Dialouge with atheist Dana Harper on Randol Rauser's board:
https://randalrauser.com/2022/10/can-atheism-support-objective-morality/
Dana Harper Oct 16 2022.
DH: • a few seconds ago
As depicted in the New Testament the main teaching of Jesus was of an imminent Devine judgment and the arrival of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is quoted on multiple occasions; God’s Kingdom would arrive during the Apostles’s lifetime, as in right now. (Matthew 24:34 and Matthew 16:28) (Mark 13:35 and Mark 9:1) (Luke 21:32 and Luke 9:27)
JH:
There has been a lot of theological work on that. The main counter theology is called "realized eschatology," The kingdoms did come. It came on the day of Pentecost. Jesus never said the whole world system would be replaced right away. The kingdom is here now it's a spiritual reality, "my kingdom is not of this world."
DH
Jesus did seem to endorse Hebrew Scripture, although he sharply rebuked the teachers of the law. Hebrew Scripture is filled with scientific ignorance, it’s filled with extreme cruelty, sexual violence, and horror. It’s contradictory, makes multiple prophesies which never materialized.
JH:
Yes it has all that. The councils ratified the closed canon but they never gave us an interpretative model. Verbal plenary inspiration is not mandated by God it's the idea of some fundamentalist. That does not mean the Bible doesn't contain the word of God. It is a human record of human experiences of the Devine.
DH:
The Bible is simply the word of an ancient superstitions people who were using fantasy to deal with their ignorance, fears and anger.
JH
Partly so but it's clearly more than that. Pete Segar was an atheist but he new a good piece of wisdom and a hit song when he saw one: Turn turn turn,
DH:
They made stuff up and wrote it down, we call that stuff the Old Testament. Jesus comments on the Hebrew Scriptures don’t prove their veracity, it proves Jesus was wrong.
JH
Of course Jesus can't be wrong since he is the incarnate Logos. He could be wrong about minor things but not what is inspired. When he Said "you have heard eye for an eye...but turn the other cheek" he is saying we are going to understand the OT differently." I see the OT as a cultural artifact the function of which is to create a frame work in which Messiah is meaningful.
DH:
Like the Euthyphro dilemma in reverse.
JH
Euthyphro is for intro classes. Just to get their feet wet in the wading pool or philosphy.
what he means by putting it in reverse: theological dilemma: is it good because God says it, or does God say it because it's good? The point atheist have in asking this is to force the believer to say that God[s decisisons are oribtrary and meaningless. God is dominated by necessity because there is no god it's just men. Reverse would be does God command the bad stuff of the OT because he's bad or is he bad because he commands this stuff?
I think my answers illustrate that God does not mandate bad things, there are hardships impossed by the need to preserve free will and the natural world. Here are two essays by me that might help.
How do we know God is not Evil?
Why does God allow evil: soteriological drama
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