see that they have spontaneous imaginations: when humanity was early, they just didn't have access to the type of accumulated knowledge we have today, so they stayed more childlike in terms of belief and explanation.

To some extent this is true, but this begs the question by assuming that the Bible doesn’t have truth in it.

i only answered because you seemed to bothered by Old Testament atrocities, but of course, these things can explained any number of ways. In my experience, I've had to conclude it was just people writing it, as I've seen/heard no personal evidence of the God of Abraham.

Isn't this just the problem or flaw with monotheism? If everything flows from one entity, then that entity is responsible for everything. Since many events are evil, then that entity must be at least partly evil as we conceive it.

It doesn't matter that he was explicitly killing everyone in the OT. If the Biblical flood is the anthropomorphization of real natural disasters, then under monotheism those disasters require explanation as well.

This is the familiar:

God is all good
God is all powerful
Evil things happen

At least one of these must be false.

Fair enough!

Isn't this just the problem or flaw with monotheism? If everything flows from one entity, then that entity is responsible for everything. Since many events are evil, then that entity must be at least partly evil as we conceive it.

No. Evil is the privation of good; and other persons in the creation could be responsible for its introduction.

It doesn't matter that he was explicitly killing everyone in the OT

It matters because God then would be doing something evil as opposed to merely allowing the evil of someone else.

God then would be doing something evil as opposed to merely allowing the evil of someone else. — Bob Ross

I believe we have discussed this before. Allowing evil is itself a kind of evil. God permitted the Holocaust, for which he must take at least some responsibility.

But what I had in mind was more natural disasters. Not only does he allow these, but at least in some sense he actively brings them about. The natural world, as I understand monotheism, is an expression of God's will. And so here responsibility seems total.

As long as man has free will, there will be evil in one way or another. God could remove our free will, then the problem of evil would be solved.

In any case, if we're all going to mindless oblivion, then whether one dies now or later makes no real difference. In the end, our minds will be destroyed, along with all our experiences and thoughts.

- I think is arguing from natural evils rather than moral evils:

But what I had in mind was more natural disasters. Not only does he allow these, but at least in some sense he actively brings them about. The natural world, as I understand monotheism, is an expression of God's will. — hypericin

I touched on the same sort of thing here:

Digging deeper, (4) and (5) have to do with the idea that death is inevitable, and that for a person to die is not inherently unjust. This opens up the can of worms of the metaphysics and ethics of death, and the adjacent can of worms is the question of God's sovereignty within which question is the matter of whether God is responsible for death (or whether God "directly intends" the fact of natural death).

So this all gets complicated quickly, and therefore it is hard to try to capture the various complexities with a syllogism or two. For example, if everything that occurs is allowed by God to occur, and if this allowance counts as an intentional bringing-about, then it follows that everyone who dies is murdered. The reductio in this case lies in the idea that murder and death are two different things. Note too that we are wrestling with precisely the same issue that the Hebrews wrestled with in trying to understand God's sovereignty and providence (in, for example, hardening or not-hardening Pharaoh's heart). — Leontiskos

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Allowing evil is itself a kind of evil. — hypericin

What I would say is that @Bob Ross' OP prescinds from this question of whether allowing evil is evil, and that this is okay given the thorniness of that question. He therefore isolates Biblical passages where the stronger premise can be used, namely the premise that the committing (or else commanding) of evil is evil. So your observation is salient in certain ways, but in other ways it is a different argument than the one Ross has given.

For example, if everything that occurs is allowed by God to occur, and if this allowance counts as an intentional bringing-about, then it follows that everyone who dies is murdered. The reductio in this case lies in the idea that murder and death are two different things. — Leontiskos

This seems to miss the distinction between dying naturally (old age) and dying unnaturally of natural causes(cancer, earthquake).

In terms of adjudicating God's culpability I see four cases:

1. God directly kills, or commands murder (OP)
2. A human kills
3. A natural event kills
4. A human dies a natural death

My point was that 3 and 1 are essentially the same in a worldview where natural events are expressions of God's will. And so 1 is perhaps a personalization or reification of a contradiction in monotheism itself, manifest by 3.

Whereas, 2 and 4 are morally distinct cases. 4 seems fair enough: if God gives the gift of life, he is not obliged to give it for an unlimited period of time.

dying unnaturally of natural causes(cancer, earthquake). — hypericin

Dying unnaturally of natural causes. :chin:

Medically, "old age" is never the cause. It's e.g., organ failure, heart disease, etc.

4 seems fair enough: if God gives the gift of life, he is not obliged to give it for an unlimited period of time. — hypericin

Well, if you are thinking of death as a natural event, then I don't see the difference between 3 and 4. Alternatively, if God gives a gift that allows one to die, hasn't he allowed death?

Medically, "old age" is never the cause. It's e.g., organ failure, heart disease, etc. — BitconnectCarlos

Of course. But when those causes are ultimately consequences of the aging process, that is considered dying of "old age".

Well, if you are thinking of death as a natural event, then I don't see the difference between 3 and 4. — Leontiskos

I am distinguishing dying naturally and being killed. To be killed is to die before your natural lifespan, by something other than old age. You might not see the difference, but most humans are keenly aware of it.

Alternatively, if God gives a gift that allows one to die, hasn't he allowed death? — Leontiskos

He allows death. Additionally, he allows killing. These are distinct claims.