Why was God such a jerk in the old testament?

>inb4 he pulls out that bullshit story about "turn the other cheek" actually referring to making your attacker treat you like an equal by using an open handed slap

>NT God
>benevolent

HAHAHAHAHAHA

because god must be responsible for the happenings in the world and those aren't nice either.

>pic
me too desu

>god must be responsible for the happenings in the world and those aren't nice either

Sure, but that doesn't mean his motivation needs to be something as petty as winning a bet.

His motivation was spending time with his son, Satan.

You are making it seem like God allowed Job to suffer without any reason - this is wrong, God is perfectly good, so if he allows evil to happen, then there must be some reason forit.

God was testing Job's faith - by putting peoples' faith in trial, He makes people grow in holiness, see Sirach 2:4-5.

The bible is full of claims about god being good.

But if you look at his actions, you have to do what user has done here, and assume it was for a good reason, and then make up your own good reason for it.

If you start out with making assumptions, the bible is a book about a terrible person who everyone has to praise because he's very powerful.

Why would an entity with foreknowledge of all events, both actual and possible, have need of testing anything?

If God wants, He can change the very laws of physics... things like the speed of light, or planck's constant, I would have no need of testing how the universe changed as a result of my manipulation. I am the one writing the very rules, and how they follow through to create results. By simply doing this I would have the knowledge. God has had an infinite amount of time to learn, and he never had to learn because he knew everything in the first place, which there wasn't a first place because he always was.

These semitic fables make no sense and seem to depict a supernatural demiurge with finite powers and not the all-encompassing God of Christianity and various Pantheistic/Panentheistic faiths.

I always liked the unspoken assumption that God cannot lie, will not lie, or is unable to fool us somehow.

>Joshua: What should we do now?
>God: take the city, raze it to the ground, kill all men, women and children. You can keep the livestock

>being a heretic

God: HA HA HA HA I AM GOD
me: y-you too ;__;

reeeeeee

somebody stop me..

wtf I love God now?

...

Because the culture was full of jerkwads. You will find that deities match the culture they're brought up in.

Job is literally the most profound book in the OT you pleb

Most profound in the sense that people still follow the religions that have it as canonical .

I'm fond of Ecclesiastes myself, but Job is right in the mix.

Imagine this~
There is a man living in the wilderness. He grows weary of the elements, insects and the wild beasts. This man decides to build himself a house.
Once the building begins his hand grows sore and calloused. The hand can't see it's building shelter. The hand can never understand that its improving its position, and the position of the whole body, through its suffering. The hand only understands its immediate misery.
The hand fails to comprehend this difficult task will lead to shelter and protection from that which wishes to harm. The hand will grow stronger and tougher from this trial. The hand will gain skill and usefulness. The whole body benefits, as well as the hand on an individual level. The Job of the hand is necessary.

The idea of God being a perfect and benevolent and all-knowing being is a relatively modern phenomenon. The supernatural is a tool man uses to explain the unknown. Gods are a way to attribute intent to the wrath of nature. So it's only natural that gods are assholes.

God is attributed as being "good" nowadays because civilization has advanced far enough where a good chunk of humanity lives in relative security and ease. So the needs of the people have changed. They don't need an explanation for nature, they need an explanation for existential crises. It's less about the physical and more about the emotional.

>he hand is necessary.

Are you retarded? Hands aren't sentient?

>talking about the bible
>understanding allegory
pick two please

Have your lazy (you). Apply yourself, you could have done so much more. You're better than that.

Wait, what you mean the Bible shouldn't be taken literally?

Have to say I agree with you on this, great post user.

abrahamic religions r sacrifice based, moloch is one incarnation their sacrifice-feasting deities

ritual suffering, sacrifice and slaughter is the essence of their cults

That's more like it. High five.

I mean that understanding spiritual matters is easier when shown through metaphor. Its why Jesus taught with them. So I guess you are right in some sense because a lot of the messages in the bibe taught by Christ are symbolic.

Hold up.

Then doesn't that mean the medieval Catholic church was right to keep the Bible in Latin?

Because there are some very obtuse motherfuckers out there who when reading the Bible will come to the most wrong conclusion as possible because they are too stupid to understand metaphors without a person who has studied religions all their life telling them what it means.

I feel like most of the people in this thread have been trying to read the bible in Latin.

No, I think leaving the bible in an archaic language because dumb people may misinterpret it is ... obtuse. I don't really see why they couldn't help teach the dim scriptural understanding from English. Unless they just wanted a monopoly on which messages made it out and how those messages were interpreted.

Don't worry, pal. I'll eat lunch with you.

>church fathers

Testing

Wait, I'm another theology-adverse user, and I have questions.
Your story of the hand was an allegory, then, and not an analogy ?
So your point was NOT to say that humans are not intelligent and far-sighted enough to see what god is building when he seems to mistreat us ?
But then, what is your point ?

And if you actually made an analogy, why wouldn't the counter argument that we are sentient work ? You compared a difference in quantity (man/god) to one of quality (hand/man). But according to the bible, god made us in its image, and we pirated knowledge of good and evil. And god talks to us, when the man doesn't talk to his hand.
I'm not able to understand how to build a computer, but I'm able to understand that computers are built. I'm able to conceive in my mind infinite entities - for some that's even a proof of the existence of god.
Why then shouldn't I be able to understand the goals of god ?

Also, it seems a lot of us are unable to recognize what in the bible is metaphors and allegories, and to learn from them. What lets you say that, despite this, that way is the easiest way ?

As I said, it makes people like Job grow in holiness - it's more for Job than for God.

>misunderstanding

Except it's more like you're stupidly hurting your hand because of a bet like that knuckle-rapping game middle schoolers love to play, and when your hand starts to protest the abuse you tell it to shut up because it can't possibly understand the profound reasons a genius like you must have for acting like a stupid dick, when the truth is that you really are a stupid dick playing stupid games.
Job's story would have been 1000% more effective at conveying your sort of allegory if we had not known God was just trolling Job for the hell of it, if the story had merely started with Job getting his shit ruined and whining and God giving him the verbal smackdown and then the happy end. That would have made God seem lofty and awesome instead of a petty asshole and no one would have complaints about the story.

It's too bad Job's first wife and children could not grow in holiness as well, or at all.

They were rewarded even more so than Job, by going to Heaven to enjoy the gift of eternal peace.
Life is just something to suffer through before you get to Heaven, so dying is a good thing, and if suicide wasn't a sin every wise man would do so in a heartbeat.
That's why I kill every Christian I meet, so I can end their suffering and help them into Heaven. I know God will forgive me.

Did Job ask for getting holier that hard that his family was sacrifieced for it?
Sounds like a deal Ba'al and Molech would also gift a human.

Allegory ~ : a symbolic representation

Except Jobs suffering accomplished something.

Protip ~ the house is the church.

God wasn't trolling, he was proving Job's faith. Faith is weired because you can't prove existence unless it's tested. Don't you see that the suffering was strengthening him, and us by extension because we are having this conversation? Don't you see that Job was a better man at the end of the story?

Brb going to the house ;^)

I know what an allegory is. Can you answer the questions ?

the point is that a part of a thing doesn't see enough. the counterpoint was autism. the counter-counterpoint was explaining what the point was. your post is autism again.

Because the old testament was written by jews.

Times are often rough. Thousands of years ago, they were typically tougher than what you encounter in the first world today. For that reason, works that treat god as though he sits on fluffy clouds shitting rainbows on everybody would not stand the test of time, it is too unrealistic. Nobody strong wants to worship a pussy, and only the strong survive in the long run. An angry god that can and will fuck shit up has universal appeal. After all, if your god fucks with you some, how bad will he treat your enemies?

Part of a thing doesn't see enough ? You will say that I'm being autistic, but that's a baseless assertion.
For example, if God was testing Job to reinforce his faith, then that's simple and percievable enough for humans to understand.

It seems to me that you're just trying to avoid and handwave legitimate questionning.

The christian god had more success than yahweh and the others.
And times were still rough.

God is a jerk user, you keep confusing Jesus for God expecting the Almighty to be some pacifistic sucker.

Proofs? Book says nothing about them except that they died. As a rule for this and other similar cases, since God is infinitely good, everything He does He does in the most wise and good way.

>sacrificed
Their deaths were no more sacrifices than any other death. Good of person means his holiness, simply because someone likes or wants something doesn't make it better for them, because the ultimate good is Heaven, and everything that helps attaining it in the best state is better for a person than something which doesn't. Since Job was more holy and firm in his faith later, the tests were good for him.

>Since Job was more holy and firm in his faith later, the tests were good for him.

The story explicitly states that it was seeing God that made him more firm in his faith, not his suffering ("I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes."). God could've just showed up from the beginning and he would've had more faith.

The explanation I've heard is that God can lie, because he's omnipotent, but chooses not to because he's good.

I don't remember where telling a lie is automatically bad in Christianity.

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs 6:16-19&version=KJV

>God could've just showed up from the beginning and he would've had more faith

Doesnt' follow from the text, where are you getting this from?

The value of suffering like Job works mainly from retrospect, as having your faith tested and succeeding makes it stronger and more resilient. Through his trials, Job persists in hope and virtues.

>Doesnt' follow from the text

Unlike your claims, it definitely does follow from the text, I already gave you the line in fact.

biblehub.com/job/42-5.htm

CCC 2484

>I mean that understanding spiritual matters is easier when shown through metaphor. Its why Jesus taught with them.
This is exactly wrong. Jesus talked in metaphors explicitly to confuse people and prevent them from understanding. (Matthew 13:10-11, Mark 4:10-13).

Job is amazed at sight of God, and seeign God in person he renounces his incorrect attitudes during the times of suffering. Nothing about it making him more faithful - indeed, God appearing was good for him, but it doesn't negate whatever good resulted from the trial.

>CCC

Sorry user, I follow Jesus, not the man-made usurper church of the satanic pope.

My point was to say that humans don't have the perspective to understand the works of God.

You understand that computers are built, but that doesn't make it possible for you to understand how it processes input to output.

Matthew 13:15 , mark 4:12

He isb saying the don't see or hear because their heart is waxed gross, their eyes closed and theorbears sealed. But at anytime they may be converted to see the mysteries of the kingdom.

Its like you didn't even read the verses you posted. Oh yeah. Matthew 13:13

>But at anytime they may be converted to see the mysteries of the kingdom.
No, he says that if he were to open their eyes by explaining to them in a way they would understand, then they would be saved. But he doesn't actually want to do that.

Matthew 13:15
> For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes THEY have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

He is saying he speaks in parables so that the believers will understand and so the unbelievers will be able to understand once they receive the grace of God. Unless you think Jesus didn't want to heal, convert and show people the truth.

>Unless you think Jesus didn't want to heal, convert and show people the truth.
That's exactly what it means. Matthew 13 makes it very clear that Jesus comes for the few and doesn't care to heal more. Those who have, receive, and those who don't will have even that taken away from them.

Well Cathars believe that old testament god is Satan
While new testament god is God.
I kind of like that explanation.

> My point was to say that humans don't have the perspective to understand the works of God.
Why do you think so ?
We're intelligent, self-aware people. The bible was written for us to understand, and it says we have knowledge of good and evil, and were made the image of god. We should be able to understand god's goals and identify its works.
So you're saying that people need god-given grace to understand god's word ? Then it is god's fault if some can't understand.
Or it would be if god existd and what you said was true. But Jesus or the evangelist just gave up on teaching skeptical people.

I get what Jesus was saying about the blind and deaf bit better than ever. I truly hope you open your eyes one day.

Mark 2:17
>When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

>"I'll be praying for you"-tier response
That's nice. The bit about fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah makes no sense unless he is refusing to speak in a way that people will understand.

But everyone is a sinner, and calling to repentance is one thing, explaining his doctrine is another.

>We're intelligent, self-aware people. The bible was written for us to understand, and it says we have knowledge of good and evil, and were made the image of god. We should be able to understand god's goals and identify its works.

Because God is infinite and you're not, for starters.

>So you're saying that people need god-given grace to understand god's word ? Then it is god's fault if some can't understand.
Or it would be if god existd and what you said was true. But Jesus or the evangelist just gave up on teaching skeptical people.

All you need is faith and the grace will be given. Lucky for us it is available for all. All you need to do is ask and you shall receive. No one can be blamed for the lost except the lost themselves.

Because the world is not nice.

>No one can be blamed for the lost except the lost themselves.
Whoever the one that came up with technology concept of being "lost" and created the conditions that made it a possible state of existence, for one.

I already explained it here>He is saying he speaks in parables so that the believers will understand and so the unbelievers will be able to understand once they receive the grace of God.

And I do care about you. I've had fun chatting with you. Im sad you think the way you do but I've grown as a person because of our discussion. I've thought about things I've not thought about in a long time. So, thank you.

It's amazing how atheists can be moralizing, edgy, or willingly ignorant when the situation calls.

Thats a decent argument. Except we made the choice to be lost and can easily find our way with simple repentance.

>Except we made the choice to be lost
Who made the "we" with that tendency? Who created the concept of being lost?

Like I said, it's a good argument. The fallacy of evil always trips me up. I'm not going to act like I have every answer, but I think of reality as a means to grow spiritually. A place to purify souls. This would be impossible to achieve if everything were perfection at all times. Most people reject the book of Job because of his immense suffering, but this was simply a means for Job to grow as a believer and a proving ground for his faith and righteousness. This could not have happened in a world without sin or evil. Ever notice how the most righteous men of the bible, Jesus and Job, suffer tremendously for their virtue? I know this side steps the question a bit but I believe it expands the discission.

perhaps you will concede that there are indeed parts of things which do not have knowledge equal to the whole. then you will consider that you do not know how the universe works and rethink your position.

>For example, if God was testing Job to reinforce his faith, then that's simple and percievable enough for humans to understand.
I wasn't agreeing with that interpretation and am not even the user originally talking about hands. it seems I must be the user to explain to retarded people what an analogy is.