Nahum 1:2-8
The Lord is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and rage. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and continues to rage against his enemies! The Lord is slow to get angry, but his power is great, and he never lets the guilty go unpunished. He displays his power in the whirlwind and the storm. The billowing clouds are the dust beneath his feet. At his command the oceans dry up, and the rivers disappear. The lush pastures of Bashan and Carmel fade, and the green forests of Lebanon wither. In his presence the mountains quake, and the hills melt away; the earth trembles, and its people are destroyed. Who can stand before his fierce anger? Who can survive his burning fury? His rage blazes forth like fire, and the mountains crumble to dust in his presence. The Lord is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him. But he will sweep away his enemies in an overwhelming flood. He will pursue his foes into the darkness of night.
Discuss.
Methinks he doth protest too much milord.
So, basically all this passage tells me is that god is a self-righteous lunatic with a hair trigger temper and a penchant for destructive impulses.
God, is a fucking dickhead.
@2
Yup, that’s what I was thinking.
Or, “God is Love”.
Don’t think you can have both.
Isn’t jealousy one of the Seven Deadly Sins?
@ 3
It’s the sort of “love” that a man expresses to his children by beating the shit out of them and locking them up in dog kennels whenever they spill a glass of water or refuse their ministers.
It’s the love that a man feels whenever he knows he’ll never “spare the rod” as it were, or that of the sort that the CIA contractors felt towards the little kids they beat and zapped with electric shocks in Iraq in front of their parents to encourage them to denounce their other family members or their friends.
God, is a sadistic, murderous asshole. In other words, the perfect Republican.
Perhaps the Bible and its God are not to be objects of veneration and worship, but rather object lessons in the failings of mortal humans that we must strive to transcend.
Perhaps God is in fact the potential asshole in all of us that we must work to grow beyond.
That is morality, after all, isn’t it? To have the tendency or temptation to do wrong, and to reject that path as wrong and to choose to do/be good?
Why do you have so much trouble understanding Me? I am what am.
I am not good nor bad any more than gravity or evolution are good or bad,
I am all, I am truth.
The costs of denial of Me are what you call My wrath …
White racists denied My truth, and I killed thousands of people.
Lenin denied truths of agriculture, and I caused his people to starve.
Africans denied the prohibition of eating other primates, and I brought humankind HIV.
And now many of you deny your role in global warming,
What am I to do?
“What am I to do?”
Whatever it turns out to be, I have absolute faith it’ll be interesting.
Oh, yeah…if there’s some part you wish me to play in the whole thing, I’m humbly at your service.
In other words, Thy will be done. Amen.
Artfart
Thanks for the offer, however, My will is all that is ever done.
What you can do is evangelize for truth .. spread the word and demonize those who deny their roles in global warming.
Burning deniers at the stake has obvious problems, but pubic ridicule for blasphemers along with such tools as excommunication and confinement to ghettos was effective in dealing with false believers in the past.
I am just not vengeful.
@7, 8, 9 – As Cheney’s terrorist pals would say, “Allah Akbar!!!”
God @7:
Why are you asking us? You’re the one who’s supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent.
People see God as what they are, not what He is. If he is “angry, vengeful”, then consider the source. Same is true for “loving, compassionate”. Think Pat Robertson vs. MLK.
N in Seattle
Is there logic in your question?
If a man owns a gun and knows how to shoot it, must he also have the moral knowledge of when to shoot it?
Put another way, am I moral?
@ 13
Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank and be called a criminal.
Give a man a bank, and he can rob the entire world, and he can be worshiped as a hero.
Apparently, judging from this passage, American foreign policy is a perfect instrument of God’s will.
“Burning deniers at the stake has obvious problems”
Well, yeah….Not to be presumptious, but it would seem that burning anything is at the heart of the problem.
From 15,
When someone says God is directing his actions, it’s time to run away as fast as you can!
So…god is the Koch Brothers?
God wants you to kill.
Do you ever get the feeling that religion is an idea that somehow got out of hand in a very big way?
@20 I’m sure a lot of people have thought that as they were burning at the stake.
Who Needs Alligators, Anyway?
Yeah, why worry about screwing up the environment, species dying off, etc. What are swamps and alligators good for, anyway? Turn ’em into freeways and handbags! We don’t need no damn alligators …
http://news.nationalgeographic.....blood.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary (tongue in cheek): Um, so what if alligator blood cures AIDS? Let queers die! We don’t need no damn …
Global warming may help alligators thrive. After all, they rely on the surrounding environment for their body temperature. I doubt they will go extinct any time soon.