BRAVO YAHWEH

>>25539833
I mean the true point of every book inside that book is to explain why and how you need to be a slave to Yahweh. Which this story still does manage to convey that. Narratively speaking tho ur absolutely right it's a bullshit plot.

>>25539833
God doesn't give Job a reason at all

Are we really posting this about one of the greatest works of literature mankind has ever created, I'm not even talking about the whole bible

>>25539857
Job would have of necessity come to learn why the events transpired against him because the entire Book is a recording of this man’s life presumably from himself or from the people around him. If Job didn’t know why he was tormented, the devil’s argument with the Lord couldn’t have been put at the beginning of the book.

>>25540063
We aren't talking about Starless:Nymphomaniacs Paradise

>>25539833
it's one of my favorite stories from the bible. it's hilarious that god and the devil are making bets about torturing job. it's also hilarious that god thinks that just by giving job a bunch of new children will make up for the ones the devil killed. still not sure why he didn't just give him back is original children

>>25539833
The prose prologue and epilogue take away from this book so much and turn it into a children’s story with a laughable, ridiculous scenario. I’m inclined to believe they’re later additions based on how the style is prosaic, the devil never comes up in the poetry sections, nor, to my knowledge, Job’s wife or children or loss of property and whatnot.

>>25539833
I think the big lesson with the book of Job is that we shouldnt expect life to be easy just because one is righteous

>>25540228
Why not? It seems unfair. What’s the point of being righteous if it doesn’t make life easier?

>>25540235
Do you think not being a wuss should be transactional? Removing religion from the work, let's just put this to the question: What happens if Job abandons his righteousness? What does he have now? Is he better off or worse?

>>25540249
>Do you think not being a wuss should be transactional?
You seem to be responding to something I never said.
>What happens if Job abandons his righteousness? What does he have now? Is he better off or worse?
As Job repeatedly mentions during his laments, he would be better off in the world if he followed the way of the wicked. He, alone, for his righteousness, suffers more than anyone else, seemingly. His friends think he’s obviously getting his dues for a life of wickedness, but Job’s lament is on exactly that theme: he’s suffering like a wicked man yet never profited from a theft, or a murder, or a rape. He’s living righteously, so why does he suffer? If he abandoned his righteousness, he might be better off for having at least enjoyed the temporary pleasures of sin before the inevitable punishment the vicissitudes of life bring to every mortal regardless of their works. If he abandoned his righteousness and lived like any other man, probably he never would have become the devil’s target, either. It’s not as if we can sit here and say that Job knew his righteousness would profit him with a double increase of all he’d ever had, children included. He just did it because that’s who he was, and he was punished for it.

At any rate, the Book of Job pales in comparison to the life of Christ, whose sufferings were greater and who, in return, claimed a greater reward, which he distributed favourably to all who believe.

>>25540284
>His friends think he’s obviously getting his dues for a life of wickedness
This is to demonstrate that his friends were not real friends, and there's no point in him changing to fit in with the other asses. Just because things are hard doesn't mean you should give up on who you are. Your lot in life shouldn't be a deciding factor.

>>25540284
>> He just did it because that’s who he was, and he was punished for it.

As I mentioned above he is (materially not spiritually) ultimately reimbursed for all the suffering he went through which takes away from the story’s message.

>>25540312
>This is to demonstrate that his friends were not real friends
NTA but people drive me nuts everytime they say this. I believe Job's friends really wanted to help him. They were just wrong much like how real life friends can be wrong, despite their best intentions

>>25539833
The point of the book is that humans aren't the judges of what they deserve. Here's an example I like to use; if you see a cockroach in your kitchen, aren't you going to kill it?
If the roach had sapience like you did, it could cry and complain about why it was smited despite its righteousness. But in reality, it simply ran afoul of a plan beyond its understanding. In a human kitchen, hygiene is important. Cockroaches do not belong there, and they must go.
The point is that roaches don't know what they do or don't deserve, because they don't have the capacity to understand the world they live in.
The point isn't that Job is a good person and bad things happened; the point is that God's rewards aren't rewards, and his punishments aren't punishments. We don't decide for ourselves what we do or don't deserve because we don't know what we do or don't deserve. We merely withstand a plan beyond our understanding that is ultimately righteous and sensible, but that may not necessarily make sense to us because there are higher forces and concepts that are simply beyond our ken of understanding.
This makes sense unless you just can't let go of your sense of entitlement.
Second, you need to understand that just because a book is in the bible doesn't mean the story is meant to have literally happened in the historical sense; God did not actually have a discussion with Satan, and Job likely wasn't a real man in the first place, nor are you expected to take this seriously as actual fact. The old testament is full of parables, plays, and poetry, which this story is. It's meant to illustrate a point, not describe historical fact.
Most readers not only miss the point of the story, but they also fail to understand even the rudiments of the context it was written under.

>>25540367
>God is C'thulhu or whatevs who will return when the stars are in their proper orbit and raise the city of Jerusalem from its cthonic slumber to terrible and everlasting glory

>>25540364
>They were just wrong much like how real life friends can be wrong
t. Bad friend

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>Gods when Job and his friends ask why bad things happen to good people.

>>25539833
>>Book is supposed to explain why bad things happen to good people

proof?

>>25539833
>he makes up for it by giving Job all his missing stuff back
Did SHITweh(aka Yahweh) also resurrect Job's family that he murdered?

>>25539833
> makes up for it by giving Job all his missing stuff back
He doesn’t. Unless you think that if I murder your wife and children and then ensure you get married and have more kids, I have “undone” the harm I caused.

>>25540367
>historical fact
That has nothing to do with the OP.

>>25539833
ok but will it teach me how to get a job

>>25540935
Those kinds of disclaimers are 100% necessary when talking about the bible because it's the only way to preempt the kind of twerps who think God is meant to be understood as a human wizard.

>>25539833
Thats how the world works. If you obey God and suffer on Earth you will get everything back in Heaven. It's not an aesops tale or a moral lesson, it's an preperation manual for life after death.

>>25539833
But the bad stuff still happened...

Anyway not literature

>get told the kjv is pretty difficult to understand
>it is actually very readable and the high quality of the writing makes reading it more enjoyable
I was lied to.

>>25541485
To be fair, it's usually advice given to people that have never read anything written before the 20th century, if they read at all. Old English filters people for some reason despite taking a single reading session to get used to it

>>25541446
It's literally called the BOOK of Job. Most of it is lyric poetry. Its impact on later writers is absolutely immeasurable. How is it not literature?
>>25541514
Ackshually
KJV is Early Modern English, Beowulf is Old English

>>25539833
Job doesn't beg for a relief, he begs for a purpose to his suffering. Then at the end he is told he understands nothing, and is told nothing. Then he is compensated.

Moral of thr story: have faith, simply that.

The babylonians had similar tales like this.

>>25540367
I think the cockroach would like to know the reason why it is shoo'd away.

Job doesn't cry like a loser, his first claim is 'give me a reason, o Lord, and I'll bear it all'.

It is the doubt that is killing Job.

>>25541655
>then he is compensated
Which completely ruins the story. Either it's about the pointlessness of being righteous as it relates to the material world, in which case Job SHOULDN'T have been recompensed until after he died, or it's about how being righteous does actually get you good shit in this material life, in which case the middle part with Job losing everything is really out of place. Because it's well known that the middle section is the older part, I'm inclined to believe that the original moral of the story was "righteousness has no bearing on your lot in life; only your fate in the hereafter is determined by your good deeds", which would have been an innovative doctrine in the tenth century BC. Making it a cosmic story about the Devil and God placing bets cheapens the literary value immensely and completely turns on its head the original message of "don't expect a reward". Because guess what? Most people who are righteous don't receive rewards!

>>25541528
>KJV is Early Modern English, Beowulf is Old English
Yeah I was going to say this. The KJV is way clearer than the Anatomy of Melancholy, which was written about a decade later in the same region.

>>25540367
How do you know the plan is righteous and sensible if it’s beyond your understanding?

>>25539851
How are you doing in your rebellion against Yahweh's slavery?

>>25541528
It's scripture

>>25541687
Folks in this thread are not acknowledging that according to any non-evangelical Bible scholars, Job is obviously multiple texts appended to each other and that the ending in particular is the work of a hack who didn't understand the rest of the book. The end of the theophany is the end of the poem

>>25541954
I hope one day we can get a /lit/ critical edition of the bible with all the silly shit edited out by our noble team of deranged schizoids. My suggestions:
>axe Chronicles entirely
>get rid of the Job ending
>include Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and the rest of the deuterocanon
>include Clementine epistles, Hermas, Protevangelium, Didache, the Gospel and Apocalypse of Peter, the Ignatian epistles, and the Polycarp literature
>include the Gospel of Thomas and Prayer of Paul
>you can probably get rid of most of deuteronomy
>pare down Isaiah
Boom, Bible redux

>>25540367
You can see within a cockroach's mind? You know what they can and cannot understand?

No. The ending IS the point: God does what he does and you just have to accept that you will never understand why.

>>25541701
The universe exists, yet it is so vast that no individual can understand it entirely. You can become an expert in one tiny corner of reality, but you're still one person among billions, on one planet in an arbitrarily huge cosmos. You trust that people who know more than you about other subjects understand them better than you do.
God is the ultimate version of that problem. If God is the author and authority of reality, then of course you cannot expect to understand the full scope of what is righteous and what isn't. You don't have the information, perspective, or capacity to comprehend the whole thing. You are not God.
That's arguably the point of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man's problem isn't merely that he lacks moral knowledge; it's that he wants to possess the authority to determine Good and Evil for himself. The Fall begins with man reaching beyond the limits of his understanding and attempting to make himself the judge.
Before that, man is more like the animals. Innocent, existing within creation without trying to establish his own moral authority over it. A lion eats a mouse. That's simply what happens. But once man reaches for the knowledge of Good and Evil, he becomes capable of judging himself, others, and creation itself. Everything becomes subject to argument, justification, accusation, and condemnation.
That's why humility is central to Christian morality. You don't possess the complete moral context of the universe, so you cannot assume your judgment is the final authority on what is righteous. God knows better than you do. Christ gives you a model for how to live, but salvation ultimately comes through grace. You do your best, you are judged by an authority who knows things you don't, and you have no claim to salvation based solely on your own righteousness.
But I concede that's why they call it "faith."
There are questions beyond human comprehension. We are rational creatures, but reason cannot give us knowledge we don't possess. In the absence of that knowledge, you have to make some judgment about what reality ultimately means.
You can have faith that existence is fundamentally good, that life is desirable, and that its architect is therefore worthy of gratitude. Or you can believe existence is fundamentally cruel, meaningless, or evil. None of us has the total knowledge necessary to settle that question conclusively.
But beliefs about the nature of reality have consequences. Some encourage gratitude, humility, cooperation, and something resembling eusocial behavior. Others encourage entitlement, resentment, nihilism, or hedonism.
That doesn't prove I'm right. I could be wrong. God decides that, not me. Job can only do his best without the authority to decide what he deserves for himself, hence that being the moral of the story.

>>25540078
People say Moses wrote it, Job would've lived a little before Abraham's time (judging by the lifespan)

>>25542014
The penalty for adding texts to the bible is hideous disease, and for removing them, your name is removed out of the book of life.

>>25540774
I knew I wouldn't get an answer

>>25540084
we should be, though.

>>25542751
Well that doesn't really apply here. People would still have access to the original bible. It's just that ours would outcompete the original in the free market of ideas

>>25541485
>God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.
>But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
> For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
>And he charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he which is ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead

>>25541954
like with ecclesiastes? huh. are there more books like that?

>>25539833
>>Book is supposed to explain why bad things happen to good people
Says who?
>God explaining he did it for some irrelevant reason
Verse?
>undoes the point of the book
That being?

The book of Job is about many things, but it's not a diagram of how deeds relate to fortune. It's a narrative about the precisely not trying to figure out any algebra behind holiness points scored and pleasure/posessions/health perks received. And in the end, because Job rightly refuses to commit to this kind of quid pro quo analysis, he comes to deeper knowledge of God, of creation and of life. It he never got the posessions back, it would still lend itself to quid pro quo as though lack of posessions equals higher spiritual knowledge.

>>25539833
Ancient paganism was basically transactional in nature, operating on the assumption that the gods would be obligated to send you a good harvest if you did the rituals that they liked, and a famine if you broke your society's traditional taboos, or something like that. Job represents a radical break from the basic religious theory of the ancient world: that the gods do good things for you when you please them and bad things to you when you displease them. The point of Job is to point out that both good and bad things happen to both good and bad people no clear reason all the time (which is obviously true), and that the omniscient mover of the entire universe would naturally have reasons that transaction-minded human beings cannot comprehend. God declines to give a reason for Job's suffering because Job's friends couldn't possibly understand, and because the creator is not obligated to justify Himself to creatures.
>but the bet with the devil
Is ultimately irrelevant. Compared to God, the devil is just as limited and powerless as any human being. When God decides to temporarily let a devil off its leash, the devil doesn't understand why anymore than we do, and it couldn't have explained why God made Behemoth anymore than Job's friends could have.
>but the ending
Is symbolic of Heaven, where all Earthly sufferings will be more than fairly compensated. Where pagans believed that divine comeuppance should be made manifest in this life, the authors of the Bible propose that your true reward or punishment will occur in the next life, completely unrelated to your current level of success or failure in the world.

Yeah, that ending was not in the original versions of the story and got added later

I'm going to derail this thread. What is your experience joining a church as a non-Christian?

I lean more towards a pantheistic idea God - not necessarily Christian but not an atheist. I do find there is literary and philosophical merit to the Bible but I have difficulty reconciling the faith and the glaring logical inconsistencies.

Just the feeling of community and belonging is something I haven't really experienced even as an adult but I don't want to join under false pretenses.

>>25543512
lol idiot

>>25543525
Fight me irl

>>25540195
God kinda funny like that

>>25539833
>all his missing stuff back
yoooo, my bad for killing your sons. I will give you some brand new ones

Stuff like this makes me wonder how detached people were from their kids to the point where it was just a number.

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>>25543512
I'm not religious, but my wife is a Christian and she likes us to go together and wants our daughter raised in the church. I've got no objection to it, though when our daughter grows up I'm not going to lie about any of my beliefs and frankly I don't imagine a child growing up in 2026 in Britain will be an actual true believing Christian for very long.

The people there are incredibly friendly, welcoming and can't do enough to help you. But if you don't believe all that stuff already it just comes across as utter nonsense. I'm trying to be as charitable as I can, but it is just total mush. None of it makes any sense, none of it is justified beyond the vaguest pretence of an argument, half the time they contradict themselves and the other half I genuinely think the values they're trying to espouse are counter-productive or bad. There is zero self-reflection and the absurdity of their claims is lost on them because of their priors.

It's not that they're dumb, as such (there's a fairly typical cross section of intelligence, though some of the first gen immigrants attending seem to be qualitatively more cargo-cultish, more prone to prosperity gospel-esque ideas, make of that what you will, I say it without malice just an observation), but there is a certain level of poor reasoning built into the belief system.

>Just the feeling of community and belonging is something I haven't really experienced even as an adult but I don't want to join under false pretenses.
Be honest with them, they'll almost certainly welcome you anyway and try to help you with you 'journey with Christ' or whatever. You can also just volunteer to help with the community stuff they put on, they'll appreciate it and won't prohibit you or anything.

>>25539833
How could it be that a Christian could ever find anything happening a bad thing? If it's all part of God's plan then everything that happens is the best possible thing that could happen. If anything happens that is not, then it's going against God's plan, but why would he allow that and how could that even happen because it would mean God did something imperfectly, or allowed something imperfect to happen in his creation. A child dies in agony being ripped apart by a crocodile? The only consistent Christian position is that this is a joyous thing because it happened under God's eyes and if it wasn't to his liking he would intervene, no? There MUST be a perfect reason for it happening, even if none are apparent, surely?

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>>25539833
Jobs personal contact with the almighty made all the suffering worth it. Thats the whole point.
Also, Elihu did nothing wrong and mogged Jobs old friends.

>>25545031
>wants our daughter raised in the church. I've got no objection to it,
Why are you letting your wife indoctrinate your daughters?
>there is a certain level of poor reasoning built into the belief system.
Because they've likely been indoctrinated into that cult since they were children, they're in pyschological terror at the thought of being burned in hell for all eternity, which is why they ignore all the irrational reasoning in their cult, do you want 5he same happening to your daughters?

>>25545045
I see the point you're making, and I agree somewhat, but I don't think it's that bad. Hardly any of the Christians I've met actually have a fire-and-brimstone idea of hell. My wife holds more of an annihilationist view.

My reasoning is that, frankly, it's very beneficial for us to raise her in the local church because of all the benefits that it can bring. Christians really are some of the happiest, friendliest people you'll meet and really want to help, that's great from my perspective because it means things like free child-minding, help with school runs etc. If my daughter grows up believing then she'll be very happy. Most Christians aren't so much motivated by fear of a bad end as they are by joy from a good one. If she grows up and doesn't believe then nothing was lost. In all honesty I don't imagine she'll turn out to be a believer in the end, that's just not the society we live in, but if it's helpful and nice and useful while she's growing up I'm fine with that.

>>25539833
Why bother with Earth and human bodies and all this stuff anyway? Why not just make us perfect in heaven and live with us like the ultimate goal is, but right from the beginning instead? Just seems needless.

>>25545055
>and really want to help, that's great from my perspective because it means things like free child-minding, help with school runs
Then I guess they'd also "really want to help" if you sat your daughters down and explained to them that everything taught to them at church is a lie, if you explained to them all of the poor reasoning members of that cult display. Those Christians would be just as friendly and likely to help if your daughters didn't actually believe what they preached, right ?

>that's just not the society we live in
Why is your wife a Christian, then?

>>25545059
But it was perfect on Earth once and it will be perfect again.

>>25545071
>Then I guess they'd also "really want to help" if you sat your daughters down and explained to them that everything taught to them at church is a lie, if you explained to them all of the poor reasoning members of that cult display. Those Christians would be just as friendly and likely to help if your daughters didn't actually believe what they preached, right ?
I'm not a belligerent idiot, I don't go around getting in their faces about how I think their beliefs are all weird nonsense. I'm nice and polite and they know I'm not religious, I just sit quietly in church and then leave when the service is over.

>Why is your wife a Christian, then?
Because she was raised by two committed Christians in a country that is like 90% church-going Christian.

>>25545075
Okay but god knew all this bad shit would happen, so why even bother? Why not just zap us all into existence in heaven and have everything perfect for all eternity?

>>25545080
>I'm not a belligerent idiot
You don't understand me, everything that you think of the church, tell it to your daughters. Are you afraid that would mess up your wife's indoctrination of them?

>>25545087
It's just the one daughter, but it doesn't bother me if she grows up to be Christian or not, I really don't have that strong of an opinion on it. I will talk to her and answer her questions about it if she asks and I won't hide my beliefs, but I'm also not going to interrogate her after each service and mock the religion in front of her. I'm perfectly happy to let the 'indoctrination' go ahead because it would help build a genuinely helpful, healthy, sociable life for her. I just doubt that she'll come out the other side religious, which again is fine either way. I'm coming at this purely from a pragmatic view, not an ideological one.

>>25545093
What's the denomination of your wife's church?

>>25545101
Baptist, but she says she's fairly non-denominational, as long as it's not Catholic. I see a modest strain of Pentecostal in her and her views, but she disagrees.

>>25545083
He permits the bad shit or ordains it so that His justice, grace, and mercy can be fully seen against a real backdrop.

>>25545106
This is insane. It's like a husband beating his wife to show her how wonderful he really in 'against a real backdrop' of when he's not hitting her. Nobody would ever pick good + bad over straight good.

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>>25545104
That's fucking horrible

>>25542106
So what can you actually do in this scenario?

>>25544998
>Stuff like this makes me wonder how detached people were from their kids to the point where it was just a number.
Ask your dad loser.

>>25545104
LMFAO so American JudeoSatanism.

>>25545680
It astounds me that so many Atheist men are complete cucks who let their wives indoctrinate their children into cults. This specific anon's reasoning was "Oh, it's hard to remain religious these days, so I'll let my wife brainwash my child that god will erase them from existence if they don't praise his name 5 times a day or pray for Israel".

>>25540235
Well the idea is that it gives way to eudaimonia/ataraxia/apatheia or a similar state of contentment through understanding of right and wrong and why each are each. Problem is the Bible doesn't explain that cause they stole Greek culture and used it for made up jew history.

>>25545038
You're here >>25543411 basically on the level of "prosperity gospel" that everyone complains about. Prosperity gospel tards basically have the same mindset you do, just coupled with religion. You feel exactly the same way they do, just minus the magic and fairy tales: God is good insofar as he gives you money and sucks your cock, but anything beyond the desire for worldly, personal reward is completely opaque and nonsensical.

>>25543411
That never changed however, only people pray for good things rather than doing rituals which objectively is less effective if that's what you believe and do. Then when bad things happen they say God wanted it, whereas before they would've said it's Fate. Same thing except derivative and more confusingly explained.
>The point of Job is to point out that both good and bad things happen to both good and bad people no clear reason all the time (which is obviously true)
The Greeks said that many times in many ways.

>>25540367
I would simply inform the cockroach of the plan

>>25545800
That's literally why Christ was born and what Christianity is, numbnuts.

>>25545802
You mean when Joshua was born? Christ always existed, being God.

>>25543231
Get yourself up to date on the critical theory of the Biblical texts since the mid-19th century.
QRD:
>Moses is entirely fictional and the Pentateuch is the assembly of at least four texts.
>The Pentateuch is definitely not older than the Babylonian captivity.
I actually can’t think of more examples off the top of my head but this is the kind of thinking that dominates academically nowadays. Basically assume that nothing was written by its stated author and you’re golden.
Oh yeah:
>Paul only wrote Romans, Philippians, Galatians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Philemon.
>Every other Pauline epistle is considered pseudepigrapha.
>Nobody knows who wrote Hebrews, just that it was definitely not Paul.
>2 Peter is definitely pseudepigrapha and nobody knows who wrote 1 Peter but definitely not Peter.
Etc.
Sacrilege.

>>25545805
Yeah, I think he means when Jesus was born, you fucking zealot. Good on you for being so pious.

>>25545109
>picrel
Surely this isn’t real.

>>25539833
To me, the Book of Job indicated that man is just a small part of a much bigger cosmic drama, and that there are things going on in the providence of God that man knows nothing of, and events are partially explained by this, and man is in no place to know the 'why', or in any place to cast judgment upon it. God gives everything, and God takes away as well. God cares for the entire creation, frames it, provides for it, and who is man to cast judgment against Him? Man has no access to the divine counsel.

The fact that Job is a Gentile only highlights this further. Job still had faith that his redeemer would come and stand upon the earth in the end, but only the Israelites had the oracles of God and direct insight into the divine counsel. Only ultimately in Christ are these mysteries fully unveiled.

>>25545808
that's interesting, especially the idea of an entirely fictional moses. i was more thinking of texts completed by another author contradicting the themes of the original, but thank you for the notes.

>>25545825
>i was more thinking of texts completed by another author contradicting the themes of the original, but thank you for the notes.
There’s the theoretical Q text of the gospels, some document now lost to which the three Synoptics refer back, but it’s not necessarily additions. What is, though, is the traditional ending of Mark. That’s considered an addition, and so is the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. Oh yeah, like the entire last third of Isaiah is considered to be an addition, the work of another author, perhaps known to Isaiah but “definitely not” him for “reasons.” These are all hypotheses, though, and you need to see the reasons put forward to establish them to determine if any of them are worth their salt.
>Proverbs
>We don’t know who wrote them but definitely not Solomon.
>They’re probably imports from Egyptian or Babylonian wisdom texts.
>Psalms
>The historical David didn’t exist.
>We don’t know who wrote the Psalms but it definitely wasn’t David, or Moses, etc.
And so on!

>>25545802
>no you dont deserve direct divine revelations to assure your faith and fairness
>you will take the word of some desert dweller 2000 years ago, who has since been rewritten by countless people afterwards with whatever biases and agendas they choose
>if you dont you go to hell

>>25545849
Wouldn’t it be funny if you did believe the desert dwellers, though? and wholesome?

>>25545849
You don't even barely understand Christianity.
For example, in Christianity, humans go to hell by default. It's not a punishment, it's just where we unironically belong. You don't get "sent" to hell. And let me ask you a question: If you don't even understand the rudimentary basics of what the religion even is, then why the fuck should I take your complaints about it seriously? It's casting pearls before swine. You don't understand what you're talking about, and don't want to understand, so communicating with you is a waste of my time.
It's unironically better to just call you an obviously foolish retard and move on with my life.

>>25545879
>humans go to hell by default
wha?
>it's casting pearls before swine
LMAO!!! i'm laughing because you think HE'S the pig!!! which one of you, though, came to 4chan as a christian, though? him or you?????? HAHA!!! what you'are saying is rich, my good man, rich indeed, my friend.

>>25545879
tf you talking about gramps, "if you dont you go to hell" implies the same thing youre yammering on about

>>25545823
>mysteries fully unveiled.
How so? A man said he's God, allegedly was proven right, and if you don't accept that as true you'll be tortured for eternity. That's not a mystery it's a claim. I guess you mean hell solves the problem of evil? Except it doesn't.

>>25542212
Your ability to acknowledge the faultiness of human reason while at the same time being absolutely certain of God's existence on pure faith is very impressive

>>25545106
>he starves, crushes, maims and tortures us in order to show us his justice and mercy

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>>25546040
cruel? but love makes all who love him well
as wise as heaven and crueller than hell
my love hath made me more bitter toward thee
than god toward man, but were I made as he
who makes all things to break them one by one,
if my feet trod upon the stars and sun
and souls of men as his have always trod,
god knows I would be crueller than god.

>>25546037
You're treating the existence of epistemic uncertainty as though it were an objection to my position. It isn't. Epistemic uncertainty is the premise of my position. If humans lack sufficient information to comprehend ultimate reality completely, then every ultimate metaphysical worldview has to confront that limitation. Not just Christianity. You haven't identified a contradiction in my reasoning, you've described the condition under which I'm explicitly saying faith becomes necessary.
Yes, my standpoint requires faith. But so does yours. That is precisely the point you seem to be missing. When we reach questions about the ultimate nature and meaning of reality, neither of us possesses complete knowledge, so neither of us can simply reason our way to absolute certainty. We both have to make some assumptions about what ultimately exists and what it ultimately means.
The irony is that you're criticizing me for acknowledging this unavoidable uncertainty while implicitly assuming that your own conclusions somehow stand outside of it.
The difference between us is that I explicitly acknowledge the limits of my knowledge and admit that I could be wrong. Meanwhile, you're unable to do that yourself, and in fact are trying to establish the ability to do that as a flaw in and of itself.
You seem to be treating your own assumptions as though they aren't assumptions at all. That's not a refutation of my position, it's the same epistemic problem I'm describing, except you're too arrogant and stupid to understand it with the intellectual humility that ought to correspond with it.

>>25546094
I don't think your position is contradictory. You say your position is grounded on faith alone, and it is. That's fine. But I don't need assumptions or faith because I have no position at all except the rejection of all positions. I make assertions and arguments because I have an irrational need to express myself, but I'm fully aware that everything I say is empty and false, and I'm ready to disown it the moment I finish saying it. Again though, your position as you've stated it seems to me completely consistent.

>>25546094
Also, you should be careful before calling me arrogant and stupid. Given that I'm God's creation you're insulting him by proxy.

>>25540367
>>25545800
God's mind is infinitely further above our minds than our minds compared to a cockroach. You cannot explain kitchens and sanitation to a cockroach, can you?

No, because it is wholly beyond it. It isn't unintelligible but superintelligible compared to its capacity.

This is why God must become man, for our sake, that we might become God and understand. We have faith that we might understand, faith seeking understanding through the light of illumination and the divine unclouding of the nous.

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>>25545879
>Humans go to Hell by default.

In all the Patristics it is sin that is unnatural. Hence Christ healing human nature. The end of any rational creature is, by definition, God. "God became man that man might become God."

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>>25546173
>gluttony, pride, greed and fornication are evil
>who created gluttony, greed pride and fornication
>Satan
>who created Satan

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>>25546179
Those are all privations, and so are in themselves nothing, and are not created by anything. They are non-being.

>>25546124
>But I don't need assumptions or faith because I have no position at all except the rejection of all positions.
To put it bluntly, believing that makes you a retard.

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>>25546227
But I don't believe it.

>>25540235
if you're only righteous because you're hoping for good things to happen to you, then you're not really righteous / selfless / altruistic are you? You would be doing that out of a selfish motivation. If you did that then your righteousness negates itself because of its impure motives. Hence then you don't deserve to have it easy, it's self fulfillingf

>>25545879
>Christianity, humans go to hell by default. It's not a punishment, it's just where we unironically belong
What an evil religion

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>>25546185
>t.

>>25546335
>if you're only righteous because you're hoping for good things to happen to you, then you're not really righteous / selfless / altruistic are you?
Yeah, actually you are (although selflessness/altruism isn't the same thing as righteousness). Selfish motivation? No one thinks that's bad except Christians.

>>25546374
What, precisely, do you think Christians mean when they say they have been “saved”?
A central premise of traditional Christianity is that humanity, left to itself, is estranged from God and deserving of judgment. That is the entire point of concepts like the Fall and original sin. Christianity has, by modern standards, an extraordinarily bleak view of human nature. We are not fundamentally good people who occasionally make mistakes; we are fallen creatures whose very nature is disordered and evil.
That is why Christ’s sacrifice matters. He did not merely come to offer moral instruction or inspire humanity. In traditional Christian theology, He died to atone for sins humanity could not atone for itself. If humanity were not fundamentally in need of salvation, the Crucifixion would lose much of its theological significance.
So yes: Christianity teaches, in some form, that human beings are destined for hell apart from God's grace. The precise doctrines of hell, judgment, culpability, and salvation vary considerably between denominations, but the basic premise is hardly obscure. It's one of the foundational ideas of the religion.
Nor is the Christian claim simply that God arbitrarily punishes otherwise innocent people. The argument is that human beings are genuinely guilty, and that divine judgment follows from divine justice. What makes the Gospel remarkable, within that framework, is precisely that God offers mercy despite that guilt. Christ's death is understood as God taking upon Himself the consequences of human sin in order to reconcile humanity to Him.

>>25545879
But hell as depicted by Christianity is made up. Even the name they stole from a fucking Norse goddess.

>>25543512
Unless you go to an ethnic church (as in white too I mean, could be Polish or w/e) it's a confusing mishmash of various beliefs that necessarily becomes diluted to the point of meaning almost nothing in order to include everybody. Some hyperfixate on certain things like Mary worship or the nature of the Trinity or other irrelevant crap, to the point of psychosis. You pretty much have to lie and not rock the boat and just make agreeable noises and sing their stupid songs.

>>25546508
>A central premise of traditional Christianity is that humanity, left to itself, is estranged from God and deserving of judgment
deserving of judgement for what? Just being estranged from god?
>That is the entire point of concepts like the Fall and original sin.
You mean the fall from Eden where Yahweh forsaw Adam and Eve being tricked by the serpent into eating from the forbidden fruit, yet did nothing to kick the serpent out of Eden or move the tree away from Adam and Eve?
>Christianity has, by modern standards, an extraordinarily bleak view of human nature
Not just by modern standards, I'm sure the Pagan Greeks and Romans were equally aghast at how much of an evil, anti-Human cult Christianity is.
>The argument is that human beings are genuinely guilty,
Guilty of what, exactly? Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit?
>What makes the Gospel remarkable, within that framework, is precisely that God offers mercy despite that guilt.
Why should I find that remarkable? I think the Humanity's "guilt" you speak of doesn't exist at all, and is just psychologically guilt-tripping tactics by a cult to gain adherents.
>Christ's death is understood as God taking upon Himself the consequences of human sin in order to reconcile humanity to Him.
So god let Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden fruit, then blamed the rest of Humanity for that, and then instead of forgiving Humanity he concocted this convoluted plan of being born to a Human so that Humans can crucify him, and only THEN can he forgive Humans for the "sin" that he allowed to take place when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit because they were tricked by the serpent that god refused to kick out of Eden? That sounds like a scam to try to hide a failed messiah being executed.

>>25546532
Listen, I was trying to be polite, but I'm just going to say this outright: If you're the guy who I responded too, you're genuinely too ignorant for me to keep wasting my breath on. When I said "the basic premise is hardly obscure," that was trying to be nice about it after deleting the sentence "you're either being purposefully obtuse, or you're genuinely retarded for not figuring out basic facts about the religion you're trying to criticize by now."
You're, what, a grown man? Maybe? Yet you keep asking me to explain basic shit that you COULD easily figure out from an internet, and that you SHOULD have known by now from basic exposure to facts about the religion. You didn't even know about original sin, and yet you want to sit here and lecture me about this historical bullcrap?
You don't have any credibility, you're just digging your heels in like a jackass at this point. Honestly, piss off. You're either too stupid to teach, or you're too much of a dickhead ideologue with an axe to grind to listen. I don't think you're an actual retard, so you're just being obtuse and acting like you're a fucking idiot on purpose. Whatever the case, I'm casting pearls before swine. You're swine. This is a waste of my time.

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>>25546540
Nothing in your post refutes the original assertion I made in pic related, in fact it just reinforces it.
>You didn't even know about original sin,
I did.

It seems what I said offended you, but I don't think I said anything wrong in the post you replied to, it I do feel free to correct me.

>>25546540
Why the antisemitism?

>>25546660
If you're implying that I'm Jewish, I'm not. All the Abrahamic religions are false cults, and Diocletian didn't do enough to eradicate Judaism and Christianity

>>25546168
Hold up buddy, I was made in Gods image, the cockroach is not made in the human image. We are more like children to God, not a separate species, you're working with a faulty framework because you know deep down a loving, empathetic, fair and just God would in some form ensure everyone got at least an inkling of the divine plan, and exposing one generation to clear divine revelations and letting everyone depend on a longform of Chinese whispers is straight up retarded and unfair.

>>25546811
>I was made in Gods image, the cockroach is not made in the human image. We are more like children to God, not a separate species
Wrong as fuck. Are you a Mormon or something?
When the bible says we're made in God's image, the most widely accepted interpretation of that is that it has to do with the rational soul. Creativity, the drive to understand the world, basically all the things that separate us from animals.
And yeah, a loving, empathetic, fair and just God does in some form everyone gets an inkling of the divine plan. For example: This thread. I'm not saying anyone here is literally God, but there's a deluge of information and philosophy that you could easily look into deeper and internalize. Providentially speaking, these concepts did come to you, they're just bouncing off because you're impervious to them. That's not God's fault, it's only yours. You could describe it as the world itself being designed from the outset to deliver you this information, it's literally baked into the nature of the cosmos. But once it gets to you, you just want to bitch and whine about how it wasn't delivered to you with enough personalization and magic.
It's like getting a speeding ticket, throwing it in the trash without reading it, and then being irate in an entitled frenzy because you get in trouble for missing your court date. "THEY DIDN'T TELL ME!!!"
They did, you're just not fucking listening.

>>25547437
>That's not God's fault, it's only yours.
Your god could personally reveal himself to everyone alive on Earth right now if he was actually real, but he doesn't, because the Abrahamic god isn't real.

>>25547437
Oh no I believe in intelligent design, I have the senses and consciousness for that, I just don't buy the oral passage of information via fallible species

>>25547640
Well, that's another perspective trick. You could look at it one way, that there's a thousands-of-years-old game of telephone at play here, and that people would obviously get shit twisted over time. Looking at how fucking dumb a lot of evangelical fundamentalists really get, I don't really blame you for that.
But another way of looking at it is that these ideas have been so resilient and persuasive that they've stood the test of time, and despite the corrosion of ages we still give a shit about the ideas even now.
My own personal perspective is that you shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Understanding reality isn't actually a zero-sum game. You can accept that there are dumbasses and the logical flaws that accompany them without necessarily deciding that religion itself is wholly retarded. Just because stupid people misinterpret, misunderstand, and fail to communicate things doesn't mean there's nothing there. You know, a serial killer eats food too, but that doesn't make food itself evil.
Matthew 7:7-8 goes like this: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened."
The basic premise is that God's wisdom comes to those who look for it. Even outside of Christianity, you can see that people who really want wisdom do find it. That's why there are common throughlines in most serious religions. Even if you're going to be an agnostic/deist/pantheist/whatever, I do think you're ultimately going to come across God's wisdom if you go out in search of it. I just wouldn't limit the scope of your search to shallow materialism merely because there are too many stupid Christians that turn you off. Monks and learned men have been chiseling away at these ideas for thousands of years, just because there are modern Christians who don't get it doesn't mean you need to be a similarly ignorant dumbfuck to this guy >>25547525 and adopt a dismissive, shallow attitude about it. He's never going to learn shit, and will spend his life jerking off and buying funko pops, secure that he has everything all figured out even though he hasn't even disturbed the water's thin surface. I wouldn't be like that.

>>25546811
>you know deep down a loving, empathetic, fair and just God would in some form ensure everyone got at least an inkling of the divine plan
you havent read the new testament, because it gives everyone on earth far more than an inkling of the divine plan. as peter said, we are made partakers of the divine nature. as jesus said, i have told you all, and now i call you my friends. greater than an inkling but not all, though, since he said he cannot tell when he will return.

>>25547525
why is personal revelation to every living soul an effect of god being actually real?

>>25547716
A god hat wants Humans to discover it would do so in the most effective way, personal tevelation, rather than do so through ancient scriptures that were altered multiple times, and bear striking resemblances to creation myths of surrounding religions in Sumeria and Canaan.
>>25547703
>dumbasses and the logical flaws that accompany them
Try explaining he trinity without coming across logical flaws.

>>25547729
God made the Church the most prevalent religion in the world with the command "Go, and make disciples of all nations." You are not giving due heed to the actual way the Christian religion works. The Jews, for example, pride themselves on being a non-evangelistic people, unlike the Christians, who tell everyone about their saviour, Jesus Christ, and want to convince everyone He is truly risen from the dead. Unlike Islam, there is no form of compulsion for anyone to believe, as in, compulsion from threat of physical violence. The idea of hell is a form of compulsion, of course, but it hasn't come to Earth yet. No: the idea that God would personally reveal Himself to every single person in the world runs counter to the Gospel, which teaches humility as the mother of all virtues, and that those who believe, having not seen the risen Christ, are more blessed than those who did see. You cannot expect the religion to act contrary to its own foundations, nor can you ignore the commands God actually gave to his disciples to make revelation of his son to all nations. What demonstrates authority moreso than delegation?

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>>25539833
>by giving Job all his missing stuff back
I don't think his killed family came back..

>>25545813
I like to pretend it's not, but sometimes reality sets in and I despair

Hehe.. I know the truth and you guys don't

the book of Job was supposed to prove that even God's tested by Satan, his programmes apply even to him, it's his extended phenotype.

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>>25547745
>God made the Church the most prevalent religion in the world with the command "Go, and make disciples of all nations."
It wasn't your god that did that, it was Christians infiltrating the Roman empire, one of the largest empires in the world at the time, taking advantage of Pagan kindness and tolerance for their religion, lying to people about the coming end of the world(tm) and that Jesus died for their sins so less rational people would join their cult, and once Christian numbers grew enough, they brutally suppressed the Pagan Romans, destroyed their temples or turned them into places of worhsip for their nailed-god, and from that springboard conduct crusades against the remaining non-Roman pagans of Europe to force their submission.
>Unlike Islam, there is no form of compulsion for anyone to believe, as in, compulsion from threat of physical violence.
Northern Crusades, Albigensian Crusades, sack of Jerusalem during during the first crusade(that crusade was justified in retaliation to Muslim attacks on Christians, but the crusader army massacre defenseless Muslim and Jewish civilians AFTER Jerusalem had already fallen).

>the idea that God would personally reveal Himself to every single person in the world runs counter to the Gospel, which teaches humility as the mother of all virtues, and that those who believe, having not seen the risen Christ, are more blessed than those who did see
This is equivalent to a snake oil salesman accusing the more skeptical of the victims of their scam of lacking 'humility', as if it's somehow a display of arrogance and a lack of 'blessing' to demand direct proof of the existence of your god. You fail to provide that proof not because the gospels want to enforce 'humility', but because your cult is a scam, it's false. Think of the odds at stake according to your cult, the threat of eternal punishment in hell, yet your god somehow hinks that that threat isn't severe enough to throw 'humility' out of the window and personally reveal themselves to all Humans so as to ensure they don't suffer such a terrible fate.

>>25548346
>pagan kindness and tolerance for their religion
That's not an accurate view of the Roman Empire's relationship to Christianity before Constantine, nor after. Christianity became the Roman religion despite open hostility from the old religion and non-believers.
>Northern Crusades, Albigensian Crusades, sack of Jerusalem during during the first crusade
Just saying some wars happened and calling them crusades does not automatically make it true they were conducted to make other nations Christian nations. Since you misrepresented Christianity in Rome before Constantine ruled, I'm inclined to believe you're also misrepresenting these conflicts to advance your argument.
>You god somehow hinks (sic) that [the threat of hell] isn't severe enough to throw 'humility' out of the window and personally reveal themselves to all Humans so as to ensure they don't suffer such a terrible fate.
The Holy Spirit does the personal revelations these days. He will make everything plain to you by divine revelation. You don't have to believe that because it's something He has the power to do. Your time will come.

>>25546124
>>25546236
>buddhist is a smug retard
Some things never change

Actually studying theology seriously then reading this thread is a true exercise in patience

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>>25548468
>That's not an accurate view of the Roman Empire's relationship to Christianity before Constantine, nor after.
That's what happened for most of the 300 or so years before Constantine the kin-murderer made Christianity the state religion of Rome. If the Pagans had actually wanted to eradicate Christianity aside from the odd Emperor or three(and whose orders were rarely actually carried out by local authorities) Christianity wouldn't exist. Many of the stories of persecution at the hands of Pagans were complete fabrications, such as the crucifixion of Peter, of which there is 0 written evidence at all until 100 years after it supposedly happened. What is documented is all the laws persecuting Romans Pagans that Christians passed after ceasing power in the Roman empire.

>Just saying some wars happened and calling them crusades
But they were literal crusades announced by official Christian churches.
>The Holy Spirit does the personal revelations these days.
Really? Your Holy Pigeon never revealed anything to me.
>He will make everything plain to you by divine revelation
>Your time will come.
"Two more weeks, trust the plan"

>>25548125
Satan is burning in hell he doesn't run anything

>>25549116
Why is Satan in hell?

>>25540296
Job's suffering was greater. Jesus' suffering is only greater if you say that being God automatically makes your suffering more important, but in terms of just the experience Job suffered more.
Christians act like Jesus' fate was the worst imaginable, but many people were crucified like he was.

>>25540367
The analogy doesn't work because I don't kill the cockroach out of righteousness. You can think that God is beyond understanding, but then you also shouldn't use ordinary moral terms.

>>25540195
Adult male heads of households were the only people who counted as people in ancient pastoralist societies. Women, children, and low status males were all fungible.

>>25549126
Because God threw him there

>>25549144
Why?

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>>25549158
Broke his toys by granting them sapience, rather than just mere sentience.

>>25549139
I don't really disagree with you, but I just think if people chart out that opinion to the utmost degree things get too iconoclastic for communication to function anymore.
If I really think God is beyond understanding, then shouldn't I just sit here hooting like a chimp instead? Funny, but nonsense.
If someone is trying to reach atheists, you should struggle to communicate in a way they'll understand. There's a structural difference that comes from having the goal of reaching another person, and demonstrating your own understanding.
It makes me roll my eyes when people start breaking out words like consubstantiation to flex their jargon. Conversations aren't just about demonstrating your own ego and understanding, they can also be about being comprehensible to laymen. Though I'll accept that there's always a way to do it better.

>>25549415
>Though I'll accept that there's always a way to do it better.
Such as god personally communicating to everyone older than 5 years old, communicating purely through the transferance of concepts and images so as to get ignore any language barriers.

>>25549126
Something you need to understand is that you can sorta view hell as a voluntary state of suffering. It's basically the spiritual version of being too much of a piece of shit to help yourself. Like, imagine a junky murderer IRL. Does whatever he wants, but his life is shit and he always needs to watch his back for the cops, another bum trying to stab him, etc. You could say his life is self-induced hell because of how he lives.
So when you die, or you're an angel or something, there's God's light, and away from God's light. Heaven is basically being in God's light, hell is avoiding it, for whatever reason. Either because your ego is to strong to accept it, or your soul is so impure and gross the purification of the light actively burns you, whatever.
People always use the terminology that God puts you in hell, but really people put themselves in hell because of their own choices.

>>25549422
Yeah, and why doesn't God just directly intervene in my personality too, while he's at it?
I'll never understand this idea like God should just directly mind control people. World's without free will already exist; they look like Mars.
God could just directly intervene in our brains and make us automotons that do his will, but then we'd be no different from the rocks, wind, and sand. Not wanting to turn us into a hive mind isn't a flaw.

>>25549432
I'm not talking about mind control. Just as Christians believe that supposedly god talked to the "prophets" in the Bible, god can talk to people today. You're acting like personal revelation is a violation of free will, was personal revelation a violation of the free will of those biblical "prophets"?
>>25549426
Will Satan be tormented in hell for eternity?

>>25549415
The problem with a God that's beyond understanding is that in Bayesian terms there can be no evidence for his existence. And I don't mean that we slightly misunderstand God, a good man suffering like Job is completely unexpected under perfect being theism.
Once someone concludes that they don't understand God's desires, they can e.g. no longer say that God would likely create a physical universe, so God is no longer a good explanation.

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>>25549456
Exodus says God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that he wouldn't be moved to free the Hebrews. God abrogated Pharaoh's human free will to achieve God's purposes. So back then he used mind control, but maybe doesn't anymore?

>>25549499
Marcion was right

>>25549461
I think that people can't understand God's desires perfectly, but there are obviously indicators. The fact that the universe exists, for example. What happens within the universe. It's obviously imprecise, like trying to define an artist's personality and goals based on a painting of bowl of fruit, but we do have evidence. God's creation itself indicates what his goals are. To what degree is debatable, but still.
You say, "they can e.g. no longer say that God would likely create a physical universe," but if you believe in God he DID create a physical universe. If you believe in God at all, there's some ability to backtrace his motives through his works. You're not going to succeed because of human limitations and flaws, but that's an altogether different reasoning for failure. There's a big, big difference between being unable to understand something because we're just not capable of it, and saying we can't understand something because it just can't be understood period. One perspective challenges us to try our best to grow and change, the other may as well be nihilist chaos.

>>25545776
>eudaimonia/ataraxia/apatheia
retarded epicurean, epicurus was a grifter and never struggled in his life.

>>25549588
Dunning Kruger moment.

>>25539833
>The ending where God makes it up to Job buy getting him new stuff completey undoes the point of the book
Mirrors the restoration after the end times

>>25549706
the family were NPC's all along?

I see the last few chapters of Job no different to chapter 11 of the bhagavad gita where krisha reveals his universal form. Gods the infinite, all-pervading cosmos encompassing all creation, time, and destruction. Job is willing to endure to the very end and suffer all things after experiencing god in that way. just like a warrior prince must endure killing his own family members on the battlefield.
In a way, the restoration of Jobs previous life at the end is completely off and it wouldnt surprise me if some diaspora jew in babylon got the retarded idea to add in centuries later due to a lack or piety or whatever.

>>25550369
>the restoration of Jobs previous life at the end is completely off
It's not though, the whole point is the absurdity of it, not edgy nihilism.