The Biblical God's conduct and culpability

[Compassionist]

[JoeyKnothead]

I'm starting to think this God guy is a real jerk.

[Miles]

[Athetotheist]

Does a clay pot argue with its maker?

The problem with this argument is that you can flip it around. Can the maker of a clay pot blame the pot for being as he makes it?

Another question Bible apologists should ask themselves is that if another god in a story from another religion were to behave in the same way, would they be willing to cut that god the same amount of slack?

[Compassionist]

[Compassionist]

Thank you very much to all who replied to the original post.

[1213]

...I am convinced that it is morally wrong of the Biblical God to harden the Pharaoh's heart and then punish him for it. ...

I think it depends on how the hardening happens and what it means. In this case the heart was hardened when God ended the plague. To keep pharaohs heart soft, God would have to have keep the plagues going without an end. I think that would not have been good.

Pharaoh was punished because he was evil, wanted to keep Jews as his slaves indefinitely. Only reason why was willing to let them go was to end the plagues. And every time the plagues ended, he returned to his wrong way. This is why I don't think God did anything wrong. And as the creator and giver of life, I think He would have right to do what ever He wants to His creations.

[JoeyKnothead]

...I am convinced that it is morally wrong of the Biblical God to harden the Pharaoh's heart and then punish him for it. ...

I think it depends on how the hardening happens and what it means. In this case the heart was hardened when God ended the plague. To keep pharaohs heart soft, God would have to have keep the plagues going without an end. I think that would not have been good.

Pharaoh was punished because he was evil, wanted to keep Jews as his slaves indefinitely. Only reason why was willing to let them go was to end the plagues. And every time the plagues ended, he returned to his wrong way. This is why I don't think God did anything wrong. And as the creator and giver of life, I think He would have right to do what ever He wants to His creations.

God can magically induce a plague, but can't do him nothing about no heart disease.

[TRANSPONDER]

...I am convinced that it is morally wrong of the Biblical God to harden the Pharaoh's heart and then punish him for it. ...

I think it depends on how the hardening happens and what it means. In this case the heart was hardened when God ended the plague. To keep pharaohs heart soft, God would have to have keep the plagues going without an end. I think that would not have been good.

Pharaoh was punished because he was evil, wanted to keep Jews as his slaves indefinitely. Only reason why was willing to let them go was to end the plagues. And every time the plagues ended, he returned to his wrong way. This is why I don't think God did anything wrong. And as the creator and giver of life, I think He would have right to do what ever He wants to His creations.

Ah..no. Pharaoh was inclined to let the Hebrews go. It was God who hardened his heart in order to keep this business of plagues going. Why isn't made clear but what is clear that no matter whether Pharaoh was evil or not, it could all have ended there if God hadn't abrogated Pharaoh's free will to make him do the other thing. You cannot fiddle it to make out that God was somehow doing it to lessen the suffering- He wad doing it to keep the suffering going. There's no away around this - here and later on and during the exodus and after, God does what we would call evil, callous and having total disregard for free will.

Having stated first that I don't believe a word of the Exodus myth, so this is all academic to me, God -apologists prefer to argue for God being nice and moral and somehow it wasn't His fault or, as you tried here, to make it look like an act of kindness. But the problem of evil is a real problem and a major deconverter, and sooner or later, the God -believer has to bite the bullet and say 'well God can do as he likes'. God created us and has the Right to do as he likes. We are His pots and he can waste us if he makes a mess of the pot. Sorry, if the potter makes a mes of the pot, it's the potter's fault, not the pot's (1). And to regard us as trash he can smash makes nonsense of a loving God who is the epitome of morality, compassion and Love. He is none of those things. He is a Vengeful, Jealous God and does Evil (and indeed the Bible says so), and that is His nature, and for the Book to say the opposite is merely the lying propaganda of a huge dictator. And you and I Pal, must decide whether to grovel before this vile beast because He'll do you no good otherwise, or say 'I cannot worship this creature'.

Now, this doesn't matter a jot or tittle to me because I don't believe in this myth for a moment and don't fear God's wrath any more than you fear Allah's for not being a Muslim. You do believe and either want to believe that God is wonderful in spite of the evidence that He's as psychotic as a Ripper, or have to grovel out of fear of hellthreat. I understand, and am happy for you to believe what you want. But since you go public, Joe, I have to refute the apologetics that it wasn't God's fault, that it was any kind of kindness, or that having the right to stomp on his pots excuses Him from being a bad tempered brat with the morals of a tinpot dictator.

Of course, one may argue that the NT god is totally different but that's a whole other argument.

(1) always a foopnote blaming it on the fall doesn't get around God's culpability as demonstrably, the Adunaic fail was all set up to make Man Fall. Cue the '"It's all Good because it's all part of God's plan." apologetic.

[brunumb]

I think it depends on how the hardening happens and what it means. In this case the heart was hardened when God ended the plague. To keep pharaohs heart soft, God would have to have keep the plagues going without an end. I think that would not have been good.

This makes absolutely no sense. Each time the pharaoh capitulated, God hardened his heart causing him to change his mind. The consequence was that the plagues needed to continue. Only after the death of all the first born, including animals mind you, God did not interfere when the pharaoh finally let the Hebrews go.

What gets me is that God could have simply killed ONE pharaoh right at the beginning instead or, at the least, caused him to capitulate. It didn't seem to trouble him that he ultimately killed a huge proportion of Egypt's population that was essentially innocent of any wrong doing just to win a battle of wits with an ordinary human. I suppose any God who has no trouble drowning almost everything on the planet has a very poor moral compass anyway.