How to Avoid the Question: Lessons from Professor Rauser
Don't get me wrong. I like Professor Randal Rauser. I think he's creative, intelligent, and a nice guy to boot. But he doesn't seem to care at all that Anne Askew was tortured and burned at the stake even though God had a multiple number of ways to keep that from happening. I wrote about Anne here.
So far he does not want to deal with her case. He wants me to chase him down the rabbit hole of definitions about what kind of a revelation God should have produced, sort of like following a Socratic method, which would end up being more interesting to him than the particular case before us. He'd rather play Pharisee by discussing what it means to work on the Sabbath day rather than help someone in need. I'd rather discuss concrete examples, people, good people who suffered because his God was inept. He doesn't get it. He's far too gone as the brainwashed person he is. He cannot be helped, not by me. So I write for other people who are reading this exchange. I do this quite a bit, really. Here then is the problem he fails to see with regard to the Anne Askew's of this world.
God could have done a number of things for Anne Askew. Let's name just one, okay?
Way back in ancient Israelite culture he could have done like the heathen nations surrounding the Jews and granted them first amendment type liberties (as Hector Avalos argued in chapter 8 of TCD). Then no one would be killed for what they believed or said.
There, that does it, doesn't it?
Oh, but you could argue that without the suppression of freethought and the free expression of ideas that the Israelites would have strayed completely away from Yahweh, their tribal deity. [Yes, tribal deity!]
But then you're presupposing that the evidence is not there to believe in the first place such that God needs to suppress freethought and the free exchange of ideas. I mean really, you cannot have it both ways. Either the evidence is there to believe or it isn't. If there is enough evidence then there is no reason to suppress freedom of thought or the free expression of ideas. If there isn't enough evidence then your God should provide more of it. With a few extra prophets and a little more evidence the Israelites would freely choose to believe. Then there would be no precedent for the Inquisitional rallying cry of "Convert or Die" that rang in Europe's dungeons for 200 years. This kind of thinking busted forth into the streets in several wars between Christians themselves to the tune of over 8 million lives being killed for Jesus.
Not only that, but God should've known skeptics would use this as a good reason for thinking there is no loving omniscient God found in the pages of the Bible. For why couldn't God foresee that these sufferings would take place between believers who were obeying him by suppressing freethought and the free expression of ideas? I mean, really, it's like someone once said that God planted fake fossils in the earth to lead scientists to conclude the earth was older than it really is, except this is far worse. For in this case he allowed a great deal of human carnage as collateral damage so that skeptics could make their case. Such a duplicitous God. It's hard to take this all in. It's hard to deal respectfully with Christians who defend such idiocies. God not only fails to provide the evidence needed to allow the free expression of ideas, but he also repeatedly steps on his dick so to speak, and does himself in. What an idiot of a deity!
You see, this is what I mean when I say you don't get it. You're in the dark. You will always be in the dark. I am a smarter person, a more caring person than you and your God.
That’s just ONE SCENARIO. Give that one a go will you? There are many others.
So while Randal claims I'm avoiding the question, he cannot see what the question really is, for the question is about people, real people, good people, flesh and blooded people like Anne Askew. This is what the gospels show us Jesus was concerned with. Why isn't Randal like Jesus in this respect? Why does Randal think being a Pharisee pleases his God now when it didn't in Jesus' day?
So far he does not want to deal with her case. He wants me to chase him down the rabbit hole of definitions about what kind of a revelation God should have produced, sort of like following a Socratic method, which would end up being more interesting to him than the particular case before us. He'd rather play Pharisee by discussing what it means to work on the Sabbath day rather than help someone in need. I'd rather discuss concrete examples, people, good people who suffered because his God was inept. He doesn't get it. He's far too gone as the brainwashed person he is. He cannot be helped, not by me. So I write for other people who are reading this exchange. I do this quite a bit, really. Here then is the problem he fails to see with regard to the Anne Askew's of this world.
God could have done a number of things for Anne Askew. Let's name just one, okay?
Way back in ancient Israelite culture he could have done like the heathen nations surrounding the Jews and granted them first amendment type liberties (as Hector Avalos argued in chapter 8 of TCD). Then no one would be killed for what they believed or said.
There, that does it, doesn't it?
Oh, but you could argue that without the suppression of freethought and the free expression of ideas that the Israelites would have strayed completely away from Yahweh, their tribal deity. [Yes, tribal deity!]
But then you're presupposing that the evidence is not there to believe in the first place such that God needs to suppress freethought and the free exchange of ideas. I mean really, you cannot have it both ways. Either the evidence is there to believe or it isn't. If there is enough evidence then there is no reason to suppress freedom of thought or the free expression of ideas. If there isn't enough evidence then your God should provide more of it. With a few extra prophets and a little more evidence the Israelites would freely choose to believe. Then there would be no precedent for the Inquisitional rallying cry of "Convert or Die" that rang in Europe's dungeons for 200 years. This kind of thinking busted forth into the streets in several wars between Christians themselves to the tune of over 8 million lives being killed for Jesus.
Not only that, but God should've known skeptics would use this as a good reason for thinking there is no loving omniscient God found in the pages of the Bible. For why couldn't God foresee that these sufferings would take place between believers who were obeying him by suppressing freethought and the free expression of ideas? I mean, really, it's like someone once said that God planted fake fossils in the earth to lead scientists to conclude the earth was older than it really is, except this is far worse. For in this case he allowed a great deal of human carnage as collateral damage so that skeptics could make their case. Such a duplicitous God. It's hard to take this all in. It's hard to deal respectfully with Christians who defend such idiocies. God not only fails to provide the evidence needed to allow the free expression of ideas, but he also repeatedly steps on his dick so to speak, and does himself in. What an idiot of a deity!
You see, this is what I mean when I say you don't get it. You're in the dark. You will always be in the dark. I am a smarter person, a more caring person than you and your God.
That’s just ONE SCENARIO. Give that one a go will you? There are many others.
So while Randal claims I'm avoiding the question, he cannot see what the question really is, for the question is about people, real people, good people, flesh and blooded people like Anne Askew. This is what the gospels show us Jesus was concerned with. Why isn't Randal like Jesus in this respect? Why does Randal think being a Pharisee pleases his God now when it didn't in Jesus' day?